Chapter 4371 — The Ledger of Evidence
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
"This humble one… has…" Chai Laoshi had meant to hold back, but he could no longer withstand Wei Zhao's overawing presence and could only grit his teeth and confess—for if he concealed it and it came to light, he dared not wager whether this fiend of a man before him, brimming with menace, might not settle his account along with the rest.…
"Let me see it." Wei Zhao's eyes lit up at once. He had asked only on impulse, by way of experiment, never expecting there truly was such a thing—an unexpected delight.
"Yes, if you would wait a moment." At this point Chai Laoshi had nothing left to hesitate over; seeing Wei Zhao nod, he turned at once and went back into his room to fetch the evidence he had secretly gathered.
However honest and timid a man may be, he has his temper. Bullied by Wei Zhaotong for all these years, a vice-steward of a branch guild reduced to utter powerlessness and left to idle, then beaten and bedridden for a full month—had Chai Laoshi truly been able to swallow such rancor, his spiritual resolve would surely have been enough to attain immortality.
And so over the years, though Chai Laoshi took part in nothing, turning a blind eye to it all, withdrawing wherever Wei Zhaotong went, in secret he had been gathering evidence all the while, biding his time.
It was only a pity that Wei Zhaotong had backers at the Central Isle headquarters, while Chai Laoshi had scarcely met a handful of the higher-ups, let alone possessed any powerful patron. Even with a fistful of evidence in hand, he had never dared act.
There was no help for it: strike a snake and fail to kill it, and you suffer its venom. Chai Laoshi could not withstand Wei Zhaotong's reprisal. Grievous as his lot was now, a wretched life was better than a brave death; at any rate it beat throwing his life away on rash action.
A short while later Chai Laoshi returned, a ledger in his hands.
"This is the evidence?" Wei Zhao glanced at Chai Laoshi, took the ledger, and flipped through it at random—and was at once baffled, for the bookkeeping here was utterly peculiar, one might even say a chaotic jumble. After all, no man can master another's trade, and Wei Zhao had never made a study of such matters; he could make neither head nor tail of it.
"Yes." Chai Laoshi watched Wei Zhao's expression warily. This evidence was the fruit of years of his toil, a mighty weapon capable of bringing Wei Zhaotong down—but on one condition: it must fall into the hands of a powerful man.
For evidence is dead, while men are alive. In the hands of an ordinary person, this evidence would be useless, for Wei Zhaotong could readily use his backing at the Central Isle headquarters to have it ruled a forgery.
This was precisely why Chai Laoshi had never dared bring the evidence out rashly—he feared this Ling Yi's abilities were unequal to the task, and feared still more that this so-called honorary vice-chairman might not be genuine at all, but a swindler.
Yet for all his misgivings, Chai Laoshi was in the end not a bold man. Before Wei Zhao's commanding presence, he had at last been forced to speak the truth.
Wei Zhao pored over the ledger, looking again and again, then turned to Chai Laoshi and said, "Suppose you tell me what this ledger actually says—what evidence of Wei Zhaotong's crimes it records."
Every custom on Cloud Terrace Isle followed the ancient ways. What this ledger employed were no Arabic numerals, as the mortal realm had long since made universal, but the counting-rod notation, the most formal system of olden times. (To be continued…)
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