Chapter 3703 — The Younger Junior Sister's Date
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
Given the temper of a young miss like Shangguan Lan'er, in her fury she would surely break with Wei Zhao, and might even alert her grandfather, Shangguan Tianxia. And then, even if Wei Zhao did not die, he would at the very least be flayed of several layers of skin.
So this scheme, though it looked simple and even childish, was tailor-made for a "starving lecher" like Wei Zhao—a thrust straight to the heart, absolutely lethal.
And the peril of it lay in this: once the scheme succeeded, it would not matter how strong Wei Zhao was. Shangguan Lan'er would not care in the slightest what cultivation he had; provoke her truly, and never mind Wei Zhao—a mere skilled early-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator—even one at the peak grand perfection of late-stage Foundation Establishment would be useless. He would still have no place to die.
Yet though the scheme was tailor-made for Wei Zhao, and Meng Jueming and the others were utterly confident he would take the bait, its success still hinged on two crucial points.
The first was that the letter must leave no evidence. Otherwise, even if Wei Zhao did take the bait, once trouble broke out he could simply produce the letter, and that would remain a hidden danger. That was why Meng Jueming had deliberately added the note on the back.
The second crucial point was this: how to lure Shangguan Lan'er to the little grove.
After all, Shangguan Lan'er was no "starving lecher" like Wei Zhao, to be hooked so easily. She was the little princess upon whom all eyes in the Threefold Pavilion rested, the dream goddess of countless young talents. Among her suitors, young masters of Xu Lingchong's caliber numbered not a dozen, but at the very least eight.
If they were to declare love to her in Wei Zhao's name, far from falling for the scheme, she would not even spare it a second glance. And to put it conservatively, the Shangguan family's discipline had always been exceedingly strict—even if she truly did have designs on Wei Zhao, there was no chance she would rashly come out to a grove to meet him.
This was, by rights, an intractable problem. But Meng Jueming had a flash of inspiration: bypass Shangguan Lan'er herself and work on the little curly-furred bear instead—and the matter became far easier.
The little curly-furred bear adored Wei Zhao—Meng Jueming and the others had seen it with their own eyes. And Shangguan Lan'er doted on the little curly-furred bear—that was known throughout the Threefold Pavilion.
Once the letter they had written fell into Shangguan Lan'er's hands, it was as good as falling into the little curly-furred bear's. Given how close the little bear was to Wei Zhao, the moment it heard that Wei Zhao wanted it to come play in the grove, there would be no holding it back—and then Shangguan Lan'er would have no choice but to go.
"This Meng Jueming—if he did not spend every waking hour dreaming up these crooked tricks, he would actually be quite a talent," Wei Zhao said with a shake of his head and a laugh.
Meng Jueming was a man of decent strength, sufficiently smooth and quick-witted, with an endless repertoire of methods. Had he bent his mind to the proper path, he could well have become a pillar of the Azure Cloud Pavilion in the future. It was a pity that this fellow had never once considered walking the straight road.
Wei Zhao promptly tucked the letter away into his jade pendant's space, keeping it for later use. Only when it was nearly noon did he set out for the little grove. Though he had known from the start that this was a plot, simply ignoring it would likely rouse Meng Jueming and the others' suspicions. So the best course was to turn the scheme against them. RS