I had to change my name, unfortunately. It won't let me have numbers in my pen name anymore. Anyway, my other stories are going to be on hold until I finish this one, if anyone cares. Hopefully I'll start updating more than once a month so I can finish it up quick. I'll try to start writing some at school during my free time.
Note: Couldn't think of anything else for Pang Tong to have done at the farmhouse, so… yeah.
Disclaimer: I do not own Dynasty Warriors.
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CHATPER 11 START
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Zhuge Liang had gotten Yue Ying back to the main camp. He helped her off of the horse and brought her into the medical tent where a doctor and a few nurses tended to her arm. The doctor certainly took measures to assure that it would heal correctly. First, he had straightened the arm out before wrapping it in strips of silken cloth. Afterwards, he had taken two thin sheets of flexible wood and placed one on the side of her arm where her elbow bent and the other on the opposite side of that. This was so that she could not bend her arm. To hold the wooden pieces in place, he wrapped it once again with the silken strips. For a finale, he bound her arm to her side so that she could not move it at all.
After seeing that Yue Ying was well taken care of, Zhuge Liang, though wishing he did not have to, had gone off to see what the outcome of the battle was; and to find Pang Tong. Whether it was to thank him or chastise him, Yue Ying was not sure of. Perhaps she could ask Tong later about their conversation. She was sure that she would probably be seeing a lot of him. He would probably be coming around a lot and bragging about how he had saved her life. While waiting for her husband to return with the outcome of the battle, Ying ended up dozing off…
x-x-x
The sound of other injured souls moaning and groaning around her woke Yue Ying up. Apparently the battle was over, as the tent she was in was full of make-shift beds that contained the wounded. The doctor, who had now multiplied into five men in white uniforms, and his nurses were running around from bed-to-bed, checking on the patients. The flap to the tent was opened and Ying could see that it was dark outside.
'How long have I been sleeping, I wonder?' she thought. It was probably only about mid-afternoon when she was brought here. A nurse was rushing past and noticed that she was awake.
"Lady Yue Ying, you are awake. Are you alright? Does your arm hurt?"
"It really does not hurt that much at the moment. There is a pang every once in awhile, but nothing more. By the way, do you by any chance know where Master Liang is at?" The nurse thought for a moment.
"He did come by here after the battle was over to check on you, but I really have no clue where he is at now. He is most likely in a meeting, but I bet he will come here once it is over. He will probably want to move you to your own tent so you will not be disturbed by everything that is going on around here…" A man nearby began coughing nonstop, so the nurse rushed over to his side to tend to him.
Wanting to know more about the outcome of the battle, Yue Ying willed herself to keep her eyes open until Zhuge Liang returned. It seemed like an eternity before he returned, though the wait probably only lasted another hour or two. After making his appearance, he stopped at the entrance of the tent and looked around for a moment before weaving his way through the maze of bodies and make-shift beds. He finally made it through the crowd and reached his wife's side.
"Do you feel alright?" he asked. To Yue Ying, he looked very tired and a little exasperated.
"I feel fine at the moment. As I told the nurse before, every once in awhile a pang will shoot up my arm, but nothing more than that."
"Hmm… Good. Incase you were wondering, I have been in a meeting with Lord Liu Bei and Lord Sun Jian and his strategists."
'Well that explains the look…' she thought.
"Anyway, perhaps it would be best if you were in our own tent. There will not be as much noise to keep you from sleeping. I am sure that one of the doctors or nurses could take the time to come and check on you periodically to make sure everything is alright…" After speaking with one of the doctors to make sure it was okay to move her, Zhuge Liang helped her maneuver through the maze in the tent as he had down before.
Soon, Yue Ying got settled down in her own bed and Zhuge Liang walked back over to his little makeshift library in the corner. Before he could become engrossed in his studies, Ying decided to ask a question or two about Chi Bi. She didn't ask who had won, for it was obvious who the victors were. When she exited the medical tent, there were groups of men sitting around bonfires. They were drinking themselves into drunken stupors and singing odd little ditties.
"I suppose that Zhao Yun was able to make it in time to help Huang Gai, then?"
"Mm Hmm…"
"I already can guess that we won, but how exactly did the battle end?" Zhuge Liang looked up from his books and stared straight ahead while he spoke. Supposedly, this was so that he wouldn't get messed up by what he was reading and could better concentrate on what he was saying.
