Chapter 39: Garlic White Meat (Part 14)
Before uttering the words "I'm sorry," Leng Yue had imagined every possible reaction Jing Yi might have—except for the one where he had no reaction at all.
Jing Yi hung his head slightly, neither responding nor moving.
"Jing Yi..."
Leng Yue gave him a gentle push, her voice softening as she applied a bit more force. Jing Yi swayed but didn't lift his head or make a sound. Instead, he slumped limply to one side.
"Jing Yi!"
Startled, Leng Yue quickly caught him, wrapping one arm around his shoulder to hold him securely against her chest while deftly checking his pulse with her other hand.
The moment she felt his pulse, she froze. Glancing down at the person nestled against her with eyes gently closed, she gritted her teeth but couldn't bring herself to drop him back onto the ground.
He had actually fallen asleep...
He nearly scared the soul right out of her!
Leng Yue sighed with a mix of exasperation and amusement, then resignedly scooped him up into a horizontal carry.
She had never imagined she would one day use the same motion she employed for moving corpses on her own husband—and do it so gently, skillfully, and contentedly.
Jing Yi was dead asleep, seemingly unaware that his body was now half a person's height off the ground. He lay pliantly in her arms, the flush on his cheeks fading slightly, his breaths as soft and shallow as a newborn's.
This scene reminded Leng Yue of a phrase Jing Yi had once used in The Biography of Nine Immortals to describe a millennium-old fox spirit:
"A feast for the eyes."
Leng Yue felt her throat grow dry as she gazed at him. Unable to resist, she decided to steal a kiss on his slightly parted lips.
She would save the rest for when they returned to their room.
Just as Leng Yue lowered her head, mere half an inch from those enticing lips, this "feast for the eyes" suddenly let out a soft murmur and drowsily opened his eyes.
"...
Jing Yi seemed utterly exhausted, his eyes only half-open as he mumbled something indistinctly at Leng Yue, who was now inches away.
Leng Yue, startled by his sudden awakening, nearly dropped him. She didn't catch what he muttered, and by the time she steadied herself, Jing Yi had already fallen back asleep, his face buried squarely between her breasts.
Leng Yue twitched her lips.
This man...
He must be doing it on purpose.
When Leng Yue carried him into the bedroom, Uncle Qi was still there, pacing circles around the table in the middle of the room.
"Madam!"
Seeing Leng Yue enter with Jing Yi in her arms, Uncle Qi hurried over, his face ashen as if he had just suffered a tremendous fright.
He was scared?
She hadn't even been scared when Jing Yi stumbled into the living room earlier!
Leng Yue felt a surge of irritation that a head steward like Uncle Qi couldn't even keep a drunkard under control. She didn't respond, instead walking straight to the bed, carefully laying Jing Yi down, and removing his shoes before straightening his long legs. Just then, Uncle Qi brought over a tray from the table holding scissors, bandages, and several medicine bottles.
"Madam... please attend to the young master's medicine quickly!"
Medicine?
Leng Yue paused and turned. "What medicine?"
"His leg... the young master's leg..."
Uncle Qi hesitated in his reply, but his hands trembled with urgency, causing the items on the tray to rattle softly. The sound made Leng Yue's heart tremble in turn.
His leg?What happened to Jing Yi's leg?
Uncle Qi didn't seem like he could explain things clearly in just a few words, so Leng Yue didn't press further. She deftly untied Jing Yi's long gown.
As the gown fell away, Leng Yue was startled to discover fresh bloodstains on Jing Yi's left thigh, visible through his inner trousers.
The blood was located toward the inner side of his thigh—impossible to notice unless one deliberately lifted the hem to an improper height. Through the fabric, it appeared something was wrapped beneath, and the blood had seeped through that wrapping before staining the inner trousers.
This amount of blood...
Leng Yue's heart clenched. She snatched a pair of scissors from the tray in Uncle Qi's hands and carefully yet swiftly cut open the leg of Jing Yi's inner trousers, revealing a cloth belt soaked through with blood.
Uncle Qi drew a sharp, deep breath beside her.
Leng Yue's brow furrowed slightly.
