Chapter 299: Big Sister

Zheng Fan had already forgotten how he got out of the bathing pool.

He felt as though his entire body were floating in the sky.

Even now, lying in bed, he still had the dizzy sensation of drifting along with the current.

His soul and flesh seemed to have been cut apart.

Everything around him felt unreal.

“Master.

“Master, are you all right?”

Xue San stood beside the bed, his face hovering close to Zheng Fan’s.

He had not dared tell the Blind Man and the others that he had genuinely managed to soak Master into a medical emergency.

He was afraid they would beat him to death.

Zheng Fan’s thoughts finally began returning.

He turned his head, looked at Xue San standing beside him, and shook it.

“I’m fine now.”

It felt like he had just gone through ten rounds of “needlework” in a row.

Every muscle in his body was twitching.

Calling him hollowed out would not even be accurate anymore.

It felt more like someone had smashed out the foundations beneath him.

“Master, this subordinate thinks the problem may be that my body and Master’s body are different in certain respects.”

No shit.

You didn’t need to be the Blind Man to see that my body and yours are different.

Zheng Fan could no longer be bothered dealing with Xue San.

Right now, all he wanted was to close his eyes and sleep.

“Then Master should rest first?

“Once you’ve recovered, check whether there have been any changes to your qi and blood.

“This subordinate still thinks there should be at least a tiny bit of effect.”

A’Ming’s and Liang Cheng’s blood had not been easy for Xue San to obtain.

Every time those two merely had to shed some blood, Xue San had been the one who truly had to “bleed” for it afterward.

If the treatment produced no benefit whatsoever and only made Master suffer, then all the bootlicking effort Xue San had accumulated beforehand would have been washed straight down the drain.

He would genuinely have no tears left to cry.

“Mm.”

“Then this subordinate will take his leave.”

Xue San slipped away.

Zheng Fan was just about to sleep when he suddenly felt something soft and warm settle onto his chest.

He opened his eyes.

Only then did he discover that the Young Marquis was lying on top of him.

There was a fair distance between the cradle and the bed.

Obviously, the Young Marquis could not possibly have come over by himself.

“Demon Child...

“Take him away...”

That tone.

That expression.

He looked exactly like a biological father who only cared about producing the child and not raising him.

The Demon Child did not move.

He turned back into a stone and silently landed beside the bed.

The tipsy Young Marquis first looked at Zheng Fan.

Then he yawned, rested his head on Zheng Fan’s chest, and began falling asleep.

A short while later, the Demon Child floated up again.

He settled onto the other side of Zheng Fan’s chest and became still.

Zheng Fan wanted to refuse.

Unfortunately, he could not move.

In the end, he could only close his eyes again in helpless resignation.

During that sleep, Zheng Fan dreamed many, many dreams.

In one, he had returned to the classroom before the gaokao, concentrating on an exam paper.

In another, he was back in the studio, drawing manuscripts day and night without food or sleep.

Then he was on a battlefield, watching one comrade after another die before him.

Then he appeared in the mountains, where he saw Tian Wujing and Dujuan standing together.

Then, he realized Siniang was beside him.

Mm.

Wait.

This dream about Siniang feels incredibly real...

“Master, you’re awake?”

Siniang asked softly.

Oh.

So this wasn’t a dream.

Zheng Fan took a deep breath and tried to sit up.

“Master, lie down a little longer.

“You’ve been unconscious for two days.

“Let this servant feed you something first.”

With Siniang attending him, Zheng Fan drank a bowl of porridge.

“Master, how do you feel?”

“I’m fine.

“There’s nothing seriously wrong with me.”

Zheng Fan sat up anyway.

His head still felt somewhat heavy and muddled.

But when he clenched his fist, he discovered that his body was filled with strength.

His cultivation realm had not advanced.

But the depth and fullness of his qi and blood had increased by a large margin.

That meant the distance between him and the threshold of Sixth Grade had been dramatically shortened.

“That medicinal bath really did work.

“It’s just...”

“Master, that was far too dangerous.

“You absolutely cannot listen to Third messing around like that again.

“What does it prove that he tested it on himself?

“At the very least, he should have tried it on a death-row prisoner first.

“That dwarf body of his is practically a medicine jar to begin with.”

Zheng Fan nodded.

They truly could not experiment again.

The results this time had been good.

Very good.

But Zheng Fan could also clearly sense that the meridians inside his body had already been expanded to their absolute limit.

A dangerously absolute limit.

If the dosage had been even slightly higher, his meridians would have ruptured.

His cultivation being crippled would have been the least of their problems.

All seven Demon Kings would have gone right back to square one with him overnight.

Just a little more.

Only a tiny bit more.

Xue San had nearly “reset everyone to factory settings.”

A’Cheng’s blood.

A’Ming’s blood.

Combined with a medicinal bath designed for easy absorption the effect had been genuinely explosive.

Strictly speaking, the blood of those two was highly toxic.

“There won’t be a next time.”

Zheng Fan himself still felt some lingering fear.

“Master, this is the military intelligence that arrived this morning.

“A’Cheng has already led men into Ningbian City and taken it over.

“The garrison commander there is named Zhang Tong.

“He cooperated fully and understood the situation.”

“Good.”

That meant their territory had expanded by another tiny amount.

Ningbian City was very small.

It was not some comprehensive commercial or administrative city.

Its primary function was as a military fortress.

Originally, the Situ Clan had used it as a “blockhouse” against the Helian Clan.

But even a mosquito leg was still meat.

More importantly, holding Ningbian City expanded Shengle’s strategic buffer.

An enemy would no longer be able to arrive and strike directly at their home base in one move.