"After the fires started, Cao Cao's forces were forced to pull back and our forces mounted a full out attack. Cao Cao knew there was no way he could win with both the fires and the onslaught, so he and his forces retreated." Yue Ying could think of no more to ask about the battle, so she decided to see if she could get him to tell her about what he did to Pang Tong.
"And what of Pang Tong? What did you do to him?"
"Him? Well, of course I thanked him for saving your life. Unfortunately for him, he still broke the rules. He had to be punished." Liang smiled slyly.
"Punish him?" Yue Ying raised her eyebrows. "What exactly did you do to him?"
"Oh, it was nothing too terribly horrifying. You know how much he loves that old donkey of his. I decided he could take care of her, as well as the other horses in all of the stables back at the capital, by mucking out the all of the stalls for a month."
"All of the stalls in all of the stables? That would take him all day!"
"Precisely." Zhuge Liang returned to his studies, leaving the tent in silence, though outside there was still the sound of the men celebrating. After lying awake listening to the sounds outside for awhile, Yue Ying eventually fell back asleep and did not wake up until morning.
x-x-x
It had been three weeks since that night. The armies of Wu and Shu had returned to their own lands two weeks earlier. To Yue Ying, it seemed that time was passing more slowly in the capital than normal. This was most likely caused by the fact that her actions were more limited because of her broken arm. She could no longer go outside and train as she usually did everyday, regardless of the conditions that she would have to train in. All of her friends, like Zhao Yun and Guan Yu and a few other generals, still had to keep up with their day-to-day duties – in which she had been relieved of her own – and therefore didn't have much time to keep her company. Mostly she spent the daylight hours near the stables, keeping Pang Tong company when he took breaks. For someone who had so much work to do, he certainly took a lot of breaks. A few days after noticing this, Yue Ying asked him,
"How are you taking so many breaks and still getting all the work done? I just don't see how that is possible…" Pang Tong laughed.
"It's because I'm not doing all of the work."
"And what, precisely, does that mean?"
"I don't know if I should tell you or not… You might go tattling to that slave driver husband of yours."
"Me? Tattling? Have you mistaken me for someone else? I have never told Master Liang about anything you have done, unless he already knew about it! Remember that one time when you were over at the farm? Master Liang had gone off on another one of his long journeys and was to return later that day. Zhuge Jun was off somewhere, and I was off in town. You decided to take some of the chickens eggs and egg our farmhouse. Unfortunately for you, I returned early and caught you. You begged and begged for me not to tell on you, and did I not agree? Did I not pretend that I had not seen who had done it when Master Liang returned and inquired about it?"
"… Oh, fine! I paid some of the servants around here to help me out. It took a lot of convincing. They were scared of what Zhuge Liang would do if he caught them, but I eventually rounded up a bold few to help." Yue Ying glanced at one of the stables and saw a young boy of about the age of thirteen sticking his head out from the stable.
"More like those who just need the extra money badly…" she muttered. This boy was one who most likely had no father. He probably only took the job so he could bring home more money for his mother, and any siblings he might have, to survive on. The boy spotted Pang Tong and was about to walk over to him, but hesitated when he saw Yue Ying. Tong motioned for the boy to come on over, and so the boy did.
"Master Pang Tong, the stables are clean now…"
"Alrighty. Thanks, kid. You and the others go on now before nasty Zhuge Liang shows up and catches us." The boy nodded and ran back into the stable, returning a moment later with a group that was a mixture of both boys and men. They looked around for a moment before heading off.
"Have you already paid them?" asked Yue Ying.
"Since your husband so generously made me clean the stables for a month, I decided to pay them once a week. It would be harder to pay them everyday. There would be a bigger risk that we would get caught." Pang Tong stood up and looked at the sky. The sky was already beginning to darken. "Well, I'm off now. I got to clean up before supper. Remember, you better not say anything about this to Zhuge Liang!" Yue Ying nodded.
"I will not tell him. Promise. I was actually a bit against him giving you this harsh punishment. Good-night, Pang Tong." She stood up as well and headed off for her own rooms.
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CHATPER 11 END
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Guan - Thanks! Yup, I've heard of the Zhao Yun thing before. But still… It seems unlikely that someone could never get at least a little teeny scratch in battle.
YueLong - Thanks! Sorry it took awhile to read, I wrote about 600 words more than normal. And I thought it was going to be shorter than usual…
zhugeliangsgrl - Thanks! Yes… 'tis the ever-changing moods of Zhuge… err… sort of… Your story has more reviews than mine! I am jealous-crosses arms and looks away- Just kidding… just kidding. Update soon! Why should I be telling you that? You do update soon, compared to me.
