How To Polish A Pearl

Chapter 15 - Sparring

A/N: This chapter contains mild violence. Please don't continue reading if this is something that makes you uncomfortable.

⊂ (▀▿▀) つ

Touching down just out of view of Hua Men, Wen Ke Xing smooths out the ruffles on the outer robe. With the bottles hanging from the slender fingers in his right hand, he walks slowly, his expression morphing from irritated to indifferent for each step closer to the stairs.

Just like yesterday, he dismisses the guards with a wave of his free hand as he walks up the stairs. Stopping for a second outside the door, unconsciously raising his chin an inch as he takes a short but deep breath.

Reaching for the door, it opens and a maid stares with huge eyes at her Guzhu.

"Guzhu!" Startled, she jumps to the side and bows.

"..." With one eyebrow raised he glances around the room. Zhou Xu is sitting by the table eating—no—stuffing his face.

"Guzhu, I am going to get more food. I will get a few plates of your favorite as well."

Without responding he walks past her and stops in front of the table, putting the wine down.

"Finally, they haven't given me any wine all day." Zhou Xu takes one of the bottles without even looking up, opens it and pours the clear liquid into one of the light green jade cups on the table. Taking a sip, he winces as the liquid flows against his split lip, dribbling wine over the table. "Fuck!"

With a twitch of something in the deep, Wen Ke Xing looks at the wound on the wet lips and turns to the maids. "Why haven't you applied medicine to the wound?"

They all look to the floor, huddling together in the corner by the door, their backs against the wall. Not knowing the right answer, the best way to stay alive is to say nothing.

Walking over, he smiles to soften his impact on his scared little worker ants. "I asked, why haven't you applied medicine to the wound? Do you want my wife to have scars?"

"..."

"..."

"Do you think I will spare you if you don't speak up?"

"Guzhu, he wouldn't let us."

Snap.

The maid who dared to speak slides lifeless to the floor, the neck in an unnatural angle with the eyes left open.

"What the hell! Are you crazy?" Zhou Xu leaps up from where he is sitting. "I wouldn't let them, okay? I wouldn't let them."

Without looking back Wen Ke Xing's hand closes around the closest maid, lifting her off the ground.

"Who is your Guzhu?"

Gasping for air, the maid wheezes, "Guzhu— you... you are—"

Continuing to squeeze her throat, he stares indifferently into her small, dull eyes that are slightly bulging at this point.

"I told you, I told them not to do it!" Zhou Xu's moves in between the dangling maid and the Guzhu.

"Ah-Xu. They should know better than to listen to you."

"Really. Guzhu—We got married yesterday, did we not?"

"..."

"As far as I know, that makes me the 'Nu Zhuren of Ghost Valley', does it not?"

"..." Shifting his eyes, Wen Ke Xing meets those walnut-colored ones.

"As their Nu Zhuren they should abide by my orders, no?"