“Great Immortal?” Chen Baoxiang was startled. “Did I hit a wound?”

The Great Immortal said nothing. He only reached out and closed his hand around her wrist, and the bathing room fell silent save for the sound of water droplets falling.

Chen Baoxiang could see nothing at all. She only felt that the hand around her wrist was both wet and warm, trembling very slightly — or perhaps it was simply a kind of helpless resignation.

After a long moment, he spoke again. “No. You don’t need to help me any further — I’ll do it myself.”

“Your breathing sounds quite warm.” Chen Baoxiang tilted her head. “Have you come down with a high fever?”

Zhang Zhixu leaned silently against the side of the pool, profoundly grateful that this person could see absolutely nothing.

His chest had been scrubbed until it was flushed red. The tips of his ears had gone red as well. His arms had broken out in a wave of fine tremors, and his heart had stirred with something unfamiliar.

He was not, by nature, a man who attached much weight to matters of desire. He had always regarded Chen Baoxiang simply as a host who had shared hardship alongside him — and yet now, when she touched him, he was losing control and his mind conjured up certain round and bouncing images without his permission.

Youth and vigour, blood running hot — Zhang Zhixu’s throat moved rapidly as he swallowed, forcibly turning his head away and refusing to look at her. But his body’s response was swift and candid.

The steam rising around him dyed the corners of his eyes red, and his breathing grew slightly hurried despite himself.

“Great Immortal?” Chen Baoxiang remained completely unaware, and was still worried.

Zhang Zhixu quickly pulled his hand back. “You go out first.”

“You don’t need my help anymore?”

“I can bathe myself.”

His voice grew more and more strained, as though something was genuinely not sitting well.

“Are you alright?” Chen Baoxiang felt something was wrong, and reached up to pull the sash from her eyes.

There was a loud splash from the pool. Someone rose, and in a moment of lost composure, caught her hand.

“Out.” He said in a low, terse command.

Chen Baoxiang, with nothing but darkness before her eyes and no understanding of what was happening, only sensed that the Great Immortal seemed to have taken some offense at her. She tucked her tail between her legs and slipped out of the bathing room in flight.

He hadn’t said when they’d go find his elder brother?

But they should be able to go once he finished bathing.

Chen Baoxiang pulled the binding off her eyes, returned to the front hall, and waited there obediently.

She had expected the Great Immortal to come out before long, but half an hour passed, and Jiuquan told her, “My master has just gotten out of the water and still needs to dry his hair and change his clothes.”

What? Soaking that long — wouldn’t he be swollen all over?

Chen Baoxiang stood and craned her neck. “How much longer will it be? It’s nearly dark outside.”

Jiuquan had just been about to coax her into patience when Ningsu came hurrying in from outside, cupping his hands in a bow before Chen Baoxiang. “Lady, the second young miss’s side has sent someone to pass word — she’d like to ask you to come over.”

The second young miss — Zhang Yinyue?

Chen Baoxiang waved her hands repeatedly. “I still have something to do tonight — I need to go find General Zhang.”

“General Zhang is at the second young miss’s place right now.”

Hmm?

Chen Baoxiang was pleased. “Perfect — I’ll head over first. Jiuquan, pass word to your master later and have him follow along when he’s ready.”

“Understood.” Jiuquan agreed.

Chen Baoxiang marveled at what a happy coincidence this was as she hurried toward the Zhang household, calculating in her mind that if this Zhang elder brother was someone easy to talk to, she could raise the matter herself without troubling the Great Immortal any further.

But the moment she crossed through the gate of the second branch’s courtyard, she sensed that something was not right.

The courtyard that was usually lively with the chatter and laughter of servants was now as silent as a burial ground. The ground was so immaculately clean it could reflect a person’s face, and every plant and flower had been trimmed into the most orderly of shapes.

Looking all around — the covered walkways where lithe and graceful maidservants used to stand were all replaced with soldiers in full armor, their scabbards gleaming, their presence heavy and imposing.

She swallowed, and stepped back, asking the person who had led her here, “Did we come to the wrong place?”

“No.” The guide pointed ahead at a side chamber. “General Zhang and Miss Yinyue are both inside.”

With a suspicious glance around, Chen Baoxiang carefully stepped out onto the stone tiles.

