Vol 7 Chapter 223 – Your servant or your intended?

XH 223 - Your servant or your intended?

Tian Zi flinched for the uncountable time when the sound of a loud bang echoed around the servant's courtyard. She was completely distracted from her duty, her eyes kept straying to the direction where the sound came from.

Tian Chi was doing better, but she had overdone her productivity and cooked more dishes than needed.

Not yet a day passed and it was already sending their stress straight down to their core from struggling to ignore the sound, especially when they knew the cause of it.

Da Bei, in his wolf form, was locked in an array made by An Jing, not allowing him to leave. They tried their best to calm him down, but the longer he stayed in the array, the more agitated he became. Treating the pain as if nothing, he kept on colliding his body at the array walls, until his fur dyed in bloody red.

Throwing down her chopsticks, Tian Zi gave up on eating. She turned to look at An Jing that was eating her dinner calmly. "Elder Sister An Jing, if this goes on, Da Bei would die."

An Jing raised her eyes to meet Tian Zi's distressed gaze. "You want me to release him? And in turn, release Miss Bai?"

"We do not need to release him. All we need to do is to stop Da Bei from harming himself further," Tian Zi persuaded, appearing as understanding as she could. "It would harm his entire life if the array damaged his core."

Tian Zi and Tian Chi were actually surprised at how unaffected An Jing was when Xiao Hua was locked up as punishment. Especially when An Jing was the one that treated Xiao Hua well right from the moment they first met.

In An Jing's eyes, Xiao Hua had indeed done something wrong and it was only right for her to be punished. Being locked up without meals for a few days will not kill her, a second rank cultivator. The time alone will help her reflect on what she had done wrong.

In any case, Xiao Hua had an easier punishment when Duan XiYing was forced to endure pain in a special array made by An Jing. Right now, she could not even retain her human form.

"I heard contracted beast could feel their master's distress," Tian Chi mused, trying to appear unconcerned when her eyes had already betrayed her. "Could Da Bei be like this because of Xiao Hua?"

Tian Zi hesitated when An Jing continued on eating, not at all concerned. "Yes, that's right."

Beneath her collected front was chilly anger on Long Zhu's behalf. From his sleep talking, An Jing knew how much hate he has for Long Shan, yet Xiao Hua dared to plea for that scum's behalf and ignored her master's pain!

"Stop worrying about unnecessary things. Finish your meal and return to your duties."

"Yes, Elder Sister An Jing." Tian Zi and Tian Chi forced down their food that tastes like mud in their mouth.

After locking up Xiao Hua, Long Zhu went back to work with a gloomy aura with his lips straight like a line that no one dared to approach. Not even the brave Heise has the guts to ask what was wrong with him.

Not even the 19th Emperor wanted to share the same room with how dark his usually gentle grandson's face was. So he kicked his grandson to a smaller room and tossed him a week worth of paperwork to be dealt.

But Long Zhu was unable to concentrate on the documents, his mind distracted and heart stuffy. So he went and practiced his sword arts, but all he did was destroy the place.

With a fierce roar full of emotions, he broke his sword into two and threw it far away, yet the stuffiness in his heart did not ease.

Why? Why would she betray him? She understood his pain! She should have stood by his side!

He was angry at her, yet he still could not bear harming her so he can only punish her this way. Two days of being locked up was his plan, but he does not know what to do with her after that.

With an uneasy heart, he skipped dinner and went to bed early, hoping yet fearing for the time to pass. Lying on his wide bed, he suddenly felt his arms empty.

For the past two days, he never let Xiao Hua sleep alone, foolishly afraid that she would fall into depression if he did not keep an eye on her.

His worry was truly wasted on her!

No longer feeling the urge to sleep, he went back to the waiting paperworks and burned the midnight oil. When Gu Dan left, they had left a trail of destruction and Guilin needed to prepare a large budget to fix them. He had also yet to deal with Long Shan's properties.

Thinking of Long Shan's properties, it reminded Long Zhu about the conversation with Xiao Hua a few days ago. He had wanted to give her some of Long Shan's property since she was worried of being poor. But she vehemently refused, too terrified to receive a soon to be dying person's things, especially when Long Shan will not be peacefully going to the afterlife.

Xiao Hua knew and accepted that it was a fact that Long Shan would die sooner or later, but why would she suddenly change her mind? Did Long Shan and Long Lian successfully grasped her kind hearted side?

The candle in the room suddenly died out, and the front of his clothes was yanked forward. Before he could do anything, he got a punch aimed right at his nose.

Treating Long Zhu like a sandbag, he was lifted out of the room and got thrown to the ground. He only had the chance to see the dark sky before the attacker mercilessly rained punches on him.

