"Chen Xuan! Where the hell did you crawl off to? Taking this long to carry two buckets of water-itching for another whipping, are you?!"
Steward Zhao's cracked-gong voice exploded along the edge of the training grounds, making everyone's eardrums ache.
"Coming, coming! Please don't be angry, Steward Zhao! This lowly one is here!"
Carrying two large buckets of well water on a shoulder pole, Chen Xuan jogged through the side gate of the training grounds, his head lowered almost to his chest and his back bent like a giant shrimp. "The honored guards from the front courtyard were washing their blades at the well just now. This lowly one didn't dare crowd them, so I waited in line behind them for a while. Sorry to have kept you waiting, sir!"
"Hmph, always full of excuses!" Zhao De thrust out his greasy potbelly and fingered the string of brass keys polished to a brilliant shine at his waist. His triangular eyes swept suspiciously over Chen Xuan's shoulders and back twice. "What's this? The young lord gave you dozens of lashes yesterday, and you're still pretty spry carrying two buckets today? Didn't he whip those lazy bones of yours apart?"
"Oh, my dear mother! Steward Zhao, you give this lowly one far too much credit!" Chen Xuan set the shoulder pole down on the bluestone paving, deliberately baring his teeth as he sucked in a cold breath. Supporting his lower back with his left hand, he groaned, "Apart, apart-every bone's fallen apart! My back feels like it's on fire right now, and every step sends pain right through my heart. I only gritted my teeth and dragged myself here because I was afraid of delaying tea for the honored folk on the training grounds and getting you scolded!"
Old Sun, an elderly odd-job servant tending the tea stove nearby, came over with an ingratiating smile to smooth things over. "Steward Zhao, now that the water's here, hurry and let the boy brew the tea. The young lord and the young masters sparring with him have just finished half a round, and they're calling for something to drink."
"At least you know what's good for you!" Zhao De spat on the ground, pointed at the white marble table in the shade a short distance away, and lowered his voice in warning. "Listen up! It isn't just the young lord and the third young miss here today. Her Ladyship, the young lord's wife, is reading beneath the parasol tree too! When you go over to refill the water and pour tea, keep those dog eyes nailed to your toes! If you dare steal so much as another glance like you did at the street corner yesterday, the young lord won't need to lift a finger. I'll beat your brains out with a flurry of clubs first!"
"Yes, yes, yes! I'll carve your golden words into the cracks of my bones, Steward Zhao!" Chen Xuan nodded like he was pounding garlic and took the large copper teapot Old Sun handed him with both hands. "Once I'm over there, I'll be a deaf and blind wooden post. I won't cause you the slightest trouble!"
"Get over there, then. Move smartly!"
"Right away!"
Holding the heavy copper teapot, Chen Xuan tucked in his neck, hunched his back, and hurried along the edge of the training grounds to the stone table.
On the vast bluestone training grounds, three hundred elite guards in black armor drilled beneath the blazing sun. Spears stood like a forest, blade light gleamed like snow, and their perfectly synchronized shouts shook the leaves into trembling.
"Hah! Ha!"
"Plant those horse stances firmly! Anyone who so much as sways gets two hundred extra punches tonight!"
Bang!
At the front, a guard instructor eight feet tall let out a forceful shout. His iron fist, broad as a palm-leaf fan and wrapped in a fierce rush of wind, slammed squarely into a three-inch-thick ironwood post. Wood chips and fragments sprayed everywhere as a hole the size of a bowl's mouth burst open in the post.
"Excellent! With a punch like that, Instructor Zhang must be close to great accomplishment of hidden strength!"
"Good grief, if that hit you, even ribs made of iron would be smashed to bits..."
Standing beside the stone table, Chen Xuan deftly rinsed the celadon teacups with boiling water as he listened to the dull impacts. He also reached over to steady a crooked charcoal brazier beside Old Sun. "Uncle Sun, take a breather. Just leave the rough work of pouring tea and running errands to me."
"Ah, you really are a sensible lad." Old Sun wiped the sweat from his forehead. Sheltered behind the stone table, he tipped his lips toward the center of the training grounds and spoke in an extremely low voice. "You've only just escaped death, boy. Keep your wits about you when you take the tea over. See those fellows in the middle? The young lord isn't in a good mood today."
"Not in a good mood? Isn't the young lord sparring with his cousins? Looks lively enough." Chen Xuan tilted his wrist slightly, sending the scalding tea in a straight stream into a cup, while the corner of his eye swept toward the very center of the training grounds.
An open space ten zhang across had been specially cleared in the center.
The heir, Xiao Yuxuan, had changed into moon-white brocade martial attire, with a jade-inlaid gold belt at his waist, and was "exchanging moves" with three wastrel young masters from collateral branches bearing other surnames.
"Hah! Take my punch!"
Xiao Yuxuan took an unsteady step forward, his face slightly pale, and limply slapped a palm against the shoulder of a fat young master on his right.
The fat young master reacted extremely quickly. Before the palm strike even landed solidly, he gave a bizarre squeal like a pig being slaughtered, as though a battering ram had struck him. With outrageous exaggeration, he tumbled and scrambled backward a full three zhang, landed on his backside, and clutched his chest as he gasped for breath:
"Oh, mercy! Spare me, young lord! That palm strike of yours was truly an unrivaled divine feat! Your palm force nearly shattered all my internal organs!"
A richly dressed young master with a pointed mouth and monkey cheeks immediately came over, raised his thumb, and lavished praise on him. "Cousin, that Fierce Tiger Descends the Mountain of yours had the momentum of a rainbow, with the wind of your fist whipping through the air! In my humble opinion, your foundation in early-stage bright force is ten times more solid than that of an ordinary martial artist in the late stage of manifest strength! Among Qingzhou's younger generation, who but you possesses such a grandmaster's bearing?!"
"Exactly, exactly! The wind from that palm strike made my face sting!" The third wastrel joined in the bootlicking. "If the young lord hadn't held back eighty percent of his strength out of brotherly affection, Fatty Wang would already be laid out on a funeral board!"
"Hahahaha! You're too kind, too kind!" Xiao Yuxuan beamed at their words, a smug flush rising over his pale, effeminate face. He waved a hand. "I was merely trying my hand just now. I only used thirty percent of my blood Qi. Your foundations are too poor. You'll have to train with me more!"
Behind the stone table, Old Sun curled his lip and stirred the coals with the fire tongs, muttering in a mosquito's whine only he and Chen Xuan could hear. "Listen to that bootlicking. It's enough to make this old man puke up last night's pickled cabbage. Thirty percent of his blood Qi, indeed. His eyes are black underneath, and his heels practically float when he walks. Clearly he spent all last night fooling around in that newly taken courtesan queen's room again and didn't sleep well."
"Uncle Sun, mind your words, mind your words." Chen Xuan offered the warning aloud and lowered his head to wipe the tea tray, but inwardly he sneered again and again.
Early-stage bright force at twenty-three?
Here in the Marquis of Zhenbei's Residence, where martial arts flourished and experts gathered like clouds, a twenty-three-year-old eldest legitimate son who ate precious pills like candy was actually still stuck circling the threshold of early-stage bright force. He couldn't even beat any random guard squad leader picked out of the front courtyard!
He's lucky he's the eldest legitimate son who crawled out of the first madam's belly and holds the title of heir, Chen Xuan silently reckoned. If he were a concubine-born son from a collateral branch, with fighting ability this lousy, he'd have been thrown onto an estate outside the city to guard the gate long ago.