32 Chapter 32: This Venerable One Will Baby You a Bit; Will That Do?

Mo Ran stood as if he'd been struck by lightning, appalled and unmoving, hidden behind layer upon layer of lotus leaves. Something inside of him had shattered, and it showed in the cracked expression on his face.

Shock, indignation, jealousy, and irritation exploded like fireworks in his head. His lips moved, but no words came out. He didn't even know what had enraged him. Only one thought ran through his mind:

How dare anyone else touch that which this venerable one has slept with?! Chu Wanning, you two-faced, cheating whore! You dare… You dare to…

It in no way occurred to him that the Chu Wanning of this lifetime had never had any intimate relations with him. In that moment, all sense left his mind.

They had spent more than ten years like that, after all—a lifetime, from birth to death. When Mo Ran was lucid, he could set those memories aside and maintain control.

But faced with these circumstances, his mind was in turmoil, and his true self slipped through. He still subconsciously felt that Chu Wanning was his. Only now did he realize just how clearly he remembered even the way Chu Wanning's lips tasted when kissed, to say nothing of the passion and desire as they entwined, the ecstasy that ate at his very being…

These were things he hadn't dared think much about, after his rebirth. But now the sight of Chu Wanning's bare back—that familiar figure, those broad shoulders and long legs, those lean, taut muscles, and that slender but strong waist submerged in clear water…

All the memories and emotions he'd tried so hard to suppress rushed back without warning. Even Mo Ran's scalp went numb.

His body, too, reacted to these things. It was an involuntary reaction so fierce that he could do nothing to stop it, and heat pooled in his belly as he watched. By the time he realized what he was doing, he was raising his voice angrily and shouting, "Chu Wanning!"

Chu Wanning actually had the gall to ignore him.

Because of the mist that lay over the lotus pond, it was hard to see the two people supporting his shoulders. Mo Ran couldn't make out their appearances. But they stood extremely close to Chu Wanning, the distance between them barely distinguishable.

Mo Ran cursed under his breath and splashed right in, wading through the water toward Chu Wanning. As he grew closer, he realized the truth.

Those—those two "people" were actually automatons made of metal and cedarwood. Even worse, it seemed like they had been using the lotus pond to transfer energy to Chu Wanning, and when Mo Ran had recklessly rushed into the water, he had broken the spiritual array…

This unseen array had held Chu Wanning in an unconscious daze. He leaned against the automatons as light continuously poured through their palms and into the wound on his shoulder. A closer look revealed that he had been in the process of healing himself.

When Mo Ran had rushed through the boundary, the light dispersed. To his horror, the array actually started to reverse.

Before Mo Ran's eyes, the light continued to scatter, and Chu Wanning's wound began to rapidly eat away at itself. Chu Wanning frowned, let out a noise of discomfort, and coughed up a mouthful of blood. Then all the scars on his body tore open. In an instant, the blood that poured out of him dyed the pool red.

Mo Ran was dumbfounded. This was Chu Wanning's Flower Spirit Sacrifice technique! At that moment, he realized that he might have…made a grave error…

Chu Wanning's spiritual energy was composed of the elements metal and wood. Metal elemental energy, such as the power in Tianwen, was used for offense, while wood elemental energy was used for healing.

The Flower Spirit Sacrifice technique was one such healing art. Chu Wanning could weave the spiritual essence of flora into a healing array to mend wounds. However, if anyone were to enter the array during the process, the floral spirits would immediately scatter, and not only would no healing take place, it would worsen the injury. In the worst-case scenario, Chu Wanning's spiritual core could even be wholly devoured by the floral spirits.

Fortunately, Mo Ran had a passing familiarity with the Flower Spirit Sacrifice technique from his last lifetime, and he acted swiftly to cut off the flow of energy. Having lost the support of the automatons holding him up, Chu Wanning tipped forward. Mo Ran caught him and held him steady.

