Underneath A Thousand Skies ✔️

26 Favoring Qie Over Wife (26)

Song Jia's current body belonged to another man but her mind was focused on how to seduce someone else.

On the other hand, inside the room next to theirs, a man's body was currently with another woman, but his mind had flown elsewhere.*

The man wore a black-colored robe with floating clouds embroidery, but the collar and the cuffs were bloody red. Rather than going to something romantic like the Qi Qiao festival, it seemed that he was going to the battlefield to personally behead some enemies instead. He had a blue face that was the root of all trouble [1], while the woman sitting next to him had a red face that could cause a calamity [2].

Li Jia's face could be considered an outstanding beauty, but only with Song Jia's expertise in using make up did she manage not to be overshadowed by Bai Mei Lien. In truth, Bai Mei Lien was the ideal female beauty with her small face, large eyes, and natural white lotus personality. It has to be said, if not for Zhao Cheng's obvious doting towards her since they were children, she would be besieged by the courtship of various gongzi in the capital.

Bai Mei Lien was bashfully eating the food Zhao Cheng picked for her with his chopsticks, but his thoughts were on how to get back to the wangfu faster. He bought his wang fei several souvenirs in the hopes that this would slightly ease her disappointment towards him.

Had Song Jia heard his thoughts, she would surely ask him, "Wang ye, are you a natural born idiot towards dealing with women?"

His way of pacifying her was truly not the wind that extinguished the candle flame, but only made the fire blaze even higher.

Fortunately, the mature and knowledgeable Song Jia with her female magazines was not a mind reader.

When the two of them finished eating, Zhao Cheng swallowed his cup of wine in one gulp and supported Bai Mei Lien to stand up. His feet were itching to go back home, but Bai Mei Lien wanted to take a look around the festival a little while longer.

"Lien'er, there are too many people, even if it's ben wang, it's difficult to move around." He could only coax her that way.

"But big brother..." Bai Mei Lien protested. She never had a date with Brother Cheng, how could she let this end so early!

He patted her head like a child, "Be good."

Bai Mei Lien pursed her lips, but she didn't argue. Even if she wanted to, since Brother Cheng said no, she would not insist.

Just as the two exited the room, not sure if it was coincidence or fate, Song Jia and Wen Heng Zhi also decided to leave theirs. The two parties abruptly froze as they met.

Zhao Cheng naturally recognized his friend, and was curious about the identity of his companion. But since she wore a veiled hat, he knew not to probe too much and leave them to their business. This Wen Heng Zhi, he still hadn't taken a wife, so this kind of progress was very good in Zhao Cheng's eyes. He would only greet him and then leave. Besides, he was in a hurry to go back home.

This matter should have originally ended like this.

Only, the shock of seeing Zhao Cheng made Wen Heng Zhi take a step away from Song Jia, and this guilty movement of his made Zhao Cheng pause. He once again looked over at the veiled woman accompanying him. Most of her features were hidden, except for that red lotus flower and those eyes that looked up just in time to meet his...

Instantly, a large pot of vinegar was turned over.

The rage came sudden and fierce, as if a hidden beast had risen up inside of him. His hand was already moving before he could consider to ask for the reason why the two of them were together, and his punch already landed on Wen Heng Zhi's face.

Blood not only spurted out, even Wen Heng Zhi's body flew back from the force. Bai Mei Lien directly fainted from fright, and Song Jia...

Song Jia had instinctively jumped back to catch Wen Heng Zhi.

One could not blame this professional transmigrator who was new at her job. Not having seen bloodshed before, she directly placed herself in a 'hero' position like the modern movies she watched and attempted to save the day.

Too bad she forgot that she wore anti-gravity boots, so her jump had more momentum than she intended. Instead of grabbing his arm or the corner of his sleeves, she went farther and jumped behind his body instead. The veiled hat tumbled down, and his body slammed into hers.

Zhao Cheng had not controlled his strength, and his martial arts was the best amongst his peers. To describe his punch as having the strength of nine bulls and two tigers would not be far from the truth. Both Wen Heng Zhi and Song Jia crashed into the wall that was some distance away with a resounding 'boom'. Song Jia was behind Wen Heng Zhi, so she naturally took most of the impact.

Zhao Cheng's feet were rooted to the ground, and it seemed as if he could not move a single muscle. His skin was white as paper, his blood ice-cold. Normally decisive and coolheaded, he was now like a flustered child who made a mistake and did not know how to correct things.

A waiter that was passing by was the first to react, and he ran past him and the unconscious Bai Mei Lien to check Wen Heng Zhi and Song Jia's condition. If these two people died in the restaurant, it would be bad...

Even until the end, when someone took them away to be checked over by the local physician, Zhao Cheng had not moved from his spot, staring at the wall that was stained by blood. He appeared to have only been shell-shocked by this incident, but if one took a closer look, they could see that the hands hidden by his sleeves were slightly trembling.

*Confusing, but I love the play of words.

[1] Kind of like how a handsome man makes women go crazy and [2] is also  another term for 'calamitous beauty'.

A/N: Unedited, and relax, SJ won't die yet. Just a splash of cold water to our helplessly wooden male lead. For those asking, the first arc will probably be fifty chapters long since this will be the foundation of the whole story. The arcs are connected, and just a warning that I forgot, male lead will blacken further at each succeeding arc~