Translator: Antonia

  The couple fooled around until very late. Certainly, they couldn’t get up in the morning.

  Very early, Awu went to Tong mansion to send a message for Mo Qianxue. Awu also went to the school to ask a day off for his lord.

  When Mo Qianxue woke up, it was noon already. With nothing to tackle with personally, she felt too lazy to get up.

  Ning Shaoqing leaned in languor on the coach, staring at Mo Qianxue, all smiles. He enjoyed the peace and pleasure of the moment, which made him feel like floating on clouds carefreely and no longer lonely.

  This tranquil also reminded Mo Qianxue of a line: I’m willing to tell you how nice and peaceful time is, to be there for you amidst fleeting years, and to recall our glorious past with you at an old age.

  The two pairs of eyes, carrying love, tickled each other when there was a knock at the door.

  “Lord. Mr. Tong is here.”


  Mr. Tong came? Anything wrong with Tong Zijing?

  Mo Qianxue jumped off the bed but was pressed down by Ning Shaoqing who said camly, “Don’t worry. I’ll deal with everything. You have some rest today.”


  Then, he turned around and went out, his face turning from loving to freezing.

  In the living hall, Mr. Tong paced back and forth with anxiety.

  Ning Shaoqing raised his folded fists and greeted him, “Nice to meet you Mr. Tong. What may I help you?”


  Mr. Tong looked up, a little surprised, “Mr. Ning, nice to meet you. Is Mrs. Ning at home?”


  Since Ning Shaoqing was deadpan, Mr. Tong didn’t display too much courtesy either.

  The two men, clear of each other’s background, were of equal rank in the capital, so it was unnecessary for them to go through superficial formalities.

  Ning Shaoqing let Mr. Tong to take a seat and he himself sat next to him, saying unhurriedly, “My wife is in slight discomfort and is taking a nap.”


  “Please help me pass a message to her that there is an emergency.” After all, Mr. Tong was the one begging for something, his tone was softened.

  Ning Shaoqing looked at with a cold eye, “What emergency? Mr. Tong can feel free to tell me.”


  “My son Jing’s former condition recurred after he heard that Mrs. Ning wouldn’t come to our mansion. Please help me pass the words to her.”


  “I think it’d be more reasonable if your son is ill rather than coming to my house.”


  “Mr. Ning, maybe you don’t know the situation yet. My son’s condition is unusual……”


  “First of all, my wife is no doctor with any treatment knowledge. Secondly, she’s not a servant of Tong mansion; she has no duty to wait for your call at anytime. Are you going to the wrong place and praying to the wrong Buddha?”


  The two men took their rounds with lip clubs and tongue swords.

  At the beginning, Mr. Tong was able to maintain a smiling face and polite tone, but as Ning Shaoqing acted so unmoved, he was a little anxious and began to spite out harsh words, “I guess you shouldn’t want to see your brother so soon.”


  Ning Shaoqing took no effort to know that this was a threat.

  He put down his teacup and sneered, “I’m not a person subject to any threat.” Upon finishing, he turned around and commanded, “Asan, let’s walk our guest to the door!”


  Mr. Tong stood up, “Yes. You’re not. But don’t forget that Mrs. Ning is only a weak vulnerable woman.”


  The old asshole was threatening him with Mo Qianxue’s life.

  Ning Shaoqing didn’t compromise, “Right. But let’s wait and see whether my wife or your son is luckier-fated.”


  Mo Qianxue was his weak point while Mr. Tong had his own too.

  “My son will be well-protected by me, but I’m afraid Mrs. Ning couldn’t survive your mother and brother’s schemes.”


  Ning Shaoqing’s heart plunged, and his face changed slightly, but the tone remained decisive, “Thanks for your reminder, but don’t bother to care about her.”


  Mr. Tong was an old general who had went through numerous scenes like this, so seeing that his threatening didn’t work out, he turned gentler again, “Mrs. Ning and I instantly became friend at our first encounter. I’m considering adopt a daughter, what do you think?”


  Ning Shaoqing’s steps halted at the door.

