“I’m not eating this!”
Yuwen Qi violently swept the bowls and chopsticks off the table, which then dropped down to the ground with a mixture of clanks and smashes, rice and dishes scattered everywhere.
“What are these things? You call them food? How dare you offer me this kind of meal? Are you courting death?!”
Without even a slight frown, the guard looked at him, a calm look on his face. “We can’t afford to let anybody of Ling family know about your presence here. There’s no alternative food.”
This meal, which had been specially prepared by the chef of Ling family, was meant for the Marshal. ‘It’s of better quality than that of any other people in Ling family. Yet he still thinks this is not good enough?’
The guard felt that Yuwen Qi was even pickier than the emperor.
“I want to see my cousin!” Yuwen Qi said angrily.
“Marshal is occupied. He doesn’t have the time.” After saying this, the guard cleared the food, chopsticks, pieces of bowls from the ground with a broom and a dustpan, and then left.
Angered, Yuwen Qi kept yelling for quite a long time but nobody showed up. Eventually, he thundered, “You goddamn lackeys! How dare you treat me like this! One day when I return to the capital city, I’ll skin each and every one of you alive with my bare hands!”
Yuwen Tong, who was sitting in his study, distantly heard the yelling from the wing-room and observed in a bland tone of voice, “Let him be. I’d pay to see him starve himself to death.”
“Yes, Marshal,” the guard answered, feeling that Yuwen Qi had got his just deserts.
Yuwen Qi cursed loudly for a long time, but there was still nobody coming to his service. Consumed with rage, he gave the table a kick and overturned it. “Bastards!”
Then he slumped down to the chair. His movement was so precipitous that it tensed his injured wrist, his face twisted with anguish. As he recalled that Yuwen Tong had wounded him for a man from an obscure family, the fury inside him went more unbearable. Realizing that he was under house arrest in this room where no help of any form was accessible to him, he nearly spat blood due to the rage.
‘No. I can’t just stay locked up here. I’ve got to find a way out.’
Yuwen Qi fished a bamboo tube out of his pocket and stared at it for a while, a sneer on his face.
…
At dusk, Ling Zhang finished dinner earlier than usual, roughly washed and then bade the servants to make preparations for the medicated bath.
“All necessary arrangements have been made according to your instructions. There should be rumors on the streets by tomorrow. Young Master…Young Master?”
Puzzled, Xia Feng looked at Ling Zhang whose mind seemed to be wandering. There had been very few occasions when he saw Ling Zhang act like this, so he was somewhat surprised. “What’s the matter, Young Master?”
On hearing Xia Feng’s voice, Ling Zhang collected his thoughts and hurriedly asked, “What?”
“All necessary arrangements have been made according to your instructions. There should be rumors on the streets by tomorrow.”
Ling Zhang nodded, “I see. You’ve done a good job.”
With a worried look on his face, Xia Feng looked at him. “Young Master, are you tired?”
Cheeks burning slightly, Ling Zhang gave a soft cough and replied, “I’m fine. You may leave.”
Xia Feng was still somewhat concerned. “Then call my name aloud if you need me. I’ll be here immediately.”
“Okay. Just go.”
Xia Feng watched Ling Zhang’s face carefully for a few moments. Confirming that there was indeed nothing wrong, Xia Feng took his leave. Hot water for the medicated bath had to be prepared in advance, and two of Ling Zhang’s servants were occupied with something else, so Xia Feng had to keep a watch on the fire.
The moment Xia Feng left, Ling Zhang gave a gasp of relief and looked around. Seeing that there was nobody else nearby, he raised his hand and held his forehead. Lingering heat of the previous flush on his cheeks could still be felt.
‘Yuwen Tong is such a brazen hooligan. Why did he say those shameless to me?’ On the thought that he and Yuwen Tong would be half-naked in the same bathing pool in a while, Ling Zhang felt terribly uneasy.
On the first two occasions when he took a medicated bath, he concentrated his mind on fighting against the pains caused by unblocking meridians, and he directly blacked out at the end of the process without any chance to see what Yuwen Tong was wearing. But during the last medicated bath, he didn’t pass out, and he surprisedly saw that Yuwen Tong was wearing only a pair of shorts just like him!
