Chapter 4629 — The Second Steward
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
"I have put Senior Brother Jia to trouble. It was you who cancelled my delayed mission on my behalf, and Senior Brother Lu and Senior Brother Ku have said that when the conflict with Ma Dangfeng first broke out, it was thanks to Senior Brother Jia stepping in that matters were smoothed over. I have recorded that debt of gratitude on their behalf." Wei Zhao spoke gravely.
As he spoke, Wei Zhao set water to steep spirit tea. It was far from Shangguan Lan'er's professional handiwork, nor was it any rare treasure like Dewtip, but it was fine spirit tea nonetheless, and it still refreshed the palate and cleared the mind.
"Junior Brother Lin, you make too much of it. Lu Bianren and the others may be your senior brothers, but they are my junior brothers as well. Since the matter happened to fall before my eyes, it was only natural that I step in to stop it—otherwise I would have been branded a steward who holds his post and does nothing." Jia Mufan shook his head.
"Haha, be that as it may, I must thank Senior Brother Jia properly. To have a chief steward of the inner sect like you is a blessing for the Azure Cloud Pavilion." Wei Zhao smiled. Of the entire upper echelon of the Azure Cloud Pavilion, those he could bear to look at could be counted on one hand, and Jia Mufan was one of them.
"For that word alone, Junior Brother Lin, I shall have to bend my back to the task and serve till death." Jia Mufan laughed heartily, then said: "By the way, Junior Brother Lin, what do you plan to do next?"
"Plan?" Wei Zhao looked at him in bewilderment.
"I mean, have you any interest in taking up a post—say, second steward of the inner sect, or something of the kind? After all, with great power comes great responsibility!" Jia Mufan said, a meaning lurking beneath his words.
"Second steward of the inner sect?" Wei Zhao was taken aback. "Is that not Ma Dangfeng's position?"
"He is not suited to it." Jia Mufan spoke bluntly, without the least concealment. "Before you returned, he sat in that seat and no one could raise an objection. But now? How could he have the face to keep sitting there?"
"He has stepped down?" Wei Zhao understood at once. It was much the same as his own seizure of the Number One Residence of the inner sect: to this day no elder of the Azure Cloud Pavilion had come out to utter a word, the whole lot of them playing deaf and dumb. Those high-ups who had once proclaimed their support for Ma Dangfeng had surely shifted their ground the moment they heard of yesterday's affair. Truly, weathervanes in the wind.
"To be frank with you, yesterday I put a proposal before the council of elders of the Azure Cloud Pavilion: that Junior Brother Lin be made second steward of the inner sect. And the council nodded it through unanimously, from top to bottom." A note of mockery Jia Mufan could scarcely hide crept into his voice.
Recalling how those elders had behaved at the time, they were nothing but clowns capering on a stage—the same men who had once leapt and scrambled to hoist Ma Dangfeng into place were now falling over themselves to kick him while he was down. With such a pack holding the highest offices, if the Azure Cloud Pavilion could still prosper, then Heaven itself would be blind indeed!
Wei Zhao said nothing, only smiled coldly. These people had taken advantage of his absence to help Ma Dangfeng steal the Number One Residence, and that score was still unsettled—yet here they were, so eager to turn with the wind. Their eye for the way things were going was keen enough...
"I know full well that a post like this is beneath Junior Brother Lin's talents, but with your abilities it is no more than a stepping-stone!" (To be continued...)