Chapter 74: Chapter 74: This Venerable One's Fault
"..."
Mo Ran was dumbstruck.
A long while passed before he snapped out of it, entire face bright red as he waved his hands frantically: "No, that uh, I dunno, this isn't mine, where did my handkerchief go? …...I, I-I, oh god, how am I gonna get out of this one..." He stared at that square of silken cloth with a haitang flower sewn in a corner, but couldn't for the life of him remember why he even had it. He wracked his brain in a panic, then suddenly smacked his head.
"Ah!" "...What is it..." "I remembered!" Mo Ran let out a breath of relief and took the handkerchief back from Shi Mei's hands with a smile, "Sorry, this handkerchief isn't mine, so I can't give it to you." Shi Mei: "..." But I didn't even say I wanted it to start with?
"But it's not Shizun's either, it's not like everything with a haitang on it is Shizun's." Mo Ran folded the handkerchief neatly and tucked it back into his robes, beyond relieved that he hadn't accidentally taken Shizun's handkerchief,
"It's Xia-shidi's." Shi Mei looked thoughtful: "Xia-shidi's?" "Mhm, since we've been living together these last few days, maybe I grabbed the wrong one from the drying rack this morning or something, haha,
how embarrassing." "...Mm, it's no big deal." Shi Mei smiled gently and stood up, "It's getting late, we should go pick up Xia-shidi." They left the house and headed for the cave.
They didn't get far before Shi Mei started slowing down; it wasn't too obvious at first, but then he stumbled on a rock and would have fallen if Mo Ran hadn't reacted quickly and caught him in time.
Mo Ran was shocked at how pale he looked: "What's wrong?" "It's nothing." Shi Mei took a deep breath and said, "I didn't eat much for lunch, just feeling a little faint, nothing a bit of rest won't fix." But the more he tried to gloss over it, the more Mo Ran worried. Now that he thought about it, Shi Mei wasn't great at light footwork, and everything here at the Peach Blossom Springs, from food to clothes, costs feathers. He always made sure to give Shi Mei feathers before, but he had been locked up for some days, and Xue Meng was too thoughtless to take care of anyone...
Mo Ran got more concerned the more he thought, so he pressed: "You used to skip lunch all the time back at the sect too, but I've never seen you in such a state before. Am I to believe you're like this after missing just one meal? Tell me the truth, when was the last time you ate?" "I..." Mo Ran's expression grew even darker at his refusal to answer. He grabbed him and started walking in the opposite direction.
Shi Mei fretted: "A-Ran, wh-where are we going?"
"Where the food is!" Mo Ran said sharply, but there was only worry in his eyes when he turned around, "Why didn't you take care of yourself while I was gone? You're always, always thinking about everyone else and putting others first! But what about yourself? Have you ever thought about yourself?" "A-Ran..." He dragged Shi Mei all the way to a tavern. Normally, Shi Mei belonged to the healing division and shouldn't be here in the attack division area without a token, but anxiety had been high ever since the incident with Eighteen, so the feathered tribe lifted that restriction to ease things.
"What do you want? Order whatever." "Anything's fine." Shi Mei seemed a bit guilty, "Sorry, I wanted to come help,
but ended up getting in the way instead..." "No need for things like sorry between us." Mo Ran flicked his forehead and gentled his tone, "Go ahead and order, I'll pay for it and then you can take your time eating." Shi Mei looked at him: "What about you?" "I have to go pick up Xia-shidi. There's a guard around the cave but I'm still worried, what with the killer still being out there." Hearing that Mo Ran wanted to leave, Shi Mei's eyes seemed to darken for an instant, but then he quickly said: "Just two buns then, I'll go with you and eat on the way." Mo Ran was going to try and talk him out of it when the bird-like chitter of feminine voices came from the outside, and some dozen young female cultivators, all primped up, entered the building giggling.
