Chapter 3943 — The Secret Was Discovered
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
"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!