Chapter 3597 — Consolation

The others suddenly saw the light. Given Brother Misery's honest nature, it was entirely plausible that he would help Wei Zhao dig spirit jade to make it up to him. And with a veteran like Brother Misery lending a hand, Wei Zhao's forty-two catties and five taels was no longer so outrageous. The crowd, who had been stewing in disappointment and humiliation, instantly found their balance again: he had two men, they had one; naturally he would come out ahead of them.

Wei Zhao smiled noncommittally. It was true that Brother Misery deserved credit for these results — after all, it was Brother Misery who had found him the mining spot and taught him any number of practical little tricks — but there was no denying that those forty-two catties and five taels were the fruit of Wei Zhao's own labor. That much was beyond question.

Whether it was Brother Misery's excellent teaching or simply a run of good luck, every one of those spirit jades had been dug out by Wei Zhao's own hands, piece by piece. There was no cheating in it whatsoever. If anything, he had understated his haul — he had secretly pocketed two pieces, after all.

But though that was the truth of it, since the crowd insisted on believing otherwise, Wei Zhao could not be bothered to argue. Let them think whatever they liked about such trifles. If these people were determined to console themselves, he could hardly stop them; he simply paid them no mind.

Seeing Wei Zhao so calm and unruffled, the crowd felt a sudden surge of irritation. They had gathered here on purpose to enjoy his humiliation, and now it was they who looked like clowns, with Wei Zhao as the audience to their own joke.

"The weight, in truth, is not the point at all. Dig twenty catties of spirit jade in a good mining zone, and ten of those stones might be fine jade brimming with spiritual energy. But in a certain well-known dead zone, you could dig four hundred catties and not find a single good stone." Meng Jueming looked at Wei Zhao with a cold smile. "In the end, only good jade earns a reward. If they are all worthless stones with barely a trace of spiritual energy, what does it matter if you hollow out the whole dead zone? You will still have labored in vain. Heh heh!"

"Exactly, exactly! Senior Brother Meng speaks the truth. When we dig for jade here, we pick our targets first and go after the stones that look promising. If you just hack away with brute force and ignore quality, then never mind forty-two catties — with the strength we have now, what difficulty would there be in digging four hundred catties a day?" Meng Zhou chimed in at once.

Four hundred catties was boasting, but if one truly ignored quality and dug blindly, a hundred catties was still within reach.

Only, in those better mining zones, any jade that fell out and was plainly worthless was never even put into their baskets. It all went into the waste-jade basket together, and only the stones that looked like good jade went into their own baskets.

Wei Zhao, on the other hand, was alone, so good and bad alike went into the same basket.

Hearing Meng Jueming and Meng Zhou, the crowd immediately recovered its confidence. For a while, the looks they cast at Wei Zhao were once again full of contempt and mockery.

True enough — everyone who came here to mine was after the spirit jade reward. Even if Wei Zhao dug several hundred catties and outdid everyone present, he had been assigned to Mine Zone Ten, which doomed him never to find good jade brimming with spiritual energy. And without good jade, there was no reward. That was common knowledge.

By the Spirit Jade Hall's rules, even waste jade could be counted toward a reward if enough of it was collected, but the ratio was enough to kill anyone's hopes. Even for decent-quality waste jade, it took at least a hundred pieces to match the spiritual energy of one good stone; and for the worse sort — the kind with only half a skin of spirit jade wrapped around a worthless core — the ratio was a thousand to one. Put simply, if you meant to make your fortune that way, you might as well settle in here for your retirement, because in the short term there was absolutely no hope of it.

Thus, for that worst grade of waste jade, at a thousand to one, you would need a hundred thousand pieces to exchange for a single spirit jade. So these people simply gave up on them altogether; by long-standing custom, they were tossed into the public waste basket.

Still, even that added up over time. Gathered together, such waste jade could eventually be exchanged for rewards — except that certain people quietly pocketed it. Those two people were Dai Wuchang and Meng Jueming.

But this sort of thing happened in the mining zones of the other two pavilions as well. Offering tribute to the stewards here and to the senior brother in charge of the Yingxin Pavilion was customary, not robbery, so no one would say anything even if they knew.

Watching the expressions on these faces, Wei Zhao shook his head in speechlessness. Just how deep did these creatures' inferiority complex run, that they had to keep finding consolation at his expense? The Qingyun Pavilion had grown this feeble, generation after generation — clearly there was a reason for it!

At this moment, Wei Zhao rather wanted to see what expressions these people would wear once the quality inspection and storage results came out. It promised to be quite a spectacle!

Under everyone's gaze, Wei Zhao took the spirit jade off the weighing platform and put it back in his basket, then followed the signs to the quality inspection station nearby. There were no fewer than five specially trained inspectors there, responsible for grading the spirit jade, recording each person's daily yield, and sorting the jade into the storerooms.

Compared with the weighing, the inspection work was clearly heavier. Even with five men working at once, a line of baskets still stretched ahead of Wei Zhao. Reading the names on them, they belonged precisely to Meng Zhou and the other newcomers of the Qingyun Pavilion.

Just then one of the inspectors called out, "Li Zhengming, six good jades, twenty-two waste jades!"

At once the newcomers looked at Li Zhengming with envy. For a newcomer still unfamiliar with the tricks of mining on his first day, finding more than five good jades in a day was considered quite good.

Several other newcomers had already finished inspection, and the best of them had only four good jades. Of course, those men had been assigned to Mine Zone Eight, a notch below Li Zhengming's Zone Seven, so it was only natural that their haul fell short of his.

And right after, another inspector announced, "Meng Zhou, seven good jades, twenty-three waste jades!"

"Child's play!" Facing the envious looks directed at him, Meng Zhou curled his lips in smug satisfaction and shot Wei Zhao a provocative glance. This feeling of showing off — damn, it felt good!