Chapter 3632 — Where Are You Rushing Off To?

"This... all right." The long-suffering senior brother's face stiffened despite himself. He might have been one of Wei Zhao's lot, but even he did not believe Wei Zhao could dig more than three pieces of good jade out of dead Mine No. 10. Meng Jueming was saying this purely to make him lose more, and lose worse!

Still, even if he had no confidence in Wei Zhao, the long-suffering senior brother had no choice but to grit his teeth and accept, because with Meng Jueming's deliberate prodding, today's affair was no longer a simple matter of winning or losing. It had turned into a head-on clash between the two factions of Qingyun Pavilion's newcomers.

Meng Jueming, Meng Zhou, and the other newcomers were one faction; the long-suffering senior brother, Wei Zhao, and the pair Xiao Che and Qiao Hongcai were the other. And the battlefield for this clash was the wager itself.

Under the circumstances, even knowing full well that this bet was a certain loss, the long-suffering senior brother could only choose to lose jade rather than lose face. Losing five spirit jades made his flesh crawl, but to preserve the faith Wei Zhao and the others had in him, he had no choice but to accept.

"Senior Brother Ku, if we lose this time, we'll definitely save up spirit jades and pay you back someday!" Xiao Che and Qiao Hongcai exchanged a glance and thanked the long-suffering senior brother earnestly.

They both knew that under the present circumstances there was no choice but to bet, and that there was a ninety-nine percent chance they would lose. But be that as it may, the long-suffering senior brother had only gotten involved because of the two of them, so by both sentiment and reason the spirit jades ought to come from their own pockets. Even if they did not have enough on hand now, they could always save up and repay him later.

"Talk like that is pointless," the long-suffering senior brother said with a smile. "Even if we lose this time, it doesn't matter. I'm a managing senior brother, after all—I can afford to lose a few spirit jades! And besides, if you're backing Wei Zhao, isn't that the same as backing me? How could I let you two pay for it yourselves?" He smiled, but no matter how one looked at it, that smile was utterly long-suffering.

Five spirit jades—for a lowly junior steward like the long-suffering senior brother, who had no other means of income, that was precious savings it would take him months to scrape together!

Wei Zhao took in the scene, and despite himself felt a stir of emotion. True feeling shows in adversity. Precisely because the long-suffering senior brother, Xiao Che, and Qiao Hongcai were all in such dire straits at the moment, it was all the more admirable that they would step forward to stand by him now. If all of them had been clutching handfuls of spirit jades, there would have been nothing remarkable about them taking Meng Jueming's bet.

When Meng Jueming had been pressuring Xiao Che and Qiao Hongcai a moment ago, Wei Zhao had wanted to step in and block him, but now that the long-suffering senior brother was there, there was no need to bother. After all, he was the one concerned here—he knew perfectly well how many good jades and how many waste jades he had. If he had joined the betting directly at this point, he might well have scared Meng Jueming off.

Wei Zhao smiled faintly, said no more, and simply carried his basket over to be weighed, then sent it for quality inspection. Today, he was bound to give this bunch a tremendous surprise!

Everyone craned their necks in anticipation, and the inspection office soon announced the result: "Wei Zhao—twelve pieces of good jade, seven pieces of waste jade, twenty pieces of rubbish jade."

My God! Twelve pieces of good jade!

The whole crowd was thrown into an uproar on the spot, and Meng Jueming and Meng Zhou, who had been so utterly confident, were so shaken that they nearly dropped to the ground on their backsides.

That exploration expert, Senior Brother Ma, had sworn up and down that dead Mine No. 10 could produce thirty or forty pieces of good jade at the absolute most, and that it would take at least two or three months to dig them all out!

In other words, under normal circumstances, Wei Zhao digging up even one piece of good jade in a day would have counted as good luck. As for three pieces in a day—that was simply impossible!

Otherwise, Meng Jueming would never have dared to open his mouth and offer three-to-ten odds right off the bat, and then go on to propose a five-for-fifteen wager. He had bet so boldly precisely because he was certain Wei Zhao could not dig up three pieces of good jade!

And now look how it had turned out—the man had pulled out twelve in one go, stunning everyone into silence!

Twelve pieces of good jade in a single day—what kind of concept was that?

It not only crushed every one of Qingyun Pavilion's Mines No. 7, 8, and 9, it even eclipsed Xuanji Pavilion's Mines No. 5 and No. 6 outright. Mine No. 4 might compare, but that was already Xuanji Pavilion's finest, highest-quality mine of all!

Taking in the stunned, at-a-loss expressions on every face, Wei Zhao could not help but let a mocking curve play at the corner of his mouth. To make good on what he had told Meng Jueming that morning, he had deliberately hidden three spirit jades on himself today, so that he could legitimately bring out twelve pieces of good jade and blind every last one of them with his brilliance!

With his earlier run of coming up empty-handed day after day as a foundation, Wei Zhao had calculated that even if he suddenly exploded with results today, it would not plant any undue suspicions in the others' minds. At most, they would simply think he had gotten as lucky as ever—except that this time his luck had been especially explosive.

Compared with the others' shock and consternation, the long-suffering senior brother, Xiao Che, and Qiao Hongcai were beside themselves with joy. All three had assumed they were certain to lose; the long-suffering senior brother had even been ready to pull out the five spirit jades in his bosom. Who would have thought that Wei Zhao, without a word, would hand them such an incomparable, enormous surprise!

And so, not only did the long-suffering senior brother not have to pay out five spirit jades, but by the terms of the earlier wager, Xiao Che and Qiao Hongcai could actually win fifteen spirit jades off Meng Jueming! For men who had long since resigned themselves to losing, this was utterly unexpected windfall—even winning a ten-million jackpot in the mortal world's lottery could hardly compare!

Looking at these few beside themselves with delight, Meng Jueming's face turned incomparably ugly in an instant. At this moment he could have happily given himself two hearty slaps. Why had he opened his wretched mouth and made a bet? Wouldn't it have been perfectly fine to just stand back and watch Wei Zhao make a fool of himself? Even if he hadn't watched, he wouldn't have eaten such a huge, silent loss!

Fifteen spirit jades—even for someone as smooth and well-connected as Meng Jueming, that counted as a huge sum. To actually have to lose it to Xiao Che and Qiao Hongcai, two creatures he had always found disagreeable, would probably leave him sick with rage for a whole month.

"Let's go!" Meng Jueming quietly shot Meng Zhou a look. He meant to slip away through the crowd while everyone was still too stunned to react. As long as he was not caught and made to pay up on the spot, he could rely on his convenient status as managing senior brother and find some excuse to wriggle out of this gambling debt later.

However, Wei Zhao had been watching him all along and clearly had no intention of letting him have his way. He at once called out in a loud, clear voice: "Senior Brother Meng, where are you rushing off to in such a hurry?"