His shizun's unconscious face was pale, his lips blue, his body as cold as ice. Mo Ran took no further time to look him over and lifted him out of the pool. Half carrying and half dragging, he brought Chu Wanning back to his room and placed him on his bed.

"Shizun? Shizun!" Mo Ran called to him several times, but Chu Wanning didn't so much as bat an eyelash. But for the shallow rise and fall of his chest, he could've been a corpse.

The sight of Chu Wanning in this state reminded Mo Ran of his previous lifetime. Inexplicably, his throat closed up and his heart began to panic.

In his past life, two people had died in his arms.

Shi Mei. Chu Wanning.

Of the two, one had been the love of his life, the one he'd thought about day or night, and the other had been his mortal enemy, with whom he had been entwined for a lifetime.

With Shi Mei gone, Mo Weiyu disappeared from the world.

And when it happened with Chu Wanning?

Mo Ran didn't know. All he could remember was the sensation of the person in his arms growing colder and colder, and that on that day, he hadn't laughed or cried—that joy and sorrow had both fallen out of his reach.

With Chu Wanning gone, Mo Weiyu had no longer seen meaning in the world.

By candlelight, he looked upon Chu Wanning's bared upper body. Usually, Yuheng of the Night Sky wore clothing that showed as little skin as possible. He favored high collars and wrapped his belt sash three times, the picture of dignity and propriety. Because of this, no one had seen the extent of the injury those two hundred strikes had left on his body.

Even though Mo Ran had seen the wounds on Chu Wanning's back during the punishment at the Discipline Court for himself, all he had really been able to make out was that Chu Wanning's flesh had suffered severe damage. When Chu Wanning was on his feet and walking around as usual in the days following, Mo Ran had thought it couldn't have been that bad after all.

Only now did he realize that Chu Wanning's wounds were far worse than he had imagined. The five wounds left by the ghost mistress had torn open, and in the worst places, he could see all the way through to white bone.

Chu Wanning had probably never asked anyone to help him change his bandages and tried to do everything by himself. The salve had been unevenly applied, and the places he had been unable to reach were infected and festering.

And then there were all the purpling bruises left by the strikes of the rod. They spread across his entire back, leaving no part of his mottled skin unbroken. On top of them, the torn scars from the spiritual backlash just now had washed his back in fresh blood, which flowed ceaselessly, staining the sheets under him red.

If Mo Ran hadn't seen this with his own eyes, he would never have believed that the man who had insisted on wiping down the bridge's pillars, and who had conjured an enormous barrier to shield disciples from the rain, was this same man in front of him—this man whose wounds were so severe and terrible that he belonged in an infirmary under intensive care.

If not for the fact that Chu Wanning was unconscious, Mo Ran would have loved to grab his collar and shake him to demand:

Chu Wanning, what the hell is wrong with you and your stupid pride?

Who would begrudge you if you were to just bow your head and show a little weakness for once in your life? Why are you so fucking stubborn? You're a grown man, and you won't even take care of yourself? Treat yourself a little better?

Why didn't you ask anyone to help you dress your wounds?! Why didn't you just open your mouth and ask for help instead of using those automatons for your healing array?!

Chu Wanning, are you a fucking moron?! How stubborn can you be?!

Mo Ran cursed him out under his breath as he worked quickly to staunch the bleeding. Then he drew some hot water and wiped the blood from Chu Wanning's back. After sterilizing a knife in the flame, he set about cutting away the flesh that had rotted through.

At the first cut, Chu Wanning groaned in pain, his body jerking. Mo Ran held him down. "The hell do you have to groan about?!" he muttered. "Gonna curse me out? If you utter another sound, this venerable one is going to stab this knife right through your chest. You won't feel a goddamn thing once you're dead! Problem solved!"

Only now could Mo Ran let his real, vicious nature show though, yelling at Chu Wanning like he had in the past.

