Stealing the Heart of a God

4

Two weeks later

Royal General Yiban's Manor

"NO! --sob--...why are you doing this to me. This is not fair! You can't do this. I'm your WIFE!! --sob--" Zhanshi's mother sobs and shouts after hearing Yiban declared that he is demoting her to mistress status and told the servants and maid to move everything of her's and Zhanshi out of the main wing of the manor to the south wing.

However, per usual, Royal General Yiban completely ignores her pleas and curses and continues to direct the servants and maids. As a servant comes up to Royal general Yiban with a valuable vase in his hands, to ask if he should also transfer all the family heirlooms in the room to the south wing as well. Just as Yiban was about say no, Chiteng roughly pushes the servant aside and grabbed onto Yiban's robe collar tightly as she sobs and screams, "--hic--...why...why are you doing this to me!!! Was I not a good wife?!...--hic-- i'm so much better than that whore of y-" Before she can even finish her words, she felt a harsh, sharp sting on her left cheek.

"Do not ever let me hear you call lady Xing a whore again, or else you'll receive more than just a slap." Yiban coldly says as he jerks his robe collar from her shocked grip and orders a solider to take her to the south wing.

As the stoic soldier tries to force Chiteng out of the room, she quickly recovers from her shocked state and tried to push the huge solider aside and lunge at Yiban, but was easily restrained by the huge solider and forced out of the room.

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Zhanshi had spent all day practicing martial arts with Shen and he's super tired, but upon arriving home, he sees a huge solider forcefully dragging his mother away from her room and quickly run up the soldier and orders him to release her at once.

However, the soldier ignores his request and continues to drag his struggling and sobbing mother away from the her room. Seeing that words will not get him anywhere, Zhanshi's hand clenched into a fist and he punched the unsuspecting soldier in the face. As the soldier falls on the ground, stun at what just happen, Zhanshi continues to unrelenting throw punches at his face.

The commotion and struggle caused Royal General Yiban to step out and frown as he sees Zhanshi attacking the soldier. Yiban quickly walks over towards the struggling duo and roughly pulls Zhanshi away from the soldier.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Zhanshi's father says in his usual cold tone with his massive arms crossed across his chest. Wiping the blood off of his knuckles, Zhanshi knits his eyebrows and in an equally cold manner replies, "he was hurting mother or were you too busy to see that Royal General Yiban."

Without even flinching, Yiban's expression darken at Zhanshi's obvious disrespect, then turns towards the soldier that followed him out and orders, "soldier, bring Zhanshi to the detention center and give him 100 slashes for hurting a royal soldier".

After nodding to show he understands, the soldier walks towards Zhanshi and as he was about to put his hands on Zhanshi, Zhanshi scoffs at his father, "--hmp--, I should have known that Royal General was the one who ordered mother to be dragged away....No need to force me to go, i'll go by myself. --hah-- maybe i'll even be able to bleed out all the blood that belongs to Royal General Yiban. Wouldn't that be great!"

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Per Royal General Yiban's added request to not go easy on Zhanshi, by the time Zhanshi left the detention center, his back is soaked in blood, but instead of going home, he headed straight to Shen's wing.

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Shen's Wing

"I thought you were going home?" Shen casually asks without bothering to shift his attention from the book he was reading. Sighing, Zhanshi grabs two sharp swords from Shen's room and tosses one to Shen. "Fight me. I need to get stronger." Zhanshi casually says with an almost undetectable hint of frustration in his voice. As Shen looks up from his book, he sees that the back of Zhanshi's emerald green robe is stained bright red, but upon seeing the blankness and frustration on Zhanshi's face, Shen gets up and follows Zhanshi towards his garden area.

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As their swords clink for the 1000th time, Zhanshi quickly pulls back and then zooms towards Shen, hoping to get his side, but Shen easily dodged his attack and delivered a small slash to Zhanshi's left arm and knocked him onto the ground.

They have been fighting for over 5 hours, so as Shen sees Zhanshi struggling to get up and fight again while blood begins to drip from his clothing, with an indifferent expression on his face, Shen nonchalantly tells Zhanshi, "Let's stop for today. I'm tired."

Just as Zhanshi was about to protest, Shen lets go of the sword he was holding and then drags Zhanshi to his room. Usually, Zhanshi would not allow Shen to help him move, because of his pride, but he knows that he's probably pushed his body to the absolute limit this time and kept quiet as Shen drags him.

After leaving Zhanshi on his bed, Shen then orders a maid, "call a physician". "I don't need one. I'll be fine." Zhanshi calmly says as he furrows his brow at the notion of how weak he is that he needs a physician.

Of course with Shen being Shen, he just ignores Zhanshi's comment and tells the maid to quickly complete the task.

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When the physician arrives, as he looks at Zhanshi's tatter back and wounds, his face forms a deep frown. "How are you still alive?!" The physician quietly and unintentional speaks his thoughts. "Huh. what do you mean?" Zhanshi asks. "Ah. Did I say that out loud...Please excuse my rudeness." The old physician quickly apologizes as he takes out some bandages and ointment from his bag.

"What did you mean by 'How are you still alive'?" Zhanshi asks the physician again. Sighing, as the physician cleans Zhanshi's wounds, he calmly tells Zhanshi, "The injury to your back is severe and not only that, you lost a lot of blood. Humanly speaking, you should have faint 4 hours ago and should be dead from blood lost now if you have not receive treatment. But you're still somehow alive....--sigh-- your body is working very hard to keep you alive. Next time, you might not be so lucky. So don't push yourself to far."