Chapter 3703 — The Younger Junior Sister's Date

What gratified Wei Zhao somewhat was that the contents of the two intelligence reports were largely consistent, which proved that, at least for the time being, Li Zhengming truly was working for him in good faith. Otherwise, had Li Zhengming merely been humoring him and muddling through before, any intelligence delivered now would surely be false—and might even be laced with traps to lure him into a snare.

But now, with two reports corroborating each other, there was no need for such worry at all.

Without either of them knowing it, Zhong Yongliang and Li Zhengming had each served as a witness for the other—and in the days to come, they would continue to cross-verify one another.

Should either of them ever turn disloyal, Wei Zhao would notice at once. This was precisely why he had been willing to take Li Zhengming in; with such a double safeguard in place, he had no fear whatsoever of Li Zhengming biting the hand that fed him.

When the sky was fully bright the next day, the cave dwelling's ward was suddenly touched, ever so lightly. Wei Zhao answered the summons and stepped outside, yet found no one there—only a finely wrought letter on the stone slab at his door.

A knowing, faintly amused curve tugged at the corner of Wei Zhao's mouth. This was exactly as the intelligence had described. No need to guess—this letter was surely from Meng Jueming's hand.

Wei Zhao knew that Meng Jueming and the others must be watching from some distant vantage point at this very moment, so he obligingly picked up the letter and turned back into his cave dwelling.

He unfolded it. Barely a few lines were written there, in a delicate and lovely hand. Had he not already known this was a scheme devised by Meng Jueming, Wei Zhao would truly have believed it came from the brush of some young maiden.

"Junior Brother Wei Zhao, from the very first moment I laid eyes on you, your figure has lingered in my mind and refused to leave. I wish to see you—there is something I want to say to you. The little grove, this afternoon. Be there without fail. Shangguan Lan'er."

Wei Zhao shook his head with a smile. On the back of the letter was another line: "My grandfather is exceedingly strict about propriety between men and women. Destroy this immediately upon reading."

"Heh… These people really have thought of everything," Wei Zhao said, speechless and amused.

He was certain that at this very moment, a similar letter had been delivered into Shangguan Lan'er's hands—only with different contents. It would have been written in his, Wei Zhao's, name, using a desire to see the little curly-furred bear as the pretext to invite her to the little grove that afternoon.

And on the back of that letter, there would likewise be such a line of instruction. Once she truly followed it, there would be no evidence left to check—the dead giving no testimony.

Meng Jueming's scheme, plainly stated, was quite simple: use Wei Zhao's name to lure Shangguan Lan'er to the little grove, and simultaneously use Shangguan Lan'er's name to declare love to Wei Zhao, manufacturing a misunderstanding in between so that Wei Zhao would fall into the trap.

In his eyes, Wei Zhao might seem shrewd and forceful at first glance, but was in truth nothing more than that—especially where matters between men and women were concerned, when even a normal person's wits would desert him.

To suddenly receive such a confession, and from none other than a little princess of such deep background as Shangguan Lan'er—anyone, surely, would be thrilled to the point of wishing to fly straight to the grove for the tryst, never once pausing to ask whether the letter was genuine or forged. And Wei Zhao, the "starving lecher" of Kang Jingming's words, would be no exception.

And once Wei Zhao did go, elated, and then in the grove met Shangguan Lan'er, if he rashly said something inappropriate—or worse, laid hands on her—then the matter would blow up beyond all control.

Given the temper of a young miss like Shangguan Lan'er, in her fury she would surely break with Wei Zhao, and might even alert her grandfather, Shangguan Tianxia. And then, even if Wei Zhao did not die, he would at the very least be flayed of several layers of skin.

So this scheme, though it looked simple and even childish, was tailor-made for a "starving lecher" like Wei Zhao—a thrust straight to the heart, absolutely lethal.

And the peril of it lay in this: once the scheme succeeded, it would not matter how strong Wei Zhao was. Shangguan Lan'er would not care in the slightest what cultivation he had; provoke her truly, and never mind Wei Zhao—a mere skilled early-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator—even one at the peak grand perfection of late-stage Foundation Establishment would be useless. He would still have no place to die.

Yet though the scheme was tailor-made for Wei Zhao, and Meng Jueming and the others were utterly confident he would take the bait, its success still hinged on two crucial points.

The first was that the letter must leave no evidence. Otherwise, even if Wei Zhao did take the bait, once trouble broke out he could simply produce the letter, and that would remain a hidden danger. That was why Meng Jueming had deliberately added the note on the back.

The second crucial point was this: how to lure Shangguan Lan'er to the little grove.

After all, Shangguan Lan'er was no "starving lecher" like Wei Zhao, to be hooked so easily. She was the little princess upon whom all eyes in the Threefold Pavilion rested, the dream goddess of countless young talents. Among her suitors, young masters of Xu Lingchong's caliber numbered not a dozen, but at the very least eight.

If they were to declare love to her in Wei Zhao's name, far from falling for the scheme, she would not even spare it a second glance. And to put it conservatively, the Shangguan family's discipline had always been exceedingly strict—even if she truly did have designs on Wei Zhao, there was no chance she would rashly come out to a grove to meet him.

This was, by rights, an intractable problem. But Meng Jueming had a flash of inspiration: bypass Shangguan Lan'er herself and work on the little curly-furred bear instead—and the matter became far easier.

The little curly-furred bear adored Wei Zhao—Meng Jueming and the others had seen it with their own eyes. And Shangguan Lan'er doted on the little curly-furred bear—that was known throughout the Threefold Pavilion.

Once the letter they had written fell into Shangguan Lan'er's hands, it was as good as falling into the little curly-furred bear's. Given how close the little bear was to Wei Zhao, the moment it heard that Wei Zhao wanted it to come play in the grove, there would be no holding it back—and then Shangguan Lan'er would have no choice but to go.

"This Meng Jueming—if he did not spend every waking hour dreaming up these crooked tricks, he would actually be quite a talent," Wei Zhao said with a shake of his head and a laugh.

Meng Jueming was a man of decent strength, sufficiently smooth and quick-witted, with an endless repertoire of methods. Had he bent his mind to the proper path, he could well have become a pillar of the Azure Cloud Pavilion in the future. It was a pity that this fellow had never once considered walking the straight road.

Wei Zhao promptly tucked the letter away into his jade pendant's space, keeping it for later use. Only when it was nearly noon did he set out for the little grove. Though he had known from the start that this was a plot, simply ignoring it would likely rouse Meng Jueming and the others' suspicions. So the best course was to turn the scheme against them. RS