Chapter 3819 — Compare Goods, and One Gets Thrown Away
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
"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.