Outside the inner city gates, looking at the tall and straight cavalrymen, Song Qiming could not help but hold his breath.
These thirty men looked like elites.
The gaze of a middle-aged man among them met Song Qiming's.
His bronzed face was marked with scars from old, healed wounds, making him look battle-hardened.
Seeing Shi Simian standing behind Song Qiming, Zeng Boyan threw his reins to a subordinate and stepped forward himself.
"Your subordinate, Cavalry Commandant Zeng Boyan, pays his respects to the Lord Prefect."
He bowed his head and cupped his hands without the slightest hint of disrespect, arousing the suspicion of the aunt and nephew standing behind.
Gu Baozhu covered her mouth and whispered, "This general from Panzhou seems to have a pretty good attitude."
Gu Jinghong lowered his voice even more.
"A Cavalry Commandant is a lower seventh-rank official, but the soldiers he brought do not look like those a seventh-rank official could command."
Facing Zeng Boyan's greeting, Song Qiming gave a slight nod, his back straight.
"General Zeng, are you here for Third Young Master Yang?"
A faint smile curled the corners of Zeng Boyan's lips.
However, his facial features were harsh, and his face was somewhat rectangular. His smile was not gentle; instead, it gave off a mocking, superficial feeling.
"On the way, I happened to meet Lord Hai, the Deputy Magistrate of Qingxia County, and heard that the Third Young Master is out of danger. I am here to thank Prefect Song and County Princess Linghui for saving his life."
Yang Zhong ran over rapidly. The moment he saw Zeng Boyan, a long-lost smile appeared on his face.
"General Zeng, you are finally here." His voice choked with emotion; it would not be an exaggeration to say his eyes were brimming with tears.
Zeng Boyan hurriedly asked, "Is the Third Young Master doing well?"
Yang Zhong lowered his eyes and sighed.
"Not very well. I will take you to him right away. The young master really wants to see you."
He only hoped that the news from Panzhou could cheer the young master up. How could his body recover if he stayed like this?
Seeing how familiar the two were with each other, Song Qiming could not help but mutter in his heart.
He did not look like Yang Ruiping's man, but rather Yang Cenan's.
Thirty horses parked at the entrance of the clinic made it very crowded, causing none of the commoners on the entire street to dare approach.
Armored cavalrymen who were not from the prefectural office, with so many yamen runners standing guard nearby.
Their expressions were exceptionally serious; it all felt very dangerous.
At the door of the ward, Gu Baozhu and Gu Jinghong were peeking inside.
"Why do I feel like Yang Cenan is about to die?"
Pressing her body against the wall, Gu Baozhu craned her neck so far it seemed like it could stretch for miles.
Gu Jinghong said, "This is a sickness of the heart. He will not recover anytime soon."
He had happily taken his wife and child back to her maiden home, and suddenly both of them were dead.
His own injuries could not be cured either. Being slow to react meant, to put it bluntly, that there was a problem with his brain. How could he not be devastated?
Song Qiming did not stay inside for long before coming out.
The door was closed by Yang Zhong. Standing in the front hall, Song Qiming looked outside.
The thirty men stood motionless beside their horses, looking straight ahead with perfectly straight backs.
"Brother Gu, are all the soldiers in Panzhou like these men outside?"
Gu Jinghong furrowed his brows tightly and shook his head.
"When the Pan and Ning provinces were fighting, I secretly went to take a look. Their military discipline and prestige were much worse than theirs; they were completely different."
In the ward, the prefectural doctor brought by Zeng Boyan was kneeling by the bed, taking Yang Cenan's pulse.
"The knife and arrow wounds on the young master's body are healing well, but his pulse is heavy and weak."
"A deficiency of qi and blood should be carefully nourished, but now his internal organs are knotted with sorrow, which is truly unhelpful for healing. He still needs to pull himself together."
Yang Cenan stared fixedly at the doctor, his gaze as gloomy as an undercurrent, as if he wanted to swallow the man whole.
"My face feels stiff when I speak, and my reactions are slow when I think. Can I be completely cured?"
The doctor nervously lowered his head, not daring to look at Yang Cenan.
"There might be a blood clot in the brain. With careful recuperation, it should be alleviated a bit."
Hands trembling slightly slowly reached out from under the quilt.
Yang Cenan forcefully swept the medicinal soup on the bedside table onto the floor, throwing his upper body forward to grab the doctor's collar.
"My head was not injured, so where would a blood clot come from?"
"What I want is a complete cure, not alleviation!"
The agonized roar echoed in the room for a long time.
Watching Yang Cenan's red-eyed, maddened appearance, Zeng Boyan could not help but inwardly cry out that things were bad.
If he could not recover, this pawn would eventually be useless. He needed to hurry and discuss this with Huo Chong.
