Chapter 194: Going to the Imperial College

Translator: DragonRider

“Yeah. All I have to do next is wait for a letter from Tanyang and for the revamp of the store to be finished,” replied Ling Zhang. It had been a long time since the last time he’d been so engaged on something. Every day felt very fulfilling. It was just that after so many days together, he had got used to Yuwen Tong’s company, so sometimes when he was out there too occupied to make a decision on a particular matter, he would subconsciously raise his head with the intention to ask Yuwen Tong for advice only to find that Yuwen Tong was nowhere to be seen.

Ling Zhang, eyes gleaming with delight, fixed Yuwen Tong with a gaze, which brought Yuwen Tong to an intense emotional arousal. He reached out his hand to take Ling Zhang’s and even his voice was somewhat husky with longing. “Let’s go inside.”

Ling Zhang, oblivious of Yuwen Tong’s anomalousness, followed Yuwen Tong into the house obediently.

The moment he entered the house, the doors were slammed shut behind him and with that a shadow fell across him and, against the doors, he was swept into Yuwen Tong’s embrace. His chin was slightly lifted and he was given a passionate kiss, lips enveloped, teeth parted as a tongue came through them into his mouth to tease him tempting his tongue into joining the dance. After only a few moments, he was intoxicated by the kiss, oblivious of the trickles from the corners of his mouth.

Yuwen Tong’s thumb first lightly brushed past his lower jaw, and then, as if he could no longer refrain, Yuwen Tong heavily pressed it down and started kneading his jaw in a somewhat rough way, so urgent and passionate that it felt as if he wanted to swallow Ling Zhang in a gulp.

Ling Zhang felt his body getting hotter and hotter. His whole body was burning and even his eyes were hot. Since his eyes were closed, he felt as though he was entrusting Yuwen Tong with his whole being, allowing Yuwen Tong to guide him anywhere even if it meant he would lose his ability to think.

It was not until after quite some time that Ling Zhang slowly came around from the confused state of mind in which he was utterly unable to think. At this time, he was already in bed, soft quilt beneath him, Yuwen Tong’s burning body upon him. He was clasped in Yuwen Tong’s tight embrace, whose arms were clamped so tightly around him that they were hurting Ling Zhang somewhat, as if he was trying very hard to subdue something which could overwhelm him at any moment.

Yuwen Tong’s head was beside Ling Zhang’s neck, his hot and heavy breaths being sprayed onto it one after another. The two of them were against each other gapless and they were intimately aware of each other’s states. Their vibrant heartbeats, like drumbeats, were hammering at their eardrums.

Ling Zhang didn’t dare to move an inch in the knowledge that even the slightest movement of his would cause Yuwen Tong to lose control of himself.

It was not until after another long time that Yuwen Tong released Ling Zhang from his tight embrace and propped himself up on his hands. Finally, there was some space between them.

Ling Zhang also felt fully relaxed after being released. There were faint pains in both his arms and his back, which had been caused by Yuwen Tong’s unduly tight embrace. But these were nothing. Yuwen Tong’s gaze, which was still brimming with craving at this moment, was the reason why he didn’t dare to look at Yuwen Tong.

However, as his head tilted to one side, his smooth long fair-skinned neck was revealed, which stood out in sharp relief against his black hair and dark-colored quilt, appearing so white that it was almost dazzling. Calming down his churning blood had taken Yuwen Tong a lot of efforts, but it instantly boiled again as his eye fell on Ling Zhang’s neck.

Though Yuwen Tong had propped up his upper body, his lower body was still pressed tight against Ling Zhang’s, so naturally Ling Zhang immediately felt his bodily reaction. Almost in an instant, Ling Zhang in dismay adjusted his head back into place and looked Yuwen Tong in the face. “You…”

Yuwen Tong heavily took in a large gulp of air and his eyes shifted back and forth between Ling Zhang’s neck and red swollen lips several times. Eventually he hardened his heart, took his eyes off Ling Zhang and abruptly got out of bed.

