Chapter 3699 — The Test's Outcome

After trading the three pieces of scrap jade he had prepared in advance for a single piece of good jade, Li Zhengming finally turned to leave. Behind him came Wei Zhao's voice: "If Meng Jueming notices anything off, give me a heads-up in advance. Even if you can't play the mole anymore when that happens, it doesn't matter. You're under my protection—I won't let you come to harm."

"All right." Warmth spread through Li Zhengming's heart, and he nodded firmly.

The instant he stepped out of Wei Zhao's cave dwelling, he suddenly felt that this trip, though perilous in the extreme, had been profoundly significant—enough, perhaps, to alter the entire course of his future life. Pledging himself to Wei Zhao had been a forced move born of sudden circumstance, but for a man who had endured such torment beneath Meng Jueming's command, was it not also a kind of release?

After all, no matter how you looked at it, a leader like Wei Zhao was far more dependable than a petty, underhanded nobody like Meng Jueming!

From this day forward, I, Li Zhengming, am one of Wei Zhao's people.

Watching Li Zhengming's departing figure, Wei Zhao pinched his chin thoughtfully. The situation had developed to this point so abruptly that even he had not foreseen it. Had Li Zhengming not offered of his own accord to serve as a mole, there would by now perhaps be one more corpse in the cave dwelling.

And though Li Zhengming, compelled by circumstance, had switched allegiance, and though he had volunteered the greatest secret he carried in order to give his new master a hold over him, many of the details remained unspoken.

For instance, why had the Qiu Shui Manor been wiped out all those years ago, and how had he, the son of its all-important patriarch, managed to escape the slaughter? And for another, if his identity token was such a fatal liability, why carry it on his person all this time?

If Wei Zhao truly set his mind to digging, he reckoned he could unearth no small number of secrets from this Li Zhengming—possibly even secrets concerning the Qiu Shui Manor itself. After all, something that could make even the bigwigs of the Elder Council go to such lengths must be no trifling matter once uncovered.

Yet just as Wei Zhao himself had secrets of every kind he was unwilling to reveal, Li Zhengming's silence on these family matters was likewise forgivable.

In the end, Wei Zhao did not care how great the secrets buried in Li Zhengming might be. He needed only that Li Zhengming harbor no treacherous thoughts and serve loyally and dutifully as his mole—that was enough. And should Li Zhengming truly turn traitor, then as he had said just now, with his strength he could snuff out Li Zhengming's life as easily as turning his palm; he had no need whatsoever to hold any leverage over him.

Wei Zhao believed Li Zhengming would not betray him—at least not in the short term. This was not a one-sided faith in Li Zhengming's so-called loyalty; in a cultivation world rife with mutual deception, so long as the temptation was great enough, anyone might cast aside their integrity at any moment, and Li Zhengming would be no exception.

His certainty rested on the belief that Li Zhengming was rational and shrewd enough. Anything shrewd could always see reality clearly and know which choice was best for itself.

Upon leaving Wei Zhao's cave dwelling, Li Zhengming was promptly summoned away by someone who had long been waiting there—not, however, to Meng Zhou's No. 15 cave dwelling at the foot of the neighboring mountain, but to Meng Jueming's cave dwelling on the mountain opposite.

Stepping inside, he glanced at the few familiar old faces within and could not help but start.

Waiting there were not only Meng Jueming and Meng Zhou, but also Kang Jingming and Zhong Yongliang of the Chongtian Pavilion—and what startled him most was that even Xu Lingchong, the young master Xu himself, was among them.

Li Zhengming laughed to himself. This lineup was nothing less than a gathering of the Welcoming Pavilion's most conspicuous anti-Wei Zhao alliance!

Seeing Li Zhengming enter, and seeing him drenched in blood and utterly bedraggled, everyone waiting there was taken aback. It was only a test of Wei Zhao's strength, not an order to fight him to the death—was such a ghastly state really necessary?

"Good heavens! Wei Zhao beat the shit out of you! How could you be so dense—it was a test, did you have to go at him tooth and nail? Don't you ever use your head?" Meng Zhou exclaimed in his usual dramatic fashion.

Even as he gloated, he felt a surge of relief in his heart. Had he not, in a flash of inspiration back then, foisted the task onto Li Zhengming, it would be he himself wearing this wretched look now. Damn, I am just too clever!

Li Zhengming rolled his eyes in exasperation. Had he not already pledged himself to Wei Zhao, he would by now surely be spitting fire at that bastard Meng Zhou. To think he had once chosen to throw in his lot with a specimen like this—looking back, he had truly been blind as a bat.

"You shut your mouth!" Meng Jueming shot Meng Zhou a glare. If he let the fool keep carping on, it would only chill Li Zhengming's heart, and then he would no longer risk his life for him so willingly.

Turning back, Meng Jueming put on a show of mildness: "Well? What strength does that Wei Zhao fellow actually have now?"

Li Zhengming was speechless again. Any normal person's first question would surely have been whether the injuries were serious. But this Meng Jueming did not care in the least whether he lived or died—he did not even breathe a single word about the piece of spirit jade reward they had agreed upon beforehand!

In the end, Meng Jueming and Meng Zhou were two of a kind—cold-hearted, thin-blooded creatures both. Thinking back on it now, his decision to pledge himself to Wei Zhao on the spot was simply the wisest choice he had made since entering the Welcoming Pavilion!

After steadying his breathing a little, Li Zhengming answered: "Replying to Senior Brother Meng, that Wei Zhao has indeed succeeded in establishing his Foundation. He's now a formidable early-stage Foundation Establishment expert. I was no match for him at all. If he hadn't been afraid of killing me and blowing the matter out of proportion, I would likely have been finished by a single strike just now!"

"What? That fellow has really established his Foundation? You're certain you didn't mistake it?" Meng Jueming was startled, and Xu Lingchong and the others were visibly incredulous as well.

Even if Wei Zhao truly was a cultivation prodigy, in the mortal realm where spiritual energy was so thin, he could not possibly have built any deep foundation. And he had been at the Welcoming Pavilion barely a month, during which he had obtained no decent cultivation resources to speak of—even his cave dwelling was the utterly wretched No. 14 at the foot of the mountain. The few pieces of good jade he had on hand had all been swindled away by them with scrap jade. And even so, he had managed to establish his Foundation within a single month?

This was simply too absurd! If memory served, this had already shattered the Welcoming Pavilion's Foundation Establishment record of the past several hundred years!

Li Zhengming gave a bitter smile and pointed at his own battered body. "Senior Brother Meng, I experienced it firsthand—how could I have mistaken it? If he were merely a Heaven-rank grand-completion expert, he couldn't possibly have beaten me into this state with a single move, could he? I could at least have defended myself a bit..."