Chapter 65: Lost Red Pearl; Inadvertent Eyes Red with Desire (Part 6)
Seeing this, for some reason Xie Lian thought he was both silly and sad, then turned to ask, "Will his injuries all heal?"
One of the imperial doctors wrapped new layers of bandages around that child's head and replied, "Not a problem."
Xie Lian finally felt relieved and nodded, "Thank you for all your hard work."
Just then, an attendant entered to notify them of the imminent arrival of his majesty the king and queen. Each of the imperial doctors immediately stood up and exited the infirmary to greet. Xie Lian moved the child to the bed and said, "Lie down for a bit and rest." He then thought, the child was afraid of strangers, and so many people crowding in might scare him, so Xie Lian lowered the bedside curtains before rising to his feet too.
A number of guards and attendants surrounded the king and the queen as they walked into the pavilion. The queen's face was pale, "My dear child why did you return all of a sudden after having just left the palace? Were you hurt outside?"
"Mother, please be at ease," Xie Lian said, "I wasn't hurt, it was someone else who was wounded."
Just then, Qi Rong called out from the corner, "Auntie, save me!"
Only then did the queen notice Qi Rong, firmly held by Feng Xin, arrested on the side, and was shocked. She was only worried about the well-being of her son, and completely ignored everything else, but now that she saw, she asked, "Rong-Er, what's happened?"
The king on the other hand slightly knitted his brows, "Feng Xin, why are you holding Prince Xiao Jing like a criminal?"
When His Majesty arrived, Feng Xin should've bowed in greeting like Mu Qing and all the others, but because he had Qi Rong in hand, he couldn't let go, and thus entered into an awkward situation. Xie Lian spoke up, "It was under my command."
Qi Rong held up his right arm, "Auntie, my arm is broken."
The queen hadn't had the chance to sympathize before Xie Lian cut in harshly, "You broke an arm, but what about that child inside?"
"What child?" The king asked.
"A ten year old child," Xie Lian answered, "Powerless, vulnerable, and already weak. Qi Rong sent his lackeys to beat him. If not for his tenacity, he would've been beaten to death on the spot!"
Qi Rong looked as if he just heard a joke, his eyes widening, "A powerless, vulnerable ten year old child? Weak? Cousin, you don't know just how vicious, how savage, how spunky that little fiend was, he only pretends to be pathetic in front of you. I called for five to six guys and they couldn't catch the brat. He thrashed, bit them, and bleed them. If he didn't anger me, why would I have dragged him behind the horse carriage?"
Hearing this, both the king and the queen's faces dropped. Xie Lian took in a deep breath and shouted, "Enough! Do you think what you've done is impressive?"
Qi Rong wasn't one to shy away from showing his face, so to be so arrogant and ostentatious, there was no reason to believe the citizens of the capital did not see. And after they have seen, there was no reason he wouldn't become the talk of the city as after meal leisure.
The king gave the queen a look, his expression slightly blue, "Take Prince Xiao Jing away. Doctor, see to his arm. The golden carriage will be permanently confiscated. You are to be detained and reflect on your actions for a month without release."
The guard behind him immediately acknowledged the order and moved forward to take Qi Rong. Only then did Feng Xin let go. Qi Rong no longer cared and hmphed, "Take it, take it. I already knew today would've been the last time to drive it."
Hearing that he possessed no repenting heart, the queen sighed sadly. Xie Lian spoke up, "Looks like with only a month of detention to reflect, he will still do this again next time. There needs to be stricter discipline."
Qi Rong was taken aback and stammered angrily, "Cousin Crown Prince, you..." But the next moment he switched gears, "Fine. Then I admit, this time it was my fault. No matter how His Majesty punishes me, Qi Rong has no complaints."
His next words changed the subject's direction, "However, shouldn't Cousin Crown Prince's servant also be punished? Uncle, auntie, my arm was broken by that Feng Xin!"
Hearing this, the king instantly moved his gaze to Feng Xin, looking outraged. Feng Xin inclined his head, and Mu Qing inconspicuously moved two steps away.
