57 Chapter 57: This Venerable One Listens to You Play the Guqin Once Again

Unexpectedly, although Chu Wanning's dumpling-wrapping

technique was clumsy, the finished product wasn't bad. The dumplings made

by his long fingers were adorably round as they were lined neatly on the

table.

All three disciples were dumbstruck.

"Shizun actually knows how to make dumplings…"

"Am I dreaming right now?"

Of course their hushed mutterings didn't escape Chu Wanning's ears.

He pressed his lips together, eyelashes fluttering imperceptibly, and even

though he was as expressionless as always, the tips of his ears turned a bit

pink.

Xue Meng couldn't resist asking, "Shizun, is this your first time making

dumplings?"

"Mn."

"Then how are you making them look so nice?"

"It's not so different from making automatons. You just fold a few

creases, there's nothing to it."

Mo Ran watched Chu Wanning from across the wooden table,

gradually becoming lost in thought. The only time he had ever seen Chu

Wanning cook in his last life had been after Shi Mei's passing. That day, Chu

Wanning had gone to the kitchen and slowly made the wontons that were Shi

Mei's specialty.

Before they could make it into the pot, they had been struck to the

ground by a Mo Ran who had lost his senses. The snowy wontons had rolled

across the floor.

Mo Ran had no recollection whatsoever as to whether those wontons

had been round or flat, well-made or deformed. The only thing he

remembered was the look on Chu Wanning's face, the way he had stared at

Mo Ran without a word with bits of flour still on his face, looking strangely

unfamiliar and somewhat uncomprehending, even a bit dumb…

Mo Ran had thought that his shizun would be angry, but in the end, Chu

Wanning said nothing. He only bent over and, with his head lowered, quietly

picked up the dirty wontons one by one, gathered them up, and tossed them in

the trash.

Just what had been going through Chu Wanning's mind at that time? Mo

Ran didn't know; he had never thought about it, never wanted to think about

it, and truthfully, hadn't dared to think about it.

The dumplings were all wrapped, and the little snowmen carried them

away to the kitchen to be boiled. In accordance with tradition, Chu Wanning

inserted a copper coin into one of them. Whoever got it would have good

luck.

It wasn't long before the snowmen brought back the cooked dumplings,

complete with spicy, sour dipping sauce in the wooden tray.

"Shizun, please go ahead first," said Xue Meng.

Chu Wanning did not decline. He picked up a dumpling with his

chopsticks and put it in his bowl. However, he didn't eat it and instead

picked up three more to give to Xue Meng, Mo Ran, and Shi Mei. "Happy

New Year," he said mildly.

The disciples were taken aback for a moment before they broke into

smiles. "Happy New Year, Shizun."

As it happened, on the very first dumpling, Mo Ran bit into the copper

coin with a crack. He was caught totally off guard and nearly broke a tooth.

Shi Mei laughed at the grimace on his face. "A-Ran, you'll have good

luck this year."

Xue Meng said only, "Tch, lucky bastard."

Mo Ran said, teary-eyed, "Thithun, you're a li'l too goo' at pickin'

dumplinth. I go' it on the ve'y firth one…"

Chu Wanning said, "Speak properly."

"I bi' my tongue."

Chu Wanning had absolutely no reply to that.

Mo Ran rubbed his cheek and took a sip of the tea Shi Mei offered

before the pain finally subsided a little, and he immediately began joking

around. "Ha ha, could it be that Shizun memorized which dumpling had the

copper coin and deliberately gave it to me?"

"You wish," Chu Wanning said coldly, then lowered his head and

started eating.

Mo Ran wasn't sure if he was seeing things, but under the warm light

of the candles, Chu Wanning's face seemed a little red.

After the dumplings, a sumptuous dinner prepared by the head chef

was brought out. Platefuls of meat and fish covered the entire table. Mengpo

Hall grew even livelier. From the seats of honor, Xue Zhengyong and Madam

Wang directed the little snowmen to deliver red packets to every group.

A little snowman bumped insistently against Chu Wanning's knee, the

stones that were its eyes rolling around as it stared at him.

Chu Wanning blinked. "Hm? Even I get one?" He accepted the red

packet and opened it to find several sheets of pricey gold leaf. A little lost

for words, he looked up at Xue Zhengyong only to see the carefree man

grinning back at him before he raised the cup of wine in his hand toward Chu

Wanning in a toast.

How silly. Then again, Xue Zhengyong was really…truly… Chu

Wanning stared at him for a while and, despite himself, a faint smile curved

the corners of his lips. He raised his own cup toward the sect leader in return

and downed it in one gulp.

