"Junior Brother," the senior brothers said, "is what you're doing really right? Do you have no shred of a warrior's heart? This business of shouting 'stop thief' while you're the thief yourself—we simply cannot bring ourselves to do it."
I replied, "Do you even know how to talk? This is what I call seizing the initiative to confuse the enemy. Think about it: if they had gathered the spirit herbs, would they share any with us? Since they wouldn't share with us, we have no obligation to share with them. By that logic, we don't owe them anything; we are simply competing on equal footing, so there is no need for any guilty conscience."
I had gone to great lengths to get this group of honest people to speak against their own convictions. It was a rare use of my "bamboozling" technique on my own people. I told the senior brothers that the reason I wanted Senior Brother Tianjian to demand, "You've picked all the spirit herbs, why not give us our share?" was specifically to make them feel the same frustration we in the Jian Sect had been enduring.
Chapter 465