The king said coldly, "Feng Xin, you are the Crown Prince's bodyguard. The Crown Prince treats you well and regards you highly, but have you forgotten your own place? What is this arrogance! Your duty is to serve His Highness. Is this how you serve him? You dare raise a hand against the Crown Prince's cousin Prince Xiao Jing?"
Hearing his words, Feng Xin was ready to kneel but Xie Lian stopped him, "Don't kneel."
Feng Xin obeyed Xie Lian's commands first and foremost, and even under the king's orders, his priority was His Highness, and so he instantly straightened again. Seeing this, the king became even more upset.
"It's true Feng Xin broke Qi Rong's arm, but the reason was to protect the master." Xie Lian said, "Besides, Qi Rong was at fault first, not Feng Xin, so why must he kneel?"
"It doesn't matter why," The king said, "Either way he has offended Prince Xiao Jing. There's a difference between masters and servants, a distinction of superior and inferior. Nevermind if I, the king, was to make him kneel, if I were to punish him with one hundred lashings there wouldn't be anything inappropriate about it."
Although the king wasn't as affectionate towards Qi Rong as the queen, but Qi Rong was still nevertheless one of the house of royalty, never to be disobeyed or offended. Qi Rong knew this very well, and said with a sly eye, "No need for a lashing punishment. He belongs to Cousin Crown Prince, I don't want to make things awkward. As long as he breaks his own arm, and kneel to kowtow before me three times, I can let this go."
The king nodded slowly, looking to consent on the decision. However, Xie Lian spoke up, "If you must punish Feng Xin then you must punish me first. He's my servant; first of all he's done nothing wrong, and second of all, if he was at fault it was still done under my orders, so I will take punishment on his behalf."
Hearing him say this, the king became outraged once more.
All the fathers and sons in the world must go through this change. When the son was young, they would all idolize their fathers as the greatest hero on earth, their own personal role model, their worship apparent. However when the son matures to a certain age, they would start to question everything the fathers did, even brew revulsion, until in the end neither sides would acknowledge each other.
To enter Mount Taicang for training, Xie Lian's fundamental objective was to improve his martial arts and search for the direction of his heart. However, he never cared for where he trained, nor with what identity.
The word 'dao' for cultivation meant exactly as it appeared, which was 'To walk the path'*. As long as one's heart was set on the path with one mind, then training could be done anywhere. He didn't need to follow any dictated norms, nor enter the Huang Ji Pavilion. There was another reason why Xie Lian had begged to train on Mount Taicang, and that was because he felt he really didn't get along with his father.
As the honourable Crown Prince of Xian Le, the moment Xie Lian was born, the King of Xian Le had already drawn out every detail of the path of his life. It was alright when he was still young. A child had little worries, and Xie Lian only needed his parents to build gold foil palaces with him, play around and laugh. As the years went by, Xie Lian felt more and more that his father wasn't only a father, but also the ruler of a kingdom, and many of their thoughts and actions could no longer concur. For example. The so-called Royal Prestige was one of the things Xie Lian hated.
If they couldn't concur, then it was best to stay far away. Every time he returned to the palace, he spent more time conversing with his mother, and never any heart-to-heart with his father. The two never took the initiative to talk to each other either, and it was also the queen who always mediated between them.
The father and son had maintained this frozen relationship for many months, and now, with Xie Lian stubbornly refusing to back down, the king said, "Very well. Take his place if you must. Let's see if you can actually withstand it!"
"Of course I can!" Xie Lian retaliated.
The queen saw the two of them were butting heads again and anxiously said, "Why must it be like this?"
Just then, Feng Xin who hadn't spoken a word on the side, suddenly raised his left arm and struck down on his right. There was a large CRACK, the crowd was startled and looked to the sound, and saw his right arm was dropped limply, exactly like Qi Rong's. Xie Lian was both shocked and furious, "FENG XIN!"
Cold sweat rolled down Feng Xin's forehead, and without a word, he knelt down before Qi Rong and 'ko, ko, ko', kowtowed three times. Qi Rong was feeling rather proud and laughed out loud, "Alright, I guess I'll forgive you. Why couldn't you have done this earlier?"
