"Chen Xuan! You blind dog, you even managed to tip over a cart of fodder?! Get your head over here and face your death!"
Liu San's greasy face, covered in slabs of flesh, nearly pressed against Chen Xuan's nose. The stench of overnight pickled cabbage mingled with flying spittle and sprayed all over his face.
Chen Xuan hunched his neck and lowered his eyes, not daring to breathe too loudly. "Please calm down, Brother Liu San! My hand slipped just now. I really didn't see the stone beneath the wheel..."
"Didn't see it? I think those eyes of yours have gone completely blind!"
Liu San flicked his wrist, twirling the cowhide riding whip in the morning light with a sharp crack.
But Chen Xuan's mind was as clear as a mirror.
A stone beneath the wheel? Utter bullshit!
Just three breaths earlier, he had first heard the faint scrape of the toe of Liu San's tattered cloth boot deliberately brushing against the wooden axle, followed by the clattering of the fodder cart's wheel rolling over the flagstones.
The order of the sounds had been reversed.
Yesterday, he could never have caught such a tiny sound through half a cartload of hay. But after breaking through to early-stage Bright Force that morning, his five senses felt as though they had been thoroughly washed in a clear spring-even a stalk of hay snapping or a flea hopping within thirty feet could not escape his ears!
What had actually happened was that Liu San had walked up beside the cart and pretended to bend down to tie his shoelace. While no one was watching, he had hooked the toe of his right foot around a spoke of the wheelbarrow's front wheel with absolute precision, then applied a concealed force to wrench it viciously outward!
With a crash, a full half-cartload of fine, tender hay had spilled into a muddy puddle.
"Speak! Gone mute?! Weren't you acting so capable in the stable just now?!"
Seeing Chen Xuan keep his head down and do nothing but apologize only emboldened Liu San. His palm-fan-sized hand seized Chen Xuan's ragged collar and yanked him a full step forward. "I'm asking you a question! This half-cartload of tender fodder is covered in mud and piss. How are you going to feed it to the horses?!"
"Brother Liu San, I know I was wrong! I'll pick out the clean stalks by hand right away, wash them with water, and dry them in the sun. I won't waste so much as half a stalk!" Chen Xuan rested his hands loosely against Liu San's forearm and rose onto his toes with the pull, putting on the pathetic appearance of someone about to be strangled.
"Pick them out? Pick them out, my ass! Those precious horses are picky eaters. Who's going to answer for it if muddy grass gives them the runs?!"
Liu San abruptly let go and shoved Chen Xuan two steps backward. Then he immediately turned around, replacing his expression with one of fawning anguish as he bowed to Steward Zhao, who stood three steps away watching the show with folded arms, and lodged his complaint:
"Steward Zhao! You saw it with your own eyes, didn't you? It's really not that I'm picking on this brat! Chen Xuan took a beating from the young lord the day before yesterday and got scalded with boiling tea yesterday, yet he still hasn't learned a thing! Now he's daring to waste horse fodder first thing in the morning. This half-cartload of premium green hay was enough to feed three fine horses for two whole days!"
Several menial slaves scrubbing the horse troughs nearby stopped their brushes and huddled at the foot of the wall some distance away, whispering among themselves:
"Tsk, Chen Xuan's probably going to lose a layer of skin today. Liu San's deliberately finding fault and trying to torment him to death!"
"Shh! Keep your voice down! Don't you see Steward Zhao standing right there? If Liu San dares to act so openly, Steward Zhao has most likely given his tacit approval!"
"True enough. It's that brat's own fault for being so uncannily hard to kill. He'd clearly stopped breathing the day before yesterday, but yesterday he was up and bouncing around again. The steward has his doubts, so he's using Liu San as a stone to test the path and sound him out!"
Every word drifted into Chen Xuan's ears on the morning breeze.
Taking advantage of his bowed, deferential posture, Chen Xuan cast a slight glance to the side out of the corner of his eye-
Steward Zhao stood firmly on the steps three paces away, his well-fed potbelly thrust out, habitually turning the string of brass keys at his waist with a clatter.
Steward Zhao's shrewd, triangular eyes first swept over the hay scattered in a mess across the ground, then slowly moved to Chen Xuan.
His gaze lingered for a moment on Chen Xuan's neck and chest.
Chen Xuan's heart tightened slightly, but he kept his breathing at its usual weakest rhythm. "Please forgive me, Steward Zhao! I went to the rear kitchen to haul firewood last night and went to bed a little late. I was dizzy and bleary-eyed when I got up this morning, and I lost my footing while pushing the cart. Please spare me this once, Steward Zhao!"
The scene of Zhao De ripping open the back of his collar in the abandoned woodshed yesterday morning remained vivid in his mind.
This old fox looked crude, but his mind had more holes than a hornet's nest! Today's "overturned fodder cart" was almost certainly a beating ploy Zhao De had instructed Liu San to stage, all to see whether Chen Xuan was truly crippled when he took a beating or was hiding something!
"Enough. What sort of behavior is all this shouting first thing in the morning?" Steward Zhao spoke unhurriedly and waved a hand. "The fodder's spilled, so it's spilled. Just have him clean it up quickly. Don't delay feeding the horses. The third young miss will need a horse later."
"Huh? Steward Zhao, we're just letting him off that easily?!" Liu San grew anxious at once and edged half a step forward, whip in hand. "Didn't you just say... ahem, this brat's a lowly wretch begging for discipline! If you don't punish him severely, all the little bastards in the stable will follow his example. How am I supposed to manage them for you then?!"
Steward Zhao narrowed his triangular eyes.
He paid no attention whatsoever to the agitated Liu San, instead giving Chen Xuan another searching look-this time, his gaze scraped like a knife across Chen Xuan's shoulders and back.
Those were the places the young lord Xiao Yuxuan had lashed into a bloody pulp with an iron-barbed whip the evening before yesterday.
Chen Xuan shuddered all over and bent even lower. His shabby, oversized gray cloth work clothes fell naturally, completely concealing the firm contours of the muscles in his back, while he obligingly let out two weak, dry coughs. "Cough, cough... thank you for your mercy, Steward Zhao. I'll get down on the ground and pick up the grass stalk by stalk..."
Steward Zhao stared at him for a full three breaths, then gave a cold snort that revealed neither pleasure nor anger. "Hmph. Look at him, half-dead like that. Liu San, you're in charge of the stable work. Set the rules however you like. But let me make this clear first: watch how hard you hit him. Don't actually beat him into ruin. The rear kitchen still needs a laborer to split tough firewood this afternoon, and he'll have to fill in."
"Yes, sir! With your word on it, I know what to do!" Liu San's face instantly blossomed into a smile.
Steward Zhao said no more. Turning with his hands behind his back, he ambled out through the stable courtyard gate.
But just before crossing the threshold, his steps paused almost imperceptibly, and he signaled with his eyes to Xiao Liuzi, a menial slave squatting in a distant corner and gnawing on a mixed-grain bun.
His mouth stuffed full, Xiao Liuzi hurriedly gave a discreet nod, his eyes fastening firmly on Chen Xuan.