The news that Yuheng Elder was being punished for breaking the rules spread as if it had sprouted a pair of wings; it didn't even take until the next morning, practically everyone in the sect found out that very night.
Two hundred strikes would probably beat an ordinary person to death. Even for a cultivator, it would still 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 could he possibly endure two hundred strikes?"
Xue Meng was so anxious he was just about to lose it. "My dad? That won't do, he's still not back from Taxue Palace yet; a message by bird won't arrive 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 this entire world was capable of that?
"Damn it, I'm gonna go after him right now." Xue Meng dashed off toward the Discipline Court in a hurry. He hadn't even entered the courtyard yet when he spotted a group of Jielu 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 Clearsky Hall stood open. Chu Wanning knelt inside with his back straight and eyes closed, not speaking a word. Jielu 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, 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, do not indulge in self-gratification. Under the rod, do you have any complaints?"
"No complaints."
Jielu Elder did not dare to go easy in the punishment. Ninety or so strikes and Chu Wanning's white robes were already soaked through with blood.
Xue Meng held Chu Wanning in the highest esteem. His eyes became 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 brows.
Jielu 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 his lips, but he still did not look up. "He's just being a noisy child, pay him no mind."
Jielu Elder sighed. "…Yuheng, is this truly necessary?"
"It can't be helped that my disciples are always being disobedient." Chu Wanning spoke mildly. "If I do not receive my due punishment today, how will I have the face to discipline anyone else in the future?"
"..."
"Please continue."
"Sigh…" Jielu Elder looked at Chu Wanning's pale, delicate neck, exposed above the open collars, drooping gently down like thin mist, and couldn't help but suggest, "Then 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…"
"Jielu, there is no need to say any more, continue."
The metal rod fell once again.
Even Xue Meng's voice became distorted. "Jielu Elder! Are you still not fucking stopping? Have you no regard for your young master? That's my Shizun you're hitting!! My Shizun!!!"
Jielu 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 to 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 still far below the elders. In the end, red faced, he could only choke out an obstinate——
"I'll tell my dad!!!"
Jielu Elder: "..."
Chu Wanning let out a nearly imperceptible sigh.
Ninety seven strikes. Ninety eight strikes. Ninety nine strikes. One hundred strikes…
Even the fabric became ripped from 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, and a barrier immediately split the space in two, blocking off the door and forcing Xue Meng back away several steps, falling to the ground.
Chu Wanning coughed blood, a pair of narrowed phoenix eyes harsh as lightning.
"Disgraceful. Go back where you came from!"
"Shizun!"
Chu Wanning said harshly, "Since when could Sisheng Peak's young master order Jielu Elder to bend the rules? Hurry and get lost!"
Xue Meng stared wide-eyed at him, a shimmer of wetness in his eyes.
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.
Only crawled up from the ground and dusted himself off with head lowered and teeth gritted, then knelt facing Clearsky Hall. "Shizun, this disciple was wrong."
Chu Wanning was still enduring the strikes, back held ramrod straight and never once bending, but his face was pale and there was a sheen of cold sweat on his forehead.
Xue Meng continued stubbornly, "But I'm not leaving. I'm going to keep Shizun company."
Saying so, 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 Shizun. If Mo Ran wasn't 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 Shizun were to slap him, the little quail would humbly turn the other cheek.
Alright, alright.
Brown-noser extraordinaire.
His heart felt contempt, but his mouth tasted sour[20] for some reason. Mo Ran glared at Xue Meng for a while, growing more agitated the longer he looked, thinking that he couldn't let him be the only one to show devotion.
Chu Wanning already didn't like him, with this trick that Xue Meng was pulling, wouldn't he be even more biased in the future?
So he knelt as well, next to Xue Meng.
"I'll keep Shizun company too."
Naturally, Shi Mei followed suit as well, and all three disciples knelt outside, waiting. The other elders' disciples, hearing the news, all found some excuse or another to come to the Discipline Court and watch the show.
"Heavens, how could it be Yuheng Elder…"
"I heard he beat up a common person in a fit of rage."
"Ah! So scary?"
"Shh, quiet, if Yuheng Elder hears you'll be next on the whipping block!"
Someone else: "But why is the young master kneeling?"
"Mo-gongzi too…"
Mo Ran was handsome and charming, and had earned the favor of countless female disciples in his daily life. Quite a few of the onlookers felt sorry for him, whispering, "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 some hundred times by Yuheng Elder…"
"......"
The two hundred strikes finished.
The barrier was finally withdrawn.
Xue Meng scurried up from the ground and stumbled frantically into Clearsky Hall. When he got close and saw Chu Wanning's condition, he let out a furious "AH" and turned to grab Jielu Elder by the collars, screaming, "You shitty old man! Don't you fucking know to at least hold back!!!"
"Xue Ziming." Chu Wanning's eyes were closed, blood-stained lips opening and closing, his voice hoarse but commanding.
"..."
Xue Meng's joints cracked audibly as he let Jielu Elder go and shoved him aside. Mo Ran arrived too at this moment, still smiling, thinking that Jielu Elder would have definitely held back on his strikes in consideration of Chu Wanning's status. But that smile froze abruptly on his face when he looked down at Chu Wanning's condition.
Had he seriously not told Jielu Elder about the injury on his shoulder?!
The majority of those two hundred strikes had landed unsparingly on that shoulder.
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 detestation washing over him.
He didn't know what exactly it was that he detested, 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 he crushed his dignity and defiled his purity. But Mo Ran couldn't stand Chu Wanning being bruised and scarred at the hands of another!
Maybe it was because he couldn't forget what happened in the previous lifetime, but Mo Ran subconsciously felt like this person belonged to him, for him to let live or let die, to be loathed or to be hated, all of that belonged to him.
He originally didn't mind Chu Wanning being punished, thinking that he was an elder so the two hundred strikes definitely wouldn't be with any real force.
Or at the very least, that the strikes would avoid the yet-unhealed wounds on his shoulder.
But Chu Wanning actually hadn't spoken up about it! He hadn't spoken up about it! What was this crazy person being so stubborn about? What was he forcing himself through all this for? What the fuck was this stupid idiot trying to prove?!?
Head a complete mess, Mo Ran lifted a hand to go support Chu Wanning, but Xue Meng had beat him to it and was already helping him up.
"..." Mo Ran's hand paused in mid air, then lowered back down after a while.
He watched them walking away, Xue Meng supporting Chu Wanning, an unknown feeling in his chest.
He wanted to follow, but couldn't move his feet.
Everything that had happened in the previous lifetime was in the past.
Now, Chu Wanning was only his Shizun.
None of the muddled, hateful, gentle entanglements between them had happened.
He shouldn't be having these thoughts. It didn't matter to him who Chu Wanning got hit by, who he was supported by, who he spent time with, or even if he got killed by someone. None of it had anything to do with him.
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 a bit of a mess.
He really, truly could not understand what it was that he felt right now.
Was it hate?