The excuse was utterly degrading, groveling right down into the dust. It thoroughly satisfied every contemptuous notion the highborn nobility held about lowly servants, leaving them without even the inclination to question him further!
Standing before Chen Xuan, Xiao Ling'er froze as well.
She stared fixedly at his thin, trembling shoulders as he knelt on the ground, then looked at his palms, mangled and still seeping blood from stopping the maddened horse. The corner of her mouth twitched. "You... you said you used to fight stray dogs for food to survive?"
"Yes... this lowly servant wouldn't dare deceive you, Third Miss. I still have teeth marks on my left calf from where a big yellow dog bit me back then..." Chen Xuan's voice was barely audible, and his eyes reddened at just the right moment. He played the humble servant whose life was worth no more than grass, yet who would risk everything to protect his master, right down to the bone.
Without realizing it, Xiao Ling'er loosened her little hand around the red-tailed snakebone whip.
Looking at the bloodstained groom before her, she felt as though something soft and bittersweet had gently struck her chest-
In this cold, cruel Marquis of Zhenbei's Residence, someone had secretly planted poisoned thorns beneath her horse's hooves to take her life; her own elder brother, Xiao Yuxuan, had done nothing but howl from behind when the maddened horse charged, and afterward had cared only whether she had disgraced the residence. Only this lowly groom, who had once fought stray dogs for food and whom she had nearly whipped just yesterday, had charged forward without hesitation at the moment of life and death, grinding his palms into bloody shreds to save her, even willing to cushion her fall with his own body...
A complicated feeling she had never experienced before welled up in her heart, making this spoiled, willful Third Miss's eyes sting for no clear reason.
"...Enough! Who wants to hear your filthy, moldy old stories? Shut up!"
Xiao Ling'er abruptly turned her little face away. Her voice remained fierce, but anyone could hear the awkwardness and lack of conviction in it. "The ground is freezing. What are you still kneeling there playing pitiful for? Get up!"
"Huh? Third Miss, you... you're not going to punish this lowly servant for offending you just now?" Chen Xuan looked up, pretending to be overwhelmed by her favor.
"If I tell you to get up, then get up! What's with all the nonsense? Are you deaf?!" Xiao Ling'er's pretty face reddened as she glared threateningly with her almond-shaped eyes. "And those hands of yours! You're bleeding all over the ground. It's disgusting! Hurry back to the stables and wrap them in cloth. If you dare drip any more blood on the training grounds, see if I don't whip you!"
"Yes, yes! Thank you for your heavenly grace, Third Miss! Thank you for sparing my life! I'll get back and bandage them right away!"
As though granted a grand pardon, Chen Xuan scrambled to his feet. Clutching his bloody hands, he bent at the waist and jogged toward the side gate of the training grounds.
Thanks to the consummate art of playing the pitiful victim he had honed as a corporate slave in his previous life, he had finally cleared this hurdle!
What Chen Xuan did not know, however, was that behind his retreating, bowed figure, a cool, fathomless gaze in the shadows beneath the parasol tree had never shifted away.
Su Wanqing, the heir's wife, quietly watched the gray-clad groom limp into the distance, her long lashes lowering slightly.
Footwork trained by fighting dogs for food? That nonsense might fool an empty-headed fool like Xiao Yuxuan and an inexperienced girl like Xiao Ling'er.
The instant Chen Xuan had seized the reins and exerted his strength to stop the maddened horse, she had stood high in the pavilion and deliberately sent out a wisp of Hua Jin True Qi to sense him from afar-the blood and Qi surging through that groom's body had been as weighty as mountains. Deep within his meridians, there had even been a trace of pure Yang fire force, exceedingly well concealed, yet domineering and blazing to the extreme!
He was absolutely no unranked good-for-nothing!
"Jinshu," Su Wanqing called very softly.
"Here, Miss. What are your instructions?" Her maid Jinshu hurried closer.
"That groom named Chen Xuan is rather interesting. Have someone check his background at the accounts office later. Remember, don't alert the First Madam or the heir."
