Chapter 3967 — Hosting the Birthday Banquet
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 3
"Hm?" Shangguan Lan'er was briefly taken aback. She knew very well that her junior brother Wei Zhao was the thorn in Xu Lingchong's side and the bane of his flesh. Would this creature really be so kind as to volunteer an invitation for Wei Zhao to attend her birthday banquet?
"Didn't you say, Lan'er, that you wanted to repay him for his kindness? Ordinarily a bottom-tier newcomer with no standing like him would have no right whatsoever to attend such a high-class banquet of the upper circles. If you give him this chance, then together with the help you gave him before, the debt of gratitude ought to be squared, no?" Xu Lingchong explained with a sinister smile.
That was, of course, not his true intent. A flash of inspiration had struck him, and he had suddenly hit upon a brilliant scheme for dealing with Wei Zhao.
However savage Wei Zhao's strength might be, in the end he was nothing but a mere newcomer of the Qingyun Pavilion, utterly beneath the notice of high society.
But if Wei Zhao were invited to a birthday banquet thronged with the Sandie Pavilion's top echelon, and made to disgrace himself before all of them—given a proper humiliating dressing-down on the spot, so that Shangguan Lan'er could see this creature's true, lowly, and pitiful face—would that not be killing two birds with one stone?
Moreover, once Wei Zhao left a bad impression in the eyes of the Sandie Pavilion's elite, then even if he entered the inner sect thereafter, he would have no prospects of advancement whatsoever.
"All right then, let's do it that way." Shangguan Lan'er agreed at once, without hesitation.
She could not be bothered to guess at whatever despicable motive Xu Lingchong might be harboring. Wei Zhao would surely be able to handle himself when the time came; and at the very worst, with her—the guest of honor—present, there was no way he would suffer any great loss.
"Very well." Xu Lingchong smiled a deep, dark smile, thinking to himself: then let us sit back and enjoy the show.
Meanwhile, in another quarter: several days had passed since Meng Jueming's death, and the struggle for power within the Yingxin Pavilion had finally begun to take shape.
Of all the positions in the Yingxin Pavilion today, the one that drew the most attention was none other than that of the Third Pavilion Master—a weighty seat that had belonged to Meng Jueming, and that had been abruptly left vacant by his death.
Some had once supposed that the former Third Pavilion Master, Lu Bianren, might have a chance to make a comeback. He had, after all, been driven out by Meng Jueming in the first place; now that Meng Jueming was gone and the newcomers of the Qingyun Pavilion were in a state of panic, it was not impossible that the higher-ups might recall this former official to steady the situation.
Yet the appointment that came down from within the Qingyun Pavilion today left every jaw hanging.
Lu Bianren—the former Third Pavilion Master whom Meng Jueming had driven out, reduced to the bedraggled state of a stray dog—had now received his newest posting: promotion to the post of second senior brother and steward of the Qingyun Pavilion.
This appointment truly caught everyone off guard. Even the long-suffering Senior Brother and Wei Zhao—fellow disciples of Lu Bianren's faction—were nearly struck dumb when they first heard of it.
The second senior brother and steward of the Qingyun Pavilion occupied, within that pavilion, precisely the position Xu Lingchong now held in the Chongtian Pavilion. Strictly speaking, it was a post of the same rank as Third Pavilion Master of the Yingxin Pavilion, so Lu Bianren's transfer could be counted a lateral move.