Chapter 3996 — Pressing the Question Again

Across a distance of nearly twenty zhang, Wei Zhao and Hong Zhong exchanged a look from afar and nodded to each other in perfect understanding; no words were needed.

Seeing Hong Zhong himself step forward to vouch for Wei Zhao, even Xu Lingchong was left dumbstruck this time.

Facing Steward Linghua earlier, Xu Lingchong had at least entertained some notion of testing his strength; but facing Hong Zhong, a magnate of the Hong Chamber of Commerce, he truly lacked the nerve to voice any doubt.

As the plenipotentiary agent of the Hong Chamber of Commerce on North Island, Hong Zhong's power and standing were hardly inferior to those of any elder or high-ranking figure of the Tri-Stack Pavilion; even compared with his own grandfather, Xu Yuanzheng, he was in no way outmatched.

Even if Xu Lingchong had been lent a few more guts, he would never dare question Hong Zhong openly before such a great crowd and in the presence of so many august personages. If he dared do so, there could be only one outcome: humiliating himself for nothing.

Still, the fact that he could not challenge Hong Zhong to his face did not mean he would let Wei Zhao off so easily.

A flash of inspiration struck Xu Lingchong, and he said to Wei Zhao, "Since Elder Hong has come forward in person to testify, then I will no longer doubt the authenticity or the origin of these two top-grade Foundation Establishment golden pills. But I would rather like to hear this: you, Wei Zhao, are nothing but a newcomer of the Azure Cloud Pavilion—where did you get so many spirit jades to buy these two top-grade Foundation Establishment golden pills?"

This question, without a plausible explanation, was equally lethal.

Generally speaking, a newcomer had only two sources of spirit jades: first, the monthly stipend issued by the Welcome Pavilion—a mere single piece; second, what could be earned through low-level tasks, such as mining in the Spirit Jade Hall. Such returns, though somewhat higher than the stipend, were likewise pitifully meager.

Two top-grade Foundation Establishment golden pills were priced at no less than several thousand spirit jades; a newcomer's income could never suffice to buy them. And Wei Zhao was a grass-roots newcomer of the Azure Cloud Pavilion, one who had come up from the mortal world with no background or backing to speak of. Where had this enormous sum of spirit jades for purchasing top-grade Foundation Establishment golden pills come from? There had to be something suspicious hidden in it.

Yet Wei Zhao was burning with fury! If only he possessed real strength, and were not a mere newcomer, who would dare question him like this? So many others gave gifts, and no one inquired into their origins, nor into the source of the spirit jades used to buy those gifts. But now Xu Lingchong was harassing him again and again, relying on his status as the chief steward senior brother and on his grandfather's influence, while few dared to intervene.

Hong Zhong had intended to see the good deed through and help Wei Zhao fend off this question as well; after all, if Wei Zhao were to fall on this point, all his earlier intercession would have been in vain, and he himself might even be dragged into it.

But before he could speak, Wei Zhao had already answered without the slightest hesitation, "That? Well, earlier Meng Jueming organized a whole crowd of people from top to bottom to come running to me out of the blue offering spirit jades, three for one, four for one, saying my spirit jades were fine and could be used to carve some kind of spirit jade sculpture for Miss Shangguan. With so many people rushing to bring me spirit jades, naturally I had more and more on hand."

Xu Lingchong was instantly stunned. He had vaguely heard his subordinates mention this matter before, but had paid it no mind at the time and had never asked Meng Jueming for the specifics.

"Even if Meng Jueming wanted to make a spirit jade sculpture, one or two pieces would have been enough. How could he have a whole crowd rushing to bring you spirit jades? Do you take them all for fools?" Xu Lingchong's mind turned, and he at once questioned with a cold sneer.

Wei Zhao, unhurried, shrugged and said, "Whether they are fools or not, I really couldn't say. In any case, when they came to trade spirit jades with me, that was the pretext they used. If Young Master Xu doesn't believe it, why not go ask Meng Jueming? He organized the whole thing, and he was also the one who traded the most and the most eagerly. As for what it was really about, only he knows best!"

"Ah, damn it!" Xu Lingchong could not help cursing aloud in public, and under the astonished gazes of the crowd he forcibly swallowed the latter half of the sentence. You son of a bitch—Meng Jueming's bones had long since been reduced to nothing; whom the hell was he supposed to ask!

At this, Xu Lingchong was truly helpless. With Meng Jueming dead, there was indeed no witness to be found.

As for the matter of trading spirit jades, apart from Wei Zhao himself, only Xu Lingchong and Kang Jingming present had heard of it; but because they had not been involved, they did not know the specifics.

The two of them only roughly knew that Meng Jueming and his group had likely been trading worthless jades for the good jades in Wei Zhao's hands, and that it could not possibly be as Wei Zhao claimed, with people coming to his door to give him spirit jades—after all, Meng Jueming and the others were not idiots!

However, to expose Wei Zhao's lie, one would have to confront the very people who had traded spirit jades with him, and that was not so easily done.

For one thing, those people were not present, and with so many august personages here, they could hardly be expected to wait around for such a trivial matter. For another, even if those people were brought here now, it would be very difficult to make them tell the truth in public.

After all, privately passing off worthless jades as fine ones in trade was fraud expressly forbidden by both the Tri-Stack Pavilion and the Chamber of Commerce Alliance; once exposed, it would be severely punished. Who would dare take such a risk?

Seeing Xu Lingchong speechless for so long, Shangguan Lan'er finally found her chance and spoke up in Wei Zhao's defense: "Now you have nothing to say, do you? Suspecting my junior brother of this and that—one wonders who it is that has a guilty conscience. Hmph!"

Xu Lingchong was choked into silence. Though he was most unwilling to let Wei Zhao escape so easily, matters had come to this pass, and he knew in his heart that even if he kept clinging to the other's faults, it would be hard to doom him.

There was only one reason: the august personages present had already begun to stop taking his side. To keep entangling the matter further would not only fail to win him admiration, but would merely provoke annoyance—a loss out of all proportion to the gain.

The root of all this lay with a single man: Hong Zhong.

In truth, most of those present could see that Wei Zhao's final explanation about the source of the spirit jades must contain many hidden oddities. To explain the origin of several thousand spirit jades on that basis alone was in fact very far-fetched and hardly tenable.

Had Hong Zhong not stepped forward earlier, they might have been inclined to dig deeper. But now they had come to realize that this Wei Zhao was not so isolated and powerless as he appeared on the surface. Since it was none of their affair, why let themselves be used as Xu Lingchong's cat's-paw for nothing and offend, for no reason, a figure as resourceful and well-connected as Hong Zhong? (Yunhai Shuku is on WeChat at yuren22 and has sent everyone gift activation codes for the School Beauty mobile game—go claim them quickly! There will be more tomorrow, don't miss out!) R1152