Chapter 28: This Venerable One’s Mind Is a Bit of a Mess
The news that the Yuheng Elder was being punished for breaking the rules spread as if it had sprouted a pair of wings. It didn't even wait until the next morning; practically everyone in the sect found out that very night.
Two hundred strikes would probably kill an ordinary person. Even for a cultivator, it would be quite unbearable.
Xue Meng jumped to his feet when he heard. "What?! Shizun went to the Discipline Court?"
"Young master, please hurry and talk to the sect leader. Shizun is already injured, how can he possibly endure two hundred strikes?"
Xue Meng was so anxious, he was about to lose it. "My dad? That won't do; he's still not back from Taxue Palace. A message by bird won't reach him until tomorrow at the earliest. Why didn't you guys stop Shizun?"
Mo Ran and Shi Mei exchanged a glance. Stop Chu Wanning? Who in the world was capable of that?
"Damn it, I'm gonna go after him right now." Xue Meng dashed off toward the Discipline Court. He hadn't even entered the courtyard when he spotted a group of the Jielü Elder's disciples crowded around the doors to the main hall, whispering amongst themselves. "What're you all doing, standing there? Get out of my way! Move!"
"Young master!"
"Ah, the young master is here."
"Make way for the young master."
The disciples quickly parted to the sides to let Xue Meng through. The doors of Clear Sky Hall stood open. Chu Wanning knelt inside with his back straight and eyes closed, not speaking a word. The Jielü Elder, holding a metal rod, was reading the rules of Sisheng Peak aloud, each rule accompanied by one brutal strike of the metal rod to Chu Wanning's back.
"The ninety-first rule of this sect: Do not injure the innocent, and do not use cultivator techniques against the common people. Under the rod, do you have any complaints?"
"No complaints."
"The ninety-second rule of this sect: Do not act rashly of one's own accord, and do not indulge in self-gratification. Under the rod, do you have any complaints?"
"No complaints."
The Jielü Elder didn't dare go easy in the punishment. Ninety or so strikes in, and Chu Wanning's white robes were soaked through with blood.
Xue Meng held Chu Wanning in the highest esteem. His eyes went instantly bloodshot at the sight, and he called out at the top of his lungs, "Shizun!"
Chu Wanning pretended not to hear. His eyes remained closed, a slight furrow between his eyebrows.
The Jielü Elder glanced over to the door and said quietly, "Yuheng Elder, the young master is here."
"I'm not deaf. I heard." Blood trickled out from the corner of Chu Wanning's lips, but still he did not look up. "He's just being a noisy child. Pay him no mind."
The Jielü Elder sighed. "Yuheng, is this really necessary?"
"It can't be helped that my disciples are always being disobedient." Chu Wanning spoke lightly. "If I do not receive my due punishment today, how will I have the face to discipline anyone else in the future?"
The Jielü Elder hesitated.
"Please continue."
The Jielü Elder sighed again. He looked at Chu Wanning's pale, delicate neck, exposed above his open collars, curved down gently, like thin mist, and couldn't help but suggest, "Then I'll at least go easier?"
"That would be no different from deception," Chu Wanning said. "Don't worry. It's just two hundred strikes. I can handle it."
"Yuheng Elder…"
"Jielü, there is no need to say any more. Continue."
The metal rod fell once again.
Even Xue Meng's voice became distorted. "Jielü Elder! You still won't fucking stop? Have you no regard for your young master? That's my shizun you're hitting! My shizun!"
The Jielü Elder could only force himself to pretend not to hear.
Xue Meng's lungs were about to explode from anger. "Have you gone deaf, you shitty old man? Your young master is ordering you to stop! If—if you dare hit him again, I, I, I—"
He got stuck on "I" and couldn't think of what to say. He was only a fifteen-year-old youth, after all. "Darling of the heavens" or not, his strength and status were far below that of the elders. Ultimately, red-faced, he could only choke out an obstinate: "I'll tell my dad!"
The Jielü Elder did not dignify that with a response.
Chu Wanning let out a nearly imperceptible sigh.
Ninety-seven strikes. Ninety-eight strikes. Ninety-nine strikes. One hundred strikes…
Even the fabric of his clothes was ripped by the strikes. The blood was appallingly red.
Xue Meng couldn't handle any more. Eyes red with panic, he made to recklessly charge into the hall, but Chu Wanning suddenly opened his eyes and brandished a hand. A barrier instantly split the space in two, blocking off the door and forcing Xue Meng to back away several steps, nearly falling to the ground.
Chu Wanning coughed up blood as he glanced around, his narrowed phoenix eyes as fierce as lightning. "Disgraceful. Go back where you came from!"
"Shizun!"
"Since when has Sisheng Peak's young master been entitled to order the Jielü Elder to bend the rules?" Chu Wanning said harshly. "Hurry up and get lost!"
Xue Meng stared at him, wide-eyed, a wet shimmer in his gaze.
Mo Ran stood to the side, stroking his chin, the corners of his lips still curled. "Aiya, oh no, the little phoenix is gonna cry."
At these words, Xue Meng whipped his head around and glared at Mo Ran. His eyes were rimmed in red, but he stubbornly refused to let the tears fall.
He didn't complain and didn't talk back. He only crawled up from the ground and dusted himself off with his head lowered and teeth gritted, then knelt facing Clear Sky Hall. "Shizun, this disciple was wrong."
