Chapter 3644 — The Road of the Gentry

Before long, however, Meng Jueming reached his verdict: the spiritual energy of heaven and earth within these two spirit jades was extraordinarily full—they were indeed top-grade jade, without a doubt!

"It seems that fellow is just as Junior Brothers Kang Jingming and Zhong Yongliang said before—he has never once used spirit jade for cultivation. So to this day he still has no idea we fleeced him with scrap jade, and he is probably still congratulating himself on becoming a great country gentleman. What an absolute fool!"

Meng Jueming chuckled smugly, then glanced at Li Zhengming. "You did well. I'll reward you with one of these two spirit jades; give the other to Meng Zhou!"

Li Zhengming's heart sank. By their prior agreement, whoever took scrap jade to Wei Zhao and came back with spirit jade in exchange got to keep every piece of it. Yet now, with a single sentence, Meng Jueming had cut his share in half. Such favoritism was simply beyond reason!

But a man under another's eaves must bow his head. Li Zhengming knew that if he wanted to keep getting along here, he had to find himself a good backer, and at present the newcomers of Azure Cloud Pavilion had only two choices: Meng Jueming on one side, and Wei Zhao on the other—or rather, Lu Bianren and that miserable wretch's lot.

Li Zhengming had once thought Wei Zhao showed signs of hidden depths. But after that little probe just now—especially given how he had deliberately hinted and nudged, and Wei Zhao had shown not the slightest reaction, foolishly accepting a pile of scrap jade on the spot—the man had thoroughly shattered his expectations. In an instant, Li Zhengming decided this fellow was utterly unreliable!

What was more, Lu Bianren, the biggest backing of Wei Zhao's crowd, seemed formidable—a third pavilion master, who at the very least should hold a seat in Welcoming Pavilion. Yet it was not so. Though this bunch looked strong, in truth none of them could be relied upon.

By contrast, Meng Jueming's side—for all that some of what he had seen there chilled his heart—at least counted in Welcoming Pavilion, before these Azure Cloud newcomers, as a great tree. Only by leaning against a great tree could one find shade, and only so could he gradually bring about that obsession in his heart.

"Thank you, Senior Brother Meng," Li Zhengming said. Though aggrieved at heart, he still had to put on a show of being overwhelmed by the favor.

Meng Zhou, meanwhile, had just been handed a top-grade jade for nothing, yet instead grumbled with a grievance: "Since Cousin Ninth has spoken, I suppose I'll let you have one cheap. They were all mine to begin with! I only yielded the grand chance to probe to you. That's how you got to pocket such a huge bargain for nothing—you must be thrilled, eh? Wahahaha!"

Li Zhengming was left speechless, rolling his eyes. Dodge at the first sign of trouble, pounce at the first whiff of gain—how could a man be shameless to such a degree? When the chore of probing Wei Zhao had come up earlier, this fellow had scurried away quick as could be; who would have thought he'd now play the big bad wolf?

Had he not been wary of Meng Jueming's face, and had he not needed to conceal his Heaven-Rank Great Perfection strength, Li Zhengming would have loved nothing more than to give this scoundrel a sound thrashing. As things stood, he could only swallow it.

"All right, Meng Zhou, enough gloating. One piece each—and the same for everyone else!" Meng Jueming had not the faintest inkling of Li Zhengming's inner turmoil, nor did he care in the least. But Meng Zhou's foolish, gleeful carrying-on rather grated on him. He frowned and ordered, "Tomorrow the two of you can go tell the others that the probing was a success. That fool Wei Zhao has noticed nothing to this day, and it is unlikely he ever will. Arrange for the rest of them to go to Wei Zhao one by one and trade for spirit jade. Since they have already placed themselves under my banner, naturally I must give them a little benefit. I want every last one of those fifteen fine jades in Wei Zhao's hands squeezed back out of him!"

"You got it!" Meng Zhou answered eagerly. To watch Wei Zhao get fleeced over and over—what could be more gratifying?

Li Zhengming echoed him from the side. Since Wei Zhao was a hopeless case who could not be propped up even against a wall, blind to hints so obvious, then let things take their course. He could hardly risk Meng Jueming's suspicion over some irrelevant fool—no fool was he!

Over the following days, Wei Zhao went to Mine Zone Ten to dig ore by day and returned to his cave dwelling to cultivate by night, just as before. The one difference was that each evening when he came back, someone would be waiting at his door.

They were all Azure Cloud Pavilion's own newcomers, and their purpose in lying in wait for Wei Zhao was naturally the same as Li Zhengming's before: to trade spirit jade with him.

Wei Zhao was glad to oblige. If someone came to trade spirit jade, he traded—and following Li Zhengming's precedent, the exchange rate was uniformly three to one. Within a scant few days, counting the two he had given Li Zhengming, Wei Zhao had traded out a full fifteen spirit jades, clearing a net profit of thirty.

After that, however, though Wei Zhao's "fool's halo" grew ever more famous as the newcomers passed the tale from mouth to mouth—until even newcomers of the other two pavilions had caught wind of it—not a single newcomer came to trade spirit jade with him anymore.

It was not that their consciences had stirred. Everyone simply knew that Wei Zhao had no fine jade left on hand. Any further trade, no matter how airtight the excuse, could only get them a pile of scrap jade in return. These "clever folk" were naturally not about to do anything so foolish.

Looking over the thirty spirit jades that had appeared in his jade pendant's space, Wei Zhao felt gratified, yet could not help secretly lamenting: to get those "clever folk" to keep playing their old trick and sending him scrap jade, he would first have to let them know he had fine jade on hand.

But that would require a legitimate pretext—just as this time Meng Jueming had openly put out fifteen fine jades. Otherwise, even if Wei Zhao produced fine jade himself, he could not reasonably explain where it came from. Such opportunities did not come easily, and he would have to wait patiently.

By his count, Wei Zhao now had more than eighty spirit jades in hand. Plenty for an ordinary man, perhaps, but for one bent on gathering a thousand spirit jades before next month's Inner Street Opening Day, it was still a drop in the bucket.

Fortunately, Miserable Wretch had some three or four hundred scrap jades on his side; added to what Wei Zhao now held, that came to at least four hundred spirit jades, patching over nearly half the shortfall. And there was still time enough to spare—otherwise Wei Zhao truly would have had to risk some desperate, dangerous venture.

While tallying the spirit jades, Wei Zhao could not help wondering what use the Star Ink Stone, priced at a thousand spirit jades, could possibly have. The thing had no looks worth speaking of, yet even the eerie thing inside his jade pendant's space had been stirred by it—proof enough that this was no ordinary object, and there had to be something strange about it!