At that time he had no suspicions, believing that Yuwen Tong just didn’t want to wet his clothes, but now…
“Put your coat on!”
The whole bathroom was filled with billows of steam. Yuwen Tong began to undress the moment he entered. Ling Zhang’s eyelids twitched involuntarily as he saw this. When Yuwen Tong was taking his coat off, Ling Zhang couldn’t help yelling at him with alarm.
Yuwen Tong paused, watching Ling Zhang who had been sitting in the bathing pool with almost his whole body in water for quite some time. “Why? I’d like it to stay dry.”
He made this remark in a serious tone of voice, as if he really minded his clothes getting wet.
“I’m not giving you any particular reason. Just put it on.” Ling Zhang insisted.
“You’re so difficult to deal with,” said Yuwen Tong, walking over with a resigned look on his face. He stepped into the pool full of medicated bathwater and stared at Ling Zhang’s shoulders and neck above the surface of the water with his keen, sparkling eyes.
Beneath his gaze, Ling Zhang felt uneasy and couldn’t help moving a step backwards in the pool. “Where are you looking at?”
“We’re both men. The previous few times we did this, you were not so hard to get along with.”
‘What a nerve.’ Ling Zhang shot a dark glance at him. “Stop playing dumb. You know what you said in the tea house that day.”
Yuwen Tong’s eyebrows slightly lifted. “What did I say?”
Ling Zhang clenched his teeth. ‘Jerk.’
“Don’t touch anywhere you’re not supposed to or else I’ll kick your ass.”
Yuwen Tong could barely forbear to laugh. With a sulky look on his face, he observed, “You’re trying to gauge the heart of a gentleman with the mean measure of vile characters.”
The corners of Ling Zhang’s mouth twitched. ‘This is the gentleman everybody’s been talking about? Bah! He’s nothing but a shameless hooligan.”
“Get over here. There’s somewhere I have to go after unblocking your meridians,” urged Yuwen Tong, poker-faced.
Ling Zhang fell speechless.
He turned around and moved to Yuwen Tong’s side.
Yuwen Tong stretched out his hands and held his shoulders.
As if some kind of weird feeling had just swept over him, Ling Zhang felt a shiver from head to toe and let out a cry of alarm. “What are you doing!”
Taken aback by his overreaction, Yuwen Tong slapped him on the arm. “What’s wrong with you? I’m trying to adjust your posture here.”
“Just tell me where I should move. I’ll do it myself.”
“With this uncooperative attitude of yours, you won’t be able to get your posture right even if I give you half a day. Okay, it’s done. Just sit cross-legged like this.”
Yuwen Tong moved his hands off the shoulders of Ling Zhang.
Ling Zhang relaxed slightly and sat cross-legged, but he could still feel Yuwen Tong’s fervent gaze from behind.
After a while, Yuwen Tong still didn’t begin. Ling Zhang turned his head back and asked in surprise, “What’s the matter?”
“I need a moment to calm down.”
“What?”
‘What did he mean?’ Ling Zhang was puzzled.
After a few moments, Yuwen Tong said, “Okay. Let’s get down to business. When we get started, get rid of all distracting thoughts and concentrate your mind on feeling my internal energy circulating in your meridians, which will prove helpful for you to comprehend the breathing exercises I’m going to teach you in the future.”
This time, Yuwen Tong’s tone of voice was very sober, and Ling Zhang felt that the fervent gaze was no longer there.
After a brief trance of surprise, Ling Zhang answered, “Okay.” Unconsciously, he had also cooled down.
“Now collect your thoughts and concentrate your mind.”
Sitting still, Ling Zhang adjusted his breathing and gradually got all distracting thoughts out of his mind. “I’m ready.”
He had just finished the last word when Yuwen Tong pressed his palms against his back. Originally, he had thought that he would feel uneasy when Yuwen Tong’s palms came into contact with his body, but to his surprise, he didn’t feel anything special. And then a stream of warm internal energy slowly flew into him through the palms of Yuwen Tong. With this familiar feeling setting in, he quickly got into gear.