He poured himself a cup of tea and quickly drank it in one gulp, as if he were about to charge at thousands of enemies and destroy them all, which was quite scary.

Ling Zhang sat up and looked at Yuwen Tong’s ferocious face. The sexually romantic mood in the room abruptly struck him as somewhat amusing and he dissolved into chuckle.

Yuwen Tong paused, put down the teacup and fiercely twisted his head around to look at him. “You think this is funny?”

Seeing him acting like that, Ling Zhang chuckled even more happily. He tossed a glance at a particular part of Yuwen Tong’s body with his amused eyes and said, “You are acting like I abused you.”

After being glanced by him, Yuwen Tong once again was sent to the verge of succumbing to temptation. “Wait here. I’ll go and have someone select an auspicious day for us. We’re getting married.”

Ling Zhang didn’t know what to say.

‘It seems that I went too far in this,’ he thought.

…

Yuwen Tong really hired someone who did some research and selected an auspicious day for him, but he didn’t tell Ling Zhang when. It was just like he seemed to be in a good mood when he returned.

Ling Zhang sounded him out several times but failed to worm anything out of him. He couldn’t help but wonder in confusion, ‘Why is Yuwen Tong so confident that I’ll agree to marry him? The last time when he mentioned it, I told him I needed some time to think it through and I haven’t given him a definite reply yet.’

But after some careful thinking, Ling Zhang felt that although he hadn’t made a definite reply to Yuwen Tong, he was not against it and had no dislike whatsoever for the idea of marrying Yuwen Tong. He had even involuntarily been vaguely anticipating it.

However, this was not something that could be done in a short time. The two families were very far away from each other. Apart from those miscellaneous preliminary ceremonies and preparations, the consultation about the date for the wedding, which would entail several journeys between the capital city and Tanyang, would probably take half a year. After the date was fixed, there would be some other preparatory work, which would also be quite time-consuming.

Even ordinary families had to spend a lot of time preparing a wedding, let alone Yuwen Tong who had uncommonly high social status.

‘No matter what, even if we start preparing right now, the wedding would be after New Year’s Day. How come Yuwen Tong still looks pretty happy?’

Ling Zhang was totally perplexed.

Right at the time when Ling Zhang was wondering what Yuwen Tong had up his sleeve, another incident happened in the capital city after half-a-month peace…

Peng Fang, the Assistant Minister of the Ministry of Works, was found to be the one who had attempted to have Ling Zhang poisoned in the Wu City. There was concrete evidence, leaving him unable to deny the charge. The emperor, in order to maintain the semblance of how much he valued Yuwen Tong, had dispatched staff members of the Dali Temple (the Supreme Judicial Court in feudal China) to arrest Peng Fang. After verification of his crime, Peng Fang was thrown into prison. The whole process took merely one day.

Since Ling Zhang had been lying low during the past half a month, all those people in the capital city who had a watch-and-wait attitude believed that Ling Zhang had gone soft in the head, but unexpectedly, this case involving Peng Fang suddenly came up. Peng Fang was a high-ranking official of the imperial court, and the Ministry of Works was a department in which officials could easily line their pockets. There were great powers going with his post and he had always been somewhat supercilious, but now he was brought down just like this, so those people who, after half-a-month’s waiting for Ling Zhang to make further moves, had planned to take some covert actions, chose to continue to wait and see.

“Exactly what’s wrong with this Ling Zhang guy? I’d like to say he’s a fool, but all those who messed with him have now ended up burning their fingers; sometimes I feel he’s smart, but he seems to be in no hurry to marry Yuwen Tong.”

“Yuwen Tong’s behavior is also inexplicable. If he doesn’t care much about Ling Zhang, he shouldn’t have sprung to Ling Zhang’s defense so often; but if he cares about him, why is he not anxious to get married either?”