"Hey shopkeep, I have a question." The lady at the head of the group asked with a smile, "Did dashixiong... reserve the banquet room at this tavern tonight?" "Indeed, indeed." The shopkeep was all smiles. It hadn't taken long for the feathered tribe folks to figure out that dashixiong liked wine and song, and held a banquet at one tavern or another every single night. And wherever this "dashixiong" went, a group of giggling ladies was sure to flock.
Sure enough, those ladies were thrilled and immediately hurried to reserve their tables, their words drifting over to Mo Ran's ears now and again.
It was all "Xiao-Fang, how does the painting on my eyebrows look? Do you think dashixiong will like it?" "It's lovely, what do you think about my eyeliner, is it too flashy, will it make him think I'm flighty?" and stuff like "You're so pretty,
dashixiong will like you for sure, yesterday I saw him look at you quite a few times already." "Aiya stop teasing me, if only! Dashixiong's type is definitely someone like Jiejie who is so refined and well-read." "..." Even in such troubled times, these people could still flutter about thus over some guy. The corner of Mo Ran's mouth twitched and he turned to Shi Mei:
"Buns it is then, let's grab and go, I'll worry if I leave you here alone in this cave of carnivorous beasts" Looking at his expression, Shi Mei couldn't help shaking his head with a light laughter.
The tastiest thing on the menu here was their big, drool-worthy meatbun. Mo Ran bought ten at once and gave it all to Shi Mei. Glancing over at Shi Mei nibbling happily on the buns as they walked, Mo Ran could finally relax a little.
No one expected the bun to do Shi Mei in.
His stomach was already weak to start with, to suddenly eat an oily bun after having had nothing in him for so long, it started hurting in no time.
Now Mo Ran really couldn't leave to go pick up Xia-shidi. He carried a pale and sweaty Shi Mei back to the Dewsip Pavilion in a frantic rush and laid him down on the bed he had just tidied, then rushed out to ask for a physician.
After some medicine and warm water, Mo Ran sat by the bed filled with selfblame as he looked at Shi Mei's pallid face: "Does it still hurt? Here, I'll rub your tummy." Shi Mei's voice was quiet and weak-sounding: "No need... it's ok..." But Mo Ran's large and well-defined hand had already reached over,
kneading gently through the quilt.
Maybe because the pressure was just right and it felt good, but Shi Mei didn't protest. His breaths evened out under the attentive kneading, and he fell asleep.
Mo Ran stayed until he was sound asleep before getting ready to leave.
But his hand was caught before he had even gotten up.
Mo Ran's eyes, black with a tinge of purple, widened: "Shi Mei...?" "It hurts... don't leave..." The beauty on the bed still had his eyes closed, and seemed to be sleeptalking.
Mo Ran stood locked in place; Shi Mei never asked anyone for anything, it was always him helping others without any expectation of the same in return.
Only while asleep would he plead with Mo Ran to stay in such a soft voice.
So he sat back down, gazing fondly at that face he yearned for day and night while continuing to massage his stomach. Outside the lattice window, petals of peach blossoms drifted lazily as the sky darkened.
By the time Mo Ran suddenly remembered that he had told his little shidi he'd be back for dinner, it was already midnight.
"Oh no!" Mo Ran jumped to his feet, smacking his head over and over, "Oh no oh no oh no!!!" Shi Mei was already deep in slumber by then; Mo Ran dashed outside and was about to sprint to the cave when a blue light flashed in the sky and Xuanji Elder descended from above with a child in his arms, the child holding a little clay jar.
"Xuanji Elder!" Xuanji shot Mo Ran a reproachful glance: "What happened? Didn't you say you were going to go pick him up? If I hadn't been concerned and gone to check after all, Yu... cough, my disciple would've had to wait til dawn in that cave." "This disciple was wrong." Mo Ran lowered his head, but then couldn't help lifting his eyes to look at Chu Wanning, "Shidi..." Xuanji put Chu Wanning down. Chu Wanning, still holding that clay jar,
looked calmly at Mo Ran: "Have you eaten yet?" Mo Ran hadn't expected that to be the first thing he would say, and could only reply dumbly: "N-not yet..."
