Chapter 3801 — Nearly Vomiting Blood

"These two again?" Hu Yunfeng came over at the news and, looking at Qiao Hongcai and Meng Tong on the platform, both of them battered and bloody, was struck speechless on the spot.

He and Meng Jiuming exchanged a glance, but this time Hu Yunfeng had no room left to confer with Meng Jiuming in private.

After all, the same situation had already arisen in the previous round; to preserve his shining image of impartiality, he, the Pavilion Master of the Greeting Pavilion, could only follow the ruling he had laid down last round.

Otherwise, the moment he changed his tune, the very position he had announced just one round ago would be slapped down by his own hand this round—and once word of that got out, it would be not merely a joke, but a joke that interested parties could ferment and simmer until heaven knew what storms it stirred up.

Though Meng Jiuming had now thrown in his lot with Young Master Xu, and Hu Yunfeng did indeed harbor some thought of drawing him in, the precondition was that it must not affect his own prospects; otherwise, when his own future was at stake, to say nothing of a mere Meng Jiuming, even Young Master Xu's face was not something he would necessarily spare.

Clearing his throat, Hu Yunfeng announced, "Though both sides of this duel have suffered grievous injury, in accordance with the precedent from the previous round, where the challenger was judged the victor, I, as Pavilion Master, hereby declare that the winner of this factory challenge tournament is—Qiao Hongcai, of Cave Dwelling Thirteen at the foot of the mountain."

At these words, Meng Jiuming's face turned as black as the bottom of a pot. He had spent precious capital to feed Meng Tong a fourth-grade Great Return Pill, and not only had the boy failed to kill Qiao Hongcai, but the other side had turned his own trick back upon him, snatching back four points and claiming the victory outright!

Such a miserable business—just thinking about it was enough to make Meng Jiuming nearly spew a mouthful of old blood.

One had to understand that this duel had not merely been a contest of superiority between Meng Tong and Qiao Hongcai; the two of them equally represented the face of Meng Jiuming and the face of Wei Zhao.

Meng Tong, the most capable of Meng Jiuming's new recruits, had lost to a mere underling of Wei Zhao's—so where was the steward senior brother Meng Jiuming supposed to put his face?

But the matter was already settled; however suffocated Meng Jiuming felt, he did not dare raise any objection to Hu Yunfeng's words in public.

After all, Hu Yunfeng was likewise one of Young Master Xu's men, backed by the same patron; his standing and strength were far above Meng Jiuming's, and he was, moreover, his direct superior. Who answered to whom was plain at a glance. Had Meng Jiuming failed to grasp even this, he could never have earned Young Master Xu's favor in the first place.

The same Qiao Hongcai and Meng Tong, the same mutual ruin—last round Hu Yunfeng had black-heartedly ruled Meng Tong the winner, and barely three days later he had met his comeuppance on the spot. The irony of the scene was exquisite.

If in the previous round Qiao Hongcai's being judged the loser had drawn a measure of sighs from those present, then now, with the same fate befalling Meng Tong, the crowd felt not the least sense of injustice; instead, they had a vague sense that this slap in the face was deeply satisfying.

One must not forget that these new recruits had all nominally thrown in their lot under Meng Jiuming's banner, belonging to the same camp as Meng Tong—only that Meng Tong, the self-styled leader of the new recruits, was simply too foul in character and too poor in standing.

Not only did Li Zhengming, whom he had repeatedly fleeced, refuse to submit to him, but the other new recruits likewise gave him no purchase. If Meng the Great Newcomer ever learned of this outcome, heaven only knew what he would make of it.

Yet for Meng Tong, the present situation was not entirely a bad thing: while he had four points docked, his cave-dwelling ranking had also fallen back to Cave Dwelling Thirteen at the foot of the mountain—landing him behind Qiao Hongcai and handing the initiative back to him.

And more crucially, though he was once again mired in the awkward position of grave injury, with Xiao Ran—that champion of Wei Zhao's—planted at his back, leaving him utterly without power to fight back should he be challenged, he had already been challenged once today by Qiao Hongcai; by the rules of the challenge tournament, he had the right to decline any further challenges.

In other words, even if Xiao Ran wanted to drop a stone down the well, this round at least he had no chance to do so. That was, at any rate, a rare piece of good news.

With a veteran hand like Meng Jiuming about, Xiao Ran's early-Foundation-stage strength had already been seen through in the previous round when he faced Zha Wu; and judging by his prior foundation at the consummate Heaven Rank, even among early-Foundation-stage cultivators, Xiao Ran's true fighting strength was likely above Qiao Hongcai's.

This was plain from the previous round, when Xiao Ran had sent Zha Wu flying off the platform without so much as lifting a finger. Qiao Hongcai, who had likewise only just succeeded in Foundation Establishment, or even Meng Tong, who had been at the stage for some time, could not have managed anything so fluid and effortless.

A single Qiao the Trash had already fought Meng Tong to mutual ruin two rounds running; add another Xiao Ran, stronger still, and whether it was Meng Tong at the front taking the brunt or Meng Jiuming standing behind the scenes, all they could do was swallow the humiliation.

And the most ironic part was that these two were merely Wei Zhao's underlings. Wei Zhao himself need not lift a finger—his two subordinates alone had already thrown Meng Jiuming and Meng Tong into complete disarray.

The august steward senior brother of the Azure Cloud Pavilion's new recruits, future third Pavilion Master of the Greeting Pavilion, laid low and addled by the mere underlings of a newcomer from the secular world—how was a man to bear such a thing?

Though thanks to the challenge tournament rules, Meng Tong had escaped disaster this round, what to do next round remained utterly beyond him.

Qiao Hongcai before him and Xiao Ran behind him, caught in such a pincer, Meng Tong did not dare shift so much as an inch.

If he struck upward, he could either keep grinding away at Qiao Hongcai to the death or leap past Qiao Hongcai and go straight for new recruits with higher cave-dwelling rankings, seizing more points—but in either case, after the challenge he would inevitably be set upon by whichever of Qiao Hongcai or Xiao Ran saw his chance.

If he simply held his current Cave Dwelling Thirteen at the foot of the mountain and did not move, then Qiao Hongcai indeed had no right to challenge him of his own accord—but one must not forget that Xiao Ran, blocking his rear, did; and then, to say nothing of being dragged into yet another fight to the death, the challenge points he could ultimately scrape together would be pitifully few.

In this challenge-tournament phase, Wei Zhao, the fool, had uncharacteristically woven a cocoon around himself, and with great difficulty had left Meng Tong a chance to overtake him on points. Yet if Meng Tong kept tangling with these two underlings of Wei Zhao's, that once-in-a-lifetime opening would slip right past him.

After all, the challenge tournament had only eighteen rounds in total, and this was already the fourth. If he did not hurry and find a way to shake off Qiao Hongcai and Xiao Ran, then Meng Tong would have no way at all to seize the hundred-odd points he had envisioned; at this rate, to draw level with Wei Zhao, let alone overtake him, was sheer fantasy.

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