The ward went quiet for a moment.
Ji Li slowly raised his head, his eyes settling back into the calm they’d held before. Although “calm” wasn’t quite the word, “numb” came closer.
“My apologies, Female master. Something’s come up and I have to leave right now.”
Before Jiang Wangyue could respond, Ji Li threw back the covers and got out of bed, only, his strength hadn’t fully returned, and his legs buckled. For a second it looked like he was going to fall.
Jiang Wangyue’s body reacted faster than her brain. She lunged forward in one stride and caught him with both hands.
Looking at how pale Ji Li’s face still was, she couldn’t hold it back and asked, “What’s so important that you have to go right now? Can’t you take leave?”
Ji Li said nothing, but Jiang Wangyue felt him push her hands away, gently, slowly, and yet with complete resolve.
“Wait for me to come back. Then punish me however you see fit.”
Leaving those words behind, Ji Li walked out without a backward glance.
Jiang Wangyue stood rooted in place, a little dazed.
Image after image flashed through her mind, every one of them a scene of Ji Li saying that very line.
It was the same every single time.
Not one word of explanation, he’d just come home covered in wounds [1] 遍體鱗傷, lit. “wounds all over like fish scales”: battered head to toe, injuries everywhere jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2723729_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2723729_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], }); and then silently endure the original host’s whipping.
Jiang Wangyue couldn’t help clenching her fists. She wanted to drag Ji Li back and chew him out, but even more, she wanted to chew out that idiot boss of his who wouldn’t even let a sick man rest.
But almost at once she deflated.
She didn’t even know what Ji Li did for a living, so how was she supposed to go cuss out his boss?
The more she thought about it, the funnier she found it. The original host had been matched and married to all five beast husbands for a whole year, and somehow she only knew where Yun Miao and Lan Xue worked, the other three were a total blank.
Oh, wait. Not quite.
Jiang Wangyue thought it over with a straight face. Feng Yan was probably a businessman, since he gave the original host the most money of any of them, that was how the original host had figured it out.
As for Ji Li and Su Hui, she really had no idea. The two of them were each more mysterious than the other.
Pulling her thoughts back, Jiang Wangyue turned and headed out herself.
After all, the patient had already left, what was she still hanging around here for? Fun?
The overcast sky looked like it would start raining any second. Jiang Wangyue pulled her coat tighter, and her brows knit slightly as she took in the golden-haired female blocking her own front door.
Tinar.
She didn’t expect her to catch on this fast.
Tinar took a step forward, glaring at Jiang Wangyue with eyes full of malice.
“Was it you who reported Night Tryst to the security officers?”
Jiang Wangyue gave her a placid glance. “You’re overthinking it.”
“Then why didn’t you show up last night?”
“I was sick. Is that not allowed?”
Tinar sneered. “Sick, and still running around outside dressed like that?”
“You’re going to police me taking out the trash, too?” Jiang Wangyue went on improvising off the top of her head. “I just didn’t expect that the second I finished tossing it out, I’d run into another pile of garbage parked at my front door.”
“You—!!”
Tinar was so furious that smoke practically poured from all seven orifices [2] 七竅生煙, lit. “smoke pouring from the seven openings of the head”, eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth: livid with rage jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2723729_1_2').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2723729_1_2', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });. She whipped the lash from her waist and, without a word, swung it straight at Jiang Wangyue.
Her move was too fast. Even though Jiang Wangyue reacted and scrambled back a few steps, the tip of the lash still caught her on the bare skin of her calf. A line of blood welled up at once, and the pain made her suck in a sharp breath.
“Are you out of your mind?!” Jiang Wangyue shouted. “Raising a hand against a fellow female in plain sight of everyone, noble or not, you won’t get away without punishment!”
Tinar raised the lash high again, viciousness glittering in her eyes.
“So what? Don’t forget, Jiang Wangyue, I’m an A-grade, and you’re nothing but a worthless little C-grade reject. Even if this gets taken all the way to the Female Protection Center, the worst I’ll face is paying you a bit of money!”