Even though his arm was broken too, when he left he looked energized and refreshed, as if he fought a winning battle. As for Feng Xin, he was still kneeling on the ground, and Mu Qing stood on the sidelines watching, his expression gloomy but his thoughts unreadable. Xie Lian whipped around to face his father, yelling angrily, "YOU! –"
Feng Xin grabbed him with his left arm, "Your Highness!"
The queen also put her hands on him to pull him back. Xie Lian knew that Feng Xin followed him since the age of fourteen and was cared for deeply by the queen. He only did this because he couldn't bear to see the queen sad over the dispute between the father and son. If Xie Lian threw a fit now, then Feng Xin's efforts would go to waste, so he swallowed his outrage but the fire continues to burn inside his heart. The king finally looked appeased, and left with a grim expression.
The queen had always liked Feng Xin and sighed, "My child, we've wronged you."
"Please don't say that, your majesty. This was my duty." Feng Xin replied.
Hearing this, Mu Qing's eyes squinted, like he snorted coldly. Xie Lian however, closed his eyes, "Mother, if you really can't handle Qi Rong, then lock him up."
The queen sighed, nodded, then shook her head, and left too.
Xie Lian asked for one of the imperial doctors to tend to Feng Xin's right arm and apologized, "Feng Xin, I'm sorry."
Once the crowds had cleared, Feng Xin immediately changed face and clicked his tongue, "This is nothing. I dared hit him, so how could I be scared of his revenge?" After a pause, he advised, "Your Highness, of course it's right for you to discipline Qi Rong, but don't be resentful of His Majesty. His Majesty is the king, and a figurehead of the older generation, so he thinks differently than we do. Seeing the two of you fight makes the queen sad. She has her difficulties too."
And how could Xie Lian not know his mother's difficulties?
The mother of Qi Rong was the younger blood sister of the queen and they got along very well. When she was young and immature, at the first bloom of romance, she thirsted for freedom, listened to words of honey and broke off a good engagement to elope with a bodyguard in the palace. Who knew that the one she had chosen was villainous. One who was born of nobility stuffed in a doghouse-like shack, and after only half a year, the villain revealed his true nature, drunken and violent. After Qi Rong was born he became even more abusive. Finally, the mother couldn't take it anymore, and when Qi Rong turned five, she took him and ran away from home. Because she had become a royal scandal, she closed the door and no longer stepped foot outside, and spent the rest of her life in grim depression, only showing particular love and devotion to her only son.
During an upheaval, Qi Rong's mother lost her life saving the queen, and before she passed, she asked Xie Lian's mother to look after Qi Rong.
Of course the queen did her utmost. However, it was still awkward raising someone else's son. Discipline is difficult, too strict and it'd appear to be abuse; thinking of past love and friendships, she could hardly be so harsh; too lax, and it'd turn out to become the behaviour of today, and without stricter restraints, it could only get worse in the future. The queen also wondered often, she raised Xie Lian and Qi Rong almost the same, so how come their characters were so different?
Just then, Xie Lian suddenly remembered there was another small child still lying on the bed here in the infirmary. He raised the bedside curtain to check, and that child was sitting up, looking like he was trying to peek out of some crack to watch. The moment Xie Lian raised the curtain he laid down obediently. Xie Lian said, "Did we scare you with the fight just now? Don't let it bother you, it has nothing to do with you."
"Your Highness, this little kid's wounds have been tended to. Now he only needs quiet rest." One of the imperial doctors said.
Xie Lian dipped his head slightly, "Thank you for your hard work."
He then bent down again to ask, "Where do you live? I'll take you home."
That child shook his head, "No home."
Feng Xin approached, holding the arm that's now in a sling, "No home? So he really is a little beggar?"
Seeing that this child was emaciated and small, his clothes filthy and unkempt, it wasn't impossible. If he had no home to return to, they couldn't possibly leave him at the palace or throw him out on the streets. Xie Lian pondered a moment then said, "If that's the case, then let's bring him with us back to Mount Taicang."
Unexpectedly, Mu Qing suddenly spoke up, "He's lying."
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●'Dao' [道]: in this context is translated to 'cultivation' but the word originally means 'the path', used to indicate both the literal and philosophical. Thus, one who practices 'the path' is a Taoist/Cultivator.