Chapter 138: The Occurrence of a Squabble
After the other members of his family left, Ling Zhang held Yuwen Tong’s sleeve. “Stop being angry, okay?”
“Given your enhanced sensory ability, you must have sensed it beforehand when Jia Zhong launched an attack. Why didn’t you sidestep him?”
Yuwen Tong was indeed angry, but what he felt more strongly was a panic fear after the incident. The very thought of that attack still sent fits of scare through him. What could have happened had he not arrived in time? He didn’t dare to imagine the answer to this question. Though having witnessed countless deaths on battlefield, he couldn’t bear the thought of the same thing happening to Ling Zhang.
“It was just a momentary lapse of concentration. It had never crossed my mind that Jia Zhong would be able to free himself so quick, given that he had no kung fu skills and was under restraint.”
Ling Zhang lowered his head in self-accusation and annoyance.
After watching the guilty look in his eyes and his pale face for quite a while, Yuwen Tong heaved a sigh. “You face is very pale. Have some sleep. I’ll wake you up when the medicine is ready.”
Ling Zhang raised his head to look at him, his hand still holding Yuwen Tong’s sleeve.
“It won’t happen again. I promise.”
He himself had also been through terrible horror this day. He was not afraid of being hurt, but being hurt in this way was pointless and had also scared everybody.
As Yuwen Tong saw that Ling Zhang was still holding his sleeve, his heart melted, leaving him powerless to lay any more criticism on him.
“All right.” He took Ling Zhang’s hand and enwrapped it in his palms. “Sleep. I’ll stay here with you.”
Realizing how he had just behaved, Ling Zhang was already somewhat embarrassed –too embarrassed to accept Yuwen Tong’s offer of company. He was not a young boy like Maomao and didn’t need anybody’s company after suffering a minor injury, so he tried to withdrew his hand. “That won’t be necessary. Isn’t Mu Fang waiting for you out there? You should go.”
But his attempt to withdraw his hand failed, because Yuwen Tong didn’t let him.
“Let him wait. Given that he failed to see through the impostor, I think I’m going easy enough on him by merely keeping him waiting.”
“That old man’s disguise was excellent, and Jia Zhong was far from an acquaintance of them, so it’s unsurprising that they got the wrong people.”
“Don’t clear them of responsibility.”
After saying this, Yuwen Tong released Ling Zhang’s hand.
Believing that he was going to leave, Ling Zhang couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed, but then he saw that Yuwen Tong began undressing. Surprised, he asked, “What are you doing?”
“I want to sleep with you for a while,” replied Yuwen Tong in an exceptionally natural tone of voice. After taking off his overgarment, he quickly got in the bed, lay beside Ling Zhang, moved Ling Zhang’s head from the pillow onto his arm and naturally put the other arm around Ling Zhang’s waist. “Sleep.”
Ling Zhang fell speechless with embarrassment.
But remarkably, Yuwen Tong’s presence gave him a feeling of comfortableness that he had never felt before. Before long, he really drifted off to sleep. After a certain amount of time, he was woken up, drank a bowl of medicine and then fell asleep again.
When he awoke again, Yuwen Tong was already gone. He believed that he must have left after waking him up and watching him drink the decoction.
Xia Feng walked inside, helped him get dressed and then brought him some food.
“Where’s Yuwen Tong?”
“The Marshal is having a conversation with Master in the ante-room. After leaving in the afternoon, he had come back here to check on you several times for fear that you might have a fever.”
After a brief while’s silence, Ling Zhang uttered “Um” and then asked, “How’s everything going out there?”
“Jia Zhong’s body has already been transferred to the yamen. It is rumored that Jia Yin raised a stink in his cell, but Lord Tao made him shut up. As regards that old man who impersonated Jia Zhong, Guard Yao neutered him of his kung fu and threw him into the prison.”
Ling Zhang relaxed safe in the knowledge that everything had been properly handled.