Crack—

Five braided canes, bound together, swept through the air with a sharp whoosh and struck hard against someone’s back.

Chen Baoxiang was startled and turned to bolt — but then she heard the one being struck say in a hoarse voice, “This child knows his error. Father, please calm your anger.”

That was Little Zhang’s voice?

Chen Baoxiang turned around, bewildered.

Before her eyes, Zhang Xilai wore only a thin robe. He had been beaten until blood seeped through, crisscrossing his back in the shapes of the cane strokes — a rather terrifying sight. And at the head of the room, a person in full armor sat with stern authority, his face utterly unmoved.

“Stop hitting him.” Yinyue’s eyes were red with unshed tears, her whole body trembling. “Elder brother, I was the one who brought him along to look at the flowers — why are you beating him?”

“A person who knows neither propriety nor restraint deserves to be struck.” That voice was cold and hard. “Beaten to death, and your reputation would be made whole.”

Yinyue was frantic, unable to stop the one administering the punishment — so she simply made to fling herself bodily in the way to shield him.

“Go ahead then.” That voice fell lightly. “For every stroke you take, he takes ten more.”

“…” Yinyue froze in shock, stranded halfway there.

Seeing that these cane strokes were genuinely driving toward a killing intent, Chen Baoxiang covered the distance in two or three strides, and with what appeared to be no more than a casual stumble, knocked the person wielding the canes aside.

“Yinyue, you were looking for me?” She asked with a smile.

The room fell into a dead silence. Yinyue looked at her with a surge of joy, and Zhang Xilai, braced on the ground, shifted his hand slightly.

“This is the Chen girl staying in Mingzhu Tower?” The person at the head of the room spoke.

Chen Baoxiang fixed her gaze on him — and what a figure he was: a thick beard covering every inch of his face, the eyes of bronze and brows of iron, his bearing awe-inspiring and formidable.

She offered a bow in greeting, with a touch of jest: “And could this be the legendary, valiant and battle-hardened General Zhang?”

Yinyue’s expression shifted. She looked at her anxiously, and gave a small, urgent shake of her head.

What did that mean — had she mistaken who he was?

Chen Baoxiang didn’t understand, but she heard the person above let out a cold snort, and say in a tone that brooked no softening: “So this silver tongue of yours is what you used to coax Zhang Fengqing into making an exception for you?”

This person did not seem to have much of a sense of humor.

Chen Baoxiang stood up straight, and stared back at him blankly. “What exception did he make for me?”

“Storming the prison. Bringing you back to the Zhang ancestral estate. Personally standing watch over you while you recovered from your wounds. And having you live next door to him.” Zhang Ting’an’s brow furrowed, and his gaze was anything but kind as it traveled over the person before him. “And you’d call all of that merely ordinary hospitality?”

Yinyue’s breath caught. She kept shooting glances at Chen Baoxiang, trying to signal with her eyes.

She knew her own elder brother too well. He was the most rigid and strict of people, and also the one who valued Second Elder Brother most. In his eyes, not even a heavenly fairy would necessarily be a worthy match for Second Elder Brother — let alone this young woman standing before him, who, at a glance, did not seem terribly proper.

If she didn’t talk back, things might still be manageable — a few vague and placating words and she could walk away unscathed. But Baoxiang elder sister seemed to have no grasp of the situation at all. He said one thing, she would shoot back three.

“So all of that counts as making an exception? I thought it was simply the warm welcome one extends to a friend.”

“A friend?” Zhang Ting’an let out a cold laugh, and produced a written transcript of her registered household. “What sort of person are you, to make a friend of him?”

His rough, calloused fingers tapped at the three characters of Sanxiang Village, his contempt not even bothering to hide itself.

Chen Baoxiang’s eyes narrowed slightly, and the curve of her smile flattened just a fraction.

She looked at the person before her — and then suddenly broke into a full grin again. “By the General’s reasoning, since Fengqing didn’t treat me as a friend, then it must be that he had some other motive where I’m concerned?”

“Watch what you say.” Zhang Ting’an’s voice cracked through the room like a thunderclap, his palm slamming the table.

The tea cups on the table shattered under the impact. The guards outside were startled, and drew their blades from their scabbards in unison, surrounding the doorway.