Chapter 4371 — The Ledger of Evidence

A short while later, Chai Laoshi crept in, light of foot, and came to a halt before Wei Zhao. He scarcely dared draw a full breath, and lowering his head, he said in a small voice, "Might I ask what the vice-chairman requires of me?"

"I hear your relations with Wei Zhaotong are less than friendly?" Wei Zhao eyed him sidelong, a faint, unreadable smile on his face.

"Er… well… there was a small misunderstanding between us some time ago…" Chai Laoshi answered with the utmost caution. He knew Wei Zhao must have heard it from that servant of his just now, and as things stood, letting the man know of it did no harm—at the very least it cleared him of any suspicion of being in league with Wei Zhaotong.

Still, Chai Laoshi had no notion of what Wei Zhao actually intended, nor how he meant to deal with Wei Zhaotong, and so he did not dare rejoice too soon.

"A small misunderstanding? A vice-steward of your standing stripped of all authority, laid up for a whole month with his injuries—and you call that a small misunderstanding? You are a remarkably forgiving man!" Wei Zhao broke into a laugh, then said, "Answer me this: have you any evidence of Wei Zhaotong's crimes in your keeping?"

The question came to him on the spur of the moment, prompted by what the servant had said. His original aim had been merely to find an honest man to help run the Weihu branch guild; but if this could also be turned against Wei Zhaotong, so much the better.

"Evidence?" Chai Laoshi started, and his expression turned hesitant, at a loss. "This humble one…"

"Have you or haven't you? Spare me the dithering." Wei Zhao cut him off outright. The matter of Wei Zhaotong had to be settled quickly; drag it out too long, let it fester and ferment, and there was no telling what complications might arise.

Wei Zhaotong was no fool. Even as he committed his misdeeds, he would surely have dragged many others down with him to safeguard himself as far as possible—very likely including figures in the upper ranks of the Hong Clan Merchant Guild's headquarters, or other personages of influence. Once such people came to their senses and began to interfere, the pressure Wei Zhao faced would be truly crushing.

Should it come to that, he would either have to let the matter drop or make enemies of a whole host of people over one insignificant Wei Zhaotong. Given Wei Zhao's temperament, bowing his head to such people was out of the question—yet neither did he wish for needless twists and turns.

For in his plan, someone else was to take this matter in hand afterward; he would not be the one to see the executions through to the end. Even for that successor's sake, he must cut clean and fast, keeping the fallout to a minimum.

Fixed by Wei Zhao's gaze at such close range, Chai Laoshi, already quaking with fear, grew still more tremulous and terrified. The cold sweat had long since soaked through his back.

In the year and more since he had fought his way up from the mortal realm to Cloud Terrace Isle, Wei Zhao had met with one stroke of fortune after another, his strength leaping forward by bounds. Even Wei Zhao himself had never realized how much more formidable the aura about him had grown than in those earlier days.

And though his manner seemed ordinarily mild, at his core Wei Zhao was in truth a man of iron will, his presence correspondingly oppressive. Had he not always kept a low profile and deliberately restrained himself, ordinary men could not have stood their ground before him at all; even a Gold Core expert of his own rank would feel as though standing beside a ferocious beast of the overlord tier—trembling, treading on thin ice.

This sensation Chai Laoshi now felt with piercing clarity. Wei Zhaotong, to be sure, had often been overbearing in the past, but he overawed others wholly through underhanded means; this Ling Yi, by contrast, need only stand there and glance at you, do nothing at all, and already you could not endure it.

"This humble one… has…" Chai Laoshi had meant to hold back, but he could no longer withstand Wei Zhao's overawing presence and could only grit his teeth and confess—for if he concealed it and it came to light, he dared not wager whether this fiend of a man before him, brimming with menace, might not settle his account along with the rest.…

"Let me see it." Wei Zhao's eyes lit up at once. He had asked only on impulse, by way of experiment, never expecting there truly was such a thing—an unexpected delight.

"Yes, if you would wait a moment." At this point Chai Laoshi had nothing left to hesitate over; seeing Wei Zhao nod, he turned at once and went back into his room to fetch the evidence he had secretly gathered.

However honest and timid a man may be, he has his temper. Bullied by Wei Zhaotong for all these years, a vice-steward of a branch guild reduced to utter powerlessness and left to idle, then beaten and bedridden for a full month—had Chai Laoshi truly been able to swallow such rancor, his spiritual resolve would surely have been enough to attain immortality.

And so over the years, though Chai Laoshi took part in nothing, turning a blind eye to it all, withdrawing wherever Wei Zhaotong went, in secret he had been gathering evidence all the while, biding his time.

It was only a pity that Wei Zhaotong had backers at the Central Isle headquarters, while Chai Laoshi had scarcely met a handful of the higher-ups, let alone possessed any powerful patron. Even with a fistful of evidence in hand, he had never dared act.

There was no help for it: strike a snake and fail to kill it, and you suffer its venom. Chai Laoshi could not withstand Wei Zhaotong's reprisal. Grievous as his lot was now, a wretched life was better than a brave death; at any rate it beat throwing his life away on rash action.

A short while later Chai Laoshi returned, a ledger in his hands.

"This is the evidence?" Wei Zhao glanced at Chai Laoshi, took the ledger, and flipped through it at random—and was at once baffled, for the bookkeeping here was utterly peculiar, one might even say a chaotic jumble. After all, no man can master another's trade, and Wei Zhao had never made a study of such matters; he could make neither head nor tail of it.

"Yes." Chai Laoshi watched Wei Zhao's expression warily. This evidence was the fruit of years of his toil, a mighty weapon capable of bringing Wei Zhaotong down—but on one condition: it must fall into the hands of a powerful man.

For evidence is dead, while men are alive. In the hands of an ordinary person, this evidence would be useless, for Wei Zhaotong could readily use his backing at the Central Isle headquarters to have it ruled a forgery.

This was precisely why Chai Laoshi had never dared bring the evidence out rashly—he feared this Ling Yi's abilities were unequal to the task, and feared still more that this so-called honorary vice-chairman might not be genuine at all, but a swindler.

Yet for all his misgivings, Chai Laoshi was in the end not a bold man. Before Wei Zhao's commanding presence, he had at last been forced to speak the truth.

Wei Zhao pored over the ledger, looking again and again, then turned to Chai Laoshi and said, "Suppose you tell me what this ledger actually says—what evidence of Wei Zhaotong's crimes it records."

Every custom on Cloud Terrace Isle followed the ancient ways. What this ledger employed were no Arabic numerals, as the mortal realm had long since made universal, but the counting-rod notation, the most formal system of olden times. (To be continued…)

/iv

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