Chapter 3596 — A Slap in the Face

"And what if the difference is more than five taels? What happens then?" Wei Zhao thought for a moment and asked again.

"Then you get taken aside for inspection, and stripped bare for a body search!" The guard gave a chuckle, then looked at Wei Zhao with a teasing grin. "Young brother, asking about all this—don't tell me you've secretly stashed away some spirit jades?"

"You joke, senior brother. With searches that strict going in and out, there's nowhere on a man to hide anything even if he wanted to! And if you don't hide it on yourself but in the mine instead, what's the difference from not hiding it at all? You still can't carry it out!" Wei Zhao laughed easily. "Besides, with two guard brothers as diligent and dutiful as you standing watch here, I'd never get the chance anyway!"

"That's right! Heh heh, young brother, you've got the truth of it. Our Spirit Jade Hall's rules are strict as can be—ordinary folk haven't the slightest chance of sneaking spirit jades out, and newcomers like you with no backing at all shouldn't even dream of it! Only those with connections reaching to the heavens and a network thick as roots might have a sliver of a chance. Tsk tsk, the way of the world!" The guard sighed, half envious, half resentful.

Hearing this, Wei Zhao found himself thinking of someone—Meng Jueming! From what he had seen so far, that fellow seemed to have things well in hand throughout the Spirit Jade Hall. He must be one of those "thick-rooted connections" the guard was talking about!

With a character like Meng Jueming's, the senior steward brother might well risk it all on a venture! Wei Zhao's heart stirred, though the thought passed in a flash. The pressing matter was still to learn the ins and outs of the Spirit Jade Hall's rules first.

Through a roundabout line of questioning, Wei Zhao managed to draw quite a bit of information from this talkative guard. It might not prove especially useful, but at least he now had some idea of what he might face ahead.

Half an hour later, Wei Zhao followed the two guards out of Mine Shaft Ten—and to his surprise, there stood Meng Jueming and his group, right at the hand-in point by the storeroom door.

Mine Zone Ten was the most remote of the zones; Zones Seven and Eight, where those men worked, were much closer, so it was no wonder they had returned before Wei Zhao. But from the look of them, they had already handed in and weighed their haul. Yet they were still waiting here—that was puzzling.

But once he made out the gleeful malice written plainly across every face in the group, Wei Zhao understood at once what these bastards were after. Damn them—they had gathered here as a pack to watch him make a fool of himself!

"Well now, our strongest newcomer finally emerges. I thought you'd found no spirit jades and been so ashamed you wanted to die, and in a fit of rage bashed your brains out against a dead mine wall!" The moment Wei Zhao appeared, Meng Tong leapt out to mock him.

"Meng Tong, what kind of talk is that!" Meng Jueming scolded with feigned severity, then went on: "Our strongest newcomer here has truly inherited the mantle of our Miserable Junior Brother. Even if he were ashamed to death, he'd at most hide inside and play the shrinking turtle—how could he possibly bash his brains out? Really, such a way with words! Can't you see Miserable Junior Brother is still alive and well? That whole faction of theirs, what is it they like to be? Something from that little picture book someone brought over from the mortal world... ah yes, the Ninja Turtles!"

"Oh, right right, Ninja Turtles! Ninth Cousin sees people true as always! But this posturing newcomer has a thick hide—maybe he'll only learn what shame to death means when the weighing comes!" Meng Tong cackled in chorus, and the crowd around them burst into laughter. After a hard day's labor, they were only too glad to find a little superiority by taking the ever-showy Wei Zhao down a peg.

"Seems your days aren't so easy, young brother!" The guard shook his head with a laugh at the spectacle and led Wei Zhao to the hand-in point. He handed the ledger to the worker in charge of weighing and gestured for Wei Zhao to tip the spirit jades from his basket onto the platform of the great scale beside them.

"Heh heh, guess how many catties of spirit jade our posturing newcomer pulled out today. I'll start—three catties!" Meng Tong called out, stirring up the crowd.

The others were instantly amused. All of them had weighed in earlier; even the least had twenty catties, and those assigned to Mine Zone Seven like Meng Tong and Li Zhengming had over thirty. For a newcomer's first day of mining, those numbers were already respectable.

"Brother Tong, that's not right of you—we're all fellow disciples, after all. I say it must be four catties at least!" Li Zhengming chimed in.

"I bet five catties!"

"I bet four and a half!"

"..."

As the crowd clamored, Wei Zhao could not be bothered with them. He swung the basket off his back and poured its contents—fully thirty or forty spirit jades—rattling onto the scale platform, and in an instant the lot of them fell silent.

"Forty-two catties, five taels!" The worker recorded the figure, checked it against the ledger, found a discrepancy of only two taels, and nodded for Wei Zhao to return the jades to his basket. "No problem," he said, waving him through.

Wei Zhao let out a breath. His heart had been hanging in the balance all this while, and he had not expected to pass so easily—a relief that left him a little surprised as well.

On reflection, though, the mine zones were vast and the miners numerous; checking by weight alone was already remarkably strict. To verify it any more carefully would bury everyone in the Spirit Jade Hall under an avalanche of work. Besides, the rigorous searches in and out already cut off most attempts to smuggle jades, so this was, properly speaking, no more than an auxiliary oversight.

Wei Zhao breathed easy, but the others present—Meng Tong's lot especially—were left in an ugly spot. They stared at the vivid red number on the great scale and for a long moment could not find their voices.

Forty-two catties, five taels! What kind of figure was that? It simply crushed every one of them. Even Meng Tong, who had received pointers from Meng Jueming, had weighed in at only thirty-five catties!

"Th-this has to be cheating! How could a dead mine zone possibly yield this many spirit jades!" Meng Tong could not help crying out.

Cheating? How would one even cheat at this? Sneak one's own spirit jades in through all that trouble, mix them in, and pass them off as one's own haul? Who would be that sick in the head!

Seeing the strange looks the others turned on him, Meng Tong realized he had just said something utterly idiotic. Even Meng Jueming was looking at him as though he were a hopeless fool beyond saving.