After giving these calm instructions, Su Wanqing turned to Xiao Yuxuan, who was still raging at the guards. "My lord, the poisoned thorns concern the safety of the inner courtyard. We must inform the First Madam as soon as possible and have this investigated thoroughly. I'm tired. I'll return to my courtyard first."
"Ah, Wanqing! Wanqing, wait for your husband. I'll walk you back..." Seeing the beauty about to leave, Xiao Yuxuan hastily nodded and bowed, trying to follow. But Su Wanqing paid him no attention at all. Her moon-white skirts brushed lightly past, and she and her maid vanished around the end of the corridor in a moment.
Xiao Yuxuan's outstretched hand stiffened and clenched into a fist. His face flushed, and he turned to vent all his pent-up fury on the kneeling guards. "What are you staring at?! Get investigating! If you haven't caught the culprit who planted those poisoned thorns by sunset today, I'll demote every last one of you to shoveling horse manure in the stables for the rest of your lives!"
"Yes! We obey!" The guards scrambled away in all directions.
Only Xiao Ling'er and Lin Wan'er remained at the edge of the training grounds.
Xiao Ling'er stood before the stone bridge, staring blankly toward the side gate where Chen Xuan had disappeared, unaware that the whip in her hand had drooped to the ground. Whenever she closed her eyes, the image of that servant holding her tightly in his arms as she fell from the horse surfaced uncontrollably in her mind, along with that large, burning-hot, powerful hand against her waist.
"Ling'er? What are you thinking about, Ling'er? Have you lost your soul?"
Lin Wan'er waved her round fan before her eyes and patted her own chest, still shaken. "Oh, my little ancestor, you nearly scared me to death when Treading Snow went mad! My legs are still too weak to stand properly! Thank goodness that little groom called... what was his name again? Thank goodness he rushed over so quickly, or I wouldn't be seeing you again today!"
"Chen Xuan."
Xiao Ling'er blurted out the name almost without thinking.
The moment the words left her mouth, she froze herself, and her fair ears instantly burned again-she was the dignified Third Miss of the Marquis of Zhenbei's Residence. Ordinarily, she could not even be bothered to remember all her personal guards' names, so how had she remembered this menial groom's name so clearly?!
"Oh, right, right! Chen Xuan! He's the one Brother Yuxuan whipped to death with a barbed whip at the street corner the day before yesterday, only for him to come back to life, isn't he?" Lin Wan'er blinked her large eyes and lowered her voice, clicking her tongue in wonder. "That boy really does have a stubborn life! Brother Yuxuan gave him dozens of lashes and he didn't die, and today he carried you out from under a mad horse's hooves... Huh? Ling'er, why has your face turned as red as a cooked shrimp again just from mentioning his name?"
"Lin Wan'er, what nonsense are you spouting?! Who's blushing?!"
Like a cat whose sore paw had been stepped on, Xiao Ling'er instantly bristled, raising the red-tailed snakebone whip in embarrassed anger-
Crack!
The whip's tip struck the flagstone three inches from Lin Wan'er's feet, blasting a small pit into it.
She herself did not realize that whenever she had played around with Lin Wan'er before, her whip's tip had always stopped with absolute precision half an inch behind the other girl's skirt. Today, however, her strike was a full three inches off target!
"Heehee! All right, all right, I won't say anything. Our Third Miss is just red from the sun!" Lin Wan'er covered her mouth and ran off laughing. "Come on. With all this commotion, the First Madam must already have heard. We'd better hurry to the main hall and report!"
"You're still laughing! See if I don't tear that mouth of yours apart today!"
Meanwhile, in the rear courtyard stables.
Chen Xuan kicked open the wooden door and slipped inside, then firmly slid the bolt into place behind him. Pressing his back against the cold rammed-earth wall, he let out a long breath of stale air.
"Phew... that was too damned intense. I nearly exposed my trump card!"