On the three previous occasions when Yuwen Tong helped unblock Ling Zhang’s meridians, he always cautiously kept his internal energy under control and circulated it in Ling Zhang’s meridians at a low speed, but since his meridians had been considerably broadened after the three previous baths, this time the warm stream of internal energy was flowing rapidly and freely inside him, which was a very marvelous feeling.
Following Yuwen Tong’s instructions, Ling Zhang began to memorize the names of the acupoints that the stream had passed as well as the route of the circulation. Unconsciously, as the internal energy circulated inside him, his breathing gradually changed. The circulation of internal energy and his breathing were following the same pattern.
Yuwen Tong, who had an uncommonly keen sense of hearing, noticed the change of Ling Zhang’s breathing, a glimmer of smile in his eyes.
‘Ling Zhang is indeed very smart. Some people need a long time to get the hang of this breathing exercise, but he began to slowly grasp the regularity in it in such a short time after concentrating his mind,’ Yuwen Tong thought.
Both of the two people were in deep concentration, attentively unblocking the meridians.
Time passed by bit by bit. After two hours, the medicated bathwater gradually became clean. Ling Zhang’s lower abdomen, where his Dantian was, felt comfortably warm, and his five senses had been enhanced significantly again. He could distinctly make out what the two servants beside the stove chamber were talking about.
“How do you feel?” Yuwen Tong asked him after withdrawing his internal energy.
“My Dantian feels very warm, and I can hear more distant sounds more clearly,” replied Ling Zhang delightedly. He had completely forgot those disagreements that he had had with Yuwen Tong previously.
“You were performing the special breathing exercise just now because of my internal energy inside you and the help of the medicine. That warm stuff you felt in your Dantian is a small amount of prototypical internal energy. It’ll start to grow when you begin cultivating internal energy. You’ll feel it by then.”
On hearing that there was a small amount of prototypical internal energy in his Dantian, Ling Zhang rejoiced. He lowered his head to look at his abdomen, curiously stroking it.
The look in Yuwen Tong’s eyes gradually changed as he watched Ling Zhang stroking his own belly. His composure was dissolving, his breathing growing heavy. Yuwen Tong decisively rose to his feet and left the bathing pool. “Okay. Go outside and get some fresh air. Change clothes and have some rest.”
Having heard him stand up, Ling Zhang turned around to look at him. “You’re going out now?”
“Yeah.”
“There won’t be any danger, right?”
“Nothing’s going to happen. I’ll be back by early morning.”
“What is it that you want to investigate?”
“Just some tail-in work I have to handle. Yao Yi has already departed for the capital city. There are still some matters requiring my presence.”
Yuwen Tong didn’t tell Ling Zhang any details because he didn’t want him to worry, while Ling Zhang didn’t persist with his questioning because he trusted Yuwen Tong. There was a kind of curious tacit agreement between the two.
“Well, then. Be careful. By the way, is it okay to lock Yuwen Qi up in a mere wing-room?”
“Some of my men are guarding him. Yuwen Qi is a known troublemaker. Don’t go there, for your own sake.”
“I’d never do that,” responded Ling Zhang, affecting an affirmation he didn’t feel. ‘It’s so strange. How did he come to know I want to talk to Yuwen Qi?’ he wondered.
Ling Zhang just intended to worm some information out of Yuwen Qi. Since Yuwen Qi had once said that the emperor wanted to betroth the princess to Yuwen Tong, he wanted to find out some details. Hopefully, he might be able to figure out a way to have Yuwen Tong cool down his fevered desire to marry him.
Yuwen Tong flicked a glance at him, the look in his eyes seeming to be suggesting – “It’s written right on your face.”
The corners of Ling Zhang’s mouth twitched, and he got a feeling that Yuwen Tong was like a devil capable of reading people’s mind.
“Fine. I promise I won’t go there. Just go and do what you’ve got to do lest anything be delayed.”
Yuwen Tong picked up his clothes, turned around and left the bathroom.
When Yuwen Tong was out of sight, Ling Zhang walked out of the bathing pool, intending to quickly ran to his bedroom to get changed.
Unexpectedly, Yuwen Tong abruptly returned and Ling Zhang, who was just about to exit the bathroom, ran squarely into him. Yuwen Tong instantly held him in his arms.
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