26 Chapter 26: This Venerable One’s First Meeting With Him

The sun climbed higher in the sky, and more and more people came by the inn to eat. Mo Ran found it too noisy downstairs, so he had the attendant bring the dishes he'd made up to his room.

In the end, he'd invited Chu Wanning as well. Mo Ran was no Emperor of the Mortal Realm for now, and his shizun was therefore the highest-ranking person present, so he had to play by the rules.

Three bowls of piping hot noodle soup sat on the square beech table. The smooth, chewy noodles had been handmade by Mo Ran himself and were much better than what you could buy anywhere else in town. Thick-cut slices of beef were piled on top, along with fried sausage, fresh and tender pea shoots, plump napa cabbage, and golden-yellow egg floss, the colorful ingredients artfully arranged.

But the most noteworthy thing was not the succulent greens, the generous cuts of meat, or even the abundance of ingredients—it was the broth that had been simmered on a low fire for four hours. The milky white broth had a layer of sesame chili oil on top; Mo Ran had ground the hot, numbing spices himself in a stone mortar and pestle, and he had simmered them with the broth to produce a rich taste and tantalizing aroma.

He had used copious amounts of both chili oil and peppers, thinking about Shi Mei's love of spicy foods. As he watched Shi Mei dig in with relish, Mo Ran's grin stretched even wider. He stole a few glances and couldn't resist asking, "Is it good?"

"It's delicious," said Shi Mei.

Chu Wanning said nothing, his face as grim as it always was, looking as though the heavens owed him a hundred mountains of gold and silver.

Mo Ran was quite pleased with himself. "Then just let me know whenever you want to eat it again. I'll make it for you."

Shi Mei's eyes watered from the spiciness when he looked up to smile at Mo Ran, his features gentle. Faced with such a beauty, if it weren't for Chu Wanning sitting nearby and freezing half the room with his mere presence, it might have been difficult for Mo Ran to decide between eating the noodles in his bowl or eating Shi Mei.

Shi Mei didn't eat much of the pea shoots and sausage, but the beef and cabbage were quickly gone. Mo Ran, who had been watching quietly from the side, reached out with his chopsticks and moved the pea shoots and sausage into his own bowl, then moved several pieces of beef from his bowl into Shi Mei's.

Sisheng Peak's disciples all ate at Mengpo Hall, often exchanging dishes with one another, so Shi Mei smiled and thought nothing of it. "A-Ran doesn't like beef?"

"Mm-hmm, I like pea shoots." Then he started chowing down. The tips of his ears were a little red.

Chu Wanning impassively picked out the pea shoots in his bowl and tossed all of them into Mo Ran's bowl. "I don't like pea shoots." He also tossed all the beef in his bowl into Shi Mei's. "I also don't like beef."

Then he stared at the rest of the food in his bowl with a furrowed brow, pressed his lips together, and said nothing.

"Shizun…is it not to your taste?" Shi Mei asked carefully.

Chu Wanning didn't respond, only lowered his head and silently picked up a piece of cabbage, taking a small bite. His expression instantly grew worse, and he put his chopsticks down with a smack. "Mo Weiyu, did you spill an entire jar of hot sauce into the soup?"

Mo Ran paused and looked up, a noodle dangling from his mouth. He hadn't anticipated that the breakfast he had worked so hard on would receive such harsh criticism. He blinked at Chu Wanning, bewildered, unable to believe his own ears for a moment, before slurping down the noodle in his mouth. "Wha—?"

Chu Wanning was even less courteous this time. "Is this even food for people? Is it even edible?"

Mo Ran blinked several more times before it finally clicked that this prick Chu Wanning was roasting him. "How is it not food for people?" he shot back indignantly.

The space between Chu Wanning's eyebrows twitched. "It's utterly unpalatable."

Mo Ran choked. Whatever anyone said, his skills had indeed been sneakily learned from the best of the best at the House of Drunken Jade. "Shizun, aren't you being…a little too picky?"

Shi Mei also piped up. "Shizun, you haven't eaten for a whole day. Even if you don't like it, you should still try to eat some."

Chu Wanning stood up and said coldly, "I don't eat spicy foods."

Then he turned and left.

The two left at the table fell into an awkward silence.

Shi Mei was dumbfounded. "Shizun doesn't eat spicy foods? How come I didn't know that? A-Ran, did you know this?"

"I…" Mo Ran stared blankly for a while at the noodles that Chu Wanning had left basically untouched, then nodded. "Mn. I didn't know."

That was a lie. Mo Ran knew that Chu Wanning couldn't eat spicy food. It was just that he'd forgotten.

He had been entangled with this person for the greater part of his previous life, after all. He knew exactly what foods Chu Wanning liked and disliked. But he hadn't bothered to keep those details in mind, so he hadn't remembered.

Chu Wanning returned to his room and lay down, still dressed. He faced the wall with his eyes wide open, unable to sleep. Between how much blood he'd lost, the spiritual energy he'd expended, and the fact that he hadn't had a single bite to eat since the day before, he felt awful.

The man didn't know how to take care of himself at all. He was in a bad mood, so he simply didn't eat, as if he could fill his stomach with anger instead. He didn't know what he was angry about. Or rather, he didn't want to know.

But in the silence, a face appeared before his unfocused eyes, lip corners curled softly into a spirited smile, light flickering in a pair of clear, black eyes that were gentle with a hint of purple. Warm and comfortable, and somewhat lazy.

Chu Wanning gripped the blanket, finger joints going white from the strength of his grip. He didn't want to sink into the vision, and he closed his eyes in an attempt to escape that face and its careless laughter. But the past surged forth even more strongly with his eyes closed, and it washed over him like a tide…

The first time he met Mo Ran had been in front of the Heaven-Piercing Tower on Sisheng Peak. The sun was fierce that day, and all twenty elders were present, talking amongst themselves in low voices.

The Yuheng Elder was an exception, naturally. He wasn't so foolish as to stand over there with the rest of them to bake in the sun. Instead, he stood under a flowering tree by himself, preoccupied with examining the flexibility of the newly made black metal claw on his hand.

Of course, he himself had no need for such things; he was forging these claws for the lower-level disciples of Sisheng Peak.

The lower cultivation realm bordered the ghost realm, and so it was often dangerous to traverse. It wasn't uncommon for the lower-level disciples to get injured or to even lose their lives. Chu Wanning never said anything about it, but he had been trying to work out a solution; he wanted to make a weapon that was light, nimble, and easy to learn.

The others stood to the side, chattering.

"Did you hear? That long-lost nephew of the sect leader was barely saved from a fire. No one else survived when the place burned down. If the sect leader had been even a step slower, his nephew probably would've turned to ash, too. It was truly a stroke of luck."

"Must've been his late father protecting him from the other side. It's heartbreaking that he was separated so young and went through so many hardships… Ah…"

"The child's name is Mo Ran? He's fifteen years old, right? It's time for him to receive a courtesy name then. Does he have one?"

"Xuanji Elder, the child grew up in a brothel; he's lucky to even have a name, much less a courtesy name."

"I heard the sect leader already thought of a couple and is just choosing between them now. Wonder what he's going to pick in the end."

"The sect leader sure does value this nephew of his."

"You don't say? It isn't just the sect leader either; even the madam dotes on him endlessly. Heh, probably the only person in the entire Sisheng Peak who's displeased is our very own darling of the heavens—"

"Tanlang Elder! You mustn't speak with such indiscretion!"

"Ha ha, my mistake, I slipped! But our darling of the heavens runs wild and pays little mind to propriety, disrespects his elders, and lazes about idly all day with an air of born entitlement. He really does lack discipline."

"Tanlang Elder, how much have you had to drink today…?" The person at his side gave him a meaningful look, gesturing with his chin toward Chu Wanning, who was standing a distance away. The implication was obvious.

The darling of the heavens, Xue Meng, was Chu Wanning's disciple. To say that Xue Meng lacked discipline was to indirectly insult Chu Wanning's instruction.

The Yuheng Elder was composed and refined in appearance, as if he was above the matters of the mortal realm and graced with a lofty air. But everyone knew about his volatile temperament; if anyone rubbed him the wrong way, they might as well just wash their neck clean and wait for death by whipping.

Chu Wanning heard every word of their gossip, but he paid them no mind. He had far more interest in the decorative patterns on the metal claw on his finger than he did in what others had to say about him.

Speaking of which, the finger claw was pretty good, but it wasn't quite tough enough. There were some demons whose thick hides it might not be able to rip through, not in one strike. He would try adding some dragon-bone powder when he got back; that would help.

When the other elders saw Chu Wanning neglect to react, they relaxed a little and resumed their chatter.

"The sect leader probably summoned all of us here today in order to pick a teacher for that Mo-gongzi, huh?"

"That's strange. Why doesn't the sect leader teach the boy himself?"

"Supposedly, his little nephew's aptitude is incompatible with the sect leader's cultivation method," someone mumbled. "But even then, isn't it a bit much to gather all the elders for the young master to pick and choose from?"

The Lucun Elder let out a soft sigh and brushed aside his smooth, graceful long hair. "My humble self feels like a cheap napa cabbage right now," he bemoaned, "laid out in the stall for little Mo-gongzi to pick."

Flabbergasted silence fell.

Would that fop mind not blurting out the whole truth without a hint of finesse?

They waited for quite a while before the sect leader finally came. He walked up the thousand steps to arrive before the Heaven-Piercing Tower, a youth trailing behind him.

Chu Wanning only glanced over briefly and didn't even bother to get a clear eyeful before looking away to continue examining his finger claw. He spared no second glance.

Sisheng Peak's procedure for seeking apprenticeship under a teacher was well and truly unconventional. In every other sect, the teacher was high and mighty, and would rest their hand on some new disciple's head while saying, "Young man, your aptitude is satisfactory; henceforth you shall be my disciple."

The disciple wouldn't even get a chance to say, "no."

Or, the teacher would wave his sleeve with a face of cold derision and declare, "Young man, your forehead is too big, your eyes too dull, and the back of your skull protrudes too far; it is not the proper appearance for my sect. You and I are not fated to be, and I will not accept you as my disciple."

The disciple wouldn't even get a chance to prove himself before the teacher would zoom away on his sword, hightailing it out of there faster than a dog.

Things were different here on Sisheng Peak: the teacher and disciple mutually chose one another.

What did that mean?

Sisheng Peak had twenty elders. When a new disciple entered the sect, they would first spend a period of time living alongside everyone and weighing their options before delivering a letter of intent to an elder, expressing their hope to seek apprenticeship.

If the elder accepted, then everything worked out perfectly.

If the elder declined, the disciple could continue badgering them until either the elder gave in or the disciple gave up.

By all appearances, Chu Wanning was exceptionally skilled and handsome to boot, so one would expect his front yard to be filled to the brim at all hours of the day with hopeful disciples relentlessly pursuing him as a teacher. But the reality was far different.

Chu Wanning's appearance was elegant, but his temper was so bad that it made people's hair stand on end. Rumor had it that when he got angry, he would whip female disciples like one would male disciples, and that he would drown male disciples directly in the pond. Not many people were brave enough for this kind of shizun.

Thus, the Yuheng Elder's residence was quiet and lonesome. Other than the darling of the heavens, Xue Meng—and Xue Meng's close friend, Shi Mei—he had never accepted any other disciples. Everyone else preferred to call him a respectful "Elder" over an intimate "Shizun."

Chu Wanning wore a removed expression and insisted that he wasn't bothered by this at all. His head was lowered as he continued to tinker with the ice-cold weapon in his hands, as if he couldn't have cared less. Everything he designed, from the hidden-sleeve weapons to the emergency whistles, was for others. The sooner he finished working on things, the sooner more people would be able to avoid suffering.

So, he didn't expect it at all when Mo Ran chose him without hesitation.

At that moment, his brow was furrowed as he stroked the thorns on the finger claw, pondering over how to improve them. He wasn't paying attention to what the sect leader and everyone else was saying.

Without him realizing it, everything had grown quiet.

Only once he'd thought of a potential improvement did Chu Wanning notice that his surroundings, which had been buzzing with conversation a moment ago, seemed a little quiet. So, he finally pulled his gaze away from the finger claw and looked up with some impatience and confusion.

That was when he saw a face so brilliantly lit by the sun as to be nearly dazzling.

A handsome youth, head tilted back, was looking up at him. The corners of the youth's lips were curled into a faint, carefree smile, and a marked pair of dimples decorated his cheeks. His demeanor was a lively as the smokey, fiery atmosphere of a marketplace, yet he had a hint of guileless innocence. A pair of purple-tinted black eyes stared unblinkingly at him, filled with fervor and curiosity both.

He was new and, not knowing the rules, stood so close that it was almost impudent.

Someone appearing so suddenly right in front of him startled Chu Wanning, and he reflexively stepped backward as if burned. The back of his head met the trunk of the tree with a thump.

The youth's eyes widened slightly. "Ah…"

An awkward silence fell between Chu Wanning and the youth.

"What are you doing?" said Chu Wanning.

The youth grinned. "Xianjun, Xianjun, I've been watching you for ages already. Why won't you pay attention to me?"