Chapter 140: Shizun, Turn Over

Thanks to Mo Ran's well wishes, Chu Wanning had a dream that night.

Unfortunately, it wasn't of the pleasant sort.  

In his dream, he was back at Butterfly Town during the Heavenly Rift, but the person mending it with him was Shi Mei instead.

Amidst heavy snow from an ashen sky, Shi Mei couldn't hold out as a horde of ghosts stabbed through his heart, and he fell from the dragon-coiled pillar to the endless snowy ground below. Mo Ran rushed over and, gathering the bleeding Shi Mei into his arms, knelt by Chu Wanning's feet and begged him to help, to save his own disciple.

He wanted to save him too, but under the effect of the twinned barrier, he had suffered the same grave injury as Shi Mei. Face blanched of all color, he stood there without a word for fear that blood would come out if he were to part his lips, and the ghosts in the area would all rush them at once to tear them to pieces.

"Shizun...please...I'm begging you…" Mo Ran was crying and kowtowing over and over to him.

Chu Wanning closed his eyes, then fled…

Shi Mei died.

Mo Ran never forgave him.

He dreamt of Naihe Bridge at Sisheng Peak during a cold spell in late spring.

It was raining, droplets clinging to the tender beginnings of flowers and leaves on the trees, and the bluestone path beneath his feet seemed endless as he walked along it, holding an umbrella.

Suddenly, in the distance, across the bridge, he suddenly saw another person walking over in his direction, dressed in black and without an umbrella,

only a stack of books wrapped in oil paper in his arms. Chu Wanning unconsciously slowed his steps.

That person had clearly noticed him as well, but his steps didn't slow. The only thing he did was lift those rain-laden lashes to cast him a single cold glance.

Chu Wanning wanted to call out to him, wanted to say: Mo...

But Mo Ran didn't spare him any chance to speak. Holding onto his books,

he walked as far to the left side of the bridge as he could, any further to the side and he would've fallen into the river——just to get away from his shizun on the right side of the bridge, as far away as he could.

They met at the middle of the bridge.

One who usually used an umbrella, walking in the rain, and one who never had the habit of using umbrellas, also walking in the rain.

Then they passed each other by.

The one getting rained on kept walking without so much as a backwards glance, but the one under the umbrella stopped walking, stood rooted in place.

Rain pitter-pattered against the umbrella. Chu Wanning stood there for a long time, so long that his legs were beginning to go a little numb, as if the damp coldness in the air had permeated into his very bones.

He suddenly felt a tiredness so crushing that he couldn't take another step.

The dream faded to black.

It was cold and heavy.

Cold like the rain, heavy like the legs that refused to move.

Chu Wanning turned over in his sleep and curled into a tiny ball. Something slid from the corner of his eye and soaked into the pillow. He vaguely knew that it was only a dream, but then why was it so realistic, so much so that he could clearly feel Mo Ran's hatred, his disappointment, his spurn.

But...was that it?

Was that how it ended?

He refused to accept it; perhaps it was this refusal that made the dreamscape light up again.

It was still that dream, many months after Shi Mei's passing.

Mo Ran's temperament grew gloomier by the day, and he spoke less and less. He still came to all the cultivation lessons, but just to sit in and listen, never speaking to Chu Wanning more than he had to.

Chu Wanning never explained why he didn't save Shi Mingjing back then ——seeing Mo Ran's attitude, he knew that nothing he could say would change anything now that things had come to this.

During a cultivation lesson one day, Mo Ran stood at the tip of a pine tree as instructed to work on concentrating spiritual energy.

But for some reason, he suddenly collapsed and plummeted straight off the tree. Chu Wanning flitted up to catch him without a thought, but didn't have time to cast anything, and the two of them fell heavily to the ground below.

Luckily the soil was soft and covered with a thick layer of pine needles, so neither of them was injured aside from Chu Wanning's wrist, which had been slashed open by a sharp branch and was seeping blood.

Mo Ran looked at his wound, and then, for the first time in months, lifted his eyes to look directly at Chu Wanning's face.

He said, eventually, "Shizun, you're bleeding." The tone was a little stiff, but at least the words were pacifying.

"There's salve and bandages in my qiankun pouch, best to take care of it now."   They sat down on the thick cushion of pine needles on the ground, the refreshing scent of pine trees drifting in the air. Chu Wanning said nothing as he watched Mo Ran wordlessly wrapping the bandage around his wrist with his head lowered.