After receiving countless kicks and punches, Long Zhu finally got the chance to dodge and identified his savage attacker. "Teacher!"

Doctor Bai stopped his attack and stared down at his disciple. There was not a single hair out of place despite giving Long Zhu a sound thrashing that exercised most of his muscles.

"I have strong belief in your moral character, Long Zhu." His tone was light and filled with praise, but it was totally in contrast with Doctor Bai's violent actions.

After saying that, Doctor Bai continued bestowing punches on Long Zhu, purposely not hitting any vital parts, but would still be painful to feel. The plants around them trembled, not knowing if they should save the human with high affinity with them.

That other human is scary ah!

Originally, Long Zhu calmly accepted the beatings until his teacher stopped, but the beatings started to get stronger. If this continues, who knows what will happen to him?

He quickly blocked a punch and swiftly rolled away. "Teacher! Why would you beat me without reason the moment you returned?"

"Why ask when you already know?"

"I do not, Teacher!" Long Zhu insisted.

Doctor Bai waved for his disciple to come over. "Then come to teacher. Receive my care until you do."

Long Zhu quickly moved far away. What care? He just wanted to continue beating him up!

"Teacher, please do not be unreasonable. I do not know what I've done to make you angry. Please enlighten me!"

Doctor Bai gave his disciple a disappointed gaze. "You asked me a favor to adopt your fiance and I do it because you are my disciple. I thought your feelings for her are deep and everlasting, but even if your feelings changed, you should not have treated her badly."

A burst of anger relit in Long Zhu's heart. "Teacher, do you view me as a petty person? I punished Xiao Hua because she made a mistake."

"Locking her up in an abandoned courtyard is your choice of punishment? Did you not care for her safety?"

Without waiting for Long Zhu's answer, Doctor Bai grabbed him and sped towards Peach Courtyard. There were no people around since Long Zhu ordered no one was to enter the courtyard.

The whole place was dark, except for Xiao Hua's room. The chains were cut open and there was an unfamiliar man dressed in a majestic black robe inside.

"Bai Chuan," the unfamiliar man greeted with a warm gaze and stood up from the bed. He was muscular without the air of a rough man, but a seasoned soldier that would be right on top of the chain in command. One might also wrongly guess that he may be an Emperor with his majestic aura that easily suppressed others.

"How is she?"

"Just a bad cold. It's nothing that medicine could not heal. As for her mind, it's hard to say."

On the bed, laid Xiao Hua, looking pale and sickly. Even when she was unconscious, she does not look peaceful with that deep frown.

"Why did she look like that?" She looked as bad as when she was injured in the prison!

"Are you not the one with the answer?" Doctor Bai asked his disciple with unmasked hostility. 

"Teacher, her punishment period is supposed to be two days." Long Zhu explained grimly, his fists tightened under his wide sleeves, stopping himself from going over to Xiao Hua. "It's not even a full day yet. A second rank cultivator won't get affected by not eating for a few days."

Besides, there were plenty of snacks hidden in her room as well as in her spatial bracelets, how could she starve herself?

"What had she done to deserve this punishment?" Doctor Bai questioned with a soft tone with underlying danger.

Yet, Long Zhu did not notice it, too wrapped in his feelings. "She went to visit a murderer behind my back and even pleaded for his life when she should know better!"

With a tyrannical force, Doctor Bai lashed out with his Qi to attack Long Zhu's center of his energy until he coughed out blood. Long Zhu could not even stand up straight from the pain.

"I will listen to that later. What I want to know now is whether Xiao Hua is your servant or your intended?" Doctor Bai stared down at his disciple furiously.

It had been a long time since he was this angry! If he had not visited the Bai family's ancestral hall on the way back to Guilin, he would not have noticed the name of the newly accepted member of Bai was turning black! Black inked names were the deceased while the white inked names were the living. Inside the ancestral hall, only Bai Chuan and Bai Hua's name were white.

Fortunately he saw that and raced back to Guilin instead of taking his own sweet time!

"No..." Long Zhu admitted weakly, clutching his stomach, the area where his center of energy was located.

"Do you know what I see when I first step into my daughter's room? I saw my daughter lying on the floor, with a pale face, cold body, bruised knees and hands. I would have thought she had died if I did not sense her weak pulse. By my estimation, she would have died if no one found her the next day."

Something in Long Zhu's mind snapped. He darted towards the bed to reach out to Xiao Hua but Doctor Bai blocked him.

"Now you feel concerned? Too late!" Doctor Bai sneered coldly before kicking his stupid disciple out of the room.