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n“I’ll leave after unblocking your meridians,” Yuwen Tong answered Ling Zhang’s question.

nLing Zhang was somewhat amazed by this response. “You specially came back to help me unblock my meridians?”

n“Yeah,” Yuwen Tong replied and quickly stripped, his eyes sweeping across Ling Zhang’s slim neck, pretty shoulder blades and smooth back.

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n“If you have urgent business to handle, just go. Please don’t change your plans on my account,” Ling Zhang felt a little uneasy. ‘How could he waste such a good opportunity?’ he thought.

n“Stop talking. Concentrate your mind and calm down.” Yuwen Tong pressed his hands against Ling Zhang’s back. Ling Zhang’s eyes slightly squinted on the warm and humid touch.

nLing Zhang had wanted to dissuade him, but on the thought that Yuwen Tong specially came back to help him, he felt that he ought not to hurt Yuwen Tong’s feelings, that he would only waste more time if he made further efforts to dissuade Yuwen Tong, so he said no more, trying hard to concentrate.

nAfter he calmed down, Yuwen Tong slowly mobilized his internal energy and cautiously injected it into Ling Zhang’s body.

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nLing Zhang began to feel the familiar mixture of numbness, itch and pain again…

nAfter over two hours, Yuwen Tong stood up, walked out of the bathroom and soon disappeared. Clearly, he was in a hurry to return to the encampment.

nLing Zhang got changed, sat down and began to ponder what he should do with the buyer after catching him the next day, but gradually, his mind drifted onto Yuwen Tong. He wondered whether Yuwen Tong would be able to find out what he wanted to find out. The scene of Yuwen Tong hastily coming back to help him unblock his meridians as well as the one of his hastily leaving were also replayed in his mind.

nAt last, even he himself couldn’t recall what he had thought about. When he came back from the trance, he found that he had drawn several diagrams of tactical formation on the paper. Every one of them had been drawn with painstaking attention to detail, as if he had intended to give them to someone as gifts.

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nLing Zhang briefly paused. Seeing that the ink on the tip of the writing brush was about to drip down, he hurriedly moved it aside.

nSurprisingly, he had subconsciously wanted to do something for Yuwen Tong and unhesitatingly started drawing these diagrams of formations.

nLeaving aside whether Yuwen Tong would deem them useful, these formations were imparted to him by his mother. Given that his grandfather and uncle had tried so hard to conceal the existence of them, his mother definitely wasn’t someone from a common family. If the existence of these formations came to any outsiders’ knowledge, there might be trouble, so he must be discreet about this matter.

nWith this in mind, Ling Zhang, who was supposed to stop, finished those diagrams of formations stroke by stroke.

nThere were six of them in total.

nHe blew on those pages to dry the ink, put them together, elaborately made a front cover and bound them.

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nThe expression on the face of Ling Zhang changed several times as he stared at the thin book. Eventually, instead of destroying it, he chose to hide it.

nHe decided to observe Yuwen Tong for another certain amount of time and give this book to him after confirming that he was truly reliable.

nSince Yuwen Tong was a marshal of the Great Yue’s army, Ling Zhang believed that these things would be of greater use in Yuwen Tong’s hands than they would in his own.

n“Young Master, it’s late. You should go to sleep,” urged Xia Feng as he walked inside and saw that Ling Zhang was still awake.

n“I see.”

nLing Zhang rose from the chair and returned to his bedroom to sleep. He had just had some of his meridians unblocked and was feeling comfortably warm all over. In fact, if he wanted to, he could fall asleep immediately after his head touched the pillow, but he didn’t close his eyes to sleep after lying down. Instead, he told Xia Feng, “Remember to wake me up when Lord Yuwen comes back.”

nXia Feng was a little hesitant. ‘It’s already late Hai Hour (21:00-22:59) and it will soon be Zi Hour (23:00-00:59). Who knows when Lord Yuwen living next door will come back?’ he thought.

n“Xia Feng?”

