Chapter 3784 — The Second Round

"So does that mean you're letting me off the hook, Boss Meng Tong, and going straight after that worthless Qiao in the next round to stomp the deluded fool into the ground?" Zha Wu could not help but ask, his face full of hope.

Meng Tong was taken aback for a moment, then his expression turned strange. He shot Zha Wu a cold sneer. "When did I ever say that? Did I ever say I'd let you off? You weakling, don't go fooling yourself!"

"Huh?" Zha Wu froze on the spot, then hurriedly put on a fawning smile. "Boss Meng Tong, my heart's weak and I scare easy, so please don't joke with me!"

"Who's joking with you? You think I'm so idle that I'd waste time joking with a weakling like you?" Meng Tong sneered on and on, nothing at all like the smug, self-satisfied figure of a moment ago, basking in the flattery.

Hearing this, Zha Wu's mouth twisted with rage on the spot, a bellyful of curses lodged in his throat that he did not dare utter aloud.

My god! I wore my lips raw, poured out all that talk, and if you weren't going to agree, then what the hell were you nodding your head at me for? Must a man be this shameless? With that kind of character, what sort of newcomers' leader are you fit to be!

Meng Tong was obviously a simple-minded creature who by all rights should have been easy for Zha Wu to fool, and before this everything had been going along fine, yet now, without the slightest warning, he had suddenly gone back on his word—it truly caught a man off guard!

What Zha Wu did not know was that the fellow really was easy to fool, but Meng Jue Ming had warned him beforehand that real interests outweighed everything else. Even if he had truly believed Zha Wu's words and wanted to let him off, Meng Tong did not have the nerve to defy Meng Jue Ming's wishes.

One had to know that this steward and senior fellow disciple Meng Jue Ming was not only his ninth cousin, but also his sole patron. Once Meng Jue Ming opened his mouth, what did it matter how glibly a disliked weakling like Zha Wu talked?

Whether to listen to Meng Jue Ming or to this weakling Zha Wu—to Meng Tong, that was no choice at all.

At that cold laugh from Meng Tong, Zha Wu felt as though he had been plunged into an ice cellar, and could not help but shiver.

Before this, he had never imagined Meng Tong could be such a cold-blooded, domineering sort. He had pestered and fawned and flattered for so long, yet had failed to move the creature in the slightest—all that hard-earned talk, every last bit of it, had been a complete damn waste.

"Listen up, you weakling. Get ready to surrender nice and obedient in the next round. Of course, if you're unwilling, I don't mind showing a little of my methods to establish my authority—but whether you live or die then, I won't be responsible. Understand what I mean?" The smile on Meng Tong's face grew more and more ferocious.

Originally he had planned to make an example of Xiao Ran in the first round, but he had never expected Xiao Ran to be so slippery—the moment he saw the situation turn bad, he had voluntarily conceded. So now Meng Tong had a bellyful of energy with nowhere to spend it, and if Zha Wu were to unwittingly step forward at this moment, the outcome could well be imagined.

"Yes, yes, I understand. I'll take my leave, then." Though Zha Wu was cursing up a storm inside, paying his respects to every female ancestor of Meng Tong's family for eighteen generations, on the surface he still had to keep up a forced smile—except that smile, however one looked at it, was utterly miserable, a match for that miserable senior fellow disciple of theirs.

Matters having come to this point, there was no meaning in saying another word. However aggrieved and wretched Zha Wu felt inside, he could only pinch his nose and withdraw.

Thus it was that Meng Tong had already named his target: three points to be taken from Zha Wu. After him, Xiao Ran of Mountain-Low No. 15 Cave Dwelling would promptly take two more points from him. For Zha Wu, who now had only his starting score left and was destined to have a batch of points deducted in the spirit herb trial stage, a negative total across the first four assessment stages was all but certain—his prospects were bleak and dismal indeed.

Three days later, the second round of the newcomers' challenge tournament began as scheduled.

After the seven matchups of the first round, the situation of every Azure Cloud Pavilion newcomer had gradually become clear, and each of them knew in their hearts exactly what they should and should not do. So there was none of the previous deadlock where, if you did not move, I did not move either; instead, without any standoff at all, they went straight to battle.

At Mountain-Low No. 15 Cave Dwelling, Xiao Ran was now busy devoting himself to building his foundation. With his steady, reserved temperament, he would certainly not come out to issue a challenge before his foundation was successfully laid—he was not the sort of fool to tear down his own defenses.

At Mountain-Low No. 14 Cave Dwelling, Meng Tong indeed was the first to take the stage, and he named Zha Wu of Mountain-Low No. 13 Cave Dwelling as his challenge. Though this move was within reason, to the other newcomers it was more or less unexpected—after all, Meng Tong hardly seemed like such a calm, rational sort.

To abandon for a mere three points the vow of war he had declared against Qiao Hong Cai in the previous round—such back-and-forth behavior, treating face as a passing cloud, truly did not seem like something a simple-minded, show-off-loving creature like Meng Tong could do.

But no matter how others saw it, Meng Tong did exactly that, and from the look of it, he did not care in the least what people were saying.

Facing such an overbearing early-stage Foundation Establishment expert, a weakling like Zha Wu had no power to resist at all. Never mind that his strength was lacking to begin with—even if he truly had the power to put up a fight, in his current state, gravely wounded and not yet healed, he could not possibly stand and fight. He could only voluntarily concede.

Zha Wu conceded outright, and Meng Tong easily claimed three points and advanced to Mountain-Low No. 13 Cave Dwelling. This outcome was only natural, and no one found it the least bit surprising.

Though Meng Tong had gone back on his word, such things were long since commonplace in the treacherous world of cultivation and stirred little discussion. By contrast, Zha Wu, the weak party whose situation was wretched beyond words, instead became the target of the other newcomers' mockery and condemnation.

"Serves him right! The fellow thought he could seize an opportunity and turn a profit—what delusion. He knew perfectly well how feeble his strength was, yet he still dared to pull a stunt like this and challenge Wei Zhao on his own. Ha, only a weakling like that could dream it up!"

"Exactly. He never bothered to weigh what he's made of. Plenty of nerve, all right—pity it's in all the wrong places!"

"Right. Who doesn't know how to play an angle? But even playing an angle takes some strength to back it up. That idiot weakling overreached—if you haven't got the goods, why the hell climb the mountain at all?"

"People are all cheap like that! With his piddling bit of strength, he actually dared to exploit the gap between Senior Brother Meng and that posturing king Wei Zhao. 'Reckless of his own life' describes exactly this kind of fool. Heh heh, the way I see it, the fellow can't escape a negative score now—he can forget about ever entering the Azure Cloud Pavilion again!"

"Exactly. A posturing king like Wei Zhao—how could he possibly pass up such a fine moment to posture? But isn't this better? If even a weakling like this could sneak into the Azure Cloud Pavilion, our pavilion would be far too cheapened!" RS

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