SWEET DREAM, SHIZUN (9)

It turned out that it was not a dream at all. When Chu Wanning opened his eyes again, Mo Ran was already back with a bag of groceries and a lot of hugs for him. Chu Wanning still did not feel comfortable snuggling up to Mo Ran, but the latter would not let him go. Chu Wanning thus had no other option but to let the man hug and kiss him as many times as he wanted.

Chu Wanning sat at the edge of the pond with his naked feet dipping into the cold pond water. Mo Ran had allowed him that much because the weather was a little hot. He glanced at Mo Ran who was preparing their lunch conscientiously outside of the pavilion and thought that this husband was very capable. He even managed to set up an outdoor kitchen from scratch.

Him, on the other side?

Chu Wanning looked at his palms and sighed. Even his cultivation was gone. Other than that, he could do nothing. Maybe that was why Mo Ran disliked him.

It was okay. Chu Wanning was sure that he could learn anything if he set his mind to it. The man thus stepped out of the pond and went to squat next to Mo Ran while he grilled fat fishes on a stick. The fragrance would attract the disciples who passed by if not for the barrier.

Mo Ran wanted to pat Chu Wanning's head but his hands were oily so he beamed at him instead.

"What is it, Little Wanning?"

Chu Wanning stared at the fish that was being grilled over an open fire, and then the jar of mashed-up spices that Mo Ran was using.

"Mo Ran, what is that?"

"Salt, garlic, and Mo Ran's special sauce!" Mo Ran announced happily.

"Hmm. What is the special sauce made of?"

Mo Ran named him a few ingredients he never heard of, so Chu Wanning stopped asking further. He decided to observe Mo Ran's cooking skill instead.

How he grilled fish.

How he made egg and tofu soup.

How he made noodles from scratch.

It was as if he had done it for years.

Chu Wanning felt uncomfortable about it. He looked up at Mo Ran and stared at him.

"What is it, Wanning?"

"I... I also want to cook."

Mo Ran almost dropped the spoon that he was holding into the pot.

"Uh..."

"Can I not cook?" Chu Wanning asked. "Or... Does it not taste good?"

Mo Ran widened his eyes and quickly said, "No no no not at all! Wanning is very good at cooking! Whatever you cook tastes heavenly! It can even hail demons and ghosts from hell and enlighten them!"

Chu Wanning's eyes brightened up almost immediately. "Really? I am that good?"

"Yes!"

"Then let me cook something!"

"Of course!"

Mo Ran soon learned that love not only made one blind and deaf but also numb. Chu Wanning fried cabbage into charcoal and boiled noodles into something mushy and questionable, but Mo Ran still ate them without a word of complaint and praised Chu Wanning endlessly. He even finished all of Chu Wanning's failed cooking so that Chu Wanning had no other option but to eat Mo Ran's cooking. That night, Mo Ran had a terrible stomachache.

"Was it my cooking?" Chu Wanning asked while wiping the large sweat beads off Mo Ran's forehead.

"Of course not! Wanning, the food that you cooked was too good for my stomach. I am not used to eating such good dishes so my stomach is rebelling a little bit..."

"..."

Chu Wanning might be innocent, but he was not dumb. After tucking Mo Ran in for the night, he sneaked into the library to find a good recipe book to learn how to cook. He found a book titled "Records of Best Recipes in Shu". There was a bookmark made of dried haitang flower that was placed in the middle of the book. It opened up to reveal a page with instructions to make wonton soup. There was his adult handwriting on the corner, saying "add chili oil before serving, find it in the right drawer of the nightstand".

Chu Wanning took the book with him and rummaged the nightstand in his bedroom for said chili oil. He found it, but when he opened it to take a sniff, he started sneezing a lot. Why would his adult self want to add such a thing into a wonton soup? Chu Wanning would never understand, but he chose to believe his old self. Maybe it would taste better when eaten together with the soup.

The next morning, Mo Ran finally recovered. When he woke up, he found Chu Wanning awake and waiting for him. He had written a shopping list containing ingredients to make wonton soup. He said that he wanted to cook something, and that it would be a surprise. Mo Ran kissed Chu Wanning's cheek and said thank you before he left for Butterfly Town to buy the items on the shopping list and some other things for little Chu Wanning to eat just in case his creation failed again.

Initially, Chu Wanning did not want Mo Ran to take a look while he was folding the wontons, but then he showed up dejectedly and asked for help anyway. Mo Ran was pleasantly surprised when he saw what Chu Wanning was trying to make.

"Wanning, are you making wontons???"

"Un. But I... I don't know how to fold the wontons... Mo Ran, teach me?"

Mo Ran took Chu Wanning's hands from behind and guided him patiently. He gave the man in his arms a kiss on the head when he failed, and a kiss on the cheek when he succeeded. Chu Wanning's cheeks became redder and redder with every kiss. After they finished folding 20 round wontons, Chu Wanning again drove Mo Ran away and forbade him from taking a peek.