“There’s another issue. I’m not sure whether I should tell you,” said Xia Feng in a somewhat hesitant tone of voice.
“What is it?” Ling Zhang looked at him in puzzlement.
“Since you got hurt, the Marshal flied into a temper and punished all those who were on the scene but failed to keep Jia Zhong under tight control. He had a cold look on his face all day. We’re all very afraid.”
Ling Zhang asked, “What kind of punishments did he mete out to them?”
“For Head Constable Li and most of his men, it was six months’ unpaid work plus flogging. That General Mu was rebuked and a lot of people heard it. The Marshal also seems to have written a letter and instructed him to take it back to a competent authority which will mete out penalty to him. And…”
“And?”
“Captain Wang and his men were also punished. The Marshal said that Captain Wang and his men were on the scene with you and should have kept you safe, but they put first things last and none of them was by your side when you were in danger. He observed that they were brainless and had them run in the guards’ yard carrying large rocks on their heads. They are still running at this moment.”
“They are still running?”
Ling Zhang was startled. It was already dark and had been six, maybe eight hours since his arm was injured!
“We have to go to the guards’ yard right now,” Ling Zhang hurriedly said.
“Be careful, Young Master. You’re still recovering.” Seeing him got up very quick, Xia Feng was taken aback and sprang to his support.
“I’m fine. Go and tell them to stop. Hurry. They were trying to stop that impostor under my orders. Surely there was nothing wrong in following my instructions?” Ling Zhang felt that even if Yuwen Tong had had reason to punish them, he shouldn’t have gone this far.
Ling Zhang was bursting with impatience to go to the guards’ yard, but he had just walked out of the door when Yuwen Tong came back.
“Where are you going?” Seeing Ling Zhang was trying to go outside putting his overgarment on, Yuwen Tong knitted his eyebrows.
“I’m going to the guards’ yard. It was me who had Elder Brother Wang and the others surround the impostor. They were merely following my orders.”
Yuwen Tong’s face fell sulky as he saw that Ling Zhang was so anxious and, heedless of his injury, wanted to go to the guards’ yard to “save” those security guards. “You think they don’t deserve to be punished?”
“At least they did nothing wrong. If anybody is to be blamed, it should be me. It was me who was being careless.” Ling Zhang looked at him.
“Protecting you was their first priority, but they put first things last and went to fight with some insignificant person, leaving your safety aside. If I don’t punish them this time, would they ever learn from their mistakes? Would they remember to take their brains with them when going outside? Inflexibly following orders is the only thing they’re capable of. You were already out of their sight but none of them had the sense to be flexible and make appropriate adaptations. They hadn’t the faintest idea of what they should do the most. What use could this kind of security guards possibly be of? You might as well send them packing right now.”
Yuwen Tong’s remarks drained all the color from Ling Zhang’s face. He knew what Yuwen Tong said was right, but that incident had happened without any warning. Who could have anticipated that Jia Zhong under restraint would manage to free himself and hurt him?
“Like I said, this time it was my fault, not theirs. Even if they are partially responsible, you’ve already punished them. It is night already. They are kung fu practitioners, but they’ll collapse if they run for any longer.”
“Collapse? If they are so useless as to collapse after running for such a short time, what else could you count on them to do?”
No matter how pale Ling Zhang’s face turned, Yuwen Tong refused to listen to reason.
“How could they compare with you? They have no potent internal energy, only some fighting skills. How is it possible for them to run such a long time?”
Yuwen Tong stared at him with a sullen face. Eventually, he said, “Go back to your room.”
“I’m going to the guards’ yard.”
Without making any further remarks, Yuwen Tong directly scooped up Ling Zhang and walked towards his bedroom.
“You–” Ling Zhang tried to push him aside, but the moment he raised his hand, sharp pain shot up his arm and his face changed drastically.
Yuwen Tong stopped and looked at him, a frown on his face. “Stop fidgeting.”