“Swoosh—”
The whistle of the lash splitting the air rang out again, but this time Tinar’s whip was seized tight by a slender, powerful hand that shot out of nowhere, and it never touched Jiang Wangyue.
Lan Xue, who’d rushed back in a hurry, fixed Tinar with a cold, hard stare. With a slight tug of his hand, he sent her stumbling.
Tinar shouted at him, “You lowly male! How dare you lay a hand on me?!”
A trace of scornful amusement curled at the corner of Lan Xue’s mouth. “And where did you find the nerve to lay a hand on my Female master? On the strength of that bankrupt Rodriguez noble name of yours?”
Watching her body go taut, Lan Xue let go of the whip without any warning.
The recoil yanked Tinar staggering several steps, and she went sprawling to the ground in a sorry heap.
“Miss!”
“Female master!”
The several male beastmen who’d been standing behind Tinar the whole time hurried forward and, in a flurry of hands [3] 七手八腳, lit. “seven hands and eight feet”: a chaotic scramble of too many people pitching in at once jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2723729_1_3').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2723729_1_3', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, hauled her back to her feet.
Once she was up, Tinar’s face flushed crimson. A noble like her, humiliated in front of a lowly commoner!
She raised a trembling finger at Lan Xue, her shrill voice piercing enough to make eardrums ache.
“Get him! Kill him!”
Before Jiang Wangyue’s cry of “Careful—” could even leave her mouth, Lan Xue’s eyes narrowed slightly, and a vast wave of mental power blasted those few male beastmen clean off their feet.
A plain, unmistakable case of being crushed by a higher mental-power grade.
Tinar stared in horror at Lan Xue advancing on her, instinctively backing up two steps, and barked at him with a bluster that didn’t match her nerve [4] 色厲內荏, lit. “fierce of face, feeble within”: putting on a tough front to mask the fear underneath jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2723729_1_4').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2723729_1_4', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });, “What do you think you’re doing?!”
Lan Xue let out a soft, mocking laugh and stopped in his tracks. “How would I ever dare do anything to so noble a female as yourself? I only wish to win some justice for my Female master. Either apologize, or let her whip you back, take your pick.”
“Never!” Tinar refused without a moment’s hesitation.
“Oh?” Lan Xue smiled, savoring the moment, then slowly lifted his hand. “Then I’m afraid all that’s left is to—”
Lan Xue never finished. Jiang Wangyue caught hold of his hand, stopping him mid-motion.
Leaving the panicked Tinar with a single word, “Scram”, Jiang Wangyue hauled Lan Xue into her own courtyard and slammed the gate hard behind them.
Pulled off-balance by her grip, Lan Xue had only just stepped into the living room and started to speak when Jiang Wangyue cut him off, her voice cold.
“Do you actually want to stand trial for deliberately injuring an A-grade female?”
Just as those male beastmen Tinar had brought along hadn’t lifted a finger earlier, how females went head to head with one another was their own affair, the worst those men could face afterward was punishment for failing to protect their Female master.
But the moment Lan Xue raised a hand against Tinar, then no matter what justification he had, the Female Protection Center would absolutely drag him into court, exile if he was lucky, execution if he wasn’t.
Jiang Wangyue looked at Lan Xue, a complicated expression on her face.
She didn’t believe that someone as meticulous and calculating as Lan Xue would throw caution to the wind over his own safety just to win justice for the original host.
When Lan Xue heard her, his expression went briefly blank, but then he smiled.
He knelt down before Jiang Wangyue, lightly circled her waist with his arm, and tipped his head up to look at her.
“Female master, are you worried about me?”
A vein at Jiang Wangyue’s temple twitched. She couldn’t help reaching out to pinch Lan Xue’s cheek, and ground out through her teeth, “Did you hear a single word of what I was asking you?”
Lan Xue’s skin was very fair, and because she was angry she didn’t ease up on her grip, the spot she pinched flushed red in an instant.
Lan Xue paid the pain on his face no mind at all, in fact he leaned in even closer.
“You’re worried about me after all.”
Jiang Wangyue lowered her head, met those deep blue eyes brimming with laughter and tenderness, and all at once she ran out of steam.
References[+]