Chapter 5: Why Isn’t Ling Zhang Here?
Jia Yuanling’s back garden was in the style of Jiangnan gardens, tortuous and winding, elegant and quiet, which was convenient for Ling Zhang to lay the formations.
The formations his mother taught him should be used according to different conditions, some of which paid attention to the right place at the right time. But the illusive trap he was going to use did not need the help of the right time or weather but only the right place. With nobody’s disturbance, Ling Zhang was ready to validate whether the trap was as magical as his mother had stated.
To do so, according to the memory recalled just now, Ling Zhang changed the position of all the potted plants around the garden, pushed down a few small ornamental plants, and moved some fragrant potted plants to the place nearby from a corner of the back garden, and finally changed the posture of the dancer lying unconscious on the ground.
When the layout was about to finish, Ling Zhang heard a noise coming from outside, he winded up the work in a hurry and was intended to find a place to hide. However, the moment he stood up, he felt dizzy when he accidentally saw the dancer’s body. Startled, he hastened to depart from the only safe-exit in the formation.
Even Ling Zhang, the one who laid the formation, had been affected, therefore he looked forward to the effect of the trap more than ever.
At the moment, there came sounds of footsteps coming from the corner of the back garden, with a voice saying, “Father, there must be some misunderstanding. Brother Zhang is a man of virtue. He is drunk and resting in the wing room. How could he do such a thing?”
It was Jia Yuanling.
Then an angry voice fumed, “Unfilial son!” followed with a sound of someone being pushed to the ground.
“Yuanling, are you all right? Why speak for Ling Zhang?”
“Exactly, Ling Zhang dared to do such shameful things. Then he must pay for it!”
Hiding in the dark, Ling Zhang watched their acting with sulky face, and the anger repressed in his heart flared up. Jia Yuanling was still acting at this moment! What a marvelous show!
“How stupid I was to not even see through who he really is!” thought Ling Zhang.
“Master, they are here!” Someone shouted.
It seemed that they had found the dancing girl; presumably, they should have stepped into the illusive trap.
Ling Zhang took a few steps forward to get out of the shelter, so that he could see the situation in the trap without being noticed.
Among the crowd, it was Jia Family’s current chief Jia Yin who stood in the lead, behind whom were the guests visiting Jia Family, such as the local magistrate Tao Feng and his son Tao Yi, the chief of He Family, He Zhongming, living in the east of the city, several other men of high status, and even some harems!
Logically speaking, these were outsiders that should not have appeared in such a private occasion. Perhaps Jia Yuanling wanted to make Ling Zhang’s “scandal” known to all, so he designedly led the guests here.
The situation in previous life was too chaotic for Ling Zhang to distinguish the people around. Ling Zhang could only remember there had been a lot of people watching his embarrassment, as if all the people in Tanyang had been there. And their despite and curses were still fresh in his mind.
This time he was able to discern their faces clearly and matched them to the contemptuous faces in memory of previous life one by one finally. Gradually, Ling Zhang’s eyes became cold.
“Ah…” A woman screamed suddenly. “Over there!”
“Oh my god! How could this be? It’s true.”
“Bitch! You bitch!” Seeing the unconscious dancing girl covered with traces of sex, Jia Yin was too angry to say a word, his face turning red and neck veins bulging, “The damn bitch! I’m going to kill her!”
“How did this happen? Brother Zhang really did…” Jia Yuanling was about to say something but choked down his words as if his neck was grabbed by somebody when he saw there was only a dancing girl lying on the ground, his face distorted. “No. You said it was Ling Zhang who fornicated with this woman, but where is he?”
“Yeah, who was the one committed adultery with the dancing girl actually?”