Chapter 50: This Venerable One Likes You

As someone who cherishes weapons, this kind of scene made Chu Wanning so angry he couldn't even speak.

He saw a moron.

Under the flowering tree not too far away, Mo Ran summoned Jiangui. The size of a holy weapon could be changed at will; most people liked to make their weapon bigger and more impressive-looking, or at least keep its normal size as Chu Wanning did. But Mo Ran had turned Jiangui tiny, about the length and width of a cord for tying hair, its leaves miniscule; the dignified holy weapon looked absolutely pitiful.

People had different spiritual energies; Tianwen glowed golden when Chu Wanning poured his spiritual energy in, but Jiangui glowed scarlet.

So, leaves aside, Jiangui looked just like a red string of fate…...

"Shi Mei, tie this on your hand, I want to see if Jiangui has the same power as Tianwen, to coax the truth out of people." "Uh... you want to test it out on me?"   Mo Ran smiled: "Yup, cause I'm the closest with you, and I know you'd never lie to me."   Shi Mei was still hesitant: "That's true, but..." "Aiya, I won't ask anything tricky. If you don't believe me, let's pinky swear?" He said, sticking out his pinky.

Shi Mei didn't know whether to laugh or cry: "How old are you already, isn't that a little too childish?"   "C'mon, let's pinky swear, if it's fine at eight then it's fine at eighteen, eightyeight too, nothing childish about it." Mo Ran grabbed Shi Mei's right hand and pried his pinky out with a cheeky grin. Shi Mei, caught between getting mad and laughing at his antics, could only go along with it in the end.

But, unexpectedly, instead of hooking their pinkies together, Mo Ran grinned,

eyes becoming little crescents: "Jiangui, time to get to work." Jiangui zoomed faster than lightning, and in a flash had tied itself around Shi Mei's pinky, with its other end around Mo Ran's.

The handsome young man laughed like a sly fox that had schemed its way into ascension. He said happily, framed with dimples: "Congrats, you fell for it." Shi Mei really didn't know whether to laugh or cry: "You! …...Hurry and let go." "Later, later." Mo Ran grinned, "Just a couple of questions first." Truth be told, Mo Ran had been feeling uneasy ever since that episode at Jincheng Lake, when he got Ever-Yearning and Shi Mei wasn't able to open the box.

Even though Shi Mei was wearing gloves at the time and didn't directly touch the box, Mo Ran just couldn't shake his doubts. What's more, it was Chu Wanning who opened the box in the end.

Chu Wanning... how was it possible…...

So Mo Ran decided that the box must have been broken.

But he wanted to use Jiangui to confirm it, just to make sure.

He was absolutely certain in his feelings for Shi Mei, but he worried that maybe he didn't have the same weight in Shi Mei's heart. As for that confession at Jincheng Lake, he couldn't be sure that he didn't imagine it.

Shi Mei had a gentle temperament and was nice to everyone. Unlike that Chu Wanning, with a sullen face day-in day-out like everyone else owed him something, totally unlikeable.

Taxian-Jun may be a crude person, but when it came to his heart's desire, he would dwell on it for so long that he tripped over his own thoughts.

"First off." Mo Ran's heart was filled with anxiety, but he kept grinning and feigning casualness. He decided to toss out a couple of easy, non-consequential questions first as padding.

"What do you think of Xue Meng?" A prickling sting on his finger, and Shi Mei fessed up: "The young master is a good person, but he's too straightforward, sometimes intolerably tactless." Mo Ran burst out laughing, clapping in glee: "Eh? Even you can get fed up with him? Hahaha, understandable, he's way too annoying."   Shi Mei turned red: "...Don't be so loud, what if the young master hears."   "Ok ok ok." Mo Ran grinned, "But it makes me happy when you badmouth him." Shi Mei: "..." Mo Ran continued: "And what do you think of Shizun?"   "Shizun is good too, just his temper is a little..." Shi Mei seemed like he really didn't want to critique Chu Wanning, but he was bound by Jiangui, so he bit his lip for a while but still ended up having to say: "His temper is a little short."   "Haha, a little short? More like ridiculously short. Gets mad every other day and won't even admit to being mad, he's a bigger handful than the empress herself." Chu Wanning, standing in the corner: "......" Mo Ran wondered: "If you know about Shizun's bad temper, then why did you still pick him to study under?"   Shi Mei said: "Shizun is cold on the outside but actually kind on the inside.