  If Tong family really meant to protect Qianxue in the future, he would be indeed much relieved about her safety. Even if Ning Shaoyang, his younger brother, finally figured out his whereabouts and aimed to eliminate him, he wasn’t a bit dreadful.

  However, as Mr. Tong had said, Qianxue didn’t know martial arts. She was in potential danger.

  With Tong guards’ protection and shelter of Tong family, Ning Shaoyang might be merciful to her.

  He, Asan, Awu and his shadow guard. Merely four people. How could they protect her if that day really came?

  He was seriously contemplating on it.

  Mo Qianxue’s voice rang from outside, “Mr. Tong and I were on business terms. Since when did we become friends?”


  Mo Qianxue got properly dressed and when she just talked to the door of the living room, she heard that Mr. Tong was going to take her as a daughter, which made her almost vomit blood.

  Recognize her as his daughter? What a joke!

  Did he, a man who valued his face so much that he even ignored his own son, deserve a good daughter? No way!

  “Qianxue. I told you……”


  The butler Tong was standing at the door, paying close attention to the conversation between his master and Mr. Ning. At this moment, seeing Mo Qianxue, in agitation, he instantly kneeled down and cut in even before his master started to talk, “Mrs. Ning, please, please help my poor lord.”


  “What happened to Zijing?”


  “In these days, lord has been used to waiting for you at the door as soon as he gets up. At around eight o’clock this morning, you still didn’t show up. He began to be restless and anxious, so the servant told him that you wouldn’t come.

  To our surprise, this made lord so mad that he threw and smashed everything in the room and then turned hysteric, crying that no one in the world wanted him and laughing in a creepy way…… When the servants approached him to comfort him, he threw things at them and let them go away, claiming……claiming……”


  Mo Qianxue’s heart dropped, and she asked in a hurry, “Claimed what?”


  “He said……that……” The butler’s intermittent speech left Mo Qianxue so worried. Luckily, at least, he seemed ready to pay any price and shot out the sentence, “Lord said that he only wanted one person, and that is Mrs. Ning……”


  This sentence shocked Mo Qianxue like a divine thunder.

  Also, Ning Shaoqing’s face was turned from cold to pitch-dark cold by it.

  He had been very impatient, and although he predicted that it couldn’t be a nice thing a hear, he never expected that Tong Zijing should be so bold and daring to demand his wife in bright daylight.

  His eyebrows began to leap involuntarily. He clenched his fists so hard that he managed not to knock down the butler at once for the sake of courtesy.

  The frosty man commanded, “Asan and Awu, drive these two people out of here.”


  “Yes.”


  Asan and Awu was dispatched, one pulling Mr. Tong and the other pulling the butler who was on the ground.

  Mr. Tong waved his sleeve to shake Asan off, “Ning Shaoqing, don’t be regret.” He paced outward.

  Yet, the butler insisted kneeling on the ground and kept kowtowing to Mo Qianxue, begging, “Mrs. Ning, please……”


  Mr. Tong, pretending to walk away though, didn’t leave in fact and stopped at the door.

  He stood there, facing outside, shoulders violently trembling.

  Evidently, Ning Shaoqing had resumed his inner peace and was now sitting in the chair and blowing his tea impassively.

  Mo Qianxue was in such a miserable dilemma in the face of this confrontation.

  She looked to Ning Shaoqing. Last night he was so eager and affectionate but now already put on a indifferent mask, something she couldn’t pull off at all.

  Then she looked to butler Tong who was pleading on the ground. She wouldn’t forgive herself if Tong Zijing’s condition really recurred and worsened in the future.

  Baffled, she turned to Ning Shaoqing again, eyes full of begging.

  Ning Shaoqing deliberately avoided eye contact with her, which put her in disquiet.

  No doubts that she must go to see Tong Zijing, but she also wanted to gain his permission instead of storming out arbitrarily disregarding his feelings.

  He did sense Mo Qianxue’s sight and did understand her ambivalence.

  However, he wasn’t so broad-minded as to watch his dear wife taking care of another man, even if that person was a merely pitiful victim to her.

  Her gaze getting no response, Mo Qianxue felt a little frustrated and depressed.

