"Empress, your Imperial meal is here. Can you smell that? Isn't it fragrant? Don't you feel hungry? If you want to eat, then hurry up and get up, stop sleeping. Haven't you slept enough over these years?"
As evening approached, Shangguan Zifeng arrived at Shangguan Linlang's bedside with delicately packed exquisite food from outside, hoping the temptation of the meal would hasten her awakening.
"This servant pays respect to the Empress. Empress, could you stop playing dead? At least acknowledge me. Hey, Shangguan Linlang, if you keep on sleeping, I'm going to molest you, you know? I'll strip off your wedding dress right now, believe it or not?" Shangguan Zifeng ran out of patience and started to walk on the wild side. He glared at the sleeping beauty on the bed with a menacing face, ready to pretend to have inappropriate intentions to frighten the Empress.
"Shangguan Zifeng, you beast in human clothing, you're her brother. How could you be so shameless?"
Xuanyuan Wuji came personally with a big bag of food, clothes, and other items to Shangguan Linlang's sickroom. The CEO had just reached the doorway when he caught sight of Shangguan Zifeng's sneaky, vile behavior. His face immediately froze over harder than steel, and like a vengeful ghost, he fiercely kicked open the room door, then unceremoniously sent Shangguan's boy tumbling to the ground.
"Ouch, my poor back! Xuanyuan Wuji, are you sick in the head? What have I done to offend you that you're so rough?" Shangguan Zifeng was caught off guard and toppled over, then he began to groan and grumble while holding his back.
"If it weren't for the fact that you are a son of the Shangguan family and someone Shangguan Linlang cares about, I'd take your life without a second thought. Who gave you the right to bully Linda? Was that human behavior, what you were just doing?" Wuji thought that if he had arrived a step later, Shangguan Linlang might have suffered a terrible fate, and he wished he could chop the culprit before him into pieces and burn him to ashes in the stove.
"Hey, are you out of your mind? I was just teasing our little ancestor to scare her a bit, to see if she'd react, I wasn't really going to undress her. Wait, that's not right, who are you? You think you have the right to call the Empress by her name? Don't put on this act here; the Shangguan family has nothing to do with you, Xuanyuan Wuji, so don't try to cling to us and claim relations where there are none," Shangguan Zifeng hurriedly explained, eager not to get misunderstood. But after explaining, he suddenly came to his senses, wondering why on earth he felt the need to prove his innocence to a stranger. What right did Wuji have to interfere in the Shangguan family's internal affairs?
"Even if it was a joke, there's a limit. Shangguan Linlang is still a young girl; is it appropriate for you to joke like that? You're not a child yourself; at your age, aren't you embarrassed by such wild behavior? If I report what I've just seen to your father and grandfather, do you think they won't give you a good beating?"
Shangguan Zifeng's explanation seemed to soften the CEO's expression somewhat, but Wuji still disapproved of his senseless tomfoolery, so he continued to lecture Shangguan Zifeng thoroughly.
"Hey, I'm warning you, don't talk nonsense in front of my father or make up faults about me. I'll be more careful in the future," Shangguan Zifeng warned him, hearing Wuji invoke the specter of his unyielding and conservative elders. The mere thought of this affair reaching their ears gave him a fright; indeed, if they found out, he really wouldn't be far from death.
While the two men were bickering, all of a sudden, the person on the bed let out a faint moan like a kitten, which immediately excited both men. They forgot everything else and rushed to Shangguan Linlang's bedside together.