“Send word to Liang Cheng.

“Have him look around and see whether there are any nearby forts or stockades we can conveniently take as well.

“Tell him to be a little bolder.”

While the Situ Clan was in the middle of being “assimilated” into the State of Yan, Shengle might as well seize whatever advantages it could.

If someone later wanted them to spit those holdings back out, that was not impossible.

They could slowly argue over it then.

“Yes, Master.

“Also, Master, the latest news from the front says the First Prince’s forces have already engaged Dacheng’s rebel army.

“The follow-up battle report has not reached us yet.

“It will probably arrive tomorrow.”

“Mm.”

The First Prince’s war directly concerned Shengle City’s future.

Everyone in Shengle City was hoping the First Prince would lose.

“There is one more matter,” Siniang said hesitantly.

“What is it?”

“Someone delivered a secret letter today.

“It says the new head of the Secret Intelligence Department will come to Shengle City the day after tomorrow to pay you a visit.”

“The Secret Intelligence Department?”

After Dujuan’s death, the Secret Intelligence Department throughout the Jin lands had nearly fallen into paralysis.

But obviously, the imperial court could not possibly sit by forever while its intelligence system here remained crippled.

The Yan people intended to govern the Jin lands as Yan territory.

They would never allow the region to remain disorganized, letting organizations like the State of Qian’s Silver-Armored Guard come and go as though no one were home.

Still, for the new person in charge to travel all the way to Shengle immediately after taking office clearly suggested the wine was not the drinker’s true concern.

It was difficult to keep the Young Marquis’s presence here completely secret.

Ding Heng and Cui Linfeng were people of the jianghu.

They had already appeared openly around Shengle City.

They had even recruited a good number of their former subordinates into Shengle’s army.

Nor had anyone silenced every witness at the relay station back then.

The State of Qian’s Silver-Armored Guard also knew about the matter.

So if Zheng Fan truly wanted to conceal the Young Marquis’s whereabouts, it would be extremely difficult to hide them from the people who genuinely possessed enough status and resources to investigate.

If they wanted to know, they would find out.

But clearly, the imperial court had maintained a policy of “silence” regarding the matter all this time.

No imperial commissioner had come with a decree to bestow a formal name or noble title upon the Young Marquis.

There had been no special official treatment either.

Officially, the accepted version remained that the wife of the Marquis of Jingnan and the child in her womb had unfortunately perished together.

That inevitably reminded Zheng Fan of another existence: the legendary Young Marquis of the Marquis of Zhenbei’s household, whose existence no one could even confirm with certainty.

Legally speaking, that person did not exist.

And now, Zheng Fan’s godson was living in the same kind of “unregistered” state.

“If he comes, have the Blind Man receive him.”

“Yes, Master.

“You should rest a little longer.”

“Mm.”

Zheng Fan nodded.

Then he turned his head and looked toward Tian Tian, who had both hands wrapped around the side of the cradle and was peeking in this direction.

When Zheng Fan had chosen that name, the Demon Kings had all felt he was being far too casual.

But Zheng Fan had only meant to choose a temporary childhood name to use for now.

If he gave the child some deeply meaningful formal name instead, that would genuinely feel like overstepping the parents’ authority.

“Wah-oh...

“Wah-oh...”

“Siniang, when do you think he’ll actually start talking?”

“Still a while, Master.

“Probably around one year old before he really begins speaking,” Siniang answered with a smile.

“Mm.

“All right.

“Go handle your work.

“I’ll rest a bit longer.

“Nothing else is wrong.”

“You rest first.

“This servant still has soup simmering in the kitchen.

“I’ll call you later so you can drink some.”

“Good.”

After Siniang left, Zheng Fan lay back down.

He was not especially sleepy.

But the genuine depletion of his spirit still caused him to slip quickly into a half-dreaming, half-waking state.

At the cradle, Tian Tian saw his godfather lie down again.

Dissatisfied, he slapped the wooden rail.

Perhaps Zheng Fan had simply been born with some peculiar affinity for the Tian family.

Being close to Tian Wujing was one thing.

Now even Tian Wujing’s son felt an inexplicable closeness toward Zheng Fan.

Even when Zheng Fan occasionally smacked his little bottom, the baby merely giggled happily.

Zheng Fan’s long period of unconsciousness had worried the Young Marquis badly.

Now the little fellow had finally watched him sit up only for Zheng Fan to lie down again without even coming over to hold him.

The Young Marquis was not pleased.

Under Tian Tian’s vigorous shaking, the cradle began swaying farther and farther.

The stone containing the Demon Child floated up.

It braced itself against the cradle, preventing the Young Marquis from accidentally throwing himself out.

The Young Marquis pointed toward Zheng Fan.

“Wah-oh...

“Wah-oh...”

He wanted the Demon Child to carry him flying over there just like last time.

In truth, rather than saying he wanted to go play with Zheng Fan, it might have been more accurate to say that he wanted another chance to experience “flying.”

The Demon Child did not move.

Last time, Zheng Fan had been completely drained of strength.

That had made it possible to do whatever they wanted with him.

Now, however, Zheng Fan was genuinely only resting and recovering.

His strength had already returned.

The Demon Child had been unhappy with his father for a very long time.

But that did not mean he wanted to deliberately provoke him at a moment like this.

“Wah-oh...

“Wah-oh...”

The Young Marquis kept calling.

When the Demon Child still failed to respond, he could only turn his attention back to the stone.

“Wah-oh...

“Wah-oh...

“Jie-wah...

“Wah-oh...

“Jie...

“Jie...

“Jie-jie...”

Big sister.

[End of Chapter 299]