Chapter 74

Running desperately, Liu Wuyi and his son escaped from the capital city overnight. As they didn’t take the state road, they didn’t arouse the attention of the soldiers guarding the city. When the day broke, with mosquito bites all over, the two of them walked into a ruined temple to rest.

Being dragged all the way by his father, though Zixiu was both sleepy and hungry, he didn’t feel tired. However, no matter how skillful Liu Wuyi was in Qing Kung, he had lost his cultivation base in martial arts and had no internal force at all. After traveling for days to find Zixiu and running dozens of miles the night before, he was exhausted now.

Scanning around the shabby small temple, Zixiu found no chair, so he had to help his panting father to a pile of straw at the corner to rest.

After quite a while, Liu Wuyi caught his breath. He then took out a paper bag and handed it to his son. He had heard Zixiu’s stomach growl on the way, but it was a pity that to avoid arousing the suspicion from Yan Ke and Luo Huali, he had come out of the hotel with very little food the night before.

Taking the paper bag, on which his father’s temperature still lingered, Zixiu felt like crying. He bit his teeth for a while and managed to calm himself down before a wind of a fragrant aroma rushed into his nostrils. He immediately opened the bag and took a bite of the pancake in it. He hadn’t had anything around the clock since the morning before.

Seeing his son gobble the pancake, Liu Wuyi felt a twinge in his heart. It had been a month since Zixiu disappeared, and now he looked pale and it was obvious that he had lost a lot of weight. While Liu Wuyi was lurking on the roof with Yan Ke and Luo Huali the night before, he heard most of the conversation between Lingxiao and Nangong Du. From Lingxiao’s bitter condemnation of Nangong Du, Liu Wuyi could tell Zixiu had suffered a lot these days. However, at any rate, he couldn’t figure out how come his son got into the Prince Mu’s Mansion. Though it was nothing new that the rich and powerful kept young men or even boys in their mansion for their sexual pleasure, Zixiu seldom left home, and every time he went down the mountain, he only stayed in the nearby town for a few days, so there was no chance that he would have met Prince Mu, let alone attract his attention! Though he was filled with doubts, Liu Wuyi didn’t ask Zixiu any questions after pondering for a while.

“Take your time! Or you may be choked on the pancake!” Liu Wuyi said while smoothing his son’s hair and brushing a straw away from it. As they escaped the prince’s mansion in such a hurry that Zixiu had no time to get changed, and he only ripped off the expensive jewelry pinned to his hair and he put on a man’s robe he had stolen up from Nangong Du’s bedroom on their way out.

“Dad, let’s share it!” After he had eaten up half of the pancake, Zixiu suddenly remembered that his father hadn’t had anything yet, so he handed Liu Wuyi the remaining half of the pancake.

“I’m not hungry. Take a good rest after you finish the pancake,” Liu Wuyi said gently before he closed his eyes to rest. For fear that he would stress his son out, he decided not to ask Zixiu what he had been through until the latter was in better health.

After hesitating for a while, Zixiu wrapped up the remaining half pancake carefully and put it into his pocket, feeling at ease. Before, whenever he went out to pick herbs with his father, Liu Wuyi would remind him to tuck some packed food in his pocket, just like what he had done a moment ago. In the beginning, Zixiu was a little confused, but now, this gesture, which he had done so many times before, made him feel at home. It seemed he was not dreaming, and he had really gotten out of that pervert’s mansion! However, though his experiences at the Prince Mu’s Mansion were the last thing he wanted to talk about, Zixiu was surprised that his father didn’t ask him any questions. ‘How come I look exactly like the princess of the Wen Kingdom? What kind of place is the Valley of Fallen Blossoms? Did I really know Yang Lingxiao and Luo Huali before? Where’s Karupin?’ Zixiu wondered.

“Dad, how did you know I was in the Prince Mu’s Mansion?” Unable to hold back his curiosity, Zixiu asked. He had so many questions for his father.

Liu Wuyi opened his eyes. Sure enough, his son was extremely curious and by no means sentimental, or he wouldn’t have been in such a hurry to ask questions as soon as he had escaped from that dangerous place. However, Liu Wuyi didn’t want to bring up the past to anyone, especially his son, whom he had nearly lost.

“It’s all over. You don’t have to care about those irrelevant people!” he answered calmly.

Irrelevant people? Zixiu rolled his eyes in surprise and was more certain that his father was hiding something from him. As Liu Wuyi didn’t seem to be annoyed, Zixiu was about to ask more questions when his father suddenly grabbed him by the wrist.

