Chapter 3813 — The Midnight-Noon Heart-Shattering Pill

"When the master is shamed, the servant dies"—Meng Jueming's meaning could not have been plainer: to deal with Wei Zhao, there was only one way out. Resources had to be poured into Meng Zhou, to push him as swiftly as possible to the peak of the early Foundation Establishment stage and reclaim their advantage in sheer cultivation rank.

Otherwise, they could only stand by and watch Wei Zhao and his crew keep swaggering about. And when that happened, the ones disgraced would not merely be these underlings—far more important was the face of Xu Lingchong, the Young Master himself. If he could not even settle a mere newcomer from the secular world like Wei Zhao, what grand ambitions could he possibly speak of hereafter?

But to take a fine hand like Meng Zhou, only at the early Foundation Establishment stage, and swiftly raise him to its very peak—how easy was that, really?

Had the fellow possessed deep foundations and already brushed against the barrier between the early Foundation Establishment stage and its peak, then that would have been a different matter. After all, that would be a simple case of a single Foundation-Breaking Pill—nothing for Young Master Xu to hesitate over.

The problem was that this fellow had broken through to Foundation Establishment less than a month ago—and even that breakthrough had not come from his own accumulated depth, but had been forced through by the combined use of a Foundation Establishment Pill and Foundation Establishment Liquid.

One might say that Meng Zhou's foundations were even shallower than those of an ordinary early-stage Foundation Establishment hand. Otherwise, he would never have been fought to a mutual ruin twice in a row by Qiao Hongcai, who had himself broken through only days before!

His Thousand Legs martial technique, matched against Qiao Hongcai's Iron Cold Palm, should in theory have given him a considerable edge between cultivators of the same rank—and yet twice over he could only fight Qiao Hongcai to a draw. That fact alone spoke volumes.

To forcibly elevate a Foundation Establishment hand with such wretched foundations to the peak of the early stage—though with Young Master Xu's background it was not as if there were no means at all, the resources consumed in doing so were simply not something a single Foundation-Breaking Pill could ever be compared to!

If the pill resources required here were converted into spirit herbs, it would be nowhere near a matter of a few hundred spirit jade—it would be a scale of at least a thousand spirit jade!

For such a colossal price, even a young master with foundations as absurdly deep as Xu Lingchong's would, once the sum was spent, be pained to the point of spitting blood.

And besides—if he truly had such extraordinary pills in hand, capable of forcibly raising a person by a full grade, why would he not keep them for his own use, instead of giving them to a lowly underling like Meng Zhou, who did not even count as one of his trusted retainers?

But looking at the eager, pleading faces of Meng Jueming and the others, Xu Lingchong was, after all, a young master of standing. To refuse outright would leave him feeling somewhat unable to save face.

After all, what Meng Jueming said was the plain truth. If they did not find a way to quickly raise Meng Zhou's strength, then through proper channels at least, there was already very little they could do to punish Wei Zhao and his band of insolent fools who knew not the height of heaven and the depth of earth.

Before absolute strength, no matter how many ingenious schemes Meng Jueming devised, in the end he still could not take the field in Meng Zhou's place. However clever and cunning the stratagem, when all was said and done, not to mention Wei Zhao himself, they likely could not even settle his two underlings. How was that supposed to work?

And unless it was absolutely unavoidable, Xu Lingchong did not wish to take the underhanded path of hiring someone to assassinate Wei Zhao. Simple and direct as that method was, cutting straight to the root, it would in the end leave a handle for others to grasp. If those people from the Law Enforcement Hall caught even the faintest trace, then this Young Master Xu would be finished for life!

Before core interests were at stake, to run such a risk merely to deal with the likes of Wei Zhao was clearly not worth it for Young Master Xu. The most practical and reliable course was still to let Meng Jueming handle him!

After pondering and hesitating for a long while, Xu Lingchong cast a glance at the pitiful Meng Zhou beside him. Only then did he turn to Meng Jueming and say, "Given Meng Zhou's present condition, ordinary pills certainly won't do if we mean to force him up a grade. If we truly are to go through with this, this young master thinks we can only try some out-of-the-way, little-known prescription. What do you say, Old Meng?"

"An out-of-the-way, little-known prescription?" Meng Jueming was briefly taken aback, then nodded again and again. "Young Master Xu is brilliant. Old Meng was in fact thinking the same—ordinary pills simply could not achieve the effect we need."

Meng Zhou, listening from the side, was utterly bewildered by this exchange. He had not the faintest idea what this so-called out-of-the-way prescription was all about; he only knew that Young Master Xu seemed to have agreed, and he was secretly rejoicing in his heart.

Little did he know that anything called an out-of-the-way, little-known prescription meant a path far from the ordinary—and as everyone knew, in the matter of cultivation one could never be too careful. One wrong step meant every step thereafter wrong, and the risks involved were no joking matter!

In truth, both Xu Lingchong and Meng Jueming knew this perfectly well. With Young Master Xu's background and resources, if he were truly minded to raise Meng Zhou's grade at any cost, there were entirely more steady and reliable methods.

For instance, the way Wei Zhao had done it—a Foundation Establishment Golden Pill supplemented by a Foundation-Breaking Pill. Such a combination could swiftly boost one's strength in a short time with no side effects at all; even failure carried no danger.

Though Young Master Xu might not be able to obtain a Foundation Establishment Golden Pill, he likewise had ways to secure other pills in its place. Only, every one of those pills was incomparably precious—even a thousand spirit jade might not buy a single one. And even if Young Master Xu had them on hand, there was simply no chance he would bring them out for Meng Zhou to use.

Moreover, even if Young Master Xu were truly so noble and generous as to bring out pills of that caliber, they would never fall to Meng Zhou. Meng Jueming would have stretched out his hand and snatched them long before—how would they ever be left to a dim-witted fool like Meng Zhou?

Pies never drop from the sky for free—and yet this fellow Meng Zhou still foolishly believed that Young Master Xu and Meng Jueming would truly grant him such a great boon. One could only say he was truly blind as a bat!

Seeing that Meng Jueming had no objection, Young Master Xu simply ignored Meng Zhou's reaction and said at once, "Then it's settled. This young master happens to have a Midnight-Noon Heart-Shattering Pill in his collection—a senior alchemist handed it to me in passing some years ago. Used properly, it is quite enough to raise one a full grade, no matter how poor the foundations."

"So it's the Midnight-Noon Heart-Shattering Pill!" Hearing this, Meng Jueming's eyelid twitched involuntarily. He too had once, by chance, heard people speak of this pill—a pill of utterly heaven-defying effect, and at the same time one that made the blood run cold!