So Chu Wanning walked over and offered him the jar, saying mildly: "Have some, it's still warm." Mo Ran stood there motionlessly for a while. By the time he came back around, he had already pulled the little guy along with his clay jar into a hug.
"Okay, I will." That silly child was worried that the soup might go cold, and had taken off his outer robe to wrap around the jar; his small body felt a little cold in Mo Ran's arms.
Mo Ran pressed their foreheads together, nuzzling softly, and for the first time in two lifetimes, he spoke these words and meant them: "Sorry, it was my fault." They bid Xuanji good night and went inside the house.
The outer robe was too wrinkled to wear anymore, and Mo Ran worried that his shidi might get cold, so he went to the inner room to find him a blanket. Chu Wanning yawned and climbed onto a wooden bench holding the clay jar, and was about to take out two bowls for the soup when his gaze landed on the meatbuns that Shi Mei didn't finish, and he blinked.
"..." Hopping off the bench, Chu Wanning walked over to the bedroom and looked expressionlessly at that beautiful person lying on the bed. He didn't get angry or say anything, but threads of coldness seeped out from his bones and he felt his heart, so warm only a moment ago, freeze into a solid block of ice.
When Mo Ran returned to the kitchen, Chu Wanning was sitting at the table next to the window as before, with one foot on the bench and the other dangling off, an arm propped casually on the windowsill.
Hearing the movement, he turned his head a little and shot a glance toward Mo Ran.
"Here, I found a fire fox fur blanket. Bundle up, it's cold at night." Chu Wanning didn't reply.
Mo Ran walked over and handed him the blanket, but Chu Wanning didn't take it, only shook his head and then slowly closed his eyes, as if resting.
"What's wrong? You don't like it?" "..." "I'll go see if there's a different one then." Mo Ran said with a smile as he ruffled Chu Wanning's hair, but when he turned to go look for another blanket, he suddenly found that the clay jar wasn't on the table anymore. He stared in confusion: "Where'd my soup go?" "Who said it was yours." Chu Wanning finally spoke, his voice cold, "It's mine." The corner of Mo Ran's lips twitched, thinking that he must be throwing a tantrum: "Okok, yours then. Where did your soup go?" Chu Wanning said flatly: "I threw it away." "Th-threw...?"
Chu Wanning went back to ignoring him, hopping lightly off the bench and opening the door to leave.
"Hey? Shidi? Shidi where are you going?" Mo Ran forgot all about the blanket—the killer was still at large, it wasn't safe out there—and hastily chased after him.
He saw that little clay jar under the peach blossom tree; it hadn't been tossed after all. Mo Ran let out a breath, thinking that it was his own fault to start with,
little shidi was probably just trying to hold back his grievances earlier, then couldn't hold back anymore and got mad after all, and he had every right to be mad.
So he walked over and sat down next to Chu Wanning.
Chu Wanning sat under the peach blossom tree holding his little clay jar and ignoring Mo Ran. He opened the lid, took out a ladle bigger than his face, and tried to reach in with it, but it wouldn't fit and he threw the ladle in a fit of anger.
The ladle struck the ground with a crack and broke into pieces, and he sat there holding the jar in a daze.
Mo Ran, with his head turned sideways and cheek propped up, suggested:
"Just drink right out of it, it's just us two here anyway, no need to be embarrassed." "..." "No? I'm gonna drink it if you don't, it's the first time my Shidi has made soup for me, I'm not gonna let it go to waste." He teased and reached for the jar with a grin.
To his surprise, Chu Wanning slapped his hand away: "Get lost." "..." Mo Ran blinked, feeling a bit of deja vu from this exchange, but then scooted back over with a grin on his thick face, "Shidi, I was wrong, please don't be mad anymore. I was gonna go pick you up long ago, but your Mingjingshixiong suddenly fell sick so I got delayed, I didn't mean to keep you waiting." Chu Wanning kept his head down and said nothing.