I'm not as naturally gifted as others, but he never minds if I'm slow on the uptake. He said everyone deserves to learn, and since I'm no good at combat,

he taught me healing instead. H-he's truly very nice to me." Mo Ran, originally quite gleeful, grew quiet upon hearing this, the grin disappearing off his face.

A while passed before he said: "When has he ever been nice to you. All he did was teach you some techniques, maybe occasionally take care of you, that's only to be expected from any master."

"That's different——" Mo Ran grew annoyed, cheeks puffing out: "Anyway, he's not good to you!

Whatever he does for you, I can do it too!"   Shi Mei stopped talking.

In the awkward silence that followed, Mo Ran slowly quelled the flames in his heart. Seeing Shi Mei looking wordlessly downward filled him with guilt, and he quietly whispered: "Sorry." "It's alright." But a short moment later, Shi Mei suddenly said: "Once, some years ago, before you came to Sisheng Peak, I was walking along a path when it suddenly started storming." "I wasn't a disciple under Shizun yet at the time. I bumped into him while running in the rain. He was holding a red oil paper umbrella, and, seeing my pitiful state, offered to share it with me. I had heard of his cold reputation, so I was very nervous walking by his side." "And then?" Shi Mei wore a soft expression: "Then? Then we didn't speak a single word the whole way."   Mo Ran nodded: "He's such a stuffy person, what is there even to say to him."   "Yes." Shi Mei smiled a little, "Shizun doesn't talk much. But, when he walked me to the door and I turned to thank him, I saw that his right shoulder was completely drenched. I was walking to his left, and didn't get rained on at all." Mo Ran: "..."   "It was a small umbrella, really only big enough for one person, and he used most of it to cover me. I watched him walk away in the rain, and then, as soon as I got back to my room, I wrote a letter of intent asking him to accept me as disciple." "That's enough." Mo Ran suddenly said, "You're way too soft hearted, if you keep going, I'll feel like you're too pitiful."   Shi Mei said softly: "A-Ran, don't you feel like Shizun is the one who's pitiful?

He only has a small umbrella, because he's always alone, no one wants to walk with him. That's why, even if Shizun is a little strict with me sometimes, or scolds me a little much sometimes, I don't mind. Because I remember his drenched shoulder." Mo Ran said nothing, the tip of his nose a little red, his heart a little forlorn.

It was a hazy sort of forlorn feeling, and he wasn't even sure whom it was for.

"A-Ran, let me ask you something." "Mn, go ahead." "Do you dislike Shizun?" Mo Ran paused: "I..." "Or, in other words, you don't like him, right?"

For some reason, Shi Mei's usually gentle and serene gaze seemed somewhat sharp when he asked this. Mo Ran, caught off guard, found himself suddenly speechless.   In his daze, Mo Ran neither nodded nor shook his head. A long while passed before he forced a smile onto his face: "Aiya, aren't I supposed to be the one asking the questions here? Can't just let you turn it around on me like that!" Shi Mei didn't miss the fact that Mo Ran just dodged the question, but he didn't force the issue, smiling: "I was just wondering, don't take it to heart." "Mn." Mo Ran calmed his emotions and looked up through his lashes at Shi Mei's face, no less beautiful than the bright moon in the sky.

He had planned to ask Shi Mei if he liked himself for the third question, but the exchange just now left his heart heavy. Mo Ran was quiet for a bit, lips pressed together, before abruptly saying: "He's just my Shizun, nothing more than that. Liking or not is irrelevant."   Hearing these words where he stood in the shadows, Chu Wanning's eyelashes quivered slightly, like the wings of an injured butterfly.

