Ling Zhang had someone go to the summer house of the Ji family to send a message to Ji Feng, who had a scowl on his face at the news and returned to the city that very night to console his grandfather.
Ling Zhang spent two days with Yuwen Tong and then went back to the new manor, Yuwen Tong accompanying him.
As Ji Yin’s eyes fell on Yuwen Tong who was in disguise, a spasm crossed the corner of his mouth without anybody noticing.
“This is the date Old Master Ling, Uncle Ling and I agreed on. Please have a look, Mr. Ji.”
Yuwen Tong handed Ji Yin a piece of paper with the date he and Ling Zhang had fixed. Ji Yin took a look at it, did a quick mental calculation factoring in their Eight Characters (in four pairs, including the year, month, day and hour of a person’s birth, each pair consisting of one Heavenly Stem and one Earthly Branch, formerly used in fortune-telling), felt that there was nothing wrong with the date, and said, “Then let’s start going through the process. On this occasion, your family are supposed to make the first move.”
“I understand. I’m going back to the city to consult with my elder right now.”
“You mean with your second uncle?”
“At my request, my granduncle has agreed to be the representative. My other two uncles and aunts have moved into the residence of the Yuwen family temporarily to help me handle these things.”
Ji Yin looked at him with very admonitory eyes. “What about your second uncle?”
A brooding gleam of wildness could be faintly seen in Ji Yin’s eyes, which was a manifest indication of what consequences Yuwen Tong would have to take if he angered him.
“Rest assured, Mr. Ji, I’ll have everything properly handled.”
Yuwen Tong understood what Ji Yin’s warning meant. He was fully aware that unlike Ling Zhang’s other family members, Ji Yin had no misgivings and was a consummate kung fu expert to whom people’s lives meant nothing in some circumstances, and who could kill as he pleased. Taking the lives of Yuwen Zhi’s family was probably as simple as trampling a couple of ants to death. Ling Zhang was Ji Yin’s grandson, and also the only thing he cared about in the world outside the Millennium Pavilion. He’d have no scruples whatsoever about killing a couple of people for Ling Zhang’s sake.
Ji Yin believed that Yuwen Tong had understood his warning. The wild and murderous look in his eyes disappeared, and he appeared a genial old man once again.
…
“I’m going back to the city. You stay here and be patient. Make sure you’re accompanied by your bodyguards when you’re going elsewhere. Xie Shi is staying here as well. Wait for me to come back.”
When the two of them were alone, Yuwen Tong exhorted Ling Zhang to be careful, saying that he was going back to the city to consult with his family with the wedding, that he would return to this manor this very night if he could.
“What my grandfather meant was–”
“Mr. Ji said that for your good. I can totally understand.”
Ling Zhang, worrying that Yuwen Tong was under pressure due to Ji Yin’s words, wanted to say something but Yuwen Tong interrupted him. He could understand what Ji Yin had said that. If he were Ji Yin, he would have done it in an even more dramatic way. He himself was under the constraint of the promise he’d made previously, but it was his burden to bear and he didn’t want Ling Zhang to share it. He would have everything dealt with all on his own.
However, Ling Zhang was unable to set his mind at rest. He had a sneaking worry.
What with Yuwen Qi’s broken legs and Su Zhi’s death, both Yuwen Qi and Zheng shi hated Yuwen Tong to the core. Yuwen Zhi held him in contempt and was against this marriage from the very beginning, and had even stooped so low as to threaten his family. He had been on very bad terms with Yuwen Zhi all along. Afterwards, Yuwen Tong pressured Yuwen Zhi into breaking Yuwen Qi’s legs, threatening to disown them if he refused to do that, and there had been grudges between the two of them ever since. It could be said that their relations with Yuwen Zhi’s branch of the Yuwen family were so terrible that they literally couldn’t bear sharing the same house with each other. He knew this very well, and so did Yuwen Tong. Now that it was impossible for the two sides to live in the same residence, breaking up the family was inevitable.
