Chapter 3819 — Compare Goods, and One Gets Thrown Away

"You give me too much credit, Leader Wei Zhao. This is simply my duty; I hardly deserve your thanks!" Li Zhengming was deeply moved by Wei Zhao's words.

Truly, people could die from comparison, while goods became fit only for the rubbish heap when set beside better wares. They were all newly appointed leaders, yet when it came to valuing the underlings beneath them, putting Wei Zhao beside Meng Jueming and Meng Zhou made the difference plain as day.

"You do deserve it. Without the information you brought, something might well have happened to the two of them. So there is no need to be modest. I will remember all the credit you have earned." Wei Zhao smiled and patted Li Zhengming on the shoulder.

Li Zhengming felt another surge of gratitude, then said somewhat sheepishly, "It is a pity I did not dare keep pumping Meng Zhou for information. With that arrogant, self-important fool's temperament, it should not have been difficult to coax the details of his plan out of him."

"It is all right. You were right not to keep questioning him. With an old fox like Meng Jueming watching from the side, he could easily have noticed something was amiss. There was no point in risking a major loss for a minor gain. Safety comes first, after all." Wei Zhao consoled him, then added, "Besides, the information you gave me is already enough."

Wei Zhao was not boasting. He was speaking the absolute truth, because he had suddenly remembered that when Xu Lingchong and Meng Jueming had discussed the matter in private that day, the eldest young lady Shangguan had been present the entire time.

Although both Xu Lingchong and Meng Jueming had deliberately avoided prying eyes in such matters, to the point of not even allowing an underling like Li Zhengming to come near, they could hardly order the eldest young lady Shangguan around.

Shangguan Lan'er's status was even more exalted than Xu Lingchong's. And with her deliberately feigned stance of being irreconcilable with Wei Zhao, if she wanted to hear something, Xu Lingchong and Meng Jueming would be too eager to curry favor with her to stop her.

So even if Li Zhengming could not learn the details of the plan, now that Wei Zhao knew such a matter was afoot, he could simply find a suitable opportunity to ask the eldest young lady Shangguan about it.

After finishing with that matter, Wei Zhao suddenly slapped his forehead. "Right. I happen to have nothing much to do these next couple of days, so I plan to fire up the furnace and refine some pills. Zhengming, you can go back and adjust your condition over the next few days. When the time comes, I will give you two Foundation Establishment Pills, and you can begin preparing to break through to the Foundation Establishment stage."

The moment Wei Zhao said this, Li Zhengming stood stunned for a few moments. Then his nose prickled, and he nearly burst into tears.

The main reason he had gone out of his way to seek Wei Zhao out in person that day, aside from providing the intelligence, was actually to ask about the Foundation Establishment Pills.

Since he felt he had made no real contribution, Li Zhengming had not truly wanted to make such a request of Wei Zhao. But for him, breaking through to the Foundation Establishment stage had now become an urgent necessity. Otherwise, if things continued this way, he would fall behind the others and have little left to compete with in the future.

After being rebuffed by Meng Jueming, turning around and asking Wei Zhao, the true leader, for help was, for Li Zhengming, a helpless choice forced upon him by circumstances.

The fact that Qiao Hongcai and Xiao Che had both succeeded in breaking through to Foundation Establishment made it possible to infer that Wei Zhao had probably already given Qiao Hongcai the Foundation Establishment Pill he had received as a reward for the trial in the rear mountains. As a newcomer, Wei Zhao could hardly have another Foundation Establishment Pill in his possession.

But Li Zhengming was not asking Wei Zhao to give him a Foundation Establishment Pill. He wanted to ask Wei Zhao to refine one for him. After all, he had just obtained three sets of the spirit-medicine ingredients needed to refine Foundation Establishment Pills from Meng Jueming, while it was already an open secret that Wei Zhao had been an alchemist back in the mundane world.

Even if Wei Zhao was an alchemist, however, that did not necessarily mean he had the ability to refine a Foundation Establishment Pill. But Li Zhengming had no other choice now and could only approach Wei Zhao and try his luck.

What Li Zhengming had never expected was that he had not even figured out how to make the request, while Wei Zhao had taken the initiative to raise the matter himself. From beginning to end, Wei Zhao had not mentioned a single additional condition. He simply wanted to help Li Zhengming break through to Foundation Establishment.

On one side was Meng Jueming's shameless refusal, and on the other was Wei Zhao's loyalty and generosity. Faced with such a stark contrast, Li Zhengming would truly have had to be heartless not to shed tears.

Only through comparison could superiority and inferiority be revealed. Beside Wei Zhao, Meng Jueming, the chief steward and senior disciple, had now been trampled so far down in Li Zhengming's heart that he might as well have been buried beneath a kiln. He was utterly beyond comparison.

"Leader Wei Zhao, the truth is that, besides reporting the intelligence, the other reason I came to see you today was to ask you to help me refine a Foundation Establishment Pill." Li Zhengming rubbed his nose, forcing down his emotion, then took out the three sets of ingredients Meng Jueming had given him and handed them to Wei Zhao.

"Oh? You already have the spirit-medicine ingredients prepared? That is excellent. It saves me the trouble of making a special trip out." Wei Zhao's eyes lit up at the sight.

Although the ingredients for Foundation Establishment Pills were all common commodities available in the marketplace, Wei Zhao did not have enough of them on hand. He had intended to build up his own stores of spirit medicines, but he had only started recently, and his reserves were still far from substantial. If Li Zhengming had not brought the ingredients, Wei Zhao would have had to make a trip to the marketplace for several of the medicines.

During the day, Wei Zhao had used a first-impression deception to fool Yu Jiang, temporarily preventing him from connecting Wei Zhao with the identity of Lin Er. Yet even a man thinking with his toes could have guessed that Yu Jiang and his master, Nantian Yong, would remain around the marketplace these next few days and continue investigating. They would never give up until they dug up the truth about this person named Lin Er.

So, if Wei Zhao went to the marketplace in the guise of Lin Er during this period, there would still be considerable risk. He might easily be intercepted by Yu Jiang and Nantian Yong. Wei Zhao was not afraid of Yu Jiang given his current strength, but the other side also had Nantian Yong, someone powerful enough to take a seat as an Inspector Deacon of the Skyward Pavilion. His strength could be imagined; it was unquestionably formidable.

If those two caught him, then with Wei Zhao's current strength at the peak of the early Foundation Establishment stage, the outcome would certainly be grim.

Yet if he went to the marketplace in his true appearance as Wei Zhao instead of using the identity of Lin Er, it would be even more likely to arouse suspicion. After all, in name, all the fine jade Wei Zhao had possessed had already been exchanged for worthless jade. If anyone with ulterior motives saw him buy so much as a single item in the marketplace, it could easily arouse the suspicions of Meng Jueming and the others. That would be very troublesome.

Unless absolutely necessary, Wei Zhao had no intention of going to the marketplace in the near future.