He could see the minute quivering of Mo Ran's eyelashes, though he couldn't see the expression on his face. For a moment, he wished he could gather up the courage to ask:

Mo Ran, do you really hate me that much?

But the breeze was so gentle, the sunlight so warm; birds and bugs chirped between the branches, and his injured hand was held lightly between Mo Ran's as he wrapped the bandage. Everything was so quiet and peaceful.

He didn't ask it in the end, didn't shatter the picture of serenity.

He suddenly felt like the answer wasn't really important anyway; what was important, in this dream after Shi Mei's death, was that his blood, his injury, could buy back a little bit of Mo Ran's consciousness, could ease the tension between them just a touch.

Chu Wanning woke up dazed the next day.

Lying in bed, he could practically feel the ache in his arm, as well as the lingering warmth. A long moment passed before he rubbed his face tiredly,

thinking it ridiculous.

What was that nonsense in his dream?

It is said that dreams were a manifestation of one's thoughts; could it be that he was so miffed over how beautiful Shi Mei had grown up to be that he went and vented it out in his sleep, to dream something like Shi Mei's death…

Absurd.

He got out of bed and got ready for the day, washing, dressing, and putting his hair up, and soon enough had forgotten all about last night's fragmented dream.

The villagers were making rice cakes today.

In the lower cultivation realm, rice cakes were an absolute must for New Year's Eve, for good fortunes in the next year. Round-grained non-glutinous rice and glutinous rice ground into flour the night before were steamed by the women and elderly over hot stoves. It was a laborious process, but didn't really need help from the younger menfolk, so Chu Wanning slept in a bit and took his time strolling over.

Arriving, he saw a big wok propped up in an open field, and a wooden barrel half the height of a person was being steamed over the wok, billowing with hot steam. The village chief's wife stood on a footstool, adding rice flour into the barrel every now and then. A couple of kids were running around the stove playing amongst themselves, occasionally pausing to pull a bunch of roasted peanuts or a cob of corn from the firepit using metal tongs.

The part that Chu Wanning hadn't expected was that Mo Ran had gotten up as early as usual, and was currently helping the village chief's wife watch the stove. One of the kids ran a little too fast and tripped, let out a few sobs, and burst into tears.

"Oh no, you tripped?" Mo Ran helped her up and patted the dust off her clothes, asking, "Are you hurt anywhere?" "My hand——" The little girl lifted her dirty little hand to show Mo Ran while bawling still.

Mo Ran picked her up, walked over to the well, and drew up a bucket of clean water to wash her hand. It was a little far, so Chu Wanning couldn't hear what he said to the kid, but the little one held in her cries, sniffled for a while, and stopped crying, and then another while later, started smiling instead, looking up at Mo Ran with snot still on her little face, and started chattering away at him.

"..." Chu Wanning watched quietly from behind a corner, watched him coax the little girl, watched him carry her back to the firepit, watched him retrieve a sweet potato from the fire, peel it, and put it in the little girl's hands.

He watched it all from where he stood.

As if seeing the last five years of Mo Weiyu's life.

"Ah, Shizun is here?"

"Mn." A long while went by before Chu Wanning walked over to sit down next to Mo Ran. He watched the roaring flames beneath the wok for a moment, then asked, "What's in there?"

"Peanuts, sweet potatoes, corn," Mo Ran answered, "and now that you're here, a piece of candy for you." "...Candy can be roasted?"   "It'll be burnt candy if Shizun does it, though," Mo Ran teased with a smile,

"Let me." He took out a milk maltose candy from his pocket, removed the rice paper wrapping, put it between the fire tongs, and held it in the fire for a brief moment before pulling it right back out and taking the candy. Sucking in a breath, he said,

"It's hot," and blew on the candy to cool it down before holding it out by Chu Wanning's lips.

"Try it." "..." Chu Wanning wasn't used to eating out of someone else's hand, so he reached out and took the candy himself. The milky white candy was warm and soft from the roasting, bringing out the sweet milky flavor as he chewed. Chu Wanning said, "Not bad. Roast another." So Mo Ran roasted another, and Chu Wanning took it as before to eat.

"Another." "..." Mo Ran roasted eight candies in a row, and as he was roasting the ninth, a little kid ran over to ask him for a sweet potato. Mo Ran couldn't free a hand, and so had to ask Chu Wanning to do it instead.