Chu Wanning was still taking the strikes, back held ramrod straight and never once bending. But his face was pale and a sheen of cold sweat covered his forehead.
"But I'm not leaving," Xue Meng continued stubbornly. "I'm going to keep Shizun company."
Having said this, he knelt and refused to get up.
Mo Ran's eyes were about to roll out of their sockets. Xue Meng, Xue Ziming, darling of the heavens, would only lower himself to this extent in front of Chu Wanning. He was a phoenix to everyone else, but a quail to his shizun. If Mo Ran hadn't been so certain that Xue Meng had no interest in men, he'd probably wonder if he had a crush on Chu Wanning, to be so hell-bent and without regret. If his shizun were to slap him, the little quail would humbly turn the other cheek.
All right, all right. Brown-noser extraordinaire.
His heart felt contempt, but for some reason, his mouth tasted sour. Mo Ran glared at Xue Meng for a while, growing more agitated the longer he looked. He couldn't let him be the only one to show devotion.
Chu Wanning already didn't like Mo Ran; after this trick that Xue Meng was pulling, wouldn't he be even more biased in the future?
And so Mo Ran knelt as well, next to Xue Meng. "I'll keep Shizun company too."
Naturally, Shi Mei followed suit, and all three disciples knelt outside the barrier, waiting.
On hearing the news, the other elders' disciples all found some excuse or another to come to the Discipline Court to watch the show.
"Heavens, how could it be the Yuheng Elder…?"
"I heard he beat up a common person in a fit of rage."
"Ah! So scary."
"Shh, quiet. If the Yuheng Elder hears, you'll be next on the whipping block!"
"But why is the young master kneeling?" someone else asked.
"Mo-gongzi too…"
Mo Ran was handsome and charming, and he had earned the favor of countless female disciples just going about his daily life. Quite a few of the onlookers felt sorry for him and whispered to each other.
"Poor Mo-gongzi… What to do? Should we go make a plea on his behalf?"
"We probably shouldn't meddle in their master-disciple affairs. You can go if you have the guts, but I don't wanna die yet. Did you already forget that one shijie who got whipped, like, a couple hundred times by the Yuheng Elder?"
Silence reigned.
The two hundred strikes finished. The barrier was finally withdrawn.
Xue Meng scurried up from the ground and stumbled frantically into Clear Sky Hall. When he got close enough to see Chu Wanning's condition, he let out a furious, "ah!" and spun to grab the Jielü Elder by the collar. "You shitty old man!" he snarled. "Don't you fucking know to at least hold back?!"
"Xue Ziming." Chu Wanning's eyes were closed, his bloodstained lips opening and closing, but his hoarse voice was commanding.
Xue Meng's joints cracked audibly as he released the Jielü Elder and shoved him aside.
Mo Ran arrived at this moment, still smiling, thinking that the Jielü Elder must definitely have held back in consideration of Chu Wanning's status. But when he looked down at Chu Wanning's condition, that smile froze on his face.
Had Chu Wanning seriously not told Jielü Elder about the injury on his shoulder?! The majority of those two hundred strikes had landed unsparingly on that injury. New wounds on top of the old.
Chu Wanning, you… Have you lost your mind?!
Mo Ran's pupils contracted, a tidal wave of intense loathing washing over him.
He didn't know what exactly it was that he loathed, or just what he was so angry about, only that a raging inferno was soaring through his stomach and burning through all of his organs. He was used to Chu Wanning being tormented to the breaking point at his own hands, as Mo Ran crushed his dignity and defiled his purity. But Mo Ran couldn't stand Chu Wanning being bruised and scarred at the hands of anyone else.
Maybe it was because he couldn't forget what had happened in his previous lifetime, but Mo Ran subconsciously felt like this person belonged to him. It was for him to let Chu Wanning live or die, to let him be detested or hated—all of that belonged to him.
He originally hadn't minded that Chu Wanning was to be punished. He'd thought that as he was an elder, the two hundred strikes definitely wouldn't be made with any real force—or at the very least, that the strikes would avoid the yet-unhealed wounds on his shoulder.
But Chu Wanning hadn't said a thing about it! He hadn't said anything at all! What was this crazy person being so stubborn about? Why was he forcing himself through all this? What the fuck was this stupid idiot trying to prove?!
Head a complete mess, Mo Ran lifted a hand to support Chu Wanning, but Xue Meng had beaten him to it and was already helping Chu Wanning up.
Mo Ran's hand paused in midair, then after a while, lowered back down. He watched them walk away, Xue Meng supporting Chu Wanning, an unknown feeling in his chest.
He wanted to follow, but he couldn't move his feet. Everything that had happened in his previous lifetime was in the past. Now Chu Wanning was only his shizun. None of their muddled, hateful, tender entanglements had occurred.
He shouldn't be entertaining these thoughts. It didn't matter to him who hit Chu Wanning, who supported him, whom he spent time with, or even if someone killed him. None of it had anything to do with Mo Ran.
Shi Mei walked up beside him. "Come on, let's go with them and take a look."
"I'll pass. Xue Meng has it covered. I can't help, anyway, and too many people will just add to the mess." Mo Ran's expression didn't change, but his mind was in disarray. He really, truly could not understand what it was that he felt at this moment.
Was it hate?