“What happened?” Ling Zhang quickened his steps.
Yuwen Tong followed closely after and, with good eyesight, already got a clear view of what was happening.
There were four men and four women in costly raiment kneeling at the gate of Ling Mansion and kowtowing. They seemed to keep shouting something like, “Young master Ling, please let go of our son.” The Ling Mansion’s servants tried to drive them away, but this group of people still lingered around and wouldn’t go. The servants couldn’t drive them away by force but only prevented them from entering. Ling Zhang frowned when seeing the stalemate.
After approaching, Ling Zhang heard and saw who these people were.
“It’s them,” Ling Zhang sad with a scowl.
“Who are they?” Yuwen Tong asked.
“They are the parents of the four people who had conspired with Jia Yuanling to frame me. Jia Yuanling, the ringleader of the affair, was sentenced to exile; the four men, each of whom being punished differently, are now in the prison of the Prefecture Yamen,” Ling Zhang said.
Their sentence had been announced for long ago. Why did their parents suddenly show up here at this time and act as disgusting rascals?
Ling Zhang walked over with a cold face, “Are you looking for me?”
As soon as Ling Zhang appeared, these people immediately surrounded him. As if some fresh meat thrown towards a pack of hungry wolves. Ling Mansion’s servants quickly stood in front of Ling Zhang to prevent him from getting hurt.
These men knelt on the ground with a thud.
They cried, “Please give my son a break! My son was drunk; he wasn’t in his right mind, which was why he did something shameless. Young master Ling, please put a word for my son and let Lord Tao show mercy!”
“Young master Ling, please! Please forgive my son! I’m willing to do anything for you!”
What happened in front of the Ling Mansion attracted many onlookers.
Seeing this, Ling Zhang’s look turned colder.
“If I kill them and ask for your forgiveness, will you forgive me?”
“What do you mean? Young master Ling, why do you want to kill my son?” a man shouted.
“Then why should I forgive them? Just because you kneel down to me and beg my pardon? Get them out of here! If they refuse to leave, go to the Prefecture Yamen and call the Yamen runners. Tell them that some people here are trying to break into the Ling Mansion, they act insanely as if they are going to do violence,” Ling Zhang said.
“Got it!” a servant said.
Wang Dashan came with the guards, planning to drag them away.
“Ah…they are trying to kill us, the Ling Family’s people want to kill us! There is no justice at all!” This man who was dragged by Wang Dashan kept talking nonsense, which attracted a lot of onlookers.
“That’s enough. There is no time to waste. Sue them,” Ling Zhang said.
Wang Dashan nodded then sent someone to notify the government in a hurry.
“Ling Zhang, on what ground are you suing us? My son just got drunk and made a small mistake, why did you ruin him? You are so cruel. Now you want to put us in jail, too? We have no crimes and you can’t do that. Do you want to bully us because your uncle is a government official?”
“Young master, this…” Wang Dashan frowned.
“Ignore them,” Ling Zhang said.
“Ooh, my god. The Ling Family’s people are so unreasonable. We didn’t do anything wrong, we just ask for forgiveness here. But they not only refused our apology, but are trying to put us in jail and kill us. They want us dead!”
“The Ling Family wants to misuse their power to oppress us. They flout the law themselves, though they keep telling everyone to obey it. They think they can look down on us, just because someone in their family is an official.”
They were going too far and there were more and more onlookers. Funny thing was, the onlookers blindly sympathized with those who looked weak. No matter what the truth was, they were already gossiping about Ling Family.
Ling Zhang looked at their charade with a cold look. If this happened in the past, he must have panicked. As for now, he had become very composed. What could these people do except gossiping? They wouldn’t make any difference. Everything would come to light after going to the court.
No matter how loud those people shouted, Ling Zhang didn’t care. However, Ling Family’s servants could not help but worry because these shameless guys redoubled their efforts to slander when seeing the servants not taking any measures at the behest of Ling Zhang.
Though there were more and more onlookers, the Ling Family’s people still stayed perfectly cool, calm and collected. These people were shouting even harder, louder and more outrageously.
Those gossips gradually quieted down. Especially after Yuwen Tong, who was behind Ling Zhang, unleashed his powerful aura. Many people here were silenced by his imposing temperament.
These people were beginning to lose patience when they saw that the head constables of Yamen were about to coming. One of them tried to break free from the guards and rushed to a pillar in front of Ling Family’s gate, but was caught before he could break through and pinned to the ground.
“Indecent assault…”
Her shouting came to sudden stop as a stone hit the woman’s mute acupuncture point.
Ling Zhang pretended not to see anything, though he clearly saw the stone shooting from behind him. This was obviously done by Yuwen Tong.
The woman looked pale when she found herself suddenly speechless. She tried to break free, but failed.
Ling Zhang had seen through the tricks of these people already. What they wanted to do was to make some trouble so as to turn Ling Family into the target of public criticism.