Chu Wanning took the other pair of fire tongs and picked out the biggest one of the sweet potatoes. Mo Ran looked over and said, "Put that one back, get the small one next to it." "The bigger ones are tastier." "The bigger ones aren't cooked through yet," Mo Ran said with a smile.

Chu Wanning was a little unconvinced. "How do you know it's not cooked through yet?" "Just trust me, I roast sweet potatoes in the wild all the time. Give him the small one, those are sweeter." So Chu Wanning could only take out the small one instead. The little kid had no idea what a big name Chu Wanning was in the cultivation world, only that he was willing to help him pick sweet potatoes, so he sidled over and said in a small voice, "Da-gege, I want the big one." "Tell that to the other da-gege," Chu Wanning said, "he's the one that won't let you have it, saying it's not cooked yet." The little guy really did run over to Mo Ran. "Mo Ran-gege, I want the big one." Mo Ran said, "You'll have to wait a while longer if you want the big one." "How long is a while longer?" "Count to a hundred." "But I can only count to ten…" The kid sounded all wronged.

Mo Ran grinned, "Guess you'll have to eat the small one then." The little guy sighed dramatically, but could only accept this injustice,

drooping as he muttered, "Fine, the small one then."   So Chu Wanning set about peeling the sweet potato for him. As he was about to be done, the candy that Mo Ran was roasting also got to its softest point, any more and it would probably melt. So Mo Ran hurriedly took it out and offered it to Chu Wanning. "Shizun, open your mouth——"   Hands full of sweet potato, Chu Wanning opened his mouth without thinking twice; it wasn't until Mo Ran had put the warm, soft milk candy into his mouth,

and the coarse-textured pad of his thumb brushed lightly past the corner of his lips did Chu Wanning abruptly realize that he had eaten the candy right out of his own disciple's hand, and the tips of his ears grew bright red.

"More?"   Chu Wanning cleared his throat, but luckily the color on his face was camouflaged by the warm glow of the fire. He said, "I'm good." Mo Ran said with a smile, "Just enough to feed you; there's only one milk candy left, no more after that even if you wanted."   Feeling relaxed and at ease, he had spoken carelessly without a thought.

And so had nonchalantly said something like "feed you". Of course such words were completely inappropriate from a disciple to his shizun, words that tasted of pampering and domineering, like an owner feeding his pet, an emperor feeding his concubine, words that could even be applied to matters between the sheets, the conqueror above using his scorching hot body to feed the moaning person beneath.

Chu Wanning was dazed for a good solid while, just drowning in those crude words.

After the rice was done steaming, the next step involved physical labor: all the young men in the village were to use wooden mallets to pound the rice cakes. The village chief gave Mo Ran a wooden mallet wrapped in gauze, and was just about to hand Chu Wanning one too when he was stopped by Mo Ran.

Mo Ran smiled and said, "Village chief, my shizun has never done this before, he wouldn't be any good at it." "..." Chu Wanning was speechless at the side.

He was quite unresigned, a little indignant even, because from the day he left the temple he'd never been associated with the words "no good" by anyone.

All he ever heard from others were requests and pleas, things like "xianjun,

please help with this and that".

This was the first time someone had ever stepped in front of him and said "he doesn't know how, he wouldn't be any good at it."   Chu Wanning was irritated. He wanted to fling his sleeves and bellow, who are you calling no good!

But he held himself back.

Because Mo Ran wasn't wrong, he really wouldn't be any good at it.

The village chief had them go to a stone mortar with a ball of steamy, cooked rice flour in it.

Mo Ran said, "Shizun, when we get started in a bit, turn the rice cake over every three strikes. Be careful not to burn your hands, and don't do it too fast so I won't accidentally hit you."

"...If you can hit me pounding rice cakes, you might as well quit cultivating and go be a farmer instead."   Mo Ran grinned. "I'm just saying, just in case."   Chu Wanning didn't feel like wasting any more breath with him, especially since the pair next to them had already gotten started, and he didn't want to be outdone, so he stood next to the stone mortar and said, "Get to it." So Mo Ran swung the mallet, the very first strike landing heavily and solidly in the softly steaming rice flour, the ball sinking in around the mallet. He did it two more times, then looked up at Chu Wanning with bright eyes and said, "Shizun,

turn over." Chu Wanning turned the ball of rice flour over, and Mo Ran continued pounding it.

