Legacy World 1.13 Where's Xinyi?

ZhangYong stood at the back of her courtyard where he landed. He stared at the almost unrecognisable courtyard in front of him with a blank expression. He was having trouble processing what he saw before him.

He had first wondered if he entered the wrong courtyard but he immediately striked out that possibility as soon as he thought about it.

He then thought that she just wanted a change of look in her courtyard but, somewhere at the back of his mind, he knew that it was unlikely, especially after he saw what her room looked like now.

Still refusing to believe that she would just disappear so suddenly, he convinced himself that she was probably busy and would come back later.

/I'll just ask her about these changes once she gets back./ ZhangYong told himself while he sat down at the stone table.

His hope died together with the sun's descent in the sky and the last bit of control he had snapped once the sun disappeared beyond the horizon. He left the courtyard to enter the Chen household the proper way then asked to meet Xinyi.

Everyone was surprised to hear that the first person ZhangYong looked for after not seeing him for almost 3 months was not HuiShan but Xinyi.

When the servants habitually gave the reply that Xinyi was too unwell to receive any guests, ZhangYong's glare sent them scampering to check if Xinyi could come and meet him.

In the meantime, everyone else in the family came to the main hall where to welcome him.

"GongZi, what brings you here today?" Official Chen asked him.

Since everyone was gathered together already, ZhangYong brought up his other purpose. "Is it your wife who's in charge of your second daughter's marriage?"

"As per tradition, yes. May I know if something's wrong?" Official Chen replied with a slight frown.

"Did anyone else take part in the decision making?" ZhangYong continued to ask without answering his question.

Official Chen decided to let ZhangYong's discourtesy slide. "I and my second concubine agreed that the marriage looks good. May I know why GongZi is expressing an interest in my second daughter's marriage?"

Before ZhangYong could reply, the servants that scrambled off earlier came scrambling back into the main hall. "Master! Master! Bad news! The 2nd miss is missing from her courtyard! Everyone's already looking for her all around the estate but she still cannot be found!"

"What?!" Official Chen exclaimed.

"She's missing?" ZiYao's mother whispered.

"What about the marriage then?" Xinyi's mother asked no one in particular.

"How can she go missing just like that? Who last saw her?" HuiShan's mother started asking.

While everyone got busy trying to find out who was the last one who saw her, HuiShan scooted to ZhangYong's side and whispered, "ZhangYong… You know something, don't you?"

ZhangYong badly felt the compulsion to confide in HuiShan but he remembered his promise to not talk about Xinyi to anyone else and to keep his meetups with her a secret.

"Do you know where your Er Jie might go? If she wanted to hide? If she wanted to clear her mind?"

"I… Don't know… I didn't interact with my Er Jie that much… Sorry…"

ZhangYong was not surprised to hear her answer. He knew how Xinyi spent her days alone. It was another reason why he felt such a special and strong camaraderie with her. They were like each other's exclusive training buddies.

He really valued her. Every time he looked at her or thought about her, he would feel a burning desire to work even harder so that he would not lose out to her. Before he knew it, he was looking forward to the day they could fight side by side on the battlefield. He just knew that she would shine and bedazzle people.

It was only now that he noticed how much that little courtyard meant to him and how much he enjoyed spending time with her. However, it was too late. He hated how he was always realising things too late.

Although ZhangYong's face looked as stoic as ever, HuiShan somehow could tell that ZhangYong was hurting. It was just an intuition that she has. She reached out and grabbed his hand to give it a little squeeze.

When ZhangYong felt the squeeze, a certain warmth slowly spread from his hand and his heart to fill his entire being. It felt cosy like this was how things were supposed to be. However, a tiny part of him fought against it. That tiny part of him rejected that warmth and felt that if he gave in to it, he would lose something more important.

The contradiction within him made his brows draw together a little.

Meanwhile, ZiYao could only bite her lower lip in grievance as she could not find the chance nor an excuse to get closer to ZhangYong just yet.

