Chapter 3990 — A Curious Calm
The Blossom Guardian · Page 1 of 2
In Xu Lingchong's mind, the scene he had just witnessed was swiftly and quite naturally reconstructed into something else entirely: that scoundrel Wei Zhao had caught Shangguan Lan'er off guard and stolen a kiss from her by force!
The instant this thought took shape, Xu Lingchong was overcome with grief and indignation. Damn it all—he had chased this girl for years without so much as once holding her little hand, and now this posturing nobody Wei Zhao had beaten him to the prize. This was beyond all endurance!
Shangguan Lan'er had always been marked out in Xu Lingchong's heart as his own woman, a matter bound up with his future prospects and grand designs. No one was permitted to lay a finger on her; anyone who so much as touched a single hair on her head would be locked with Young Master Xu in a feud to the death.
And so, the moment he had caught the faintest hint of anything, Xu Lingchong had schemed to sabotage the relationship between Shangguan Lan'er and Wei Zhao, strangling this near-impossible possibility in the cradle. He had thought himself secure beyond all worry—only to have something of this sort happen right under his nose!
True, no formal betrothal had ever been settled between him and Shangguan Lan'er, but under the long-standing tacit understanding of both families, Xu Lingchong had long since taken her as his own. As things stood now, how was he any different from a cuckold who had been made a fool of by Wei Zhao?
"Wei Zhao, this young master will make you wish you were dead!" In that instant Xu Lingchong was goaded by his own imaginings into losing all control; eyes bloodshot, he looked ready to strike at Wei Zhao then and there.
In truth, he had not entirely lost his reason. So long as he proclaimed far and wide that Wei Zhao had molested and violated Shangguan Lan'er, then even if he ground Wei Zhao to dust on the spot, he would bear no responsibility whatsoever.
Wei Zhao was startled. Before he could wonder why the man had suddenly flown into such a rage, he hurriedly moved to retreat with Shangguan Lan'er in tow. After all, the other man was a genuine master at the peak of Foundation Establishment, while Wei Zhao himself was only at its middle stage. Unless he resorted to a trump card like a top-grade true-qi bomb, rushing to meet the man head-on would surely leave him hard-pressed.
Yet Shangguan Lan'er stepped in front of him first, planting herself directly in the way, and cried out at Xu Lingchong: "What do you think you're doing? Junior Brother is an important guest of this young lady. If you dare lay a hand on him, I'll go tell Grandfather!"
Xu Lingchong's figure halted. The look he sent Wei Zhao over Shangguan Lan'er's shoulder grew all the more venomous, and half in self-mockery, half in jeering, he said: "Junior Sister Lan'er, if he is your important guest, then what am I, your senior brother?"
Unexpectedly, Shangguan Lan'er's young-lady temper flared up as well, and she gave him not the slightest quarter: "What business is it of yours, what goes on between me and Junior Brother? Do I owe an outsider like you any explanation?"
At these words Xu Lingchong's fury turned to laughter. With a kind of nervous tic, he pointed at Wei Zhao, then at himself, and sneered: "I'm an outsider, and you and this lowborn piece of trash are family? Fine. Very fine. Well said!"
"Who are you calling lowborn trash? I'll give you one chance—apologize to my Junior Brother this instant!" Shangguan Lan'er was furious now too. She had never had many friends to begin with, and after all that had happened before, Wei Zhao's place in her heart had long since surpassed that of any ordinary friend. As for a nuisance like Xu Lingchong, in her eyes he did not even deserve to be called a friend—her position could not have been clearer.