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nMistakenly believing that Xia Feng didn’t hear him, Ling Zhang called him again.

nXia Feng came back from the brief trance and hurriedly answered “Yes” in the knowledge that it was very hard to have Ling Zhang change his mind, that he would definitely be punished the next morning if he forgot to wake Ling Zhang up when Yuwen Tong came back at night.

nAfter giving the instruction to Xia Feng, Ling Zhang soon drifted off to sleep.

nAt this time, in the Prefecture Encampment, Yao Yi had just finished covertly interrogating a soldier abducted by him. Then he had one of his subordinates disguise as that soldier and helped him enter that mysterious tent in the Prefecture Encampment.

n“You have two tasks. First, find out how many heavily armored infantry and armaments there are in the basement. Second, confirm whether that batch of weapons are also stored down there.”

n“Yes.”

n“After the job is done, I’m afraid you’ll have to stay here in this disguise until Zhang Chong is handled.”

n“I understand.”

n“Go.”

nAfter making these arrangements, Yao Yi said to Yuwen Tong, “Marshal, I’ll keep a close watch on the weapon workshop. You may go back and have a rest.”

n“That’s not necessary.”

nYuwen Tong was determined to identity where those weapons were hidden.

nSoon after Zi Hour, some kind of sound emanated from the weapon workshop. Yuwen Tong, who was sitting repose with his eyes closed, immediately opened his eyes.

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n…

nLing Zhang woke up the next morning and summoned Xia Feng. “Those living next door still haven’t returned?”

nXia Feng shook his head. “I waited all night but Lord Yuwen didn’t come back.”

nWith a frown, Ling Zhang stood up, washed his face, got dressed and told Xia Feng, “You didn’t sleep last night. Take a day off and have some rest.”

n“Yes, Young Master. Thank you for your consideration.”

nLing Zhang went next door, saw the guard on duty and asked him, “He didn’t come back last night?”

nThe guard smiled, “Yes, that means Marshal must have found something.”

nLing Zhang shared his opinion, so he observed, “Would you be kind enough to inform me when he returns?”

n“No problem.” The guard agreed to it willingly.

nOriginally, he had planned to ask one of Yuwen Tong’s bodyguards to test out the Trap-and-Kill Formation of Twelve, but since Yuwen Tong hadn’t come back yet, and there was nobody in the mansion except for a couple of guards, so Ling Zhang had no choice but to delay it.

nThose security guards of Ling family, who had been irrepressible all morning, were somewhat disappointed after hearing that the test had been delayed. They felt an urge to vent the enthusiasm that had been building up for a night and a morning.

n“Just keep practicing and improving your skills. There will be plenty of chances for you to have a competition with them. Don’t slack because of this.”

n“Yes!”

nAfter practicing fist techniques in the guards’ yard for two hours, Ling Zhang discovered that he had been making increasingly greater progress during the past few days. Remarkably, he was now able to last a few rounds with Wang Dashan.

n“You’ve been making progress at an impressive rate, Young Master. I admire your efforts.”

nBut Ling Zhang was fully aware that he owed all this to Yuwen Tong, who had been helping him unblock his meridians. Now he had better hearing and sharper eyes. His other senses had also become keener than before. He was now able to anticipate the tracks of Wang Dashan’s fists the moment Wang Dashan made his move, but his reflexes were still not quick enough, which was why most of the time, he was unable to sidestep the blows.

nIf his bodily reflexes were quick enough, it would be difficult for Wang Dashan to hit him.

n“Captain Wang, do you know any methods of improving bodily reflexes?”

n“I do, but I’m afraid your horse stance and fist technique still need a little improving. If you’re not very anxious to learn it, I suggest that you wait for a few more days.”

nLing Zhang understood what Wang Dashan was saying. Wang Dashan was advising him to lay a solid foundation first.

n“I see. Thank you for your advice, Captain Wang.”

nWang Dashan was somewhat embarrassed. “I’m glad you don’t blame me for being gabby, Young Master.”