Chu Wanning divided the golden leaves amongst his disciples. Three

rounds of drinks later, accompanied by nonstop performances on the stage,

the atmosphere at their table finally grew lively as well. This was mostly

because the three brats had grown less afraid of him. As for Chu Wanning,

he'd always been able to hold his alcohol.

"Shizun, Shizun, let me read your palm?" Xue Meng was the first to get

tipsy. He grabbed Chu Wanning's hand and held it in front of his eyes to

carefully examine. If not for the three cups of wine in his system, he never

would've dared to be so bold. "Your lifeline is long but disjointed, which

means your health isn't too good," Xue Meng mumbled. "You get sick

easily."

Mo Ran laughed. "That's pretty accurate."

Chu Wanning shot him a glare.

"A long and slender ring finger. Shizun has good fortune with money.

Three lines from a common point—the love line branches off at its tip to

merge down into the wisdom line, which typically indicates a willingness to

sacrifice for love…" Xue Meng stared at it blankly for a while before

whipping his head up. "Is that true?"

Face ashen, Chu Wanning hissed between gritted teeth, "Xue Ziming,

are you tired of being alive?"

But Xue Meng, too drunk to detect mortal danger, grinned sincerely

and kept right on looking. "Ah, and the love line forms an island shape," he

muttered. "Right beneath the ring finger, at that. Shizun, your taste in love is

dreadful… Absolutely abysmal…"

Chu Wanning had had enough. He ripped his hand away and brushed

his sleeve down to leave.

Mo Ran was about to die of laughter, doubled over holding his

stomach and cackling loudly, when he suddenly caught Chu Wanning's icy,

murderous gaze and forcibly swallowed his mirth. His ribs ached with the

effort.

"What're you laughing about?" Chu Wanning said furiously. "What's

so funny?"

He was about to storm off in a fit of pique when Xue Meng grabbed

his sleeve. In the next instant, laughter disappeared from Mo Ran's face as

Xue Meng pulled Chu Wanning down in a drunken daze and burrowed into

his arms. His forehead pressed into the folds of his shizun's robes, and his

arms wrapped around Chu Wanning's waist as he nuzzled affectionately.

"Shizun…" came the teenager's soft, velvety voice, complete with a

tinge of acting cute. "Don't goooo. Come, come, have another round, heh

heh."

Chu Wanning looked like he was going to choke. "Xue Ziming! Whwhat do you think you're doing? Let go!"

Right at that moment, the little snowmen from the stage suddenly

clacked over. It turned out that the Tanlang Elder's sword dance performance

was over, and it was now Chu Wanning's turn to put on a show.

Unfortunately, this also meant that all the eyes in the hall turned

collectively toward Chu Wanning just in time to see a drunken Xue Meng

clinging to the Yuheng Elder's waist and burrowing into his arms like a

spoiled child. The disciples were absolutely flabbergasted. One of them

even held their chopsticks upside down. All eyes staring unblinkingly at their

corner.

Chu Wanning was trapped in utter silence.

For a moment, the scene was incandescently awkward. The Yuheng

Elder could neither stand nor sit, locked stiffly in place by the way Xue

Meng clung on him.

A long while passed in silence before two dry, forced chuckles came

from Mo Ran's direction. "Come on, Xue Meng, still acting so spoiled at

your age?" He reached out and tried to drag him off. "Off you get, don't cling

to Shizun like that."

Xue Meng wasn't acting like a brat on purpose. In fact, if he still

remembered this when the alcohol wore off, he would probably slap himself

silly. At present, he was drunk beyond all reason, and Mo Ran had to pry and

pull for quite a while before he finally managed to rip his cousin off of Chu

Wanning.

"Sit. What number is this?"

Brows knitted, Xue Meng squinted at the single finger Mo Ran held

out. "Three."

Mo Ran stared at him in incredulous silence.

Shi Mei laughed and couldn't resist teasing him. "Who am I?"

Xue Meng rolled his eyes impatiently. "You're Shi Mei, duh."

"Then who am I?" Mo Ran asked.

Xue Meng glared at him for a while. "A dog."

Mo Ran was stunned for a long moment before he roared, "Xue

Ziming, I'm gonna make you eat those words!"

Suddenly, a Sisheng Peak disciple from the adjacent table—who was

either naturally courageous or whose inhibitions had also been taken by

alcohol—pointed at Chu Wanning and gleefully asked in a high-pitched

voice, "Hey, young master, look over there. Who's that?"

Xue Meng, an authentic lightweight, could no longer even sit up. He

slumped over the table, propped his cheek in one hand, and squinted at Chu

Wanning long and hard.

Chu Wanning stared back in silence. Xue Meng continued to squint.

Chu Wanning continued to stare. And Xue Meng continued to squint.

The deadlock lasted for a long while, but just when everyone thought

that Xue Meng was about to pass out drunk, he suddenly grinned widely and

tried to grab Chu Wanning's sleeve again. "Immortal-gege."

The words were clear and unmistakable. Every last one of the

disciples was left utterly unable to make a sound.

"Pfft."

There was no way to tell who started laughing first, but everyone soon

lost control and joined in. Even if Chu Wanning's face was dour and his fuse

was short, they figured that if everyone got in on the joke, then it wasn't like

he could pull out Tianwen and whip every single person in the room. And so

the lively Mengpo Hall roared with laughter, everyone chiming in over meat

and booze, adding to the chaos.

"Ha ha, Immortal-gege."

"The Yuheng Elder is so pretty that he really does look like an

immortal."

"He really does. To tell you the truth, I secretly wrote a line of poetry

about him once."

"Yeah? How'd it go?"

"The snow upon a thousand untrod mortal peaks / Would pale against

an inch of white upon the immortal's robes."

"Wow, when'd you think of that?"

"Not gonna lie, it was during one of his lectures on barriers."

"That's some guts you've got there, my brave fellow. You better make

sure the Yuheng Elder never finds out that you were staring at him and getting

all poetically inspired during his barrier lecture, or else the immortal's gonna

commit murder, and your line's gonna have to become 'The leaves upon a

thousand autumn trees / Would pale against a smear of red upon the

immortal's robes.'"

"So cruel!"

"Heh heh, just telling it like it is."

Chu Wanning's face spun through a roulette of colors before he finally

decided to fake composure and pretend to have heard nothing at all.

He was used to being revered from a distance, but this sudden

intimacy born of the festive atmosphere and the abundance of wine left him

unsure of how to respond. Faced with such a situation, he genuinely didn't

know how to react and could only force himself to fake a calm that he didn't

feel.

Yet the bloom of pink on his ears betrayed the frozen expression on his

handsome face.

Mo Ran noticed. He pressed his lips together and said nothing, but for

some reason, an explosion of irritating jealousy surged through his chest.

It wasn't that he couldn't acknowledge Chu Wanning's good looks, it

was only that, like everyone else, he knew well that Chu Wanning's beauty

was the sharp sort, like the edge of a blade, and that when he wasn't smiling,

he was cold as snow and frost, too forbidding to approach.

From his dim and narrow perspective, Chu Wanning was like a plate

of savory and aromatic crispy meat that had been placed into a filthy, broken

box. Mo Ran was the only person in the entire world who had opened the

box and been able to taste the deliciousness inside. He'd never had to worry

about someone else finding out about this delicacy and drooling over it.

But tonight, bathed in the warmth of the stove fire and tipsy from the

warmed wine, so many pairs of eyes were turned toward this box that had

once been of no interest to anyone.

Mo Ran suddenly felt nervous. He wanted to cover the box and chase

away the people salivating over his food like he'd swat away annoying flies.

Then he remembered that, in this life, the crispy meat didn't belong to

him. His hands were full of clear, translucent wontons; he had no time to

chase away the wolves drooling over another meal.

To the surprise of Mo Ran and his fellows, Chu Wanning had come

prepared with a New Year's performance just like the other elders: he would

play the guqin.

The disciples were starry-eyed, and someone whispered, "Who would

have thought that the Yuheng Elder knew how to play the guqin?"

"He's so good at it too. I nearly forgot to try the meat."

Mo Ran sat there quietly without a word. Xue Meng had fallen asleep

a while ago, his breaths deep and even from where he was sprawled on the

table. Mo Ran took the jar of wine by his hand and filled his own cup,

drinking from it as he listened while staring at the person on stage, lost in

thought.

The irritation in his chest grew worse. In his last life, Chu Wanning

hadn't played anything at the New Year's Eve feast. Very few people knew

how he looked when playing the guqin.

There had been a guqin made of paulownia wood in the courtyard

where Mo Ran had kept Chu Wanning prisoner. One day, maybe to vent his

frustrations, Chu Wanning had sat before it, closed his eyes, and played a

song.

The sound of the guqin had drifted through the air, attracting birds and

butterflies alike. When Mo Ran had returned, the sight that had greeted him

had been that of Chu Wanning's profile in the courtyard, indescribably lofty

and serene.