“Don’t move!” Placing two fingers on his son’s wrist gently, Liu Wuyi started feeling the pulse for Zixiu. What Lingxiao had said about Zixiu’s baby the night before suddenly popped into his mind. It seemed only the simple-minded Yan Ke would believe that Zixiu was pregnant! As Yan Ke was reluctant to accept the fact that Zixiu was a boy, Liu Wuyi didn’t want to waste his time on explaining to him anymore. He had never been a busybody, so he wouldn’t bother even if Yan Ke and Yan Lingxiao were kept in the dark all the time!

“Do you feel sick to your stomach?” With that, he gestured his son to reach out the other hand. After a while, the look on his face grew even more serious.

“A little bit! Sometimes I feel like… vomiting.” At the thought of the diagnosis given by Lingxiao, Zixiu still felt kind of ashamed. However, his awkwardness was soon replaced by surprise. He had never seen his father feel the pulse for anyone else and even during the half-year he spent in bed after the accident, Liu Wuyi only bought and decocted the medicinal herbs as per the physician’s prescription. Therefore, Zixiu had been thinking that his father knew nothing except how to pick medicinal herbs and he was so shocked when he saw his father diagnose his illness in person. ‘Obviously, dad is far more than a medical herb collector!’

Feeling his son’s hand tremble slightly with excitement, Liu Wuyi was a little helpless, but instead of answering Zixiu’s question, he slapped him on the palm and pretended to get mad by putting on a grim look. “Don’t think too much! Stay away from people from the Valley of Fallen Blossoms!”

“Why?” driven by curiosity, Zixiu blurted out.

Liu Wuyi couldn’t help but frown slightly. It seemed he had to find a way to prevent his son from asking too many questions! After pondering for a while, he continued with an earnest look, “Zixiu, you must have known Lingxiao has feelings for you, right?”

Zixiu immediately shut his mouth. Though he could tell that it wasn’t because of Lingxiao’s gayness that his father didn’t want him to associate with people from the Valley of Fallen Blossoms, as Liu Wuyi was reluctant to tell him the truth, he had to stop asking questions. At the thought that his father had heard what Lingxiao said, he felt very depressed.

“Dad, your Qing Kung is really awesome!” Zixiu then shifted the topic and said with admiration.

“Awesome?” Liu Wuyi shook his head slightly with a sullen look. “This is just a trick, not worth mentioning. If it weren’t for the chaos, I wouldn’t have been able to get you out!”

He was telling the truth. As he could no longer use martial arts, if it weren’t for the fact that Yan Ke was cursing his son in rage and Prince Mu’s guard didn’t dare to leave his master alone, who was still very weak after his illness, Liu Wuyi wouldn’t have gotten his son out of the mansion by merely using his Qing Kung. However, they were not really out of danger yet. Though people from the Valley of Fallen Blossoms wouldn’t do anything harmful to them, they were just too annoying! Moreover, it was obvious that Prince Mu would definitely send people to hunt them, so if they met his attendants, Liu Wuyi could do nothing but surrender. “Alas!”

Zixiu also wanted to ask his father about Princess Liuxu, but when he heard Liu Wuyi sigh slightly, he forced back his words. It seemed unwise to mention the Prince Mu’s Mansion and the Valley of Fallen Blossom! After pondering for a while, he finally recalled something cheerful. “Dad, I remembered that I used to have a cat!”

“A cat?” Liu Wuyi looked at him blankly, wondering how come his son shifted the topic all of sudden.

“Its name was Karupin! It had big eyes and small ears…” Zixiu described to his father, like a child, how lovely the kitten was.

As Liu Wuyi was still feeling the pulse for Zixiu, he didn’t take what he said seriously. There were so many wildcats in the mountains, so he thought his son might be talking about some wildcat that wasn’t afraid of people and often appeared on his way to collect medicinal herbs. ‘Poor kid! He didn’t think of anyone but of a cat!’ Zixiu had been living in the mountains since his childhood and he had no friends of his age at all. Three years ago, he not only lost his mother but also his memory in an accident, and this time he even disappeared for more than a month! At the thought of this, Liu Wuyi couldn’t help but feel guilty. “Zixiu, I won’t force you to pick medical herbs with me in the future.”

“Huh?” Zixiu was talking about his cat excitedly when he suddenly heard this. ‘How come dad suddenly said something like that? Am I really suffering from some incurable disease?’

It wasn’t until he saw his son’s face turn pale that Liu Wuyi realized he was talking with a worried look. He immediately put on a confident look and pattered his son on the shoulder, trying to comfort him. “No worries! As you were poisoned, you’re showing some signs of pregnancy. Though we don’t have the antidote, all these symptoms will go away automatically ten months later!”