Chapter 3799 — Challenging Meng Zhou

Three days passed in the blink of an eye, and the fourth round of the newcomers' challenge tournament commenced right on schedule.

After the warm-up of the previous three rounds—especially the fierce, drag-out battle between Qiao Hongcai and Meng Zhou, two fine hands at the early Foundation stage—the newcomers' challenge tournament had clearly entered its white-hot phase.

No newcomer was holding anything back any longer. At the slightest opening, they would pounce like starving wolves to snatch points, blow for blow and counter for counter, a magnificent spectacle.

On Azure Cloud Pavilion's side, however, the chief attraction was plainly still the top five—or more precisely, Meng Zhou and Qiao Hongcai, the two early-Foundation-stage experts who had just ground each other down in the previous round.

In the last round Meng Zhou and Qiao Hongcai had left each other battered half to death. Had any other ordinary newcomer taken wounds that vicious, even if they were lucky enough to survive, they likely would not have been able to rise from their beds within ten days to half a month.

Yet to the astonishment of the other newcomers, after a mere three short days of recuperation, both Meng Zhou and Qiao Hongcai could already move about as freely as ordinary men—though both still looked visibly wan, each wearing the air of one whose grave injuries had not yet healed.

Given the frail state the two now displayed on the surface, had their cave-dwelling rankings not still been so low, some of the other newcomers might well have entertained thoughts of striking while they were weak. After all, what did it matter that both were early-Foundation-stage experts? At a time like this it was plainly a case of a tiger fallen to the flatlands being bullied by dogs—a sick tiger was no match for a cat!

As the newcomers waited, each nursing his own schemes, the referee finally arrived at his leisure, and the fourth round of the newcomers' challenge tournament officially began.

Qiao Hongcai challenging Meng Zhou—this scene surprised no one. After all, anyone who had suffered the kind of injustice Qiao Hongcai had would find it hard to hold his temper, and that foul grievance was naturally best vented early; otherwise the mind could never be at ease!

Under the gaze of the multitude, hearing Qiao Hongcai's declaration of challenge, Meng Jueming and Meng Zhou exchanged a glance and could not help but smirk darkly.

Come challenge us if you dare—what we fear is that you won't dare!

What none of the newcomers present had anticipated was that Meng Zhou's current appearance—strong on the outside, hollow within—was entirely a sham put on for Qiao Hongcai's benefit, calculated to lure him into issuing the challenge!

In fact, two days earlier, thanks to a fourth-grade Great Return Pill that Meng Jueming had given him, Meng Zhou's injuries had long since healed completely, and after two days of quiet recuperation, his condition was now at its very peak.

And the reason Meng Jueming was willing to stake such a huge sum on Meng Zhou was precisely to deal with Qiao Hongcai. Having come to realize that Wei Zhao and his crew were gradually growing too powerful to control, Meng Jueming, their sworn enemy, could hardly sit by and let them keep growing unchecked.

Now Qiao Hongcai's grave injuries were still unhealed, and he was the weakest link. Strike while your enemy is sick and take his life—Meng Jueming was not about to show the slightest mercy at such a moment.

Still, even if he could procure a fourth-grade Great Return Pill and restore Meng Zhou to health within a single day, there was one point that remained an unchangeable fact.

That was that Qiao Hongcai now held Cave Dwelling No. 13 below the mountain, while Meng Zhou held No. 12. Being ranked below Qiao Hongcai meant he had no right to initiate a challenge; it meant whether to challenge, and when to challenge, was for Qiao Hongcai alone to decide, and Meng Zhou had no say whatsoever.

Therefore, in order to seize this golden opportunity of Qiao Hongcai's unhealed injuries, Meng Jueming had Meng Zhou feign weakness and bait Qiao Hongcai into taking the hook!

Given Qiao Hongcai's blunt, hot-tempered nature, and on top of that the unjust treatment he had suffered in the previous round, he must have been stewing in a bellyful of resentment. To show weakness to the enemy at such a time—so long as he could recover even a bit of his strength, there was no way such a man would swallow his anger any longer.

And the result proved that Meng Jueming's plan had succeeded. Just as he and Meng Zhou had wished, Qiao Hongcai—the fool who did not know death when he saw it—had indeed leapt out impatiently to throw his life away!

"This time, we absolutely must not leave him alive," Meng Jueming instructed Meng Zhou in a low voice just before they took the stage.

The opportunity must not be lost, for it would not come again. Once this golden chance slipped by, it would be very difficult to openly do away with this Good-for-Nothing Qiao in the future. After all, Good-for-Nothing Qiao was also an early-Foundation-stage expert; if he truly faced Meng Zhou at full strength, then even with Meng Zhou's edge in martial technique, killing his opponent would still be difficult.

"Rest assured, Ninth Cousin—Good-for-Nothing Qiao will not live past today!" Meng Zhou grinned without changing expression, a sharp killing intent in his eyes, along with a trace of deeply concealed disdain.

After all, Wei Zhao was the rival Meng Zhou had always resolved to trample underfoot; Good-for-Nothing Qiao was merely one of Wei Zhao's underlings. If he, the self-styled leader of Azure Cloud Pavilion's newcomers, were to fight another two full matches to a standstill against a mere underling like Good-for-Nothing Qiao, what face would he have left to contest supremacy with Wei Zhao in the future?

Under everyone's watchful eyes, wearing an air of weakness deliberately put on, Meng Zhou walked onto the platform with a cold laugh.

Given his customary arrogance, he would ordinarily have disdained going to such lengths to feign weakness against a wretch like Good-for-Nothing Qiao. Not only was it not his style, it was beneath him and a loss of face. Moreover, even if one were to put on an act, it could be dropped the moment Qiao Hongcai initiated the challenge, since the bait had been taken and the objective achieved.

Yet today, Meng Zhou seemed a completely different person. Not only did he keep up the act until Qiao Hongcai took the hook, but even now, standing on the platform, he was still acting—so that he could seize the chance to give Qiao Hongcai a treacherous blow and settle the matter once and for all.

"The boy has matured quite a bit after taking his lumps!" Meng Jueming could not help but feel gratified at the sight.

Meng Zhou was now his most relied-upon capable subordinate. His loyalty and strength were decent enough, but the fatal problem was that he never used his head. In the long run, he would at best make a newcomer thug, far from being able to stand on his own.

But now, the fellow had finally wised up—an unexpected gain, and a rare one at that.

In Meng Jueming's calculations, the financial resources of Wei Zhao's crew could obviously not be compared with his own, backed as he was by the formidable patron Young Master Xu.

He did not know by what means they had managed to restore Qiao Hongcai considerably within a mere three days, but it was utterly impossible for him to compare with Meng Zhou, who had taken a fourth-grade Great Return Pill and now stood at the peak of full recovery. Add to that Meng Zhou's natural advantage in martial technique, and the probability of failure in snuffing out Qiao Hongcai today was, in theory, virtually zero.