Chapter 3596 — A Slap in the Face
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
"Seems your days aren't so easy, young brother!" The guard shook his head with a laugh at the spectacle and led Wei Zhao to the hand-in point. He handed the ledger to the worker in charge of weighing and gestured for Wei Zhao to tip the spirit jades from his basket onto the platform of the great scale beside them.
"Heh heh, guess how many catties of spirit jade our posturing newcomer pulled out today. I'll start—three catties!" Meng Zhou called out, stirring up the crowd.
The others were instantly amused. All of them had weighed in earlier; even the least had twenty catties, and those assigned to Mine Zone Seven like Meng Zhou and Li Zhengming had over thirty. For a newcomer's first day of mining, those numbers were already respectable.
"Brother Tong, that's not right of you—we're all fellow disciples, after all. I say it must be four catties at least!" Li Zhengming chimed in.
"I bet five catties!"
"I bet four and a half!"
"..."
As the crowd clamored, Wei Zhao could not be bothered with them. He swung the basket off his back and poured its contents—fully thirty or forty spirit jades—rattling onto the scale platform, and in an instant the lot of them fell silent.
"Forty-two catties, five taels!" The worker recorded the figure, checked it against the ledger, found a discrepancy of only two taels, and nodded for Wei Zhao to return the jades to his basket. "No problem," he said, waving him through.
Wei Zhao let out a breath. His heart had been hanging in the balance all this while, and he had not expected to pass so easily—a relief that left him a little surprised as well.
On reflection, though, the mine zones were vast and the miners numerous; checking by weight alone was already remarkably strict. To verify it any more carefully would bury everyone in the Spirit Jade Hall under an avalanche of work. Besides, the rigorous searches in and out already cut off most attempts to smuggle jades, so this was, properly speaking, no more than an auxiliary oversight.
Wei Zhao breathed easy, but the others present—Meng Zhou's lot especially—were left in an ugly spot. They stared at the vivid red number on the great scale and for a long moment could not find their voices.
Forty-two catties, five taels! What kind of figure was that? It simply crushed every one of them. Even Meng Zhou, who had received pointers from Meng Jueming, had weighed in at only thirty-five catties!
"Th-this has to be cheating! How could a dead mine zone possibly yield this many spirit jades!" Meng Zhou could not help crying out.
Cheating? How would one even cheat at this? Sneak one's own spirit jades in through all that trouble, mix them in, and pass them off as one's own haul? Who would be that sick in the head!
Seeing the strange looks the others turned on him, Meng Zhou realized he had just said something utterly idiotic. Even Meng Jueming was looking at him as though he were a hopeless fool beyond saving.