Chapter 51

“Baizhi, go get Yan Lingxiao back!” As soon as he rushed back to the valley in rage, Yan Ke yelled at one of his young disciples.

Having just come back from her walk in the woods, Mrs. Yan was shocked when she saw her husband knitting his brows. She hurried over and asked in a soft voice, “My lord, what’s wrong with you? Isn’t Lingxiao cultivating in the hill behind our house?”

“We both were fooled by that brat! Have you ever seen him cultivating continuously for more than five days without making any trouble? I guess he might have left the valley to find his fiancée with Huali!”

“His fiancée?” Mrs. Yan froze for a moment before she continued, “Are you talking about Zixiu? How could Lingxiao know Zixiu’s whereabouts?”

“Zixiu is wearing the fragrance of ‘Liuyun’. The sense of smell of your son is as keen as a dog’s. Needless to say, he can find ‘her’ without difficulty!”

“Er… I almost forgot that.” With an awkward smile, Mrs. Yan continued, “Lingxiao hasn’t reached eighteen and he wouldn’t have dared leave the valley without your permission!”

“Humph! You should know he and Huali have liked Zixiu since childhood, so he must have left because he was worried about losing his fiancée to someone else!”

“But Zixiu was betrothed to Lingxiao when ‘she’ was still in ‘her’ mom’s womb!”

“That doesn’t help! If Zixiu falls in love with Huali and is determined to marry him, the verbal engagement agreement between our two families will be of no use! What’s more, Huali is mature and considerate, much better than our arrogant son!”

“My lord, how can you think highly of others and look down upon your own son!” Mrs. Yan complained with a frown. “Anyway, Lingxiao is smarter and more talented than any other disciples of yours. It’s a pity that he can’t leave here until he’s eighteen!” she thought.

“I’m just telling the truth! Don’t you think so?”

“Er… You may have a point there!” Though she was a little irritated by what her husband had said, Mrs. Yan had to admit that their son was a little conceited. She didn’t mean to add fuel to the fire, but after thinking it twice, Mrs. Yan suddenly clapped her palms. “I have to warn Lingxiao that his Senior Brother is going against him for…”

“Enough!” Yan Ke interrupted her with veins bulging out on his forehead, secretly complaining that Lingxiao had been spoiled by his mother. “Your son might have already left the valley!”

“Huh? Impossible!” Mrs. Yan widened her eyes.

However, before she could recover from the shock, Baizhi had run into the hall, gasping. “Master, Brother Lingxiao is not in the hill.”

“Where’s Lianshan?”

“I couldn’t find him either!”

“What!” Yan Ke suddenly raised his voice, which gave Mrs. Yan and Baizhi a start.

“My lord, calm down! Lingxiao must have missed Zixiu so much that he left without notifying you. But if he found Zixiu, we might be able to become grandpa and grandma next year. Haha!”

Yan Ke almost coughed a mouthful of blood at his wife’s words. After a while, he said feebly, “Stop daydreaming! Brother Liu is asking me to hand over his son!”

“His son?” Mrs. Yan looked at his husband blankly, just as what Yan Ke had acted when he heard this piece of shocking news from Liu Wuyi. “Brother Liu has another child?”

“Your daughter-in-law, Liu Zixiu, is actually a boy!”

“A boy?!” Mrs. Yan’s eyes nearly popped out. “Zixiu is a… No, impossible! It must be some kind of a sick joke!”

“Have you ever seen a dad who couldn’t even figure out the sex of his child?” Yan Ke retorted with what Liu Wuyi had just said.

Shaking her head, Mrs. Yan said with a resolute look, “Zixiu can’t be a boy! When Ziyan changed the baby’s diaper years ago, I was by her side. I was sure it was a girl and my eyes wouldn’t have deceived me! Besides, if Zixiu is a boy, how could Brother Liu have agreed with the marriage between the kids?”

Hearing that, Yan Ke couldn’t help but start doubting Liu Wuyi’s words. After thinking it for a while, he turned to his wife and said with a solemn look, “Let’s put aside the question of whether Zixiu is a boy or a girl. Now the kid disappeared and Brother Liu is either our son or Huali kidnapped him!”

“Huali is a good boy and he would never do such a thing!” Mrs. Yan blurted out.

With a bitter smile on his face, Yan Ke said, “Even you think this way! Seems our son is the most suspicious!”

“Maybe Zixiu was kidnapped by someone else!” Mrs. Yan immediately defended her son. “It’s not safe outside. Kidnappings and wife-snatches occurred from time to time. What’s more, Zixiu is so pretty… Although Lingxiao is a prankster, he won’t do anything illegal or immoral! Anyway, Zixiu will be his wife sooner or later. Why should Lingxiao kidnap ‘her’?”

“But Brother Liu and his family have been living in the mountains, Zixiu seldom goes to town, and those who live near the mountains are all plain villagers who are not likely to do something like kidnapping. Moreover, except for people from the Valley of Fallen Blossoms, nobody else could sense the smell of ‘Liuyun’!”

Mrs. Yan couldn’t think of anyone else who might have kidnap Zixiu either. “But… What’s Lingxiao’s point in doing this? Maybe he has hidden Zixiu because he wanted to prevent him from seeing Huali!”

“That’s unlikely! Lingxiao was only four years old when Zixiu left the valley. Affection between children and love between a man and a woman are two different things! So I guess Brother Liu might be in doubt that my two disciples kidnapped Zixiu to force him to show up! Though my medical skill is superior to his, when it comes to the knowledge of herbs, I’m far behind him.”

“So maybe Lingxiao and Huali took Zixiu away secretly because they wanted to learn from him about the identification of medicinal herbs?” It suddenly came to Mrs. Yang’s mind.

“I don’t know how much Zixiu learned from his dad… But why did Brother Liu insist on that Zixiu was a boy? Had he betrothed Zixiu to someone else?”

The couple brought the topic back to the sex of their future daughter-in-law, and they had totally forgotten that their Brother Liu was still waiting by the lake outside of the valley! Though most of their speculations were out of line with the facts, they were right about one thing—Yan Lingxiao had followed behind Luo Huali and gone to Luanzhou at the risk of being punished by his father because he worried that his senior brother might meet Zixiu privately and steal him! And because of the smell of ‘Liuyun’, the two finally found out Zixiu’s whereabouts.