Favoring Qie Over Wife (28)

"Jia'er, don't be mad anymore, please wake up..."

Zhao Cheng held her hand and placed it on his cheek, letting her palm feel the bristles that were starting to grow. Although she was asleep, he constantly talked to her. Zhao Cheng thought to himself that this was the first time he said so much to another person.

"Wen Heng Zhi is already well and he frequently sends messages to me asking about your condition. He also explained what happened between the two of you that day. Jia'er, it was my fault. I also don't know why I reacted like that. Jia'er, I'm sorry, benwang is sorry, so please wake up okay? Father Emperor is going to make me leave soon and I want to see you wake up before that. I really want to see your eyes..."

The imperial physician diagnosed Li Jia with a heavy concussion and four broken ribs. The bruises that were on her body had already disappeared with the medicines Zhao Cheng meticulously searched for across the entire continent for a high cost, and even the wound on her head was beginning to heal. Yet, she gave no signs of waking up. Wen Heng Zhi had already recovered his broken leg and his smashed nose, but only her...

"Jia'er, is it because you don't want to see me?"

Zhao Cheng remembered how happy he was when his manservant told him that Li Jia was alive and that she was going to recover from her injuries. He could not enter the room where the local physician was treating the two of them, his legs would not let him move. He had been so, so scared...

But thankfully, she was still alive, she hadn't left him! Zhao Cheng was like a man who returned to heaven from hell, that kind of happiness, it was his first time to experience. He ran into the room with an eager expression, wanting to pull her into his arms and listen to her steady heartbeat.

He didn't know that at that moment, in his anxiety, he had even left the unconscious Bai Mei Lien back in the restaurant. If her maidservants had not silently carried her back to the wangfu, it was a strong possibility that when she woke up, she would be thoroughly heartbroken by his callousness.

When the dust finally settled and everything was over, Zhao Cheng thought to himself that although the one he loved was Bai Mei Lien, Li Jia was still his wife after all. Him feeling concern for her, wasn't it very normal? It was what a husband was supposed to do.

Zhao Cheng's blindness to his own feelings, it seemed to Wen Heng Zhi when he woke up and saw him lean over Li Jia's unconscious body with an expression of complete and utter devotion, was incurable.

Wen Heng Zhi and Li Jia stayed inside that room for only a few hours before the local physician declared that their bodies could be moved, although great care should be taken to avoid worsening their injuries. Unlike Li Jia, who Zhao Cheng ordered to be brought out with the imperial physician directing every step of the way, not letting even a hair strand of hers get disturbed in the process, Wen Heng Zhi limped back to his own home without any help.

He was worried about Li Jia, but before they left, Zhao Cheng warned him that he was not welcome anymore inside the Xu Wang Fu. Because of their old ties, he was not ruthless enough to go and kill him. But if Wen Heng Zhi dared to go anywhere near Li Jia again, Zhao Cheng promised that even if he was his old friend, he would spare him no mercy. Li Jia was his wife, any man who dared to take her away, even their bones would not be left intact.

Zhao Cheng stayed in the zhengfang once again for that whole night. The next morning, an imperial edict came from the palace instructing him to prepare his things and rush to the northern border in order to help with the situation there.

Zhao Cheng had half a mind to disobey his father, but at the end, he could only force himself to reluctantly leave the sleeping Li Jia. Perhaps, she really didn't want to see him, and if he went away, she would wake up.

He visited Bai Mei Lien for the first time in the last three weeks and inquired about her health before leaving. Bai Mei Lien was nearly hysterical because she didn't want him to leave. Her father had informed her of the troublesome situation in the north. If Zhao Cheng went there, he would surely participate in the war. What if he didn't come back?

Bai Mei Lien begged him again and again not to go, but Zhao Cheng's mind was firm. Besides, there was that imperial edict. If he disobeyed, what would happen to his wife and Lien'er?

As soon as the various things for the journey were prepared, Zhao Cheng didn't delay and immediately set off. He even included Wen Heng Zhi in the list of the people that were going with him. If he left him here in the capital, what if this lecherous bastard took the opportunity of his absence to sneak into the wangfu?

Actually, Zhao Cheng was overthinking too much. Wen Heng Zhi had no such thoughts. He liked Li Jia, but it had not reached the point of wanting to take another man's wife. He also treated Zhao Cheng as his friend despite him wanting to cut ties between them, and the punch that made his nose slightly go off-center.

Wen Heng Zhi was currently feeling very wronged. Clearly it was him that was punched and him who tried to appeal to Li Jia so that Zhao Cheng's conjugal relationship with her would become better, but why is it that the third prince treated him as the criminal instead? Where was the justice in this world?