“Put me down. I need to go to the guards’ yard. You’ve punished them already. Even if their inflexibility was some kind of mistake, they’ve paid their price by running for such a long time, so would you please let them stop?!”
Wang Dashan and his men blindly worshiped and trusted Yuwen Tong, and they no doubt had followed Yuwen Tong’s instructions without any hesitation and might even be deeply self-condemned. They definitely wouldn’t stop unless Yuwen Tong told them to.
Ling Zhang struggled and the wound in his arm reopened under the strain and began to bleed again, dyeing red the cloth wrapped around it.
Yuwen Tong fixed him with a stare for quite a while and then said, “I’ll tell them to stop. You are to redress the wound immediately or I’ll have them keep running until tomorrow morning.”
Ling Zhang breathed a sigh of relief in the knowledge that Yuwen Tong was willing to let them stop.
After redressing the wound, Ling Zhang, bursting with impatience, looked at Yuwen Tong with the intention to have him give the order.
Seeing this, Yao Yi, who had specially come over to help Ling Zhang redress the wound, couldn’t help but inform him, “Actually, the Marshal had instructed them to stop before he came here.”
Amazed, Ling Zhang abruptly shot a look at Yuwen Tong.
Yuwen Tong had a sulky face, keeping silent.
Instantly, a blend of emotions rose in Ling Zhang –regret, self-accusation, guilt…
“I’m sorry. I was unaware of it. I thought you were having them running all along.”
Xia Feng on the side directly knelt down to the ground. “It’s my fault. I got the wrong message.”
Ling Zhang gazed at Yuwen Tong, his mouth a thin line.
Yao Yi let out a sigh, gave Xia Feng’s arm a pull and winked at him. After a brief trance of surprise, Xia Feng hurriedly rose to his feet and walked out of the room with Yao Yi.
“I apologize. It’s my fault.”
But Yuwen Tong replied, “No, it’s not. If it weren’t for that I knew you would be worried, I would indeed have ordered them to run until midnight.”
Ling Zhang rounded his eyes looking at him.
“You’re getting mad again?”
Ling Zhang hastily shook his head. “No. I was overreacting just now.”
“I won’t be soft on them, not when they are still working as security guards of Ling family, and you know why.”
Ling Zhang kept silent for a few moments and then inclined his head. “I do.”
After thinking for a while, he rose to his feet, walked up to Yuwen Tong, let out a soft cough and then, lowering his voice, in a softened tone, observed, “If you’re still mad at me, I’m willing to accept punishments of any form. You may even have me run like my security guards did. What happened just now was all my fault. I–”
Before he could finish his sentence, Yuwen Tong lowered his head and kissed him, his arms around him. The kiss was more intense than all the previous ones they had had.
Ling Zhang, who didn’t dare to move his injured arm, quietly put the other arm around Yuwen Tong’s back.
Yuwen Tong merely paused fleetingly, and then began kissing him even harder.
Except for the occasional faint crackling emanating from the lighted candle, the sound of their kiss was the only sound in the room, which sounded exceptionally distinct.
As a pink blush rose to Ling Zhang’s ears, he began having difficulty thinking clearly. After all, he had suffered an injury earlier this day, and his mind had been fairly unclear all along.
Having sensed this, Yuwen Tong slowly withdrew his tongue, released his lips and looked at him, flames of desire in eyes.
A moment ago, when Ling Zhang had ventured to walk up to him and apologize in a tender voice, he had felt an overwhelming urge. ‘If only he would be so tender forever. In that case, I would be able to have him by my side all the time and I wouldn’t let any harm come to him,’ he thought.
Ling Zhang’s liquid eyes, as sparkling as stars in night sky, stared at the flames in Yuwen Tong’s eyes. Mind still fairly unclear, he didn’t withdraw his gaze like before, as if fascinated.
Yuwen Tong secretly gave a soft sigh, raised his hand and covered his eyes. “If you keep gazing at me this way, I might not be able to control myself.”
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