Su Wanqing shook her head gently and withdrew her gaze. "Perhaps I sensed it wrong. Let's go."
Indeed, he was merely the lowliest stable drudge. How could his every breath stir the Yang Gang Qi that even the legitimate descendants struggled to comprehend?
"Wanqing is right! My wife does care about her husband!"
At the center of the grounds, Xiao Yuxuan watched Su Wanqing leave and immediately climbed the pole she had offered, shouting after her. Then he plopped into the grand armchair beside him, pulled his collar open, and panted heavily.
With the beauty gone, the grandmaster's bearing he had strained to maintain instantly collapsed, revealing his original sinister, irritable face. He turned toward the stone table and roared:
"You damned slave over there! Are you blind?! Can't you see how much I've sweated from training, and my throat's practically smoking? What are you dawdling there for? Get that tea over here, now!"
"Coming! Please calm your anger, young lord! Your tea is coming!"
Finally, Chen Xuan thought, but his face instantly shifted into a slave's terrified expression. Picking up the warm ginseng tea he had prepared long ago, he hurried to the armchair with short, quick steps, dropped to both knees with a thud, and raised the tea tray high above his head with both hands.
"Your divine arts are unrivaled, young lord! This lowly one was dumbstruck watching you just now. Please have some tea to soothe your throat!"
Xiao Yuxuan looked down from above. When he saw Chen Xuan's face clearly, he froze, then seemed to recognize something. A wicked fire immediately flared in his eyes. "Hm? It's you, you dog?! The groom who was sneaking looks at Miaoyin on the street corner yesterday? You're still fucking alive?!"
Fatty Wang chimed in from beside him. "Oh, so this is the worthless slave who took dozens of lashes from your barbed whip yesterday, young lord? What a cheap life he has-he still hasn't died!"
"Your grace knows no bounds, young lord. This lowly one only passed out from the beating yesterday. The King of Hell said I still had to stay at the marquis's estate and toil like an ox or horse for you to atone for my sins!" Chen Xuan buried his head between his arms, begging in a trembling voice.
"Toil like an ox or horse? Hah! Just looking at that corpse face of yours brings me bad luck!"
The cold treatment and frustration Xiao Yuxuan had suffered from Su Wanqing finally found an outlet. He gave a vicious grin and reached out as though to take the cup. The instant his fingertips touched its rim, his right foot suddenly lashed out without warning!
Bang! Crash-!
His kick overturned the celadon teacup along with the wooden tray. The scalding ginseng tea inside, mixed with porcelain shards, splashed all over the backs of Chen Xuan's hands and his arms!
"Aah-!"
Chen Xuan obligingly let out an agonized scream, toppling backward onto the ground. Clutching the backs of his hands, which had instantly turned red and blistered, he rolled across the flagstones in pain.
"Hahahaha! You can't even hold a cup of tea steady! What use are those hands of yours?!" Xiao Yuxuan stood, planted a foot on the porcelain shards, and pointed down at Chen Xuan as he cursed. "A worthless slave is a worthless slave! You were dawdling by the stone table just now-were you failing to control those dog eyes again and sneaking looks at my wife?! Speak! Were you being a wretch again?!"
"I've been wronged, young lord! Spare my life, young lord!"
Chen Xuan knelt prostrate in the scalding puddle of tea, knocking his forehead against the ground with resounding thuds as he cried through streaming tears and snot. "Even with a hundred times the courage, this lowly one would never dare cast another stray glance! Just now... just now, I only saw you displaying your divine arts, like a heavenly god descending to earth. Your might frightened me until my hands and feet went weak, and that was why I couldn't hold the teacup steady! Please show mercy, young lord, and spare this lowly dog's life!"
As he kowtowed and cried out his innocence in heartrending anguish, deep within his mind, that line of brilliant golden text remained as steady as Mount Tai:
[Eight Desolations Prison-Suppressing Yang Gang: beginner (11/500)]
Chen Xuan laughed coldly inwardly and pressed his tongue against his back teeth. Good scalding. Fine kick. Xiao Yuxuan, I'll add this bowl of scalding tea to your account. A layer of skin scalded off the back of my hand in exchange for your Xiao family's closely guarded supreme art that anchors the estate? I've made a killing on this deal! No hurry. We'll keep the account for now. Sooner or later, I'll feed boiling molten iron into your mouth, spoonful by spoonful!
Su Wanqing, the young lord's wife, had not gone far. Hearing the screams behind her, she paused briefly and glanced back indifferently, her delicate brows knitting almost imperceptibly.
"Enough," she said coolly. "He's merely a menial slave serving tea. Some clumsiness is only natural. Why lower yourself by getting angry with a servant?"
At Su Wanqing's words, Xiao Yuxuan, who had been raging just a moment earlier, instantly became like a rooster seized by the neck. His savage expression switched to a fawning smile in a second. "Yes, yes, Wanqing is absolutely right! Your husband will do as you say. I certainly won't stoop to the level of such a lowly thing!"
Only after Su Wanqing's figure had vanished completely behind the moon gate did Xiao Yuxuan turn back and viciously spit a thick gob of phlegm at Chen Xuan on the ground. "Count yourself lucky, you dog, that my wife spoke up for you! Why are you still lying there offending my eyes? Scram! Get back and brew me fresh tea! Spill even one more drop, and I'll chop off your dog paws!"
"Yes, yes! Thank you for sparing my life, young lord! Thank you for your great kindness, my lady! This lowly one will go brew fresh tea at once!"
As though granted a pardon, Chen Xuan scrambled to pick up the wooden tray from the ground. Clutching the red, swollen back of his hand, he bent at the waist and hastily retreated toward the edge of the training grounds.
The moment he reached the shade beneath the trees, the force of those eleven points of Eight Desolations Prison-Suppressing Yang Gang and the blood Qi of the Boulder Art spontaneously completed a circuit within him. A gentle, warm current flowed through the meridians of his right hand, and most of the searing, piercing pain on its back faded in the blink of an eye.
"Chen Xuan! Stop right there!"
Just as Chen Xuan was about to return to the tea stove to change the water, a crisp, thoroughly imperious shout suddenly rang out from beside the weapon rack diagonally behind him.
Chen Xuan stiffened all over, hastily stopped, and turned around, bowing his head and bending at the waist.
Just three paces away stood a pretty girl in fiery-red martial attire, both hands on her hips. She was only seventeen, with skin fairer than snow and a face as exquisite as someone from a painting, yet her almond-shaped eyes were wide open, glaring fiercely at him. Her petite, delicate figure already had distinct curves, and her right hand tightly gripped a blackish-red scarlet-tailed snakebone whip.
It was none other than the first branch's concubine-born daughter, the marquis's estate's famously headstrong little spitfire-the third young lady, Xiao Ling'er!
Beside her stood Lin Wan'er, the prefect's daughter, dressed in a pale-yellow gown and covering her mouth as she watched the spectacle.
"This lowly one, Chen Xuan, pays his respects to Third Young Lady and Miss Lin!" Chen Xuan bent his waist to a right angle, his manner respectful to the utmost.