Chapter 3718 — Killing Wei Zhao
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 3
And so it was in fact: given Wei Zhao's true strength and all the cards he held up his sleeve, so long as Xu Lingchong did not throw caution to the winds and simply send men to assassinate him outright, then at any other time, no matter what plots and schemes they concocted against him, they might not be able to do a thing to him in the end.
What was more, he had planted two informants among their number, Zhong Yongliang and Li Zhengming. So long as he could get timely intelligence, then no matter how exquisite the scheme, once it was dragged into the light of day it was, when all was said and done, nothing but a joke.
Not long after he returned to the Newcomer Welcoming Pavilion, Kang Jingming, the newcomers' steward, soon posted the scoring for the first trial stage upon the public notice board, and before long a crowd of newcomers had gathered round to look.
Some were smug, some sighed; some were unmoved, some anxious—a regular pageant of human nature played out before their eyes.
Since the three pavilions of the Triplex Pavilion each kept separate scores, the newcomers of each pavilion concerned themselves only with the standings within their own. And in the Azure Cloud Pavilion, Wei Zhao's divine-grade full marks naturally left the rest in the dust, flinging Meng Zhou and all the rest, the runner-up included, far behind him.
Looking at that score, and hearing the others' gasps of admiration and envy at Wei Zhao's full marks, Meng Zhou—who had been so full of ambition, sworn to crush Wei Zhao and seize first place—was fairly choking with fury.
Wei Zhao had forty-five points, while he had only twenty-four. This was but the first stage, and already a gap of twenty-one points had opened up. Such an enormous disparity meant that across the remaining five stages, if Wei Zhao did not make some serious mistake, then no matter how hard Meng Zhou tried, he might well never be able to make it up.
In truth, with Meng Zhou's early Foundation Establishment strength, even though he had only just broken through and his foundation was unsteady, had no such misfortune as being caught in the backwash befallen him along the way, he could at the very least have held out the full three sticks of incense—or even, like Kang Jingming and Zhong Yongliang, the full four. In that case, even if he could not match Wei Zhao's divine-grade full marks, he would not have been left so far behind.
Alas, there is no "if" in this world. When a man's luck runs sour, even a mouthful of cold water will wedge itself between his teeth, and there is no stopping it. Meeting with such a thing, Meng Zhou could only count himself unlucky.
And as for complaining about Young Master Xu Lingchong? Lend him ten times the courage, and he still would not dare.
"Cousin Jiuming, you have to think of something for me—otherwise, with that idiot Wei Zhao lording it over us, neither of us will look good, will we!" Meng Zhou had no way out himself, so he could only turn to Meng Jueming for help.
Meng Jueming glanced at Wei Zhao in the distance, surrounded by Senior Brother Kubi and the others, chatting and laughing in their midst, and gave a cold, mocking laugh. "What are you in such a hurry for? Only one stage has passed. There will be plenty more chances to do him in. Once he is dead, what does it matter how many points he scored? Are they going to award first place to a dead man?"
"Do him in? Is that even possible?" Meng Zhou was startled at the words.
He had been set against Wei Zhao all along, true, but at most he had wanted to trample Wei Zhao underfoot and win back his face—he had never thought of simply having Wei Zhao killed. In fact, it was not only him: before this, even Meng Jueming had never harbored such a thought.