"To make it up to him?"Ming Guanhe sighed and shook his head at his daughter. "You do not know Qin Feng like I do, my daughter. It will next to impossible to make it up to him, if he chooses not to accept our favors. There is a pride in that young fellow that I had not expected. Perhaps Elder Xuan has chosen correctly, when he set up that rumor about him and his daughter."
Ming Qingsong shook her head at her father, as soon as she heard that. "Perhaps. But I do not think too highly of his methods. This is simply going to put the pressure on Brother Qin Feng. And he will spending a lot of his time out in the Southern Woods, as he goes about hunting down those herbs that I need. The two of you should be thinking of ways to safeguard him, rather than putting him at risk."
"That is something that I would very much like to do. But this is Elder Xuan Weizhong that we are talking about. I don"t have the power or the influence to challenge him. And he is also clutching at straws right now. He doesn"t have any other way to protect his daughter, save for this."
Ming Guanhe"s face was bleak as he said the last, and he sighed as he reached out and patted his daughter on the head, forestalling her from making any further comments about Qin Feng and the situation that he would have to face.
"But I can understand Elder Xuan. Little Mei is his only child, and he would gladly sacrifice the whole of the Heaven Sword School, much less a herb-grower without status or position, just to save her from the calamity that she is facing.
"All we can do is hope for the best. And pray that Qin Feng survives the mess that follows."
*
In another Elder"s home, another conversation was taking place between father and daughter, although it was not as harmonious as the one that just took place between Ming Guanhe and Ming Qingsong.
The daughter in question was smashing the small dressing table in her personal bedchamber into splinters with her fists, sending shards of wood flying through the room. Bottles of scent and cases of creamy facial powder were already broken and scattered all over the floor, and there were several pieces of rich silk cloth that were already in shreds.
Yet, it was clear that the young woman had no inclination to stop the havoc that she was wreaking on her personal belongings. The deep furrow on her brow, and the glare that she was giving off made it rather clear that she was still a long way from recovering from the anger that she was experiencing at the moment.
Her father, on the other hand, still looked calm and collected, as though he was not perturbed by her temper tantrum in the slightest. Although, if truth be told, he was the one who had actually sparked off that ruckus, with the news that he had shared, barely half an hour ago.
She had not burst into tears, nor had she started attacked him, in her distress. Instead, she had begun to tear her bedroom to shreds. And she had started with her cosmetics that he had purchased for her, ever since she began to bleed. Then she had gone on to her blanket and bed-cover, and the thin privacy curtains on her bed. Those were promptly torn to shreds, and now lay all over her bedroom floor.
But he realized just how upset she was with him, when she turned to the small round table, as well as the tiny round stools that came with the same. And that was warning enough, to keep his mouth and not interfere with her somewhat exaggerated temper tantrum.
So he had simply stood there, at the door of her bedroom. And scowled as he watched her reduce those last pieces of furniture into tiny splinters of wood.
Then all at once, the young woman stopped hurling her belongs about. Perhaps it was because everything that could be broken had already been shattered beyond recognition. Or that she had finally grown tired of destroying everything that she could lay her hands on. But her tear-streaked face was still bitter, as she turned to glare at her father.
Elder Xuan Weizhong, who had been an Elder in the Heaven Sword School for almost a hundred years, sighed as he smiled weakly at his daughter. And his voice, when he spoke, was much softer than his usual tone which he used with the other Elders of the School:
"You know that I have no choice in this matter, my dear. If I had not done this, that filthy scoundrel would have approached the Grandmaster before too long. And once he did that, there would be no refusing him.
"And I am sure that you do not wish to marry an old man who is already in his eighties, do you? This is the best way - the only way, that we can avoid that."
"By pledging me to a simple herb-grower disciple? Are you mad, father? Who is Qin Feng? What sort of background does he have? No one is going to believe that I am in love with him! And much less that you would approve of the match!"
Elder Xuan sighed as he shook his head at his daughter. And started to wave for her to sit down, only to realize that all of the stools in her room had already been reduced to splinters. And that the only place where they could sit was on her bed.
The girl, however, seemed resistant to that, and continued to glare at her father. And refused to move from where she was standing. The fact that she was surrounded by the fragments of her broken cosmetic pots and the shards that used to be her furniture probably made moving about a little more risky than it was.
"This is but a delaying tactic, and you should know it. But the time that the old maggot hears about your so-called betrothal, that Qin Feng of yours would have completed his term in the Medicine Fields and graduated from the Heaven Sword School. So he should be able to escape any moves that the filthy b.a.s.t.a.r.d makes then.
"And I have already made other plans, and sent your name off to the Snow Swallow Palace. If they accept you ... Well, you should be sufficiently protected by your status then that that lecherous scoundrel wouldn"t dare make a move against you!"
"What? The Snow Swallow Palace?"
* * *