More importantly, Ling Zhang’s uncle would be promoted to left Tongzhi in a few days. If something bad happened at this critical moment, the promotion of his uncle would come to nothing.
In his previous life, they had taken advantage of Ling Zhang’s youth, ignorance and recklessness to make his uncle lose his position. And now they wanted to use the same dirty tricks in this life. How disgusting they were!
“Stop! What do you want to do? How can you do this…”
Two thuds sounded in succession, the man froze suddenly not able to either speak or move. Ling Zhang sneered at this man. He knew that these men were in desperation, they just tried to humiliate the Ling Family in public. But what a pity! As long as Yuwen Tong was present, he would certainly not let them do what they want.
Suddenly another man appeared in the crowd, trying to say something in anger. Then another two sounds of little puff came, which froze the man before he could speak.
Finally, someone in the crowd sensed something strange and changed their countenance. Although they didn’t know who did that, they could feel that the person must be a Kung Fu master and they couldn’t afford to mess with him. These people looked around themselves, trying to find the one doing this.
It was interesting that Yuwen Tong was standing behind Ling Zhang, head slightly lowered, and his powerful aura restrained, which made him difficult to be found by others. In this way, those people would only regard him as Ling Zhang’s subordinate, rather than the master they were looking for.
The people of the Prefecture Yamen also came at this time, which made those men completely lose their opportunity to frame Ling Family.
Together with these Yamen runners, Ling Zhang escorted the four men and four women to the Prefecture Yamen. Tao Feng was willing to offer a helping hand, and cooperated with Ling Zhang to do the same thing they did last time. Tao Feng allowed all the people to watch the trial process and figured out the culprits. In the end, he punished everyone with ten lashes then released them.
It was indeed a fact that Ling Zhang couldn’t do anything to these people, but the punishment was enough to keep them in bed for a while.
Ling Zhang had already known who was behind this.
“Zhang’er, you should be grateful to the Marshal for helping us today. Otherwise, this matter can’t be handled smoothly,” Ling Zhaowen whispered to Ling Zhang.
Ling Zhang looked at his uncle with a mixed feeling. He began to doubt if his uncle was still on his side. It seemed Yuwen Tong had won his uncle over.
“What’s up? Why do you look so strange?” Seeing Ling Zhang walk over, Yuwen Tong asked with doubt.
Ling Zhang glanced at him and said, “Thank you for your help.”
Yuwen Tong smiled, “Never mind. It’s a piece of cake.”
He seemed to know why Ling Zhang looked so strange. It turned out that this little hedgehog was not used to apologizing to or thanking him.
“Let’s go back. Don’t keep Lord Ling waiting,” Yuwen Tong said.
Ling Zhang nodded. He was relieved that Yuwen Tong had no special reaction to his thanks.
A few days ago, Ling Zhang was still fantasizing about how he would humiliate Yuwen Tong when they first met. And he originally wanted to throw the divorce letter on Yuwen Tong’s face. But what he didn’t expect was that he apologized to Yuwen Tong just a few days later.
What happened these days was like a dream to him. Although only a few days passed, it was like going through a long time for Ling Zhang.
Ling Xingzhong was waiting for him as expected. “How’s it going?”
Ling Zhang told Ling Xingzhong the result.
Ling Xingzhong nodded with satisfaction. “You handled this well today. Of course, don’t forget to thank the Marshal.”
Ling Zhang, “…”
He had heard such words once just now!
“I already thanked him.”
Ling Xingzhong gave him a disapproving look and said, “It is not enough. Stay with the Marshal these days. If you have anything to do, just leave it to your uncle.”
Alright, just a few days. Anyway, he had to ask Yuwen Tong to help him smooth his meridian channels. So Ling Zhang nodded and promised at last.
“Good boy. I know you are the most sensible,” Ling Xingzhong said.
So if he hadn’t promised to stay with Yuwen Tong, he would be a bad boy? Ling Zhang was in a complicated mood right now.
He would be a fool if he didn’t see through his grandfather’s intention. His grandfather did so to enable him and Yuwen Tong to build deep feelings through more contact.
“Young master, Liu Yi has settled down, he can be on duty tomorrow,” Wang Dashan said.
“Okay. Well done, Captain Wang,” Ling Zhang said.
“That’s what I’m supposed to do,” Wang Dashan said.
“Inform him to come to me. I have something to ask him.” Thinking of what happened at the encampment of the Prefecture Guard, he quickly asked Wang Danshan to deliver a message to Liu Yi.
He wondered if Liu Yi had discovered something. After all, Yuwen Tong told him that Zhang Chong had the intention of threatening the imperial power.
Although he had suspected Zhang Chong before, it was just a guess. Yuwen Tong wasn’t a man who talked nonsense. And he believed that Zhang Chong must be plotting something.
Liu Yi came soon, “Young master, did you send for me?”
“I have something to ask you, Brother Liu. I heard you planned to join the army in Tanyang, didn’t you? Why did you choose to come to Tanyang instead of going to Yanzhou?” Ling Zhang asked.
