Chapter 3957 — The Death of Meng Jueming
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 3
With nothing but the status of senior disciple and novice steward of the Azure Cloud Pavilion, he had nonetheless woven a vast web of connections, and even forced out the Third Pavilion Master, Lu Bianren, to take his place. Meng Jueming, in the eyes of the newcomers a figure of boundless power, had died a violent death just like that.
He had striven so long, and the thing he dreamed of had been within his grasp—yet in the end, he never lived to take up the post of Third Pavilion Master. Engulfed by the flying rocks, Meng Jueming had still not closed his eyes. Within those blank, lifeless pupils lingered a dense resentment and unwillingness; he died with his eyes wide open.
"Phew!" Wei Zhao caught sight of this from the corner of his eye and let out a long breath of stale air. Though events had unfolded beyond all expectation, so long as Meng Jueming was successfully buried here, all was well.
After all, this man knew the flaw in his identity, and he still held solid evidence in his hands. The threat was too great—he had to die.
Yet no sooner had Wei Zhao relaxed slightly than a tremendous force struck him from behind. Even though his whole body was wrapped in an immensely powerful protective true qi, under that blow he could not help but violently spew a mouthful of blood.
Wei Zhao glanced behind him and counted himself fortunate. This time he had been hit by a slab of stone; had it been sharper fragments with greater penetrating power, or worse still, spirit jade, then even if he did not die, he would have been left half-crippled.
The impact of the stone slab had dealt Wei Zhao no light injury, but it had one benefit: it sped up his flight, and at the same time gave him a shield at his back, able to block a good many flying rocks and spare him further grave injury.
"A mine... a mine collapse? No way!" Only at this moment did the two guards not far from the mine passage entrance realize that something was terribly wrong, and both of them turned ashen with horror.
Their faces white with fright, they watched helplessly as the torrent of rocks, mingled with spirit jade bombs, drew nearer and nearer. They knew full well that staying here meant certain death, yet their legs felt as though filled with lead, completely refusing to obey.
Just as the two were about to be swallowed by the rocks of the collapse, a figure suddenly crashed into them, and all three went tumbling into the mine shaft together, barely escaping with their lives.
At the same time, the other mining districts were also rumbling and shaking. Though they did not suffer a large-scale collapse like the No. 10 district, rocks kept falling from the mine ceilings—the harbinger of a chain-reaction mine disaster.
In an instant, panic seized every mining district. In the face of a mine disaster, even powerful cultivators could not necessarily guarantee their own survival. Mine disasters had been few in number throughout history, but each one had claimed no small number of lives.
No one was willing to be the unlucky victim of a mine disaster. Amid a flurry of panicked cries, everyone scrambled frantically for the exits, and the entire Spirit Jade Hall was plunged into enormous panic.
This day was destined to go down in the annals of history. Not only the Spirit Jade Hall—even the whole of the Threefold Pavilion was shaken.
Mine disasters of an ordinary scale were already rarely seen; a collapse of this magnitude was a once-in-a-millennium event. It was impossible for the Threefold Pavilion not to be shaken.
After the incident, the Council of Elders responded at once, assigning elders specifically to rush to the Spirit Jade Hall and ordering the Hall to assist them in handling the aftermath. At the same time, the Law Enforcement Hall intervened to investigate the causes of the incident.