"No really, I was so busy the whole time, and haven't eaten yet. I'm starving." Mo Ran tugged on his sleeve pitifully, "Shidi, my kind shidi, my good shidi,
please, may shixiong have some soup?" "..." Chu Wanning finally moved to place the jar of soup on the ground. He lifted his head a little and tilted it to the side a bit before turning away again, meaning for Mo Ran to help himself if he wanted it.
Mo Ran grinned: "Thanks shidi." The little clay jar was stuffed full, just one glance and he could tell that shidi hadn't eaten much, leaving him the majority of the meat—it was mostly meat with a little bit of soup.
Mo Ran stared for a bit, eyes curved in amusement. He teased gently: "Are you sure this is soup? Looks more like chicken stew to me. Shidi is so generous."
"..."
He stopped chattering then; after spending half the day taking care of Shi Mei, he really was starving, and besides, shidi had worked so hard to make the soup, he couldn't possibly let his good intentions go to waste. He broke off two small branches from the peach tree, smoothing them into a pair of chopsticks with a burst of spiritual energy from his fingertips, and wasted no time in stuffing a piece of chicken into his mouth.
"Wah, delicious!" Mo Ran said around a mouthful of steamy chicken: "It's really good, my shidi is so capable." It actually wasn't that good, and a bit salty too, but Mo Ran still dug in heartily to make his little shidi happy, getting through most of the chicken in quick order. And the entire time, Chu Wanning sat there quietly without looking at him at all.
He gulped down a big mouthful of soup—it was even saltier than the meat,
so much so that it was practically bitter, but it was still bearable.
Mo Ran scooped up another drumstick and was just about to shove it in his mouth when he suddenly froze: "How many legs does a chicken have?" Of course there was no reply.
So he answered himself: "Two." He looked at the drumstick held between his chopsticks, then looked at the bone from the other drumstick that he had just eaten.
"..." The idiot finally lifted his head, dazed, and asked Chu Wanning: "Shidi, were you..." but he didn't have the courage to say the rest.
Were you waiting for me this whole time, and haven't even eaten yet?
The jar of soup is all meat, is it because you waited for me for so long that all the soup evaporated and there was only meat left, and that's all that was left to put into the jar, only to have me think...
Only to have me think that you've already eaten... and just left some for me... that you cooked it wrong and turned chicken soup into chicken stew…...
Mo Ran put the clay jar down wordlessly.
But he had realized too late; there was hardly any meat left in there.
Chu Wanning finally spoke.
His voice was calm and even still, with a bit of youthfulness.
"You said you would be back for dinner. So I waited." He said slowly, flatly, "If you don't want it anymore, then at least send word so I'm not waiting like an idiot. Okay?" "Shidi..." Chu Wanning was still turned away, refusing to look at him. Mo Ran couldn't see his face.
"Have someone pass me a message that you're going to go keep Shi...
that you're going to go keep Mingjing-shixiong company instead. Would it have been that hard?"
"..."
"You took my jar and rambled so much before eating, but didn't even ask if I've eaten yet. Would it have been that hard?" "..." "Would it have been that hard to check and see how many drumsticks are in the jar first?" This last one sounded a little funny even with all the remorse he felt, but Mo Ran's dimples froze on his face before they had even formed.
His little shidi was crying.
He never would have cried over such a minor thing in his adult form; but no one knew that, although being turned into a child by the willow sap didn't affect his mind too much, there was some impact after all—his temperament became more childish whenever tired or overexerted.
This hidden property of the sap was extremely difficult to detect, so neither Madam Wang nor Tanlang Elder noticed when taking his pulse.
"I also feel hunger and sadness, I'm only human too..." Even with the younger mentality in the foreground of his mind, Chu Wanning still held onto his self-restraint, fighting back sobs without a sound, but his shoulders shook uncontrollably as tears welled up and fell from his reddened eyes.