But too many of those wounds had festered, the skin gone white and dead. As Mo Ran sliced away, bit by bit, Chu Wanning's breaths grew heavier and heavier. Even unconscious, this person stifled his voice and refused to cry out in pain. He only broke out into a cold sweat that once more drenched his body, which had just been wiped clean.

An hour later, Mo Ran finally finished applying medicine and bandaging the wounds. He helped Chu Wanning into some robes, then found a thick quilt and laid it over his feverish shizun. Only then did he sigh in relief. When he remembered Madam Wang's medicine, sealed in a paper bag, he got up and brewed a bowl of it, then carried it back to Chu Wanning's bedside.

"Come on, time for your medicine." With one hand, Mo Ran lifted the sleeping Chu Wanning in his arms and propped him against his own shoulder. With his other hand, he brought the bowl of medicine to his own lips, lightly blowing on it before taking a sip to test it. He grimaced, mouth pursing. "What the hell. That's so bitter!"

Still, he let it cool off and fed it to Chu Wanning. However, he only got half a spoonful in before Chu Wanning couldn't handle it and coughed everything up. Most of it got onto Mo Ran's clothes.

Mo Ran held his tongue. He knew that Chu Wanning didn't like bitter things; he could even have been said to hate bitter things. But awake, the mulishly stubborn Yuheng Elder would single-mindedly brave the taste and drain the whole bowl in one gulp without complaint. At most, he'd discreetly sneak a piece of candy afterward.

Unfortunately, Chu Wanning was currently unconscious.

There was nothing to be done about it. It wasn't like Mo Ran could lose his temper at an unconscious person. He just had to suck it up and patiently feed Chu Wanning in small mouthfuls. He even used a towel to wipe the corners of his mouth as needed.

Something like this wasn't difficult for Mo Ran. After all, in his past life, there had been a period when he'd fed medicine to Chu Wanning every day, just like this. Back then, Chu Wanning had even tried to resist him, so Mo Ran had slapped him across the face before seizing him by the jaw and pressing their lips together roughly, tongue pushing in to ravish his mouth and taste the coppery scent of his blood…

Not daring to follow that line of thought any further, Mo Ran ended up feeding Chu Wanning the last few spoonfuls rather sloppily, and most of them ended up being coughed up again. Then Mo Ran laid Chu Wanning back down in the bed and tucked him in none too gently.

"I'm doing this out of the goodness of my heart. Don't you dare kick that quilt off in the night. You're already feverish, and you'll catch a cold…"

Halfway through his speech, his temper flared and he kicked the leg of the bed.

"Whatever—why should I care if you catch a cold?! I hope you do. I hope it's terrible and you die!"

He turned around and stalked off.

When he got to the door, something was nagging at the back of his mind. Mo Ran turned back and squinted into the room. After figuring out what was bothering him, he went over and blew out the candle. He left again.

This time, he got all the way to the lotus pond. The sight of the flowers that had bloomed after absorbing Chu Wanning's lifeblood worsened the irritation in his heart.

He was filled with aggravation, but he still marched, stiff and out of rhythm, left arm moving with left leg and vice versa, back into the bedroom. Clanking like a rusty, old automaton, he dragged his feet in a circle around the entire room until he finally, reluctantly, came to stand at Chu Wanning's bedside.

Moonlight shone softly through the half-open bamboo window, illuminating Chu Wanning's peaceful face. His lips were pale, and his eyebrows were slightly drawn together.

Mo Ran considered this for a while, then shut the window for him. Sichuan was a humid region, and it wasn't healthy to leave the window open while sleeping.

After doing this, Mo Ran put his foot down and swore to himself: If I come back through that door one more time, I might as well be a dog!

Just as he reached the doorway, he heard a thump. Chu Wanning had indeed thrown off his entire quilt.

Mo Ran stared. What was he going to do about this person's habit of throwing off his covers in his sleep?

So that he wouldn't be a dog, the sixteen-year-old Emperor Taxian-jun, with all his integrity and moral backbone, walked out. He would not go back on his word. He absolutely would not go back through that door again!

