Chapter 41: This Venerable One Kisses the Wrong Person Again…

There was nothing remarkable about the stone room. It was just plain walls on three sides and on the fourth, bars that coursed with magical red light. The only fixture in the cell was a crude bed covered with straw and made of stone.

There was nothing for Mo Ran to do but to lie on the stone bed. His hands and feet were both shackled, and the chains clanked with his every movement. Even worse, something seemed to be suppressing his spiritual powers, thereby preventing him from invoking them. As his mind raced with anxious thoughts, a creak caught his attention. He turned to see two merfolk enter.

"You!" Mo Ran growled angrily. "You lunatics! What exactly is going on? What do you think you're doing? Where are my fellow disciples? Where's Gouchen?! Oi! I'm talking to you!"

But no matter how Mo Ran yelled or cursed, the merfolk paid him no heed. They were carrying something wrapped in a length of red fox fur—a human-shaped something, which they expressionlessly set down on the stone bed.

Mo Ran snarled. "You little eels—"

"Quit yapping already," one of them finally said, their voice filled with contempt. "You're a spiritual essence of wood; this won't be such a bad deal for you."

The other also sneered. "More like a pretty sweet deal."

Mo Ran was so enraged, he was about to spit blood. "Just what do you want?! What did you lock me in here for? And what's that on the bed?!"

"What's that on the bed?" one replied mockingly.

"The person you like, of course," the other said.

Mo Ran's fingertips went cold with shock. "Shi Mei?"

The merfolk neither confirmed nor denied this. They only continued to sneer. "The spring of youth is such a fleeting thing. Since the two of you are meant to be, we'll let you have this night together. When it's all over and done with, then you'll find out why the Exalted God went to such trouble."

After flinging out these words, they left.

The room was deathly silent. With his hands and feet restrained, Mo Ran couldn't move at all. One minute blurred into the next, and he had no way to tell how much time had passed. He struggled until his wrists and ankles were raw and bloody, but to no avail.

Panting softly, Mo Ran turned to look at the person next to him, wrapped firmly in fox fur from head to toe. All he could see of them was a long strand of ink-black hair. He stared at that strand of hair, heart beating erratically with both panic and arousal.

He didn't know why that creep Gouchen was doing this, but if this was what would let him realize his covetous desires for Shi Mei…

His thoughts ground to a halt, as if any more would profane that beautiful person.

Mo Ran stared at the ceiling, breaths heavy and stifled as if there was a weight on his chest. He'd longed for this for so long, but now that the chance had come, all he felt was unease. That initial filthy excitement slowly faded as a thousand thoughts raced through his mind. He gradually calmed down.

Whatever Gouchen was planning, it couldn't be good. It'd be one thing if only Mo Ran himself was targeted, but how could he bear to let Shi Mei be dragged into it too?

Besides, this whole situation was someone else's design; Shi Mei hadn't agreed to anything at all. Mo Ran might have been scum, but he wanted to protect the person he liked, not hurt them. He resolved to himself that no matter what Gouchen did, he definitely wouldn't take advantage of Shi Mei when he woke up.

A long while passed in silence before the person beside him finally moved.

Mo Ran hurriedly turned his head their way, voice raspy. "Shi—"

The "Mei" hadn't come out before it made a stiff U-turn on the tip of his tongue and went right back in. Mo Ran swallowed, the jut of his throat bobbing before he finally managed to spit out the second half.

"—zun?"

Shizun?!

Little Mo-xianjun's gaze, resolute and filled with chivalrous conviction only just a moment ago, faltered as soon as he saw the face peeking out from underneath the fox fur. In an instant, all his mental fortitude fell apart. The barricades in his chest that he had worked so hard to raise were razed to the ground in a barrage of cracking that turned them all to rubble.

All those thoughts about protecting that person, not taking advantage of him, not defiling him under any circumstances—each one was like a slap in the face, each one louder than the last.

Mo Ran's face turned pale. He could finally say with absolute certainty that every single inhabitant of this Jincheng Lake, even and especially that Gouchen, was blind as fuck!

To think that he liked Chu Wanning?

Ugh!

First that fox, now these merfolk—he seriously couldn't understand what made them all think that the apple of his eye was Chu Wanning. Could it be that they'd somehow figured out that he'd slept with Chu Wanning before and still wanted to sleep with him even now? Ridiculous! It wasn't like wanting to bed someone was the same as liking them!

For all that little Mo-xianjun was raving on the inside, filled with self-righteous indignation, in reality, he couldn't choke out even half a word. He could only stare dumbly as that pair of phoenix eyes slowly opened.

Ah, balls.

Mo Ran could almost hear the clunk of something in his head breaking.

A moment passed, and something seemed to ignite from the wreckage within his chest—along with a foul stench, black ashes, and a twisted kind of heat.

It was scalding hot. As if a fire-spitting dragon was suddenly soaring through the deathly stillness of this dark night, as if scorching lava and raging flames had burst out of the silent abyss. All of his premeditated reason and self-control burned up in the roaring blaze.

This was the last thing he could have anticipated.

Chu Wanning's eyes, usually piercing, were hazy with sleep, languid and dazed, like a bamboo forest after rain, every leaf and sound laden with dew.

If that look was anything to go by, something seemed to be controlling his mind. He sat up slowly, the fox fur slipping off his shoulder and revealing a large expanse of supple skin. He was completely naked beneath the fur, but his back and shoulder were covered in bruises, love bites in hues of red and blue—

How…could this be?

Mo Ran felt like he was going crazy. Who had done this? Who had done this kind of thing to his…to his…his shizun? This was Chu Wanning, after all…

Every bone in Mo Ran's body trembled with rage, and his blood screamed with hatred.

This was Chu Wanning! Who had touched this person who belonged to him?! This person was his—

Mo Ran was so overcome with hatred that he didn't even stop to consider that in this life, Chu Wanning didn't belong to him at all—that he didn't belong to anyone. All he saw was Chu Wanning's firm, well-proportioned body, and those unfamiliar marks on that all too familiar skin.

"Shizun!"

Mo Ran's voice was low and twisted, but Chu Wanning didn't seem to hear his hoarse cry at all. He lowered his lashes and, like a puppet on a string, leaned over Mo Ran. One hand rose to caress Mo Ran's face as their eyes locked for a moment. Then Chu Wanning closed his eyes and leaned in, those dewy lips capturing Mo Ran's in a kiss.

Rarely had Chu Wanning ever kissed Mo Ran first; at the touch, all the fields of Mo Ran's heart dried up, and breathtaking, frantic colors exploded before his eyes as his pulse hammered wildly, feverishly.

Chu Wanning's body was cool to the touch, but all the same, where their lips and teeth met, heat flared. Despite his jealous agony over Chu Wanning having been debased by another, Mo Ran couldn't resist being seduced by this familiar man. Pain and arousal mingled within him.

When they parted, Mo Ran was breathing hard. He opened his eyes only to see Chu Wanning, eyes glassy and skin flushed with desire. His blood raced, and he couldn't help but try to reach up and stroke Chu Wanning's face.

But he was still bound in chains and unable to move. Chu Wanning glanced at the shackles but said nothing. Instead, he rose to his knees and moved to straddle him. Mo Ran swallowed hard, throat moving—but then he noticed that with this movement, between Chu Wanning's long, shapely legs, an unmistakable stickiness slid slowly down his thighs…

Mo Ran saw red. His eyes snapped open and he tried to sit up with a jolt, but he was yanked back by the chains, which slammed him back down against the bed.

"Who…" He couldn't bear it anymore, and he roared like a caged beast, bereft of all reason. "Who the fuck did this to you?! I'll kill him! I'll kill him!"

He didn't care if it was Gouchen the Exalted or the Heavenly Emperor himself, whether it was a god or a demon or a ghost or even the fucking Buddha—he was Taxian-jun! Chu Wanning was Taxian-jun's! Even if he was currently trapped in this young body, he was still the Emperor of the Mortal Realm down to the very marrow of his bones! Who had dared touch his—forget his "shizun"—who had dared touch his person? His, Mo Weiyu's, Taxian-jun's person!

"Mo Ran!"

Someone seemed to be calling him.

But he was engulfed in the flames of rage, his senses muddled, hearing but not quite hearing.

"Mo Ran!"

He had to kill them all. Unforgivable. Where was Jiangui? Where had his spiritual powers gone? Why couldn't he summon Jiangui?! He was about to absolutely lose it.

An insufferable humiliation, a despicable transgression—an insufferable humiliation, a despicable transgression!

Who had dared to touch Chu Wanning? In his previous life, he'd dug out the eyes of anyone who presumed to so much as glance at Yuheng of the Night Sky one too many times. He'd even made them swallow their own eyeballs after gouging them out! And then, at night, he would hold Chu Wanning under himself and fuck him unto exhaustion. But in this life—

"Mo Weiyu!"

Just who was calling to him so persistently? That voice really was familiar. It was as if he had heard it somewhere before…

No, that wasn't it. It was as if he had heard it constantly before, everywhere, as if the owner of that voice had kept him company through so many years…

"Mo Weiyu, wake up! Have you lost your mind? What are you doing?!"

Mo Ran's eyes flew open. When he turned toward the source of the voice outside his cell, he saw pristine robes as white as snow, a pair of sharp eyes written with worry, and eyebrows tensely drawn together with an aura of killing intent. It was none other than Chu Wanning.

"Shizun?!" Mo Ran paled.

Then on the bed—

He whipped his head around and was nearly scared to death by the face mere inches from his own. This wasn't Chu Wanning at all! It was clearly a monster with a human body and a fox's face—a dead one!

And "dead" was neither an exaggeration nor hyperbole. It was literally dead.

The thing pressed against him, that had just been passionately making out with him mere moments ago, really was a corpse. The fox monster's eyes were empty, and its skin was pallid with not a hint of life.

Mo Ran almost retched thinking about how, while entranced by some illusion, he had just been kissing that thing. His face turned an interesting color and he cried out, "What's happening?!"

Outside the cell, Chu Wanning held a cursed talisman between two fingers. Seeing as the fox monster was no longer moving, Mo Ran guessed that Chu Wanning had probably used a spell to rip the talisman off of the fox corpse in the nick of time.

With a burst of spiritual energy, a stream of dark red blood bubbled forth from the talisman accompanied by bloodcurdling shrieks as the paper burned to ashes.

Chu Wanning opened his hand, and the scorched ashes slowly gathered in his palm to re-form as a jet-black chess piece.23 He stared at that chess piece, expression troubled.

"It really is the Zhenlong Chess Formation…" Chu Wanning muttered, before looking up and pinning Mo Ran with his gaze. "What food does Shi Mingjing usually make for you when you're sick? Tell me!"

"Huh? Uh…" Too much had happened in too short a span of time; Mo Ran's mind was in complete disarray. He could only say dumbly, "Wh-what are you asking about that for?"

"Just tell me!" Chu Wanning said harshly.

"Wontons?"

Only then did Chu Wanning's face relax, just slightly, though his brow was still furrowed. "Mo Ran, listen closely: That Gouchen is an imposter and is not the actual God of Weaponry. This person is adept at illusions and knows the Zhenlong Chess Formation, one of the three forbidden techniques. That's why I had to be careful, in case you were one of his illusions too."

Mo Ran was about to cry from indignation. "Why would I be tied up if I was an illusion?!"

Chu Wanning paused. "I'll get you out of there right away."

Mo Ran nodded frantically. "Oh yeah," he said, "Shizun, what about Shi Mei and Xue Meng?"

"Much like you, they also succumbed to the drugs in the wine and were locked up elsewhere." Seeing Mo Ran's expression, Chu Wanning added, "No need to worry; they're fine now. It's just that there was no way to tell what kind of dangers lay in wait in this prison, so I left them outside. You'll be able to see them once we get out of here."

As for the Zhenlong Chess Formation, Chu Wanning didn't explain further, nor did he need to. It was one of the three forbidden techniques of the cultivation world, which were as notorious as they were powerful.

As the name implied, the Zhenlong Chess Formation was a technique that used other beings as game pieces. The user maneuvered them at will like pieces in a game of chess. That user typically didn't appear in person on the field, but rather laid down a chessboard and manipulated their pawns from the shadows. In this way, they forced everything from living people to the ghosts of the departed, from beasts on land to birds in the skies, to serve at their beck and call. A living creature under the control of the Zhenlong Chess Formation was loyal to the user until death, and a dead creature would do their bidding until torn limb from limb.

However, the scope of the user's control depended on their spiritual strength. Newly deceased people and beasts were the easiest to manipulate, followed by those long dead, then live beasts. Finally, if the user had cultivated to the highest level, the technique allowed them to control living people.

Very few people in the world were capable of executing this highest tier of the Zhenlong Chess Formation, but by the time Mo Ran had named himself emperor, he'd perfected the technique. That year, when he faced off against Chu Wanning in a death match, he'd laid down a scroll a hundred feet long, a chessboard of splashed ink, and an army of strewn pieces.

In that battle, hundreds upon thousands of chess pieces had touched down simultaneously; winged beasts had blotted out the golden sun and dragons had burst out of the raging seas. Mo Ran had summoned endless beasts of both land and sky and commanded an army of countless living people. A scene like that was a rare sight even in hell.

This fox corpse was obviously something that had been controlled by the Zhenlong Chess Formation, supplemented by an additional layer of illusion magic.

Rumor had it that the fur of the Qingqiu fox clan's earliest ancestor had been divided into forty-nine pieces of varying sizes and made into magical artifacts. If one were to take someone's blood and drip it on the fox fur, then wrap that fur around something—anything at all, even a block of rotten wood—that thing would take on the appearance of that person's heart's desire.

The fur wrapped around this fox corpse was one such artifact. However, the magic only worked on the original owner of the blood; to anyone else, it would look as it always had.

It was a simple task to free Mo Ran. By the time Chu Wanning got him out of the cell, he had also more or less finished explaining everything to him.

What Mo Ran couldn't figure out was this: "Shizun, how did you know that Gouchen was a fake?"