All those years, Yuheng Elder had always endured it silently—no one liked him, no one kept him company, and he had always feigned nonchalance as he walked through the reverent crowd, lofty and composed.
Only with his mind tinged by childish thoughts would he break down and speak the truth, let out the misery that had been piling up for so long.
It wasn't that he didn't care for those around him, only that he did it quietly.
But such quietude, without anyone to see or notice, day after day, was also a kind of torment.
Watching the minute trembling of his little shidi's shoulders, Mo Ran's heart clenched and he reached out to soothe him, but his hand was slapped away before it even made contact.
"Shidi..." "Don't touch me." Chu Wanning always put up a strong front, regardless of age. He firmly wiped away his tears and stood up, "I'm going to bed. You can go keep your shidi company, just stay away from me." "..." In his indignation, he even forgot that Shi Mei was older than Mo Ran.
Mo Ran opened his mouth to say something, but Chu Wanning had already left. He disappeared into the other bedroom and the door slammed shut with a loud bang.
There were only two bedrooms in the courtyard of Campsis Pavilion.
Mo Ran was planning to let Shi Mei sleep in one while he squeezed into the other with his little shidi, but he was so mad, and even locked the door, so it looked like shidi's room was out of the question.
And he didn't want to just climb into bed with Shi Mei either. Not to mention,
having been scolded by his little shidi, and even made him cry, Mo Ran's head was a complete mess and he wasn't in any mood to think about lovey-dovey anything, so he simply sat there in the courtyard in a daze, surrounded by peach blossoms in full bloom, holding that clay jar that his little shidi had brought him all this way. A long while later, he sighed and slapped himself across the face, cursing in a low voice: "You good-for-nothing."
And so he spent the night with the ground as bed and the sky as blanket, lying on the ground covered in fallen peach blossom petals, staring blankly at the sky.
Little shidi... Shi Mei... Shizun... Xue Meng... the fake Gouchen from Jincheng Lake, the unknown killer... Chu Xun and his son in the illusion...
Many blurry figures flashed through his mind; he vaguely felt like something was off, but the feeling was so faint that it disappeared before even he himself noticed.
Peach blossoms bloomed splendidly, petals drifting gently down.
Mo Ran caught a fallen blossom in his hand, holding the perished flower up against the moonlight.
He recalled the final moments of his previous life, when he had laid himself down into the coffin prepared ahead of time; that day, the sky was also adrift with fallen blossoms, soundless and fragrant.
Only they were haitang blossoms.
Haitang…...
The one he liked, in this life and last, was Shi Mei. But why, moments before death, had he chosen to bury himself under the haitang tree in front of the Heaven-Piercing Tower, where he had first met Chu Wanning.
Many of the things he had done in his past life now frightened him to think about. After his rebirth, the longer time went on, the less he understood why he had been so cruel before.
Slaughtering entire cities, oppressing the weak, killing his master... even forcing Chu Wanning to do things like that with himself...
Mo Ran tossed the peach blossom away and laid his hand across his forehead, then slowly closed his eyes.
Little shidi's words earlier—"I also feel hunger and sadness, I'm only human too"—circled in his mind. The one who had said it was his little shidi, but for an instant, Mo Ran saw the silhouette of another person.
A person dressed in snow white robes; but then he blinked and the white robes had become red wedding robes that dragged on the ground, just the way he had looked during the ceremony in the ghost mistress's illusion.
"I'm only human too..." I also feel sorrow and pain.
Mo Ran...
I also feel pain.
Mo Ran suddenly felt a suffocating stuffiness in his heart, as if something was trying to burst out. A sheen of cold sweat covered his forehead.
He squeezed his eyes shut, drawing labored breaths.
Murmuring: "...I'm sorry..." He didn't know whom he was apologizing to—his little shidi, or that person in the wedding robes…...
Inside the bedroom, Shi Mei sat up.