And just how had he treated him at that moment? Oh, right.

Mo Ran had pushed him down and fucked him next to the guqin,

violated this man who was as clear and cold as the light of the moon, right

there in the courtyard. Mo Ran had cared only about chasing his own

pleasure. He hadn't spared a single thought for Chu Wanning's pain and

discomfort. He had even disregarded the fact that it was winter, and his

shizun, who couldn't handle the chill, had laid there on the ice-cold

cobblestone with his robes torn off and been fucked until he couldn't take it

anymore and passed out.

Afterward, he had not fully recovered even after months of careful

tending.

At the time, Mo Ran had said in a chilly tone, "Chu Wanning, from

now on, you're forbidden from playing the guqin in front of others. Do you

have any idea? The way you look when playing is so…"

He'd pressed his lips together, but he had been unable to find the right

words, so he hadn't finished the sentence.

It's so what? It was self-evidently a serene, dignified look, but for

some reason, it was so alluring that it had destroyed every bit of Mo Ran's

self-control.

Chu Wanning had said nothing, his lips pale and eyes closed, the set of

his eyebrows stern.

Mo Ran raised a hand and hesitated for a second before touching the

tightly knitted space between Chu Wanning's brows. Taxian-jun's gestures

were almost gentle, but his voice was harsh and ruthless. "If you won't

listen, this venerable one will chain you to the bed, and then you won't be

able to do anything but sleep with him. Don't think this venerable one won't

do it."

And just how had Chu Wanning responded?

Mo Ran took another sip, watching the person on the stage, and

continued his melancholic recollection.

He couldn't be sure; maybe Chu Wanning had said nothing. Or maybe

he had opened his eyes and icily said: "Get the hell out."

He couldn't remember anymore. Not clearly. In that life, Mo Ran had

been entangled with Chu Wanning for so long that many things had become

blurred at the edges.

Eventually, like a beast, he had known only one thing: that Chu

Wanning was his. Even if he didn't care for Chu Wanning, he was still his to

sunder and to ruin. He'd have preferred to rip Chu Wanning apart with his

own hands—bite through his ribcage and tear out his organs like a beast—

than allow someone else to touch him.

Mo Ran wanted Chu Wanning's blood to course with his desire, his

bones to bear his curse, and his body to be filled with his passion.

Hadn't Chu Wanning always been so virtuous and untouchable? And in

the end, hadn't he still had to spread his legs for the world's most wicked

villain, on the bed of the most ruthless tyrant, and had his life taken by the

man's fiery weapon? Mo Ran had defiled him, made him filthy inside and

out, all over.

Clothes, once shredded, weren't so easy to put back on.

Mo Ran closed his eyes, knuckles white, heart hammering. Sunken

deep into his memories, he could no longer hear the lively merriment of New

Year's Eve festivities, nor the soothing sounds of Chu Wanning's guqin. All

that remained in his mind was a callous, crazed voice, swooping back from

the past and hovering like a vulture.

"Hell is too cold. Chu Wanning, I'll take you to the grave with me.

"That's right, you're a god. You're everyone's light—all of them. Xue

Meng, Mei Hanxue, and all the common people are just waiting for you to

shine on them. Chu-zongshi, how very saintly of you."

The voice laughed sweetly, laughed and laughed, until it suddenly

became cruel, like a soul split in half. "But what about me?!" it thundered.

"Have you ever shone on me?! Ever given me your warmth? All you've ever

given me were these scars on my body! How very saintly of you, Chu

Wanning!

"Your body is mine, and your life too. You want to be their fire, but I'll

take you to the grave with me. I'll make you shine on my dead body and

nothing else. I want you to rot with me.

"To live or to die, neither is your choice to make…"

Loud cheering and applause. Mo Ran's eyes flew open. His back was

drenched in a cold sweat.

The performance had ended, and the disciples were clapping

enthusiastically. Sitting in the crowd, Mo Ran felt his vision pulse and blur,

fading in and out. He watched Chu Wanning walk slowly down the wooden

steps, holding a guqin made of paulownia wood.

In that moment, for the very first time in this life, Mo Ran suddenly felt

that it was all so absurd. That his past self must have been mad. Chu Wanning

wasn't actually a bad guy… Why was he even…doing any of this?

Mo Ran swallowed, feeling the burn of the alcohol down his throat.

But he felt at no less of a loss, exhausted and confused, until finally he fell

into a drunken oblivion.