  She turned away inch by inch, and the determination in her eyes grew bit by bit. Now that he was reluctant to be considerate, she had only to go to accommodate Tong Zijing first and then came back to apologize and ask him for pardon.

  “Please get up, butler, I……” Mo Qianxue held up butler Tong and was about to tell him her decision.

  “I’m going with you.” Ning Shaoqing suddenly stood up, staring at her in a look of giving in. He said seriously, “Let’s take Tong Zijing back and carefully attend to him.”


  If she must go, then he would just go with her. He could stay assured only when they and what would happen was in his grip.

  “Huh?” Mo Qianxue could feel her heart palpitating, unsure this was really happening. Until she looked to Ning Shaoqing and found him, not in a good mood, nodding at her, was she able to believe it.

  She felt both flustered and unspeakably sweet because he must be somewhat miserable but still chose to make such a self-sacrificing decision for her.

  Ning Shaoqing made a compromise, but someone else had an opinion.

  Mr. Tong suddenly turned over, reproaching, “How dare you! My son is in poor health. How could he bear a long bumpy trip to here? You evil man must be plotting something!”


  He furthered turned about and glanced at the decor, despising, “What a plain house……”


  “This plain house is a hundred times better than your prison.” Mo Qianxue cut in.

  “You……” Mr. Tong didn’t expect that Mo Qianxue could disregard all courtesy and satirized him so directly. He stuttered, “Anyway, I don’t agree to let Jing live here!”


  “You don’t agree? Of course you don’t! Thanks to you that Jing became like this!”


  His fault being revealed, Mr. Tong got irritated from shame and took a step forward to look Mo Qianxue right in the eye, “I’m his father. I have the final say about his staff. But you, Mrs. Ning, don’t you remember our agreement? We’ve agreed that after my son is well, the valley will be yours. Now don’t you want that valley?”


  What was wrong with the old buddy? Now he only thought of the valley? Was he too old to have a clear mind? Go to hell with the valley! Bye!

  Mo Qianxue turned around and no longer wanted to reason with this muddle-headed old thing. Exhausted, she held Ning Shaoqing’s hand, saying coldly, “Shaoqing, let’s go. Asan and Awu, see our guests to the door!”


  Ning Shaoqing had made the biggest concession, and she had tried her best too. There was nothing else they could do to save Tong Zijing from the purgatory.

  She hated the fact that Zijing had such an incorrigibly obstinate father.

  Foreseeing what to come, the butler Tong panicked, “Mr. and Mrs. Ning, please, forgive us……”


  “Master, I think that the courtyard is very nice with fresh air. It’ll be suitable for lord to recover. Very likely he’ll be well once he lives here……”


  He shed tears while begging his master and Mo Qianxue. He praised the courtyard, hoping he could mend the situation.

  What a poor guy he was to kneel down to and beg everybody in his sixties!

  Although butler Tong was one of Tong mansion’s servants, his social status, as the butler of a first rank noble family which was entitled by the first emperor of the country, was not lower than the prime minister.

  Mo Qianxue was a soft-hearted benevolent person who couldn’t bear to watch such a scene.

  Mr. Tong was also moved by the butler’s reaction, and, thinking of his poor son, his eyes turn red, “I apologize for what I said. Please forgive me. The valley is yours. I entrust my son to you.”


  Then, he left immediately.

  He had been a commanding person for his whole life. This was the first time that he conceded to two juniors.

  Hence, Mo Qianxue pulled Ning Shaoqing outward without saying more to Mr. Tong.

  She found that the carriage of Tong mansion was parking at the gate, which reminded her of the former oxcart that had been destroyed by Ning Shaoqing.

  She took a glare at Ning Shaoqing.

  Ning Shaoqing ignored the glare and scolded the driver, “Leave!”


  The coachman was about to talk back when he saw the butler waved to him, so he jumped off the carriage obediently.

  Ning Shaoqing held Mo Qianxue and got into it, so Asan jumped on too to be the driver.

  Mr. Tong just walked out of the house and, seeing that his carriage had been occupied and driven away by Ning Shaoqing even without telling him, pissed off and vented his anger at his driver by kicking him and cursing, “You useless thing.”


  The driver wanted to explain but was stopped by the butler……