Padding quietly over to the window without turning on the light, he looked through the gap in the window, gazing from afar at Mo Ran lying amongst the fallen petals with an arm wrapped around the clay jar, his eyes dark, thoughts unknowable.
Early the next morning, Mo Ran wrinkled his nose from where he lay in the flowers and grass, inhaled a big breath of the fresh air, and stretched lazily before getting up.
But he only got halfway through the stretch when a shriek shattered the peace at the Campsis Pavilion.
"AAAH——!!!!!!" Mo Ran's eyes flew open as he rolled to his feet. The sight before him made his blood run cold, and all he could do was stare in shock.
Each and every one of the fifteen feathered tribe elites assigned to guard the Campsis Pavilion had been murdered overnight in the exact same manner as Eighteen, with a willow vine glowing brightly scarlet wrapped around each of their necks.
——Jiangui! [what the hell!] All of them dangled amongst the grove of peach blossom trees in full bloom,
crimson sleeves drifting in the breeze, long skirts reaching to the ground, their bodies swaying in time with the wind like so many preserved flowers, eerie yet uncannily beautiful.
The one who had screamed was a low-ranking member of the feathered tribe who had come to deliver breakfast. She trembled in fright, the bamboo basket she held now laying on the ground, congee and pastries spilled all over.
She trembled even more violently upon seeing Mo Ran standing in the courtyard, and reached behind her for something.
Mo Ran stepped forward without thinking: "No wait, it's not what..." But it was already too late—she had activated the Seal of Imminent Crisis tattooed on her lower back. The seal functioned as an urgent summoning of the feathered tribe, and in an instant, feathered tribe folks everywhere in the Peach Blossom Springs sprouted firey wings and descended upon the Campsis Pavilion.
All of them were stunned by the sight that greeted them.
"A-Jie!!!!" "Jie——!!" After the initial shocked silence, they burst into screams and wails. The commotion drew all the cultivators over as well. Shock and suspicion, anger and grief surrounded the Campsis Pavilion in no time.
"Mo Ran! Things have already come to this, what can you even say anymore!" "Murderer! Lunatic!" The gathering of feathered tribe was already beyond furious, screaming and crying: "He has to pay with his life! Kill him! KILL HIM!!" It'd be a struggle for Mo Ran to defend himself even if he had a hundred mouths, and he only had one: "If I really was the killer, and could kill all of them this easily, then why would I stay here? To wait to get caught?" A feathered tribe folk with flame-red hair and a tear-stained face spat: "You shut up! I-it's already like this, and you still, you still dare to..."
Someone else raged: "If you're not the killer, then why was everyone but you killed?" "That's right!" "Deceitful and treacherous!" "Even if the killer isn't you, he's for sure related to you! Why else would he not kill you! Huh?!" "Blood for blood!" Mo Ran was so mad that he wanted to laugh.
He had slaughtered wantonly in the past life and hardly anyone ever dared to say something like "blood for blood" to him, yet now when he truly wasn't the killer, he was being accused to the high heavens; this world was really so... he closed his eyes for a moment, and was about to say something when a crimson light shot through the sky.
The Elder Immortal of the feathered tribe descended lightly from the cloud and scanned her surroundings coldly, expression exceedingly dark.
"Mo Weiyu." "Elder Immortal." The Elder Immortal stared him down for a while, then walked over to one of the corpses and lifted the bloodstained willow vine wrapped around its neck.
"Where is your weapon? Take it out and show me." "..." "Are you refusing?" Mo Ran let out a sigh. His weapon was Jiangui; who knows how many people had already seen it during training, and a bunch more saw when Eighteen was killed. If he were to take it out now, it will be compared with the willow vines around the necks of the murdered guards, and no doubt used to implicate him. But if he refused, then it would look like he had a guilty conscience.
A scarlet blaze appeared with a woosh in his palm as Jiangui took form,
coursing with a firey, crackling flare, "Feel free to look, Elder Immortal."
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone