Acquaintance

Chapter 36: Acquaintance

Xu Mo walked inside. What greeted him was an elegant front courtyard with grass on both sides and a bluestone-paved pathway in between. He had expected it to be dirty, but it was cleaner than he had anticipated. Elder Long had told him that this was a room. Is this how rich cultivators live? he wondered. As a true successor, imagining how big his own house would be made his head spin.

He didn't have time to goof around any longer. Instead, he walked toward the house in the center, surrounded by a courtyard filled with neatly trimmed grass. The door opened. Along the way, he searched for anything that could help him identify the previous owner of this place.

Then, he saw it—a broken wooden nameplate barely hanging onto the doorway. Faded characters were carved into its worn surface.

There wasn't much inside, but it was thousands of times better than the cell in the Disciplinary Hall. Xu Mo ignored everything else for now. Following the ancestor's instructions and his own calculations, he set his Qi level to what it had been before he condensed Qi. Then, he took out his notebook and started writing down some basic sentences so he wouldn't have to write them again and again.

Scribble—

Half an hour later, Xu Mo looked at the statements he had written in advance with a satisfied grin. Tear. He tore off the pages and used his Qi, focusing his attention on the tip of his index finger. A beam of spiritual energy shot past the bundle of pages.

He had to do something about his tongue. He couldn't cut it off—that was a requirement for the Dao of Silence. The real test was remaining silent even when he had the power and ability to influence others with a single word. It was about holding back and cultivating patience.

Xu Mo searched around the house. Then, he stood up and walked into the courtyard. Soon, his attention fell on a small, irregularly shaped stone that was sharp and jagged. He walked closer, bent down, and picked it up. Using his Qi control, he shaped it and cleaned it of any insects that might have been hidden deep inside. His Qi was pure, and for insects, it was like fire—burning them to ash.

Aa.

He opened his mouth and carefully placed the heavy stone, now loaded with Qi, on his tongue. The pressure caused a small dent to form. "Aaa... oooo..." Strange sounds escaped his mouth. His tongue tried to break free, but the stone kept it fixed in place. Then, he closed his mouth to see if it looked normal from the outside.

The courtyard's wall was connected to other similarly large houses, but there were only ten of them. Now, one was occupied by him. He could ask his new neighbors later about the previous owner.

He clipped the pen to his outer robe and tucked the notebook for backup inside his robe pocket. The group of pages bound together with a string was tied to his waist belt, while the locket Long Bai had thrown in his direction hung from his neck.

His first goal was to borrow the sect's Qi circulation technique. But would a secret technique like the Drifting Dragon Breathing Method even be available to outer sect disciples? Xu Mo shook his head but decided to visit the place anyway. He still needed to borrow combat techniques and sword skills to create a valid reason for how he had learned them—rather than having the information suddenly appear in his head.

Tap—

He was standing outside his house when someone approached him from behind. Xu Mo didn't scream because his mood was neutral at the moment. His brain processed that someone might be there to greet him.

"When did you get out?" Xu Mo turned around and only saw the top of someone's head. He lowered his gaze and realized it was the same disciple he had helped when she was being bullied. Did she know he had been in prison? Was I that famous now?

"..." His tongue instinctively tried to move, but the stone inside prevented it. The biggest drawback of preparing a script was that unexpected visitors could ruin it. Now, Xu Mo was torn between nodding and walking away or explaining to her why he wasn't speaking when he had been perfectly fine before.

[Sir, I cannot speak. But I can write.] He showed her the flip cards he had prepared for the elder at the entrance of the Technique Hall.

"Sir? But I'm... Wait, you can't speak? But clearly, y-you..." She paused, as if she had thought of something, and suddenly, something cut off the surrounding noise. Xu Mo started getting goosebumps. The girl clenched her wrist so tightly that it almost looked like her nails were digging into her skin.

Xu Mo grabbed her fist, and she snapped out of her reverie. She was shocked that Xu Mo had been able to move so easily under her murderous intent—though it wasn't directed at him, he was the closest person to her. According to her thoughts, he should have stiffened like a dead body, with even his pupils unable to move an inch.

Could they have cut out his tongue to make him mute as a punishment or a requirement to let him out? She was so angry that she wanted to burn down the entire sect—not because she had any feelings for this boy, but because she couldn't just stand by and do nothing.

[Are you okay? I got out this morning.] Xu Mo took out his pen and wrote in his notebook with wavy handwriting since he was standing and writing at the same time.

"Yes. Sorry, I was lost in thought." But when she read the last part, she almost exploded again. She looked up at his bright, smiling face, which conveyed that nothing had happened to him. But who knew how many scars were hidden behind that smile?

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"..." Xu Mo gave her a confused look because he had just asked her the same question. Why was she asking him again?

He was still curious about what was hidden behind her hair, but getting too close would seem inappropriate. Xu Mo, still in a good mood after being released and seeing the light of day again after months, simply smiled.