Eventually, everyone found out that the last time Xinyi interacted with anyone was on the day that she first met her fiance.

"Did she not like him after all so she tried to escape marriage by running away?"

"How irresponsible can she be?"

"How should we answer to the Ou family now?"

Questions were fired one after another.

"Keep the search private and find that useless daughter back before the day of the wedding! As long as we find her before that, there won't be a problem." Official Chen ordered.

When no one voiced a single disagreement and started making plans to locate Xinyi, ZhangYong's cold voice cut through their heated discussion. "Does no one wonder why Xinyi would run away from this marriage?"

"GongZi, I appreciate your help with the case regarding HuiShan and MeiRuo last time, but this time I am certain that Xinyi is just acting spoiled." Official Chen bit out equally coldly. He had had enough of this proud young man who gave him no face.

"GongZi, for your information, Xinyi said it herself that she preferred staying in this household because she was comfortable with it. I understand that there'll be far more responsibilities to undertake once she becomes a wife but she can't run away from it forever." ZiYao's mother spoke up to defend Official Chen.

Thinking that it would be better to break the engagement now instead of taking the risk that Xinyi will be forced into marriage immediately after she was found, he took out the document and raised it up for everyone to see.

"Then what's this I found about this Ou SiLiang guy? Did no one find it odd that a 30 years old man is still unmarried and has no concubines? Or did you know that something was fishy and that was why you agreed to this marriage? How exactly is this household being managed?"

ZhangYong's father was more interested in war and training than women, so he was easily satisfied with having just one wife and a child. The result of that was that ZhangYong grew up not knowing that it was not uncommon for the kind of fights that took place within the royal and back palace to take place within normal households as well.

"ZhangYong GongZi, you're going too far now. You have no rights to criticise the way my household is being managed. If you're only here to cause trouble, I'll have to ask you to leave." Official Chen had his pride and a limit that he would go to when he licked someone's boots.

"Didn't WangYe advise you to know your family better? Why is it that everyone seems to not know what Xinyi is like nor how she looks like? Why does even her own birth mother sound clueless?" He had understood all these from just the short heated discussion they had among themselves earlier.

ZiYao and HuiShan saw how their father was about to explode in anger so stepped in to intervene.

"GongZi, I'm sure my family means no harm to Er Jie. She has just always been sickly since young so she has hardly interacted with anyone since she was young. Later she was so weak that she was practically bedridden, making our impression of her even weaker." ZiYao spoke in a calm and placating tone.

"Mm. I can testify to that." HuiShan said with a nod.

"How would you explain her birth mother's behaviour?" ZhangYong doggedly pursued the neglect that Xinyi went through.

"I clearly remember how she looks! It's just that it was when she was still sickly. Ever since she got better, she did not bother to find this mother of hers who spent her entire youth looking after the sickly her." Xinyi's mother said with tears glistening in her eyes and sounding like she was being wronged.

"I did think of visiting her at her courtyard, but my hands were full from looking after this needy child." She now looked down lovingly at EnLai who was sleeping soundly in her arms.

"Talking about this, please excuse me now. I don't want this to stress my precious EnLai out." Receiving Official Chen's permission to be dismissed, she left without a single glance back.

ZhangYong was still unhappy with the way they explained it all away. He felt that no amount of explanation could justify the way Xinyi was neglected.

"Father, how about we take a look at the document that ZhangYong brought over before anything more is said?" ZiYao proposed.

HuiShan helpfully brought it to their father.

Official Chen's frown went deeper and deeper the more he read on. Finally, he threw the documents at his main wife, "Why on earth would we marry Xinyi to someone like that?! I have nothing to say that could defend us! Is this what you do with the trust I put in you?!"

All the blame was pinned onto the main wife's head to bear.

Knowing that he accomplished what he came here to do, ZhangYong stood up to see himself out, but not without leaving a final word of advice. "I'd recommend that you cancel the engagement before the dowry arrives or people will talk about the lack of a wedding despite seeing the transportation of the dowry."