So, after a while, the brilliant and powerful emperor vaulted into the room through the window instead.

He picked the quilt up off the ground and laid it over Chu Wanning. Hearing Chu Wanning's pained, labored breathing and seeing his back shuddering where he was curled into the corner of the bed, Mo Ran couldn't muster any of the anger he usually held toward his shizun. He could say, "serves you right," all he wanted, but he felt a twinge of pity for the man.

He sat by Chu Wanning's bedside, keeping watch to make sure he didn't throw the quilt off again.

Late as it was, and after the long day he'd had, the exhaustion finally settled in. Mo Ran's head slowly drooped, and he dozed off.

This sleep wasn't restful in the slightest. Chu Wanning kept tossing and turning, and Mo Ran could hear him groaning under his breath through the murk of slumber.

In his light, hazy doze, Mo Ran couldn't tell the hour, or when he had ended up lying next to Chu Wanning on the bed, holding the trembling man in his arms. Still half-asleep, he cradled him and gently stroked his back, murmuring, "Shh… Shh… Pain, pain, go away…"

In sleep, Mo Ran felt as if he had returned to the Sisheng Peak of his past life, to the empty, somber Wushan Palace. After Chu Wanning's death, he'd never again held anyone in his sleep.

Even if the lingering emotions had been born out of hatred, in the cold loneliness that had followed, day after day after day, he'd still missed him with an almost physical intensity, like a thousand ants were gnawing on his heart. But no matter how much he missed him or how hard he wished, Chu Wanning wouldn't come back.

Mo Ran had lost the last flame of his life.

Mo Ran held Chu Wanning that entire night. Between the dreams and the veil of sleep, at times he knew clearly that he had been reborn, yet at others, he felt as if he was still in his past life.

Suddenly, he was almost afraid to open his eyes. He was afraid that when he woke in the morning, it would be to a cold, empty pillow and drafty curtains. And he would once again be utterly alone for the rest of his life.

He was certain that he hated Chu Wanning. But, as he held him in his arms, Mo Ran felt wetness gather at the corners of his eyes. This was a warmth that the thirty-two-year-old Taxian-jun had thought he would never again possess.

"Wanning, you'll be okay..." It was in this foggy state, as he stroked the hair of the man in his arms as if he were the Mo Ran of the past, that this tender phrase escaped his mouth.

He was so tired that he didn't realize what he had said, or what he'd called the other man. The words slipped out naturally, and he didn't think much on them. Mo Ran let out a long breath and fell into a deeper slumber.

The next morning, Chu Wanning's eyelashes fluttered as he slowly came to. Because of his strong cultivation, his high fever from the night before had receded.

Chu Wanning idly opened his eyes, mind muddled with sleep. But when he tried to get up, he found someone else was lying in bed with him.

M-Mo Weiyu?!

He was startled, to say the least. Chu Wanning paled, but he couldn't for the life of him remember what had happened the night before. Even worse, his movements woke Mo Ran.

The young man yawned, youthful face lightly flushed from sleep. He squinted into the morning light, glanced over at Chu Wanning, and said vaguely, "Ah…let this venerable one sleep for a while longer… Since you're awake, why don't you go make me egg and meat congee…"

Chu Wanning was speechless.

What kind of nonsense was this? Was he talking in his sleep?

Mo Ran's mind was fuzzy. When he saw that Chu Wanning wasn't getting up to make him breakfast, he didn't press the matter. Instead, he smiled lazily and reached out, pulling Chu Wanning's face closer, and pressed a chaste kiss to his lips.

"If you don't want to get up, that's fine too. This venerable one just had the most terrible dream. In it… Ah…never mind." He sighed, embracing the other man, who had by this point gone completely stock-still. Mo Ran rested his chin against the head of the man in his arms and murmured, "Chu Wanning, let me hold you a little while longer."