He quickly concealed the sharp gleam in his eyes, deliberately hunching his shoulders and putting on a wretched show of weakness and fear as he looked up at the doorway.
Standing backlit in the doorway was Zhao De, the rear courtyard steward. The old fellow was in his forties, with a well-fed general's paunch and a large ring of brass keys at his waist, polished to an oily shine-the sole source of pride that let him lord it over the other servants in the residence. Behind him stood the two menial slaves who had carried the body last night, holding hemp ropes ready to bind the straw mat.
"Enough dawdling. Hurry up, tie up the corpse and carry it away... huh?!"
Pinching his nose, Zhao De stepped over the threshold. Halfway through his words, he froze on the spot as though struck by lightning.
The two menial slaves behind him were even more terrified. Their hemp ropes dropped to the ground with a clatter, their eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets. "A ghost... a ghost! Brother Zhang! The corpse's come back to life!"
There, on the pile of rotten straw in the corner, sat Chen Xuan, who should have long since gone cold and stiff. Wrapped in the tattered straw mat, he stared at them with wide-open eyes, completely unharmed!
"G-good morning, Steward Zhao... morning, Brother Zhang..." Chen Xuan ducked his head low, trembling with terror written all over his face as he called out in a quavering voice, "This lowly one... this lowly one isn't dead. I'm still alive..."
The woodshed was so quiet that even a falling needle could have been heard.
"You... you actually aren't fucking dead?!"
Coming to his senses, Zhao De's eyes widened sharply. He rushed over in a few quick strides and seized Chen Xuan's shoulder in his palm-leaf-fan-sized hand with astonishing force. "What in blazes! At the street corner yesterday evening, the young lord himself whipped you to death with a barbed whip! Guard Wang Wu from the front courtyard checked your breathing with his own hands! How the fuck can you still be alive?!"
Chen Xuan felt as though his heart were about to leap out of his throat.
Shit!
Last night, he had been so focused on frantically circulating the Boulder Art to grind proficiency that the blood and Qi within him had completely healed the barbed-whip wounds on his back! If Zhao De lifted the straw mat and rags and saw his bare, unmarked back-
A man whose flesh had been shredded by a barbed whip, left without so much as a scar overnight-even if his whole body were covered in mouths, he could never explain it away. They would hack him to death on the spot as a monster or a spy!
"This lowly one... this lowly one doesn't know what happened either, Steward Zhao!" Terrified out of his wits, Chen Xuan kowtowed desperately, his face deathly pale, clutching the tattered straw mat tightly around his back. "Last night, I fainted from the pain and stopped breathing. When I woke up half-conscious in the middle of the night, I found myself lying in this woodshed... I thought the young lord had shown mercy, or that Steward Zhao and you two brothers had the hearts of bodhisattvas and spared me instead of really throwing me into the mass graveyard..."
"What a load of fucking horseshit! When have I ever shown kindness?!" The menial slave called Brother Zhang had gone pale with fright. He hurriedly swore to Zhao De, "Please judge fairly, Steward Zhao! When Xiao Liuzi and I carried him in last night, his body was already almost cold, and he bled the whole way. He'd definitely stopped breathing! How would this lowly one dare deceive your venerable self?!"
Zhao De ignored the menial slave's protests. His cloudy, shrewd, triangular eyes remained fixed on Chen Xuan's face, and the longer he looked, the more something seemed wrong. "No... after taking dozens of lashes from the young lord's barbed whip, even if you were lucky enough to cling to your last breath, you should be half-dead on the ground, barely groaning. How can your voice still be so strong?!"
He narrowed his eyes, his voice suddenly sinking. "Let go of that straw mat! Let me see the wounds on your back-"
Before the words had faded, Zhao De thrust out his enormous hand, seized the tattered straw mat and ragged collar wrapped around the back of Chen Xuan's neck, and yanked them outward!
Riiip-!
The rotting straw mat and the coarse-cloth collar, already shredded into strips, tore wide open. In another instant, Chen Xuan's smooth, firm back would be fully exposed to the morning light!
Chen Xuan's back instantly went rigid as iron. Cold sweat drenched his entire body, and the fingers of his right hand secretly tightened around a sharp piece of broken stone beneath the straw.
If there's no other way, once I'm exposed, I can only strike first, leap up and stab out Zhao De's eyes, then find a chance to climb the wall and escape the residence!
At that knife-edge moment, just as Zhao De narrowed his triangular eyes and was about to look at the skin of Chen Xuan's back-
"Steward Zhao! Where's Steward Zhao?! Hurry! The marquis has just returned from morning court, and he wants you in the front courtyard study immediately to answer his questions! It's a matter of utmost urgency! You'll lose your head if you're late!"
From outside the courtyard suddenly came the heart-rending shouts of the head steward's trusted aide from the front courtyard. In the deathly silence of the morning, they were nothing short of life-saving celestial music descending from the heavens!
Zhao De's hand froze in midair, still gripping the collar, and his expression changed drastically. "What? The marquis summoned me personally?!"
In the Marquis of Zhenbei's Residence, the young lord might beat a few slaves to death at most when he lost his temper. But if Marquis Xiao Zhentian grew impatient waiting, a mere rear courtyard steward like him really would be skinned and have his bones pulled apart!
How could Zhao De spare another thought for examining a lowly slave's back? He hastily glanced down at the dark-red bloodstains on Chen Xuan's turned-out collar, released his grip, and glared fiercely at him. "Hmph... lucky little bastard. King Yama thought you stank too much to take you! Why are you still playing dead here? Get the hell up! Get back to the stables and work! If you dare slack off even a little today, I'll personally whip the skin off you!"
"Yes, yes, yes! Thank you for sparing my life, Steward Zhao! This lowly one will get going! I'll go feed the horses right away!"
As though granted a grand pardon, Chen Xuan dared not linger for even a moment. Clamping both hands over the rags covering his chest and back, he scrambled out of the straw pile and scurried along the foot of the wall, bent at the waist with his head lowered.
At the woodshed doorway, Zhao De did not immediately head for the front courtyard. Instead, he stood where he was, staring for several seconds at Chen Xuan's rather nimble departing figure. Unconsciously, he reached down and squeezed the ring of gleaming brass keys at his waist, then rubbed the stubble on his chin, his brows furrowing into three deep lines.
"Steward Zhao, the front courtyard's pressing us. Shouldn't we hurry?" Brother Zhang reminded him cautiously.
"What's the rush? I'm not blind yet!" Zhao De snorted coldly. Pointing in the direction where Chen Xuan had disappeared, he muttered darkly to himself, "Damned strange... that brat was clearly whipped to death yesterday. How is he not only alive and kicking today, but when I grabbed his shoulder just now, his flesh felt so firm? His complexion was a little too rosy, too..."
He had been a steward in the residence for over a decade. He might have no other talents, but his eye for people was ruthlessly sharp.
Zhao De turned and coldly ordered the two menial slaves, Brother Zhang and Xiao Liuzi, "You two, put your chores aside today and keep a close watch on that brat Chen Xuan in secret! See what he usually does in the stables and what he eats. If you notice anything even slightly amiss, report to me immediately! Do you understand?!"