n“You offered me helpful advice. Why would I blame you for that? By the way, I’m going somewhere and I want you and Elder Brother Liu to accompany me. Meet me at the gateway an hour later.”

n“Yes, Young Master,” Wang Dashan answered. Since Ling Zhang didn’t tell him where they were going, he asked no questions.

nThe time that Wu Er’niu and the buyer had agreed on was about to come. Ling Zhang, followed by Wang Dashan and Liu Yi, left the mansion. After taking a detour, the three of them found a place near the noodle stand in the eastern part of the city and sat down. They had all changed into common, unobtrusive clothes and were talking with their heads down, so nobody noticed them.

nAfter sitting for a while, Ling Zhang had sized up all people in the noodle stand. He recognized one of them – the butler of Jia family.

nUnsurprisingly, Jia family was behind this.

nHaving confirmed the truth of his conjecture, Ling Zhang gave a gasp of relief. ‘The buyer isn’t Zhang Chong’s subordinate, so at least Yuwen Tong’s existence hasn’t come to Zhang Chong’s knowledge yet,’ he thought.

nRight at this moment, Wu Er’niu finally turned up. He was walking at a gentle pace, looking somewhat sickly.

n“What took you so long? Didn’t we agree to meet at Chen Hour (07:00-08:59 a.m.)?” The butler of Jia family impatiently complained at Wu Er’niu in a low voice.

nThe countenance of Wu Er’niu was rather unnatural. He was trying so hard to subdue the urge to look around that he couldn’t even speak fluently. “I…I just got up a little late.”

nThe butler of Jia family knitted his brows and suspiciously sized up Wu Er’niu. “What happened to you?”

n“I…I had a fall in the bathhouse and hit my waist on the ground. It still hurts,” replied Wu Er’niu.

nThe butler flicked a disgusted look at him, fished a pouch out of his inner pocket and put it on the table. “See? Here’s the money. As long as you tell me what you know, the money is yours.”

nOn the sight of such a large sum of money, Wu Er’niu swallowed hard reflexively, which further disgusted the butler.

n“Hurry. Stop dithering. Tell me what you know and the money is yours.”

n“There have indeed been a couple of special visitors. I made some inquiries. They’re relatives of Second Mistress. One of them is the son of a certain lord,” Wu Er’niu told the butler what Ling Zhang bade him to say the night before.

nNow that someone saw Yuwen Tong and his men enter the city that day, he might as well admit it. Saying that they were relatives of Fu Caiwei was a mere expedient.

n“Which lord? Be specific.” The butler of Jia family asked a further question.

n“I have no idea. Those people stayed in the mansion for a couple of days. Then someone came and told them that there was an emergency in their home. They left on that very night. It was Young Master who received them. We didn’t dare to go to Young Master’s courtyard,” Wu Er’niu flinched and answered.

nThe butler of Jia family went impatient. “You good-for-nothing. This is all you know? You didn’t even find out who that person is!”

n“This is all I know.”

n“Are you sure they were those who entered the city that morning?”

nWu Er’niu nodded. “Yes. Except for them, there had been no visitors, still less of people who came to spend the night.”

n“On which night did they leave?”

n“Eight days ago.”

nEight days ago? The look in the eyes of the butler suddenly changed. It was the very night when his master was kidnapped and then left in the tavern!

n‘I knew it! It was indeed people of Ling family who did that. Those people left the city after doing those things, because they were afraid people might find out!’ the butler thought.

nBelieving that he had found the truth, the butler of Jia family pushed the pouch to Wu Er’niu and asked in a severe tone of voice, “Did anything else happen in Ling family apart from this? I want every detail.”

n“I…I’m only an old-job man working in the kitchen. Without the permission of a steward, I can’t go anywhere except for the kitchen. I really don’t know what happened in other areas of the mansion,” Wu Er’niu panicked.

n‘Young Master didn’t tell me how to answer this kind of question. What am I supposed to say?’ he thought anxiously.

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