Chapter Forty-One: The Warhorse’s Havoc

The Divine Healer could still be counted among his hopes.

But that hope was faint and elusive. Even his own mentor rarely saw the Divine Healer, let alone him. And besides, he would only have a chance to meet that legendary figure at the Medical Arts Conference, which meant an even longer wait.

The little girl’s illness could not wait, and it must not.

Leukemia was the kind of condition that only grew harder to treat the longer it was delayed.

While Li Zisheng was still deep in thought, Eight Taels rushed straight in.

“Young Master, Young Master.” His voice was anxious, cutting short Li Zisheng’s reverie.

Li Zisheng looked up and saw him at once. Eight Taels was nearly bruised black and blue, with blood even staining the corner of his mouth, as though he had just been in a fight. Alarmed, Li Zisheng hurried over to inspect his injuries.

“Eight Taels, what happened to you?”

After a careful look, Li Zisheng was slightly relieved. They were only superficial wounds, nothing serious.

But in the blink of an eye, his expression darkened.

“Eight Taels, did you go looking for trouble on purpose?”

Eight Taels had a hot temper, and a clash could easily arise whenever something rubbed him the wrong way. Li Zisheng had long been aware of that, so he asked the question bluntly.

At the suspicion in Li Zisheng’s tone, Eight Taels trembled slightly. Mr. Zhong had told him not to mention this matter to the young master, so he had meant to keep it hidden. But he knew just how shrewd his own master was. In the end, he would never be able to conceal it anyway, so he might as well tell the truth now.

“Young Master, nothing happened. It wasn’t that Eight Taels went looking for trouble on purpose. It’s just... hard to say.”

His face was awkward, and even his speech became halting and uncertain.

“Spit it out.” Li Zisheng had little patience, and his voice grew a shade sterner. Seeing that their young master’s tone had turned sharper, Eight Taels knew that if he still refused to tell the truth, he would surely anger him.

“Young Master, the Turkic delegation wasn’t the one that requested the change in the martial contest to mounted archery? They said that even sparring in martial arts can cause injuries, and the people from our Great Tang agreed with that. Who would have thought, who would have thought that the horses from our Great Tang would suddenly act as if they had gone mad the moment they were brought out, bucking and rolling all over the place? After that, they even charged straight into the crowd from our side. Quite a few of our people, especially the scholars and students, were badly hurt.”

When he finished, Eight Taels was practically seething with outrage.

After hearing his account, Li Zisheng fell into deep thought.

By all rights, the horses of the Great Tang should never have behaved like that. Yet they had, and right after the Turkic delegation proposed changing the format of the martial contest, not a single horse from the Great Tang had been spared. When so many coincidences piled together, they could no longer be called coincidences.

“What do you think?” Li Zisheng no longer pondered the matter alone, but asked Eight Taels directly.

Eight Taels was still fuming.

“It must be those Turkic bastards. They didn’t say anything sooner or later, and only now insist on changing to mounted archery. There has to be something fishy going on. Those bastards are far too sinister. If I, Eight Taels, ever run into them in the future, I’ll beat them every time I see them and teach them just how powerful our Great Tang is.”

He clenched his fists, looking ready for a fight. With his fierce expression and the bruises blooming on his face, he really did look formidable.

Li Zisheng, however, did not agree with Eight Taels so quickly.

It was certainly possible that the Turkic delegation had done this deliberately. After all, the moment they proposed changing the contest format, the warhorses of the Great Tang began acting up. The odds of such a coincidence were far too small. More importantly, the horses had gone wild this time, but there was one obvious pattern: the injuries had been concentrated among the scholars and men taking part in the literary contest.

That could easily be explained as the Turkic delegation making a covert move to win the competition, resorting to underhanded tricks and causing heavy losses to the Great Tang.

But whether that was truly the case remained uncertain. If the Turks had really done this, wouldn’t they be pushing themselves straight to the center of the storm?

Surely the leaders among the Turks would not be so foolish.

No matter how dim-witted a person was, there had to be a limit. There couldn’t possibly be no one even a little clever within the Turkic delegation, could there? To act like this would be to set fire to their own house and invite trouble upon themselves. It was profoundly unwise.

So there was a second possibility as well: someone had deliberately done this in order to make the Great Tang suspect the Turks, and then pressure the Great Tang into making things difficult for the Turkic delegation, thereby worsening relations between the two sides.

But what would be the point of that?

That was the part Li Zisheng could not understand.

The Turks, in this era, no longer possessed the strength to threaten the Great Tang. What was there to target in the Turks? Or rather, what was there to target in the Great Tang, that one would willingly offend both sides for the sake of it?

After thinking for a while, Li Zisheng stopped.

When the sky fell, the tall ones would be the first to hold it up. No matter what, these matters would not be his burden to carry. So at the moment, he had no further thoughts on it.

Still, one thing had come true: the unease in his heart had finally manifested. He had felt that something was going to happen, and now it truly had.

“Where is Mr. Zhong?” Li Zisheng asked Eight Taels.

But at that moment, Eight Taels had nothing left to say.

He had completely thrown Mr. Zhong’s words to the wind. Mr. Zhong had warned him again and again not to inform their young master of this matter, yet he had still blurted it out. If Mr. Zhong found out, he would certainly be punished, and then he would only end up causing even more trouble for his young master.

“I... I don’t know.”

As he spoke, his eyes darted furtively toward the outside.

Li Zisheng could see at a glance that Eight Taels simply did not want to tell him where Mr. Zhong was.

“All right. If you won’t tell me, then I’ll go find him myself.”

With that, Li Zisheng pretended to leave the tent at once.

Eight Taels hurriedly stepped in front of him.

“Young Master, Young Master, please don’t go. I’ll tell you the truth. It was Mr. Zhong who told me not to mention this to you. But I couldn’t hold it in and told you anyway, because I wanted to warn you to be careful during the literary contest and not fall victim to the Turkic bastards’ schemes. Otherwise, you’d suffer for nothing.”

His words were sincere enough.

What he got in return, however, was a long, exasperated glare from Li Zisheng. This Eight Taels truly was...

“Eight Taels, why did Mr. Zhong not allow you to tell me this? Do you know the inside story?”