Chapter 67: The Tiger Has Arrived

  "Oh! Qianjin of Yang Langzhong?"

  Yang Fan took a few glances at her, looking at her small face like a duck egg, with clear and beautiful eyebrows and eyes like dots of ink. This was a very pretty and lovely little girl. Thinking again about Yang Mingsheng's sunken eyes and eagle nose, which had some barbarian blood in him, Yang Fan couldn't help but think: "I'm afraid those aunties' guesses weren't baseless, this little girl's appearance really isn't much like her father's."

  Yang Fan wrung out the water from his clothes and asked: "Then what are you doing here?"

  The little girl said: "Dad was beaten by bad people, I want to go see him, but Dad won't let me into the room, I'm very unhappy."

  "Perhaps... your father is afraid of scaring you with his own appearance."

  The little girl shook her head silently, with a look of sorrow on her young face: "Grandpa has never been good to me, not since I was little. When Mom went to see him, Grandpa wouldn't even let her in... actually, I've rarely seen Grandpa since I was little, he's always busy with his own things, holding a big stack of thick books and reading with great interest..."

  The little girl puckered her lips, suddenly lowered her voice and said mysteriously: "I heard that I am not the biological daughter of Ah Ye."

  Yang Fan was stunned, not knowing how to respond to her for a moment. The little girl looked at him again, let out a soft sigh, and listlessly lifted her chin with her small hand, making her look endearingly silly: "Everyone is like this, they make fun of you behind your back, but when you really ask them about it, they just giggle and won't say anything."

  Yang Fan looked at this girl who seemed not quite mature, yet too mature for her age, and asked softly: "Your father is not good to you, others say you are not his biological daughter, so he got hurt, do you worry about him, will he hate the person who hurt him?"

  "Of course I will!"

  The little girl's eyelids flickered, and she replied seriously: "No matter if Grandpa is my biological father or not, he raised me after all. I don't worry about him worrying about anyone else! If a bad person harmed Grandpa, of course, I would hate that big scoundrel!"

  Yang Fan fell silent for a moment, then nodded heavily and said, "Yes, even if there's no debt of childbirth, there's still the debt of upbringing. As a person, kindness must be repaid! Grudges must be avenged!"

  "Hmm!"

  The little girl nodded vigorously and smiled sweetly at him: "Although your skills aren't great, you're absolutely right! My name is Yang Xuelian, what's yours?"

  Yang Fan smiled and replied softly: "My surname is Yang, I'm called... Yang Fan!"

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  Yang Fan returned to the front hall of Wumei Pavilion, Ma Qiao was arranging the dishes on the table. He was quite capable and had won over Liu Guan Shi's favor, accompanying him as he worked, with a relatively easy workload and better food than the other servants. Seeing Yang Fan looking like a drowned rat, Ma Qiao hastily came forward, asking in surprise: "What happened? You've only been gone for a short while, how did you end up like this?"

  Yang Fan sighed and said, "Alas! I went to the back house to deliver food, and those few officers from the Ministry of Punishment saw me wearing a sword and insisted on competing with me in martial arts." As he spoke, he took off his wooden sword from his waist, pulled out the sword, and flipped the scabbard over, "Whoosh" - another puddle of clear water appeared under his feet.

  Liu Guanshi was just about to pick up some food with his chopsticks when he heard this and slammed them down on the table, shouting: "Hmph! These petty people, they only dare to be so insolent because they know my son Yang is already at death's door! In the Yang household, such scandals are actually happening, if it weren't for the fact that my son needs rest now, I would...

  He paused, looked at Yang Fan and sighed: "You're too honest. Not causing trouble is good, but you can't let people bully you either."

  Yang Fan smiled awkwardly and scratched his head in a timely manner, with an innocent and rustic appearance.

  Liu Guanshi glared at him with a mixture of anger and pity, saying: "You child, you're making me both worried and angry. It's already deep autumn, and you're still drenched to the bone like this - aren't you afraid of catching a cold? Did you bring any spare clothes? Go change into something dry before eating."

  Yang Fan said: "I'm young and strong, it doesn't matter!"

  Ma Qiao said, "Let's go, I just so happen to have an extra set of clothes with me, we can change into them when we get back!"

  Ma Qiao pulled Yang Fan back to the woodshed, took out his own spare clothes and had him change into them. Except for being a bit too big, they fit pretty well. The two of them returned to Wu Mei Pavilion, where Liu Guan Shi was almost finished eating. Seeing them return, he called out: "Quickly sit down and eat something, if you wait any longer it'll get cold."

  Yang Fan and Ma Qiao thanked him, sat down on both sides of the table, just picked up their chopsticks, a servant rushed in and reported: "Liu Guan Shi, You Feng Shen Wei Zhong Lang Jiang Cai Dong Cheng Da Jiang Jun, came to visit our young master."

  "Oh?"

  Liu Guanshi had just finished eating and, upon hearing the news, hastily put down his chopsticks, stood up and said: "I'll go to welcome him, you quickly inform Ah Lang."

  Liu Guanshi hastily wiped his hands and stood up, heading outside as he muttered to himself: "Strange! Among the officials who usually come and go with Ah Lang, there aren't any military generals. This general heard the news and came immediately, yet seems quite familiar with my family's Ah Lang."