Chen Xuan raised his mangled hands and examined them. Under the combined circulation of his Ming Jin blood and Qi and his Yang Gang Qi, the torn flesh on his palms had already stopped bleeding and was rapidly scabbing over and healing at a rate visible to the naked eye.
As he tore strips of ragged cloth and wrapped his hands tightly to keep up appearances, he swiftly reviewed that terrifying scene in his mind:
"Today's trip to the training grounds looked incredibly dangerous, but there were actually three hidden life-and-death traps!"
"First, those itch-ant grass poisoned thorns beneath Treading Snow's hooves were definitely not something that idiot Liu San could get his hands on! Someone wanted to stir up trouble in the residence's inner courtyard, and their target was Xiao Ling'er, the Third Miss of the first branch! If someone even dares make a move against a legitimate young lady of the first branch, then beneath all its outward splendor, this Marquis of Zhenbei's Residence has long since rotted into a pot of poisoned gruel! I'm a servant bound by a lifetime contract, caught in the middle. If I'd been half a step slower today and let Xiao Ling'er fall and cripple herself, the First Madam would absolutely have made me the scapegoat and beaten me to death!"
"Second, although I deliberately stumbled to look reckless while rescuing her, and used that 'fighting dogs for food' excuse to fool Xiao Yuxuan and Xiao Ling'er, that heir's wife, Su Wanqing... the way she looked up at me while crouching beside the horse's hoof just now-she was definitely suspicious! That woman is an expert whose depths I can't fathom. From now on, I'll have to tuck my tail even tighter around her!"
At that thought, Chen Xuan loosely curled the five fingers of his right hand. His mind involuntarily replayed the breathtaking softness and delicate fragrance that had filled his nose when he held Xiao Ling'er in his arms, and a wicked, greedy curve rose at the corner of his mouth:
"As for the third... today, in front of everyone in the courtyard, I openly and legitimately wrapped my arms around the Third Miss's slender waist! Her skin was as smooth as silk, and that little look she gave me at the end, embarrassed and annoyed, yet unable to bring herself to punish me... Tsk. I've already torn the first opening in the defenses of this thorny fire rose's heart!"
"And with the debt of saving her life right here, given how the First Madam treasures her daughter as her own life and cares about the residence's reputation, an enormous reward is sure to come my way! Maybe I can even ride this favorable wind straight out of this stinking manure pit of a stable!"
Chen Xuan licked his somewhat dry lips, but in the next second, his gaze settled completely, returning to utter coldness:
"Still, whether I want to uncover the traitor planting poison in the residence or completely pin Xiao Ling'er-and even that lofty heir's wife-beneath me, in the end, it all depends on whether my fists are strong enough! My current cultivation speed is still too slow! At early-stage bright force, I can barely even protect myself in this residence!"
He strode behind the haystack in the deepest part of the stable and sat cross-legged. With a thought, he summoned the golden panel deep within his mind:
[Boulder Art: Minor attainment (348/1000)] [Eight Desolations Prison-Suppressing Yang Gang: Beginner (272/500)]
When he had forcibly hauled the maddened horse to a stop on the training grounds at that life-and-death moment, the recoil and pressure of a thousand jin of force had actually sent both arts' proficiency soaring by over a hundred points in just a dozen or so breaths!
"I can't waste a moment before the reward arrives! No rush. I'll keep the tally for now. Once I've thoroughly grinded Eight Desolations Prison-Suppressing Yang Gang to the peak of beginner mastery and stepped into the middle stage of Ming Jin, we'll settle the accounts in this residence slowly, one by one!"
Chen Xuan slowly closed his eyes, held his breath, and focused his mind.
Inside his body, the two entirely different streams of force from Boulder Art and Eight Desolations Prison-Suppressing Yang Gang once again converged with a roar. Like two ceaselessly surging, scorching rivers, they rushed and scoured furiously through his widened meridians.
In his mind, the golden numbers ticked steadily upward in the dim corner:
[Boulder Art: Minor attainment (350/1000)] [Eight Desolations Prison-Suppressing Yang Gang: Beginner (275/500)]