Even though deep in his heart he already knew, to hear it confirmed like this still made his body feel so light it might float away, and his heart so heavy it might sink into the sea. Chu Wanning felt cold; maybe autumn had come early this year.

Mo Ran and Shi Mei were still talking in the distance. He closed his eyes, the light nausea that had been coming and going lately washing over him once again.

Suddenly feeling exhausted, he turned to leave.

But he had only taken a few steps when the autumn wind carried Mo Ran's voice faintly over. He stopped walking despite himself.

Mo Ran was asking Shi Mei his third question: "Well, you've given your thoughts on Xue Meng and Shizun, do me next." He tried to sound as nonchalant as he could, and very carefully, almost pathetically asked:

"Shi Mei, what do you think about me?" Shi Mei was quiet.

Jiangui indeed seemed to have the same interrogation ability as Tianwen.

Shi Mei refused to answer, so Jiangui's scarlet radiance grew brighter where it was wound tightly around Shi Mei's finger.

Shi Mei frowned a little: "Ow..." "Just say something." Mo Ran's heart ached for him, but this question had burrowed so deeply into his heart, this life and last, that it had practically become his personal demon, so he persisted, "What do you think of me?"   Shi Mei shook his head and closed his eyes, as if in a great deal of pain,

long lashes trembling and sweat gathering on his forehead.

"..." Mo Ran sighed, unable to bear hurting him like this, "Forget it..." He was just about to remove Jiangui when Shi Mei reached the limit of his endurance, and, face pale, said hoarsely: "I think you're...…great."   Mo Ran's eyes widened.

Shi Mei's face went from pale to red very quickly, as if vexed. He looked down, lashes lowered, and dared not look at Mo Ran.

Jiangui turned into specks of glimmering red light that fluttered like the petals of ravaged flowers back into Mo Ran's palm. With his head lowered, Mo Ran couldn't help letting out a quiet chuckle, and when he looked back up at Shi Mei,

his face was warm like the first bloom of spring.

There was a lazy smile in his voice, but his eyes were a little wet as he said:

"I'm glad, thank you. I think you're really great too. I already said it to you at Jincheng Lake, but since you don't remember any of it, I want to say it again.

You're really…...really so likeable." He didn't specify what kind of like, but Shi Mei still blushed all the way to his neck and couldn't find any words.

Mo Ran stared at him with deep inky eyes that shone with a clear, bright light, like an ocean filled with stars, like gentle waves in the night sky.

"I want to treat you right, I want to make you happy." Shi Mei wasn't dense, and Mo Ran's meaning was written clearly all over his expression. Shi Mei couldn't help but lower his head.

Mo Ran's heart quivered, and he raised his hand to stroke Shi Mei's hair. But before he could even get close, there was a sudden flash of sharp golden light,

and a lash of vine struck Mo Ran right on the face with an audible crack.

"Ah!" Feeling the sting, Mo Ran turned around in shock.

Chu Wanning stood in front of the walls, white with green eaves, pristine robes paler than snow and one hand held behind his back, staring coldly at them. Tianwen coiled on the ground like a hissing snake, willow leaves rustling,

golden light coursing along its length with the occasional spark.

Shi Mei, startled: "Shizun..." Mo Ran, holding his face: "Shizun."   So what if he was loathed, so what if he wasn't liked?

Another person might cry miserably, but Chu Wanning... cry? Ridiculous.

Of course he'd deliver a beating instead.

Chu Wanning's expression was frosty. He walked over slowly, voice frozen over: "Slacking off from training to chatter instead? Mo Weiyu, you think you're so impressive just because you got the last holy weapon? You think you're allpowerful and invincible now? Aren't you just so relaxed and carefree."   "Shizun, I was just..." Chu Wanning glared. Mo Ran shut up.

"Shi Mingjing, spar with me. Mo Weiyu." He paused, then said resentfully,

"Go practice. If you can't hold out for at least ten moves against me later, then go back and copy the book of meditation techniques three hundred times as punishment. Now get lost." Ten moves?

He might as well just go and start copying.