But given the status of the Yuwen family, breaking it up wasn’t a simple thing. Back then when Yuwen Tong had been forcing Yuwen Zhi to make a decision after Yuwen Qi set a venomous snake on him, he’d prepared for breaking up the family, but at that time the conditions hadn’t been ripe for it, and forcibly breaking up the family would bring a lot of trouble –getting the emperor’s consent alone would cost them dear. Yuwen Zhi’s making concessions had actually been a mutually beneficial choice. But now the circumstances had changed. Shan Congwen had returned to the Wan Kingdom, and the terms of the truce between the two countries had become unchangeable.
Although Yuwen Tong had every intention of taking him back to the north-west after their wedding, from the vantage point of the present, it was very difficult for them to leave the capital city, unless the Wan Kingdom broke the truce. With Yuwen Tong himself in the capital city, Yuwen Zhi and his family were barely of any use to the emperor. Therefore, this time around, if Yuwen Tong went to the emperor and suggested he and his uncle divide up the Yuwen family and go their separate ways, the emperor’s reply to it would be directly linked with his next move. If the emperor disagreed, they would stand a chance of going to the north-west; if the emperor agreed, then it would be impossible for them to leave the capital city unless there was an outbreak of hostilities in the north-west, and Yuwen Tong would be in grave danger unless he handed over his command of the armies, and if he did that, he would be at the mercy of the emperor, like a toothless tiger. Ling Zhang was unwilling to see Yuwen Tong be reduced to that. To put it disrespectfully, he wanted Yuwen Tong to have enough power to protect himself, and if by any chance the emperor decided to kill him some day, Yuwen Tong could directly overthrow him and take over, which would obviously be a better choice than to wait to be killed after serving this country for so many years.
“Show some patience and don’t mention breaking up the family to the emperor yet, as long as they don’t make trouble for us.”
Yuwen Tong gazed fixedly at him and couldn’t help sweeping him into his embrace. “I’ll have to settle this matter sooner or later.”
Currently the emperor had some scruples, because it hadn’t been long since the war had been won. Sooner or later the emperor would make an excuse and relieve Yuwen Tong of his command, so he might as well break up the Yuwen family first. He had made some preparations for this some time ago. “Trust me.”
Ling Zhang kept silent. After quite a while, he nodded. “Whatever. I’ve decided to marry you anyway. No matter what the future holds, I’ll stay by your side.”
Delighted, Yuwen Tong narrowed his eyes and kissed Ling Zhang. “You may rest assured that I’ll keep you and our family safe.”
Cheeks wet with saliva due to the sloppy kisses, Ling Zhang felt uncomfortable and tried to push him aside.
“Let this hug last a little longer. I’m not sure if I could make it back here tonight. Alas, sleeping alone is such a torture.”
“How about I go back to the city with you?” Ling Zhang couldn’t help but suggest, feeling that without Yuwen Tong by his side, he would probably have trouble sleeping as well.
Yuwen Tong tightened his cuddle. He would be lying if he said that he didn’t want Ling Zhang to go with him. But a round trip to the city would be tiring, and he didn’t have the heart. Besides, he was unwilling to subject the person in his arms to the cold-shoulder that his uncle and the others would almost certainly give him if he went there. “That won’t be necessary. I’ll be quick about it.”
Now that he’d promised he’d come back soon, Yuwen Tong without further ado gave Ling Zhang another kiss and then departed.
Ling Zhang saw him to the front gates of the manor. Whitie the fox jumped onto his shoulder and, along with him, watched Yuwen Tong riding away with some men.
“He’s just left, and you began to miss him already?” Ji Yin voice came from behind him.
Ling Zhang hurriedly swiveled around and looked at him. “Grandfather.”
Ji Yin glanced in the direction Yuwen Tong had gone and said, “Rest assured, this lad of the Yuwen family is quite resourceful and wouldn’t let anybody get the best of him.”
