Chapter 3959 — Framing a Fall Guy
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
"What are you getting at?" Wei Zhao's eyes narrowed slightly. With the conversation at this point, Ma Jian's dagger was surely about to show.
Sure enough, Ma Jian went on with ill intent: "May I venture this conjecture—because Meng Jueming pressured you, you harbored a grudge; or perhaps you wished to eliminate the threat. So you secretly sabotaged the protective formation of Mine No. 10, triggering a spiritual energy explosion, and used the collapse to do away with Meng Jueming?"
Clap, clap, clap! Wei Zhao gave a faint smile and applauded a few times, then said unhurriedly, "Fine imagination—but pinning a collapse that happens once in a thousand years on a mere new disciple like me is rather too bold a leap, don't you think? Besides, as I recall, the Law Enforcement Hall looks only at evidence. If you can produce none, may I take these words of yours as slander and countersue before the Hall's superiors?"
"You want evidence?" Ma Jian's face twisted into a savage grin. "Then I'll give you evidence. Few people go to the dead shaft of Mine No. 10, but you seem to have forgotten one thing—besides you and Meng Jueming, there were two guards in the mine who witnessed everything! They testified in person that before the collapse, you were wandering all over Mine No. 10, completely out of character, not mining properly at all. Need I say it? That was your preparation for triggering the collapse. Is this evidence not enough?"
Wei Zhao fell silent. Ma Jian's words and conjectures were undoubtedly prompted by Xu Lingchong's instructions to make trouble for him—but for that very reason, it was like a blind shot that had hit the murderer dead on. However far-fetched the reasoning and the so-called evidence might appear, in the end it came almost exactly to the truth.
Even now, Ma Jian himself had not realized that this elaborate framing of his was, in fact, the truth.
A deeply buried killing intent flashed past. Wei Zhao suddenly raised his head and looked the man straight in the eye. "I'll say it again: your imagination is truly fertile—only rather too fertile. The reason I was wandering about was purely that Meng Jueming kept pestering me. He wouldn't let me mine in peace, badgering me the whole time. I had no choice but to endure it."
"Hmph. Facing disaster and still trying to quibble—what a fantasy. Do you think I'll believe you?" Ma Jian laughed on, cold and cackling.
Wei Zhao looked at him with a half-smile, and said mildly, "Believe me or don't, it's all the same to me. A mere new disciple, I took a casual stroll around Mine No. 10, and lo—a collapse, and Meng Jueming dead by it. Tell that tall tale to anyone, and you may guess what they'll think."
It was the truth, yes—but no sane person would believe such an absurd truth. If a mere new disciple could so easily shatter layer upon layer of protective formations and cause a mine collapse, then that pack of fools at the Spirit Jade Hall would long since have been disbanded by the Council of Elders. R1152