After boiling, the only thing that he needed to do was serve the wontons. Chu Wanning carefully ladled the wontons out one by one and placed them into two bowls, one for Mo Ran and one for him. Then he took the bottle of chili oil out. As soon as he pulled the stopper out, he started to sneeze again. He sneezed a few times in sequence, causing Mo Ran to get worried.

"Wanning, what is happening?"

"I... aachoo, no it's just... aachooo..!!!"

Although Chu Wanning asked him not to peek, Mo Ran went in anyway. He first saw the two steaming bowls of wontons on the table, and then Chu Wanning who was sneezing while holding a bottle as far as possible from his own face. Mo Ran took the bottle from Chu Wanning's hand and sniffed at it. His eyes immediately widened from terror. All he could think of was little Xia Sini who had a terrible stomachache after eating three pieces of spicy fish.

"Wanning???"

Mo Ran put the bottle on the table and cupped Chu Wanning's face with both hands to take a good look at his shizun. "Did you accidentally ingest it? Where does it hurt???"

Chu Wanning shook his head and rubbed his nose. "No, it's just... so itchy."

Mo Ran grabbed the bottle of chili oil and walked off, but Chu Wanning stopped him, "Wait! Mo Ran, where are you taking the chili oil to?"

"I am throwing this away. This is not good for you!"

"No, wait! The recipe says that I have to add it at the very end..."

Mo Ran frowned. "What recipe...?"

Chu Wanning grabbed the "Records of Best Recipes in Shu" to show it to Mo Ran and pointed at his adult self's scribble in the corner. "See? Add chili oil before serving."

Mo Ran's chest hurt so much. His hands trembled when he read the recipe along with Chu Wanning's handwriting. When he took the book, he accidentally turned to other pages. It turned out that wonton soup was not the only recipe that Chu Wanning tried to cook. There had been many others, but it seemed that he never managed to get them right. Here and there, words such as "too difficult" and "don't try again" were written. In the end, the one recipe that he mastered was the wonton soup recipe, and it was originally not meant to be spicy. Chu Wanning added the chili oil at the end just because Mo Ran liked spicy dishes. Just like the seven-year-old Chu Wanning, the adult Chu Wanning must have been equally allergic to chili. Mo Ran imagined him sneezing a lot into his sleeves, his eyes teary when he poured the chili oil carefully into the bowl of wonton.

Mo Ran never knew. And he never even once thanked him for it.

Not only that, in his past life when Shizun wanted to make him a bowl of wontons to cheer him up after Shi Mei's death, Mo Ran had ruthlessly swept everything off the kitchen counter, sending the plump snow-white wontons to the ground. He screamed at Chu Wanning, blamed him for things that he was not responsible for, and told him that "No one could make that bowl of wontons again". Chu Wanning had silently picked up the wontons from the ground and thrown them into the trash can before leaving. He did not even say a word in defense. Until his death. Even after he was revived and died again.

His shizun cared for him so much.

Even after everything that happened, he was still willing to make a bowl of wonton soup for him.

Tears blurred Mo Ran's eyes. The bottle of chili oil slid from his hand and crashed on the floor, its content splattering everywhere.

"AH!!"

Chu Wanning bent down to pick the shards but Mo Ran yanked him up and hugged him tightly.

"Thank you, Wanning," he whispered. "Thank you for making me the bowls of wonton. I am sorry for everything that I have ever done to you."

Chu Wanning pressed his lips together. He thought that Mo Ran was apologizing for the broken bottle. "It's alright, I know that you didn't mean to drop the bottle, but now the chili oil is gone. The wonton soup is not going to be tasty."

"No, that's not true. I don't like chili," Mo Ran told Chu Wanning earnestly.

Chu Wanning blinked at him in disbelief. "You don't?"

"I mean, I did. But now not anymore. I quit."

"You quit?"

Mo Ran nodded. "How can I like something that is bad for Wanning?"

Chu Wanning thought that what Mo Ran said did not make sense, but he was delighted that the wonton soup was tasty even without chili oil. And most important of all, Mo Ran did not get sick from eating it.

After the evening bath, Mo Ran dried and combed Chu Wanning's long hair. After tying it loosely for bedtime, Mo Ran took one of the Dragon Blood Crystal pendants that he bought and put it around Chu Wanning's neck. The stone looked like a drop of blood, beautiful against Chu Wanning's fair skin. Chu Wanning touched the stone gingerly and it soon glowed bright red from his body temperature.

"Like it?" Mo Ran asked.

Chu Wanning beamed with a smile. "So pretty. For me?"

"Yes. Look, I also have one for myself."

"Then, let me put it around you."

Mo Ran knelt in front of Chu Wanning's chair so that Chu Wanning could put the necklace around his neck. Chu Wanning admired the necklace on Mo Ran and said, "It looks good on you."

Mo Ran laughed. He picked the pendant and slipped it into Chu Wanning's clothes. "It should go inside you."

As soon as he said it, his face turned as red as a tomato. Naturally, Chu Wanning did not get the innuendo but Mo Ran did, and he became flustered by that one sentence that he said.

Unaware of Mo Ran's thoughts, Chu Wanning put his arms around Mo Ran's neck and pulled him down for a kiss on the cheek.

"Thank you, Mo Ran."