The belt seemed to have been hastily tied, but whoever did it hadn't been careless. They had not only carefully bound the wound but also tightly wrapped two layers slightly above it, preventing life-threatening blood loss or the loss of the leg.
The person who tied this belt was clear-headed and calm.
Without a word, Leng Yue took a roll of bandage from the tray, tied it firmly but not too tight a little higher up, cut through the cleverly tied belt, and carefully removed it.
Jing Yi lay still as if completely unaware, not moving a muscle, his breathing steady and unchanged.
Leng Yue's tense heart relaxed slightly as she examined the wound closely. It was a knife wound—made by a thin, narrow blade that wasn't particularly sharp. It had been driven in almost vertically, deep enough to nearly graze that critical artery.
As the belt came off, a fresh trickle of blood seeped from the wound, startling Uncle Qi so much he nearly dropped the tray.
"Ma... Madam, should we... should we call a doctor?"
Without looking up, Leng Yue replied flatly, "No need."
With that, she pressed her red lips together and skillfully stopped the bleeding, applied medicine, and bandaged the wound. Her movements were so adept and fluid that Uncle Qi felt a bit dazzled.
When she first began learning martial arts, General Leng had taught her basic treatments for injuries and bruises. Later, at the frontier military camp, she had bandaged countless comrades after battles, growing numb to even the most gruesome wounds. And later still, chasing suspects and solving cold cases across the country, tending to her own injuries became routine.
But Leng Yue had never imagined she would one day use these skills on Jing Yi.
Especially after marrying him.
He had been perfectly fine just moments before...
The inner thigh is one of the most pain-sensitive areas on the human body. Normally, even a twist of his ear would make him cry out to the heavens. A wound like this in such a spot, and with his fear of blood... if he weren't heavily drunk...
Leng Yue didn't dare dwell on it.
Pursing her lips slightly, she finished treating Jing Yi's wound, stood up, wiped the blood from her hands with the bloodstained clothes she had removed from him, and carefully tucked him under the covers. Only then did she turn to Uncle Qi, who had been so frightened by the bloody scene that his legs had gone weak. Her voice was cool as she asked, "Uncle Qi, I asked you to look after him. You heard me, didn't you?"
Uncle Qi nodded repeatedly, placing the tray back on the table, his voice still shaky from the shock. "Yes... I came as soon as you said..."
Before he could finish, Leng Yue pointed sharply at the bed, her voice rising an octave. "Then what is this?"Uncle Qi had seen Leng Yue angry before, but he had never seen her direct her fury at him. He froze for a moment before cautiously explaining, "This... this was done by the master himself..."
Jing Yi had injured himself?
The anger Leng Yue had been suppressing instantly flared up. "Couldn't you tell he was drunk? You just stood there watching while he stabbed himself with a knife?"
"N-no..." Uncle Qi waved his hands in panic. "It wasn't the master who stabbed himself! It was me... The master insisted that I do it!"
Uncle Qi's words felt like adding fuel to the fire raging in Leng Yue's heart, then pouring oil on top.
She walked to the table, snatched the scissors from the tray, and shoved them into Uncle Qi's hands. Lifting one leg to step on the edge of the table, she slapped her thigh. "I'm ordering you to stab me too. Go on, do it."
Uncle Qi held the scissors with both hands, trembling like a leaf. "Madam..."
"Stab me! How dare you stab him but not me!"
Leng Yue's voice was naturally deeper than most women's, and in her rage, she unconsciously channeled some internal energy into her shouts. After two such outbursts, even Uncle Qi, who had served in the Jing family mansion for years, couldn't withstand the pressure. His knees buckled, and he fell to the floor with a thud.
"Madam..." Uncle Qi bowed his head to the ground, his voice trembling with unshed tears. "I've watched the master grow up since he was a child... It pains me too... When I first entered, he asked where you had gone. I told him Jing Zhaoyin had arrived, and he insisted on going to see, but he was too dizzy to get up. I tried to persuade him to rest, but he wouldn't listen. He said you facing that entire family alone was too dangerous... so he made me use the fruit knife from the bedside tray to stab him. He said stabbing the leg would hurt the most, and the pain would clear his mind immediately..."