Ling Zhang inwardly snickered. At first his grandfather had been formally addressing Yuwen Tong as “Marshal Yuwen”, and then he’d switched to Yuwen Tong’s full name, and now maybe because the date for their wedding had been fixed, he was calling him “this lad of the Yuwen family”.
“He’s a man who rose to the rank of marshal, turned an overwhelmingly unfavorable situation to the Great Yue’s advantage, and routed the Wan Kingdom. It’s impossible for the emperor to relieve him of his command easily. These years, the North-western Army has never run short of provisions or funds, and he brought down the Sixth Prince and the King Hui with great ease. This kid’s got a lot of tricks up his sleeve. There’s no telling which one of them will end up being the victim of artifice. Although he seems a lone wolf, it’s very likely that most courtiers have already been bought by him. He has troops, allies and the people’s respect…”
Ji Yin didn’t finish his remarks, but Ling Zhang had got a general idea of what he meant. Shocked, he looked left and right. After confirming that there was nobody else around, he heaved a sigh of relief.
“Don’t worry. Just go back to your room. Be patient and keep grandfather company for another couple of days.” Saying this, Ji Yin turned around and started heading back. Seeing Ling Zhang and the little white fox following him, he stroked his beard in contentment. What he hadn’t told Ling Zhang was that he felt Yuwen Tong was much more than what he seemed. Though he was not capable of foretelling the future as that prodigy had been, he also had the Blood of the Phoenix Clan and had reached the tenth layer of the mental cultivation method, so he could sense many things that common people couldn’t. There was something inside Yuwen Tong that had astounded him the first time they’d met each other, but he was still a little uncertain about it and had to wait until he returned to the Millennium Pavilion and had the clan leader take a look before he could draw a conclusion. ‘If that’s really the case, my grandson…Ha, maybe all these things were predestined. Why else would Yuwen Tong be engaged to my grandson?’ thought Ji Yin.
Ling Zhang had no idea what Ji Yin was thinking about. He just saw that the old man seemed to be thinking about something amusing, a smile at the corners of his mouth, as if smug about something. He took Whitie off his shoulder and held him to eye height, asking him with his eyes, “You know what my grandfather is thinking, Whitie?”
Whitie gazed at his master with his beady, liquid and black eyes, and whimpered softly, as if trying to make himself adorable.
Ling Zhang, “…”
Never mind. Whitie was just a common fox, not a fox spirit, and could never understand his question.
Somehow Whitie sensed his master’s disappointment, gave another cry, affectionately reached out a paw and lightly put it on Ling Zhang’s arm, wrapping his fluffy tail around Ling Zhang’s wrist, suggesting that he was a meek, well-behaved fox.
But as Ling Zhang’s eyes fell on a dirty pad mark on his forearm, he lapsed into silence, twisted his head aside to look at his shoulder and saw some more fox footprints.
“Where the heck have you been just now?”
Whitie raised his head and let a howl, seeming very happy.
Ling Zhang, “…”
It was no good trying to look cute. Had this little guy not saved his life in the Wu City, he would have begun to doubt that Whitie was of great inwardness.
Whatever. He was the one who’d chosen to raise this fox, and he had to keep him even if his inwardness had become vestigial.
He put Whitie back onto his shoulder, ignoring the fact that he would stain his robes further. ‘What eyes do not see is regarded as clean,’ as the saying goes.
Whitie, after returning to his shoulder, happily howled, walking back and forth. Then he sat down with a wag of his tail. This little fox, which had grown considerably but was actually still a ball of fur, tried his best to make himself appear imposing, sitting on his master’s shoulder, making an inspection tour of his territory.
He let out another long howl.
Importantly appraising the manor with his sparkling black eyes, he smugly raised his paw.
This belonged to him, and this, and this… All these belonged to him.
Of course, his master also belonged to him.
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