“Yuwen Tong has been staying in the Ling Mansion for more than half a month, hasn’t he? Is he by any chance never going to return to Yuwen family?”

“It’s surprising Yuwen Zhi is tolerating all this, isn’t it?”

Right at this time, a notification from the Imperial College was delivered to the Ling Mansion, telling Ling Zhang it was time to go to the Imperial College to study.

During the past half a month, Ling Zhang had been occupied with cultivation of internal energy and preparatory work for the drugstore, and he had forgotten that he was supposed to go to college. It was not until someone from the Imperial College visited him that he recalled this matter.

Shortly after that, Yuwen Jin also paid him a visit. “Brother Zhang, are you ready? When are we going to the Imperial College?”

The last time when Ling Zhang visited Yuwen Tong’s father’s uncle, he and Yuwen Jin had agreed to go to the Imperial College together.

“I’m ready. We leave tomorrow,” replied Ling Zhang. Although he had forgotten this matter, Li Sicai and the others bore this in mind. They had made some inquiries and found out all he needed to know and also got all necessities ready. All Ling Zhang had to do was take those things they’d prepared for him and go to the Imperial College the next day.

“I’m also ready. Tomorrow I’ll come and pick you up and then we’ll go there together, okay?” asked Yuwen Jin.

Ling Zhang inclined his head. “Okay.”

Having received a definite reply from Ling Zhang, Yuwen Jin happily walked around in the Ling Mansion out of curiosity and then went back home.

As soon as Yuwen Jin left, Ling Zhang immediately went into his study and shut the door.

During these days, after coming back, if he had the time, he would also read some books that the teacher hired by Yuwen Tong had told him to read. It was just that there were a pile of books, and he had only finished reading half of them.

With only half a day left, it was impossible for him to finish the remaining half of the books. Ling Zhang had no choice but to cast an eye over them to get a general idea of what kind of books they were. He had read some of them before when he’d been at home, so he sifted them out. And then he selected the couple of relatively important ones from the rest of the books and concentrated his mind on reading them. Even so, it still took him the rest of the day. Until midnight, there hadn’t been a single occasion when he left the study, except for when he needed to eat or go to the privy. Fortunately, he had internal energy now, and a sleepless night had no negative influence on him, which was why he successfully finished reading the couple of books with his full attention.

The next day was the day for him to go to the Imperial College. Yuwen Jin would come here to pick him up very early. Ling Zhang gathered the rest of the books, had Xia Feng tidy them up for him and then went to take a bath.

Yuwen Tong also didn’t sleep the night before. He had kept Ling Zhang company in the study for a whole night, saying that he couldn’t sleep without Ling Zhang by his side. While Ling Zhang was reading school books, he was reading books on the art of war.

A short while after the two of them had breakfast together, Yuwen Jin showed up.

“Cousin, Brother Zhang.” Yuwen Jin walked inside, well dressed, oozing vigorousness.

Seeing him come so early, Ling Zhang asked him in concern whether he had had breakfast. Yuwen Jin responded, “I don’t want to complain, but my father pinched my ear and dragged me out of bed before daybreak. I had breakfast quite some time ago.”

Yuwen Si, Yuwen Jin’s father, had not only woken up his son but also reminded him once again of the situation in the Imperial College and exhorted him to take good care of Ling Zhang.

With a distressed face, Yuwen Jin added, “I could literally recite those words of my father’s, but he still told me once again, and I had to listen to him. My ears are growing calloused.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Yuwen Tong.

Ling Zhang was surprised, but Yuwen Jin exclaimed, “You are going with us, cousin? Great!”

Yuwen Tong responded, “Let’s go. We can talk on the way up.”

Since Yuwen Tong was going together with them, the group naturally was larger.

The three of them were sitting in a horse-drawn carriage. Ling Zhang looked at Yuwen Tong, a somewhat confused look in his eyes. Previously, Yuwen Tong had never mentioned to him that he would go together with him.

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