Chapter 3943 — The Secret Was Discovered

Wei Zhao unhurriedly held out a hand. "Five. Not a single piece more."

"You..." The stall owner was still hoping to haggle, but seeing the resolve in Wei Zhao's expression, he reflected that five spirit jade was already a tidy profit for a Blue Light Grass, and at last he could only nod. "All right, five spirit jade it is. I'll pack it up for you."

With that, out of habit, the stall owner moved to dig the Blue Light Grass out of its pot. People who came to buy spirit herbs were almost always after ingredients for pill refinement, not something to plant at home, so the usual practice was to bag them up for easy carrying.

Wei Zhao's eyelid twitched, and he hastily stopped him. "Hold on—just give me the whole pot, owner. I'll take it home and plant it."

Was he joking? He had come for the ancient pure soil in that pot. Buying the Blue Light Grass was nothing but a cover to throw people off.

"Fine, have it your way." It was, after all, just an ordinary pot. The stall owner suspected nothing and agreed with a nod.

Only then did Wei Zhao breathe easy. As he fished out the spirit jade, he probed, "If I may ask—where do you usually cultivate your spirit herbs, owner? The quality of these is really rather good."

The question was really aimed at finding out where the man had dug up the soil. If he could tease that out, perhaps he might lay hands on even more of the pure soil.

"Heh heh, you flatter me. I don't cultivate herbs myself—I buy them from others. That pot of Blue Light Grass, pot and soil and all, I got off a wandering cultivator I'd never met." The stall owner took the spirit jade from Wei Zhao's hand and chuckled, thoroughly pleased.

"I see." Wei Zhao nodded, not without disappointment. A wandering cultivator he did not know—there was no use pressing further. He let the matter drop.

But just as Wei Zhao took the pot of Blue Light Grass and turned to leave, a voice he knew all too well suddenly came from behind him. "Young Hero Lin! What a coincidence, running into you here."

Wei Zhao's body went rigid on the spot. He did not need to turn around to know whose voice that was—none other than his old enemy, Meng Jueming.

What the hell was this thing doing here?

And what chilled Wei Zhao even more was this: he was plainly wearing the Thousand-Silk Mask, so how could Meng Jueming possibly recognize him?

While Wei Zhao stood stunned, Meng Jueming had already come up beside him. Against all custom, he clapped him on the shoulder with feigned warmth and beamed. "Young Hero Lin, even if there's a little bad blood between us, there's no need to pretend you don't know me, is there? I am your managing senior brother, after all!"

Nowhere to retreat, Wei Zhao could only square up to him and put on a look of blank confusion. "Who are you?"

Meng Jueming blinked at that, looked Wei Zhao over once, and then his expression abruptly changed. With an awkward air he said, "So you're not Wei Zhao. My mistake."

Wei Zhao breathed a silent sigh of relief. So long as he had not been recognized, all was well. If Meng Jueming ever came to suspect that Lin Er and Wei Zhao were one and the same, this would turn genuinely dangerous.

If Meng Jueming carried that news straight to South Heaven Pass, then even with Wei Zhao's current strength at the mid-Foundation Establishment stage, he would be hard pressed to handle an enemy of such power, and whether he could keep his life was anyone's guess.

He dared not linger. Wei Zhao picked up the pot of Blue Light Grass, shot Meng Jueming a glance, and turned on his heel and left.

Watching Wei Zhao's hurriedly retreating back, Meng Jueming stroked his chin thoughtfully and could not help muttering: From behind, that man looks exactly like Wei Zhao—not just the build, but the whole bearing too. What the hell kind of ghost is this!

By chance his gaze swept across the stall owner's hand, and he froze. One of the spirit jade pieces in the owner's hand struck him as remarkably familiar.

"Owner, let me see that piece of spirit jade!" A flash of insight struck Meng Jueming and he called out hastily.

"What for?" The stall owner eyed him warily. Was this fellow sick in the head? Who in their right mind just up and demanded spirit jade from a stranger—did he mean to rob him in broad daylight?

Meng Jueming casually drew out two pieces of spirit jade and tossed them before the man. "I'll trade you two for that one. Satisfied now? Hurry up and hand it over!"

The stall owner took the two pieces with some doubt and examined them, found them both fine stones brimming with spirit energy, and only then tossed over the piece Meng Jueming had pointed out.

Meng Jueming took it and turned it over twice, carefully. He was now utterly certain: this piece of spirit jade in his hand was one he himself had once used!

It was, when you came down to it, a sheer coincidence. Cultivation, as everyone knew, was dull and tedious work. Once, while cultivating with spirit jade, Meng Jueming had been struck by a whim and tried his hand at carving a miniature on it.

The result proved he had not a shred of talent for it. A perfectly good portrait of a beauty he had chiseled with cuts deep and shallow until it was hideous beyond words, a sight unfit for the eyes—and thus this singular piece of spirit jade had come to be.

Yet Meng Jueming remembered perfectly well that this absurd piece should have gone with the other spent jade into the hands of Meng Zhou and the rest, to trade to Wei Zhao. How had it inexplicably turned up here?

There was something else that left Meng Jueming deeply puzzled: what he had given Meng Zhou back then had been spent jade, its spirit energy all but drained. The piece in his hand now was plainly a fine stone brimming with abundant spirit energy!

This whole affair was enough to make a man think he had gone mad.

But if this piece in his hand was not his original one, then the coincidence was too great—the same pattern, on spirit jade of roughly the same size!

Meng Jueming remembered it clearly. When he had been bored out of his mind, he had idly carved a figure into that spirit jade, a mark that stood for Meng Jueming—and naturally, only he knew what it meant!

Without a close look, anyone would surely assume it had formed by accident during the mining of the jade, nothing worth remarking on.

Had Meng Jueming been a famous master of miniature carving, there would be nothing strange about it—the signatures and marks of such masters were always eagerly sought, and imitation was only to be expected. The trouble was that he was a rank amateur, so why would anyone waste good spirit jade carving a copy of a failed piece of his out of sheer idle boredom?

So, however hard it was to believe, Meng Jueming was still at least ninety percent certain that the spirit jade in his hand was his original piece—only, for some reason, someone had infused it anew with spirit energy!