Chapter 3580 — The Retaliation Begins
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
"That... is indeed a problem." Wei Zhao was helpless as well. He was willing enough to take on the mining task, but if Meng Jueming did not give his nod, everything was just so much vapor.
Wei Zhao thought it over and said, "But even though the decision lies in his hands, this is, after all, a daily task recognized by the Welcome Pavilion. In principle, it ought to be something that encourages newcomers to take part—if I raise it openly, then even as the managing senior brother, he can't simply refuse for no reason at all, can he?"
Meng Jueming might be the managing senior brother, but the Welcome Pavilion was not his family's business. Even holding some authority in his grasp did not mean he could do exactly as he pleased; at least on the surface, he had to maintain fairness and impartiality. Otherwise, once word got out, there would surely be those behind his back looking to settle accounts with him.
"That reasoning is sound enough, but even if he were forced to agree to let you go mining, he would still have ways to make things hard for you when the time comes." Senior Kubi spoke with deep feeling on this point. "The spirit jade ore below varies—some deposits are good and some are poor. In a high-grade vein you can dig up spirit jade with little effort; with a bit of luck, three or five days might see you a full hundred pieces. But in a poor vein the odds of finding spirit jade are very small. If your luck is slightly worse, you could toil a whole day and not dig up even a single piece—and that happens all the time."
"The vein our Azure Cloud Pavilion was allotted is nothing to boast of to begin with. If Senior Brother Meng then assigns you to the worst vein of all, who knows how much time you would have to spend to dig up a full hundred pieces of spirit jade. You might labor a month or two and still get no pay for it, while delaying your own cultivation progress—more loss than gain." Senior Kubi counseled him earnestly, afraid Wei Zhao would get a fixed idea into his head.
"Don't worry, Senior Brother Ku. I'll think it through carefully before I say anything." Wei Zhao nodded. He needed those medicinal herbs, and mining was now the only way.
Of course he knew the possibility Senior Kubi had described. In fact, given the way Meng Jueming, that managing senior brother, conducted himself, once he proposed to go down into the mine, being assigned to the worst vein was a sure thing. Had it been anyone else, the eventual result would certainly be more loss than gain.
But Wei Zhao was not anyone else. Remember, he possessed a wondrous artifact like the jade pendant space. Spirit jade was in nature the same as the energy stones of the mortal world, and since the jade pendant space could recharge energy stones, it very likely could recharge spirit jade as well!
These past two days Wei Zhao had been busy consolidating his cultivation realm and had not tried anything of the sort, but now he could. Of course, he first had to spend some time draining enough spiritual energy from his own piece of spirit jade—otherwise, when the test came, he would not be able to see the effect.
And once the test truly succeeded, Wei Zhao would be made. He could then secretly pocket some worthless scraps of jade with little spiritual energy from the spirit jade mine, and after recharging them in the jade pendant space, they would become genuine spirit jade, fit to trade with others.
This way, even if Meng Jueming assigned him to the poorest vein, it would not matter. Spirit jade was hard to find, but scraps of waste jade, surely, would not be so hard to come by! Once in Wei Zhao's hands, waste jade would be spirit jade!
Impatient to get back and run his test, Wei Zhao was just about to take his leave of Senior Kubi when, before he could speak, he looked up and saw Meng Jueming and Meng Zhou descending from the No. 8 cave dwelling not far above, chatting and laughing as they came. From their mouths, Wei Zhao even faintly caught his own name.