It only took a couple rounds for them to get the rhythm down: every third time Mo Ran lifted the mallet, Chu Wanning would nimbly turn the rice flour ball over,

and then the strike would come down just as his hands withdrew. Rice cake pounding might look simple, but the force had to be carefully controlled, and the person doing the pounding had to have strength and stamina both, for it took countless rounds of turning and pounding to make the rice flour sticky and stretchy before the job was done.

After a while of this, Mo Ran was still going at it with ease, but the villagers next to him were getting tired, and started shouting, "one, two, three——one,

two, three——" to the rhythm of the pounding. Intrigued, Mo Ran followed along with their rhythm. By the time the rice flour balls were half-sticky, everyone else was already heaving, but Mo Ran was still fine, smiling as he said to Chu Wanning, "Again."   Chu Wanning glanced at him. The young man's brow was covered in sweat,

making his honey-colored skin sparkle under the sunlight. And his lips were slightly parted; he wasn't panting like the others, but his breathing was a little bit heavier, the rise and fall of his chest a little more pronounced.

Conscious of Chu Wanning's eyes on him, he paused before wiping his face with his sleeve, eyes bright like stars as he asked with a smile, "What is it? Did I get flour on my face?" "No." "Then…" Looking at the way he was all hot and sweaty but still kept his collars properly folded all the way to his throat, Chu Wanning suddenly felt a little sorry for him. He asked, "Are you hot?" Yesterday he had asked Mo Ran if he was cold, and now today was asking if he was hot. Mo Ran was confused to say the least——the temperature was pretty much the same both days——and he stared blankly for a beat before answering, "I'm alright." "Take it off if you're hot." "Shizun doesn't like that, so I won't." "..." Chu Wanning said, "I like it even less if you're all sweaty."   Since even Chu Wanning said so, and the clothes were already uncomfortably sticky, Mo Ran went ahead took off his outer robe and inner shirt, tossing them onto the stone grinding wheel to the side. Chu Wanning watched with an icy gaze, when in truth his heart was growing warmer and warmer. He watched Mo Ran next to the grinding wheel, at the broad shoulders and back and those firmly toned arms, and he could practically feel the rush of warm air as Mo Ran took off his inner shirt. Mo Ran really was sweaty all over, his skin covered in a glossy sheen of it under the sunlight. Like a merman out of water,

he turned around and smiled at Chu Wanning, looking dizzyingly, heart-racingly handsome.

"Would you like some?" The village chief's wife was going around offering everyone tea, and had just gotten to them.

Mo Ran walked back over to the mortar and picked up the mallet again as he replied with a smile, "I'm not thirsty, but thank you." A hand reached over and took a cup of tea from the tray.

As Mo Ran and the village chief's wife both watched on in awe, Chu Wanning gulped down the entire cup in one go before handing the empty cup back over and saying, "One more, please." "...Shizun, are you that thirsty?" Somehow pricked by the question, Chu Wanning's head snapped up, eyes bright and cagey as he said, "Thirsty? ...No? I'm not thirsty at all." Then he gulped down another whole cup.

Watching him, Mo Ran was baffled——just when had Shizun's ego complex gotten so bad that he couldn't even admit to being thirsty?

Author's Notes

Mini Theatre: What Valentine's Day

Dog: What Valentine's Day? Who wants to steal my food, is dog food[1] meant for humans? Can humans eat dog food? Put it down right now! I'll bite whoever dares eat it!

Chu Wanning: I don't want to join this party.

Shi Mei: (Idol Shi Mei who has changed out of his costume and is currently stuffing his face with his bento without a care for his image rolls his eyes) Please. If I really do go spend Valentines with A Certain Someone, you guys will probably have me celebrate Death Day[2] instead. I know how it is.

Xue Meng: I do want to celebrate it, but I don't think anyone can match me,

so what can I do? I'm troubled too, y'know.

Nangong Si: Love and care for canines is the responsibility of all. Fight against Valentine's Day, protect Naobaijin starts with me.

Mei Hanxue: Condoms for sale! Check out the air-thin Okamoto condoms!   Ye Wangxi: Excuse me, the gentleman upstairs, I'll need you to come with me, sir. Since last week, my department has continuously received up to fifteen calls reporting you cheating your hookups. Please cooperate.

[1] Dog food is slang for PDA

[2] Qingming Festival, aka Tomb Sweeping Festival, a day where you go sweep the tombs of your ancestors