Wearing a leather hat, Little Lingzhong was taking an afternoon nap on a mat on the floor. Under him the mattress was soft, over him the blanket was thin. Although the cold winter had just passed, the weather has not been back to warm yet, but because of the burning stove in the hall, such measure to defend against the cold, the air temperature was just perfect.

Therefore, a hint of sweet smile was hanging on the corner of Little Lingzhong’s mouth; it was such a picture of unspeakable peace and comfort.

Chuchu, his wet nurse, and two other young maids, were keeping Little Lingzhong company while doing needlework and chatting idly, giving Xu Ziling the nest-like warmth of ‘home’ feeling.

He never had a home. The broken-down house in the abandoned garden at Yangzhou was just a hideout where they lived in temporarily; it was very difficult for him to see it as his home.

Home should look like the one before his eyes.

Kou Zhong’s shock was not over yet.

The moment he crossed over the doorstep into the hall, he met the gaze that Chuchu sent to his direction. His heart, which was originally like a tranquil lake, suddenly rippled and boiled over because a rapidly flowing stream was rushing into it.

Chuchu’s eyes were like a magical ‘cupid’s arrow’, containing a pleasantly surprised, complicated and subtle mood, as well as endless expectation, which came from the depth of her fragrant heart; who could resist it?

Kou Zhong remembered the scene at the Da Longtou Mansion in the past, where Chuchu took the initiative to throw snowballs at him; he also recalled her enchanting beauty and charm when he pulled her gauzed sleeve, she was displeased and annoyed, and scolded him as ‘silly kid’.

The enchanting beauty of the past suddenly came back to life, becoming the reality before his eyes.

Kou Zhong immediately blamed the ‘cupid’s arrow’ because an unprecedented urge was welling up in his heart, an urge to embrace her, to cherish her, to comfort her, to make her happy and merry. Even toward Song Yuzhi he had never experienced this kind of hard-to-hold-back longing and desire. Perhaps it was because at the Da Longtou Mansion Chuchu has shown initiative and her brazen style, which exceptionally able to evoke the desire hidden deep within his heart.

The moment he made contact with her affectionate glance, all he could think about was to hold her inside his strong, powerful arms, to stroke he, to understand as much as possible the profound mystery in her fragrant heart.

Toward her, he was both familiar and unfamiliar. The familiarity gave him the feeling of intimacy. The unfamiliarity made him wanting to seek the hidden-away, to explore the mystery, the intensely stimulating taste.

Only it was a pity that this moment he must forcefully suppress this kind of genuine emotion in his heart, he must not let it out the slightest.

Two boys, with two different frames of mind, took off their boots and set their feet on the soft yet springy straw mat covering the entire floor of the hall. Chuchu came up to meet them. Gently, tenderly, delicately she used her clothes to brush off the dust from the two boys’ body, without saying even half a sentence.

Xu Ziling’s gaze fell onto the Little Lingzhong’s face, who was sleeping soundly without waking up on the mat on the floor; smiling, he said, “Chuchu Jie, no need to mind us, don’t wake Lingzhong up even more, we can only quietly look at him from the side. When he wakes up, then we can play with him.”

Chuchu gently said, “He has just fallen asleep, I am afraid he won’t wake up in less than a sichen. Even if we talk next to him, we don’t have to worry about waking him up.”

At the same time, heartache mixed with heartening feeling welled up in Xu Ziling and Kou Zhong’s heart, thinking that Little Lingzhong not only did not have a mother, he was like not having a father as well. Zhai Jiao’s temperament was irascible and she lacked patience, definitely not a good candidate for motherhood, so Chuchu was certainly the best choice.

The wet nurse and the others knew that it was time for them to temporarily take their leave, while Chuchu led the two boys to sit by Little Lingzhong’s side. Chuchu automatically sat next to Kou Zhong. She cheerfully said, “Did you notice that Xiao Shaoye has grown more like Su Jie?”

Kou Zhong caught her scent, the delicate fragrance that he knew so well, yet also appeared to belong to the distant past, he sensed that she was fondly attached to him and had great hope toward him, yet he knew that he simply must not be aroused to passion toward her, so he fought hard to suppress his feeling. Nodding his head, he said, “He inherits all of Su Jie’s good genes, not the least bit was left.”

Unable to take his eyes of Little Lingzhong, Xu Ziling sized him up and asked, “How old is he this year?”

Chuchu raised two fingers; she said, “He will be three soon.”

And then she stood up and said, “You stay here and look after Xiao Shaoye for me, Chuchu will be back soon.”

Stunned, the two boys watched as her figure disappeared outside the door; they were both unable to make any sense of the matter.

Kou Zhong looked back, his gaze fell on Little Lingzhong’s ruddy, healthy-looking little cheeks, and said with a sigh, “I just hope that he will never find out who his father is. If in the future Xiang Yushan is content with his lot [idiom: to know one’s place], his account with us can be wiped out. It’s a pity that I don’t see how it will happen, because the problem is on him.”

Full of tenderness, Xu Ziling gently fixed the hat and the thin blanket on Little Lingzhong, to prevent him from being invaded by the wind chill. Nodding in agreement, he smiled bitterly and said, “What we are facing right now is definitely a trap. Time and again we set ourselves against Xieli, we must have angered him, hence he exploited Xiang Yushan’s familiarity with us to eliminate us.”

The refined light in Kou Zhong’s pair of eyes flared out severely, he spoke in heavy voice, “I want to establish my prestige.”

Xu Ziling nodded and said, “I understand what you are thinking.”

Kou Zhong sighed and said, “Only you understand me well.”

After burying Zhen Sao and their archenemy Yuwen Huaji, the two boys’ enmity and gratitude and grudges toward the secular world became blurry, so much so that it was replaced by every-hope-turns-to-dust [idiom: completely disheartened] feeling.

Kou Zhong wanted to come with Xu Ziling to Leshou to visit Zhai Jiao and Little Lingzhong, practically it was some kind of escape.

However, receiving all kinds of irritants from the outside world, such as being deceived by Guan Ping, even to the snare set before their eyes, which showed clearly that it was laid out by powerful enemies from the foreign tribes under Xieli’s leadership, has finally shocked and woke Kou Zhong up, making him realize that he must rouse his diminishing and crumbling willpower, to make the enemies understand that he, Shaoshuai, was absolutely not a man with an undeserved reputation.

Compared to Song Que or Ning Daoqi, the martial art masters of grandmaster-of-this-generation level, who had become famous for several decades, yet were still standing without collapsing, whom no one dared to challenge, in terms of prowess and reputation, the two of them were still a notch below, simply because in the past, the two have always fought and escaped. If this situation continued, it would be difficult to establish unrivalled-martial-art-masters’ fame for fighting prowess.

Therefore, Kou Zhong decided to come to Xieli with open saber, open spear, in a hard battle. The target was to force Du Xing to spit out that batch of Zhai Jiao’s sheepskin, thereby establishing his prestige in the world, to make whoever wanted to provoke them in the future to think thrice before even starting to make their move.

This would be the only way to guarantee the survival of Zhai Jiao’s business.

It was really not ignorant people’s bravado or momentary show off anger, because formally it was really not one-sidedly benefitting them. In the northern territory, they had Tuli, the co