Official Chen could only clench his jaws hard as he watched ZhangYong leave the main hall by himself. HuiShan and ZiYao did not want to make matters worse so stayed in the main hall.

As soon as ZhangYong left, Official Chen's voice bellowed throughout the main hall, "You've made me lose all my face! You no longer have to manage anything in this household! XiuYing will take over your duties!"

"Husba-!"

"I don't want to hear a word of complaint or a single argument from you!" He said before storming off with HuiShan's mother trailing right behind him.

Just like that, ZiYao's mother lost all the power to HuiShan's mother. Anger and hate were repressed in ZiYao's downcast eyes but clearly reflected in the eyes of her mother and brother who directed it at HuiShan.

Feeling the angst directed at her, HuiShan stiffly but bravely walked out with her head up, shoulders square, and back straight.

Deep into the night just before a new day started for some people, ZhangYong reached back at his camp. As soon as he did, he was informed that there was something addressed to him left near the campsite.

ZhangYong's brows drew together. There had never been a delivery to the campsite before. "Did you check if it's anything dangerous?"

The soldiers nodded. "There was a note as well, but we did not want to intrude on your privacy, so we left it up to Commander Zhang to inspect it."

"Thank you." ZhangYong headed straight to his father's tent.

"Commander." He greeted upon entering.

His father looked up from the documents on his table briefly to acknowledge his presence then looked back down while holding out a jar that was slightly larger than his father's already large hand. "Here you go."

"Thank you." ZhangYong took it with two hands and read the note attached to it.

"Grow herbs for making healing salves the same way you grew the edible one. With this, we are really even. Goodbye."

There was no name signed but ZhangYong had no doubt about the identity of the sender. He immediately ran out of the tent with a desperate and shocked expression to find the soldier who informed him about the delivery. He did not notice how his loss of calm made his father look up from his work once more.

ZhangYong's father pensively stared at the swaying tent flap before getting up from his seat.

Upon finding the soldier, ZhangYong spared no time in digging every little information related to the jar out of the terrified soldier.

He was about to go off in search of Xinyi when his father's deep and stern voice made him stop in his tracks. "ZhangYong."

ZhangYong reflexively clenched his jaw and slowly turned around to face his father squarely.

His father appraised his current state and nodded his head. "That's better."

"I apologise for my behaviour earlier."

"It's fine. You know where you went wrong. But there's something I want to talk to you about."

Without needing further instructions, ZhangYong followed his father back to his tent.

"ZhangYong, I let you do whatever you want because I believe that you know what you're doing and your performance has indeed continued to be exceptional. It looks to me, however, that you're spending time with someone new and not with the sixth prince or that HuiShan girl. I'd like to remind you that the time when you get promoted to Commander is coming soon. Don't wear your body out and stretch yourself thin for needless things."

"... Don't worry, Father." ZhangYong changed the form of address because he knew that his father was now talking to him as his father and not as his commander.

"I don't waste my time on needless things. In fact, I have found even more reason to become stronger. Much much stronger." He balled his hands into fists so tightly that veins popped up on his arms and his eyes shone with a determination that his father never saw before.

/... Looks like he's found the one./ The corner of his father's lips quirked up and he ruffled ZhangYong's hair. "All the best."

ZhangYong spent the rest of his time reflecting while lying on his bed.

It was now clear to him that Xinyi has been planning to leave for very long. It would explain her sudden interest in topics that only men were interested in. The only clue he has of her whereabouts now was his knowledge of her and the way she thought.

His heart ached. If only he noticed the signs sooner. If only he paid more attention. Now, there was an emptiness and an overwhelming sense of loss within him that made him feel all alone in this wide world. It became especially bad when the image of the now empty and lifeless courtyard and room surfaced in his mind.

/She really disappeared into thin air just like that… Like she never existed…/

A single teardrop rolled down his temple when he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.