Chapter 3718 — Killing Wei Zhao

"So what you're saying is, this time that brat Wei Zhao somehow wormed his way through a gap, purely by dumb luck?" Xu Lingchong believed the explanation well enough, but he was still unable to let it go.

"That is indeed how it was, so this time, Young Master Xu, you truly cannot blame us for not doing our utmost—after all, man proposes, Heaven disposes," the several of them said with sighs and rueful shakes of the head.

"Then why didn't you say just now that they should be made to take the trial again? That way there would have been a chance to deal with Wei Zhao all over again!" Xu Lingchong said with a frown.

Back when he had not yet taken Wei Zhao seriously, he had felt nothing in particular; but now that he had truly set his mind to finding a way to deal with Wei Zhao, and the other had slipped through a gap and escaped him, that was something he found deeply displeasing.

By now Wei Zhao was a thorn in his eye and a spike in his flesh—so long as he was not plucked out, not a single day would his thoughts run clear.

The several experts of the Law Enforcement Hall exchanged a bitter smile. "Young Master Xu, you have seen the state we are in—without a few days of proper rest and recuperation, we simply cannot recover. And you heard what Hall Master Gongyang said; how would we dare go against his wishes?"

At this, Xu Lingchong too had nothing to say. The matter involved a man of real power and formidable strength like Gongyang Jun—even he was utterly helpless.

In truth, quite apart from a mere young master like himself, even if his own grandfather Xu Yuanzheng came in person, it was still an open question whether Gongyang Jun would show him any deference.

After all, the man was the foremost of the new generation in the North Island's Triplex Pavilion, and at the rate he was going, to stand at the very pinnacle of the Triplex Pavilion was all but a foregone conclusion. Even a giant of the Council of Elders like Xu Yuanzheng could only address him politely as "junior brother" when they met.

"That said, with the power at your command, Young Master Xu, dealing with a nobody like this ought to be as simple as crushing a bedbug underfoot! And the newcomers' trial has more than one stage—this second stage coming up, wouldn't it be even easier to pull a few strings and do him in?" the several of them suggested.

The newcomers' trial had six stages in all, and strictly speaking, the first stage—the oppressive-force trial—was in fact the hardest in which to take the opportunity to kill someone. It was the later stages that were another matter, especially this second one: if one wanted to stage a little accident and do away with Wei Zhao, it would actually be far easier to bring off.

"Well said!" Xu Lingchong's eyes lit up at once, and he said offhandedly, "The second stage is set for three days from now, and by then the lot of you should have more or less recovered. Hu Yunfeng is going to want capable hands to serve as examiners anyway, so we may as well send the lot of you to make the trip—no point in troubling two households for one job, after all!"

"Good, that is just what we had in mind as well!" The several of them exchanged a glance, and in every eye was a venomous glint. When all was said and done, they had been reduced to this state entirely because of Wei Zhao; this score, naturally, would have to be settled on Wei Zhao's own hide!

Xu Lingchong nodded. "Very well, then. Three days from now, I will bring Meng Jueming and the others to hash things out with you. They bear Wei Zhao a deep grudge, and they know all his weaknesses far better—this time, we must make absolutely certain there is no slip-up!"

He had already lost face once before Shangguan Lan'er; he absolutely could not lose it a second time!

But enough of Xu Lingchong and his crew, gnashing their teeth and scheming how to deal with Wei Zhao—the man himself had not taken these people to heart at all.

And so it was in fact: given Wei Zhao's true strength and all the cards he held up his sleeve, so long as Xu Lingchong did not throw caution to the winds and simply send men to assassinate him outright, then at any other time, no matter what plots and schemes they concocted against him, they might not be able to do a thing to him in the end.

What was more, he had planted two informants among their number, Zhong Yongliang and Li Zhengming. So long as he could get timely intelligence, then no matter how exquisite the scheme, once it was dragged into the light of day it was, when all was said and done, nothing but a joke.

Not long after he returned to the Newcomer Welcoming Pavilion, Kang Jingming, the newcomers' steward, soon posted the scoring for the first trial stage upon the public notice board, and before long a crowd of newcomers had gathered round to look.

Some were smug, some sighed; some were unmoved, some anxious—a regular pageant of human nature played out before their eyes.

Since the three pavilions of the Triplex Pavilion each kept separate scores, the newcomers of each pavilion concerned themselves only with the standings within their own. And in the Azure Cloud Pavilion, Wei Zhao's divine-grade full marks naturally left the rest in the dust, flinging Meng Zhou and all the rest, the runner-up included, far behind him.

Looking at that score, and hearing the others' gasps of admiration and envy at Wei Zhao's full marks, Meng Zhou—who had been so full of ambition, sworn to crush Wei Zhao and seize first place—was fairly choking with fury.

Wei Zhao had forty-five points, while he had only twenty-four. This was but the first stage, and already a gap of twenty-one points had opened up. Such an enormous disparity meant that across the remaining five stages, if Wei Zhao did not make some serious mistake, then no matter how hard Meng Zhou tried, he might well never be able to make it up.

In truth, with Meng Zhou's early Foundation Establishment strength, even though he had only just broken through and his foundation was unsteady, had no such misfortune as being caught in the backwash befallen him along the way, he could at the very least have held out the full three sticks of incense—or even, like Kang Jingming and Zhong Yongliang, the full four. In that case, even if he could not match Wei Zhao's divine-grade full marks, he would not have been left so far behind.

Alas, there is no "if" in this world. When a man's luck runs sour, even a mouthful of cold water will wedge itself between his teeth, and there is no stopping it. Meeting with such a thing, Meng Zhou could only count himself unlucky.

And as for complaining about Young Master Xu Lingchong? Lend him ten times the courage, and he still would not dare.

"Cousin Jiuming, you have to think of something for me—otherwise, with that idiot Wei Zhao lording it over us, neither of us will look good, will we!" Meng Zhou had no way out himself, so he could only turn to Meng Jueming for help.

Meng Jueming glanced at Wei Zhao in the distance, surrounded by Senior Brother Kubi and the others, chatting and laughing in their midst, and gave a cold, mocking laugh. "What are you in such a hurry for? Only one stage has passed. There will be plenty more chances to do him in. Once he is dead, what does it matter how many points he scored? Are they going to award first place to a dead man?"

"Do him in? Is that even possible?" Meng Zhou was startled at the words.

He had been set against Wei Zhao all along, true, but at most he had wanted to trample Wei Zhao underfoot and win back his face—he had never thought of simply having Wei Zhao killed. In fact, it was not only him: before this, even Meng Jueming had never harbored such a thought.

It was not that they lacked the ruthlessness for it, but that rashly doing a newcomer to death would easily blow the matter up into something far too big—something the two of them simply could not cover up, and they would very likely end up dragging themselves down into the grave alongside him.