The Ageless Dream

8.3 Hundred Scars of the Past (32)

Inside the tent, Jie Cui and Jie Ming had a wry smile hanging on their face. As they stood to the side, Dong Li Hua and Huang Zhao are already eating. Though they moved elegantly, the bandage on their forehead contrasted with their etiquettes. They remained stoic and silent as if an old couple who had an extreme fight. Well... They did had a fight.

"What just happened?" Jie Cui awkwardly asked.

"I don't know either..." Jie Ming sighed helplessly, her shoulder slumping downwards.

"Now that I think of it, do you return to the manor every meal?" Dong Li Hua asked to ease the cold atmosphere. She knew she angered Huang Zhao and within the mask is probably an enraged expression.

"At night." he simply answered without giving her a glance.

"Sir General...are you angry?" she meekly said. Huang Zhao lifted his head to throw a sharp look towards Dong Li Hua. "Oh, you're angry indeed."

"I should go." Huang Zhao wiped his lower face with a handkerchief set on the table. He stood up as Lan Hu followed him.

"Miss..." Jie Cui and Jie Ming pleaded to Dong Li Hua who kept eating. She seemed to not see how gloomy Huang Zhao is.

"Yes?"

"General is in a bad mood, Miss."

"I know. What about it?" Dong Li Hua blinked when the tent flap opened. It was Huang Zhao who came back. "Forgot something?"

"Sigh, so dumb." Huang Zhao muttered, his gaze setting on Lan Hu. "Stay here. Guard that stupid woman over there."

"Sir General is trying to annoy me again..." she emphasized her warning whilst being sarcastic to hold back her irritation.

"You- you won't apologize?" he asked her in disbelief. Huang Zhao came back incase she is guilty but she remained indifferent instead!

Dong Li Hua innocently blinked her eyes. This made Huang Zhao leave the tent with great anger. She sighed helplessly, thinking how childish Huang Zhao can be sometimes.

That night, Dong Li Hua is reading a huaben when Jie Cui called for her presence in the guest hall. Meng Tian was standing there with an anxious look.

"Miss Lizi, did you argue with Junior Huang?" he solemnly asked after seeing her. Dong Li Hua glanced at her servants and dismissed them. They all left since they knew it is a private matter.

"We did had a small fight." she apologetically smiled.

"No wonder he went out with Du Feng." Meng Tian pinched his nose bridge.

"Is it that bad? Where did they go?" Dong Li Hua frowned. She can sense from Meng Tian that it's an urgent one.

"It is bad. Du Feng is a nobleman, a spy sent by the State of Zhao. He has been trying to pry information from us while we used him to pass the wrong schemes. One of it is about you and Junior Huang. He is trying to probe if Huang Zhao is truly your lover. You better take him back." Meng Tian grabbed her wrist and brought her to a carriage.

"What's with the rush? Its not like Huang Zhao will spill anything." from what she knows, that guy is not going to make any mistake regarding Qin's wellbeing.

"Du Feng brought him to a flower house. Also, Huang Zhao has a low tolerance in alcohol. If he was to get drunk, who knows what will he admit!"

"Then Sir Meng should take him back here, not me." Dong Li Hua raised a brow.

"If I go there and retrieve Huang Zhao, Du Feng won't doubt it anymore and thought of you as Huang Zhao's weakness." Meng Tian explained. Not long later, the carriage went to an abrupt pause. "Huang Zhao us in the topmost floor to the fourth room on the right."

"Wait-" Dong Li Hua was pushed out of the carriage as it left in a quick speed. She was not given a time to agree nor disagree from his suggestion. "Troublesome Huang Zhao." she mumbled unhappily before entering the flower house.

Going up the stairs until the fifth floor, she is already in the brink of fainting. For Huang Zhao, she felt like her soul drifted away when she heard many kinds of sounds she shouldn't have heard! Once she reached the topmost floor, her face is already red like a ripe tomato. Thankfully, the fifth floor is filled with musical sound. Not those other 'musical' sounds.

"Huang Zhao, ah. You lecherous monkey, still seeking pleasure here? Just you wait!" Dong Li Hua stabilized herself and stood in front of the room Meng Tian mentioned.

"Huang Zhao, are you-" she went to a halt after opening the door. Huang Zhao is sitting next to a table with his upper robe loosened, his face stained with a faint pink blush while his usually tied hair is now left cascading like a stream of waterfall. There is a courtesan sitting on top of him, holding his chin and leaning close. Across Huang Zhao is a young man in his early twenties, he looked like a gentleman but the way he is enjoying a woman's accompaniment made Dong Li Hua brand him as a gigolo.

"Ah Li?" Huang Zhao's eyes widened. He quickly pushed the courtesan off him. Dong Li Hua was left speechless to what she saw. Is that really the always stoic and bossy Huang Zhao she knew?

"Stop right there! Don't you dare touch me!" she flinched once he got near her. Since he let a woman serve him, straddle him like that, there is no way she will let him touch her even if its a single strand of her hair.

"Hm? This little beauty is?" Du Feng curiously asked while watching a play unfold.

"Shut up. Who asked you to speak?" Dong Li Hua glared at him before pulling Huang Zhao's sleeve. "Thank you for amusing Huang Zhao tonight, I hope you catch an illness." she harshly said while praying to Buddha that Du Feng should contract HIV.

After leaving the flower house and bringing him nearby a waterside, she let go of Huang Zhao and sat on the lush green bed of grass. This night is a nightmare after that experience inside the flower house and her ears are still ringing. Her innocence, ah. It was beaten over and over by those frivolous music!