With every word Uncle Qi spoke, Leng Yue's heart clenched.
Again, it was because of this unnecessary worry.
Earlier, when he couldn't stand steadily and swayed while walking, it was probably because he was in excruciating pain. He wouldn't let her support him because he was afraid she would notice something wrong.
This utterly foolish man...
Leng Yue lowered her leg from the table, though her anger hadn't fully subsided. "He told you to stab him, so you did? There are plenty of ways to clear someone's mind! Couldn't you have just slapped him a couple of times? Even dousing him with cold water would be better than stabbing him with a knife!"
"Madam, I did slap him..." Uncle Qi remained prostrate on the floor, not daring to move, and replied fearfully. "The moment I slapped the master, he slapped me back twice. You know how the master never resorts to violence... As a servant, how could I dare to say anything after that?... If I didn't do it, he would have stabbed himself. I was afraid that in his dazed state, he wouldn't know his own strength, so I did it..."
Leng Yue turned to look at the man still sleeping peacefully on the bed, her heart filled with indescribable emotions. Her voice softened slightly. "Did you also wrap that belt around his waist?"
"No, no... The master wrapped the belt himself. He also ordered me to prepare the medicine before he went out. The master said there was no need to call a physician—that you would definitely take care of him..."
Leng Yue's heart trembled faintly again.
So he had wrapped it himself...
How excruciating must that stab wound have been, to sober up someone who had been drunkenly rambling just moments before to such an extent in an instant?Leng Yue desperately wanted to lie on the bed, hold him tight, stay by his side until he woke, ensuring she'd be the first person he saw upon opening his eyes—then gift him a kiss profound enough to be remembered for a lifetime.
But alas...
"Uncle Qi, please rise..." Leng Yue grasped her sword, her voice having fully returned to its usual calm. "I have matters to attend outside. Please watch over him for me."
"Yes, yes..."
Leng Yue braved the rain to visit the Capital Prefecture.
The corpse remained as before—a man, meticulously cleaned, with a few scattered holes filled with white wax near the groin. However, the heavy rain and the body's placement face-up on a tattered mat beside the stone lion at the main entrance had allowed rainwater to pool inside the hollowed-out abdomen. This necessitated an extra step of draining the water before moving the corpse into the coffin, causing the Capital Prefecture guards on duty to vomit violently in the downpour.
Leaving the coffin temporarily at the Capital Prefecture, Leng Yue ventured through the rain again to the Sparrow Nest Brothel.
Generally, married women were forbidden from entering brothels.
Yet, as the capital's premier brothel, the Sparrow Nest was an exception.
Married women were permitted entry.
Provided they met the beauty standards and possessed a shameless desire for money.
Hua Mei, the Top Courtesan of the Sparrow Nest, had entered its doors and taken up this profession precisely by meeting these conditions.
When Leng Yue slipped through the window, her clothes damp with fine mist, Hua Mei's fragrant chamber was aglow with flickering red candles. The overly warm air carried the faint scent of a popular aphrodisiac commonly used in brothels in recent years.
Frowning slightly, Leng Yue moved silently to the bedside. With a swift chop of her hand, she struck the neck of the naked man who was grunting like a pig rooting through cabbage with vigorous enthusiasm. The man's portly body stiffened instantly. With a gentle push from Leng Yue, he tumbled off the bed and landed roundly at her feet.
Apart from the dull thud of his fall, the man had no chance to utter a sound.
The woman who had been pinned and prodded by the man finally caught her breath. She panted heavily for a while, coughed several times, then turned her head to offer a sweaty, seductive smile to the cold-faced Leng Yue standing by the bed. The allure was so potent that even Leng Yue, a woman herself, felt an involuntary flutter in her heart.
"Haven't I told you... interrupting a man at such a moment might ruin him for life..."
Leng Yue bent down to pick up the woman's clothes that had been torn and discarded on the floor. Tossing them onto the bed without ceremony, she retorted bluntly, "Any man who crawls into your bed on Mid-Autumn Festival night is already ruined for life."
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