  Yang Fan's ears moved slightly, and he listened carefully to Liu Guanshi's words without missing a single word.

  After a while, Liu Guanshi came back with a smile and led a guest. Ma Qiao and Yang Fan were eating in the Wu Mei Pavilion, which had no windows and was transparent on all sides, allowing them to see the scene on the road clearly. Both of them curiously looked at the general, although they lived in Luoyang City under the emperor's feet, this was the first time they saw such a high-ranking official.

  Liu Guanshi slightly bowed his head, leading the general to walk under the shade of the trees. Two rows of large elm trees stretched from the main hall to the front gate, forming a straight and even path paved with stone slabs. The dense foliage filtered the sunlight, casting dappled shadows on the ground. Due to the gentle breeze, the branches swayed in the air, dancing and scattering shadows all over the ground.

  Yang Fan's gaze swept up from the bottom, and the first thing that caught his eye was a pair of yellow cowhide ankle boots with thin soles. The boots stepped forward, and a leaf that had been blown up by the movement had not yet fallen to the ground, but was instead trampled underfoot. As the boot lifted again, the leaf was crushed to pieces. The boot lifted once more, and then came down again, exerting a rhythmic force that caused Yang Fan's pupils to contract slightly.

  His gaze continued to move upwards, quickly sweeping over his sturdy and robust body, directly falling onto his face. This was a ruddy-faced, majestic big man, wearing a military uniform of the Imperial Guard, with his helmet tucked under his arm, his hair combed up from his forehead, his black hair tightly pulled against his skin, exuding an aura of unyielding majesty.

  Liu Guanshi bowed slightly and made a polite gesture to the majestic big man, who turned around and stepped onto the path leading to the rear residence. As he turned around, under his thick and black eyebrows, two sharp eyes scanned the pavilion on this side, and his gaze swept over Yang Fan and Ma Qiao without stopping for a moment.

  In the eyes of this imperial guard, Yang Fan and Ma Qiao, sitting in Wumei Pavilion, were no different from the stone table and stools, pillars, and scenery. When he turned around and headed towards the back house, his chest muscles could be clearly seen straining against his robe, and as his arms swung, the metal studs on his sleeve guards flashed golden light in the sunlight.

  "Cheers! What a big show!"

  Ma Qiao couldn't help but exclaim in admiration.

  "What bad luck!"

  Yang Fan silently added another sentence in his heart.

  All the guests who came to Langzhongfu were his suspects, and Wu Jiang was even more so. The words that Liu Guan Shi just muttered to himself have revealed a lot of information: in recent years, most of the officials Yang Mingshang had contact with were civil officials, and few were military generals. This Cai Zhonglang had never visited before, but as soon as Yang Mingshang got into trouble, he came!

  Although he was a Zhonglang Jiang of the Imperial Guard, not the Dragon-Tiger Army, ... but doesn't everyone know that today's Zhonglang Jiang of the Imperial Guard used to be a Xiaowei of the Dragon-Tiger Army?

  Yang Fan slightly narrowed his eyes.

  "Clang... Clang... Clang..."

  The sound of footsteps was loud and clear, following behind General Cai's back were four military generals. Cai Dongcheng turned around to see them coming in a row, they were the four Qian Niu Bei Shen, among the twelve Qian Niu Bei Shen in the Imperial Guard, also high-ranking military officers, they were four of them.

  Four people walked abreast, the first one on the left had a swallow's forehead and leopard whiskers, tiger back and bear waist. The second person had ape arms and a long torso, like a swift hunting leopard.

  The third person has a sharp jaw and prominent forehead, with slightly sunken cheeks, looking refined and slender, but with a pair of slanted eyebrows that fly into his temples, giving off an air of elegance. The fourth person is relatively plumper compared to the other three, yet doesn't give off any feeling of being bloated or dull.

  What's even more astonishing is that these four people, with every gesture and movement, are as if they were one person. Whether viewed horizontally or vertically, they seem like three shadows of the same person. Even their eye movements, every time they shift, accurately fall on the same point.

  They are either in the ranks, perhaps they had indeed worked hard to practice the formation method at first, but now what they show is not just the neatness of the formation. Moreover, here they don't need to be deliberately neat at all, each of them is walking their own way, and there is no deliberate coordination with others, but no matter how they walk, no matter if their feet are fast or slow, they always seem like one person.

  Even when they turned towards the backyard along that road, the people in the inner circle slowed down their pace and shortened their stride, while those in the outer circle took bigger steps and accelerated their speed. It was all so natural, without a hint of intentionality, like a wall of flesh or... an ironclad copper wall.

  They alone took out any one person, not as good as Zhong Lang Jiang Cai Dongcheng's prestige, but when the four people walked together, it seemed that even Cai Dongcheng was surpassed by them. That kind of unity gave people a feeling of being unbeatable.

  Yang Fan thought to himself: "These four people must have known each other for many years and are skilled in the art of joint attacks!"

  Tiger is coming, will the recommendation ticket be far away? ~~ Please vote for recommendation and log in to click!