"Mo Ran? What happened?"
The beads of water kept dropping down Chu Wanning's smooth, jade-like feet. Similarly, the beads of sweat on Mo Ran's forehead kept falling down Mo Ran's face.
"I... I sprained my back. Wanning, don't worry about me. I will be fine in a bit."
How Mo Ran wished his back were really sprained. He did not dare to look up. He did not dare to stand up. Thanks to his imagination, a certain body part between his legs had already reared its ugly head again, demanding him to relieve his thirst. Mo Ran would rather die than have Chu Wanning find out that he was hard again. How perverted was it to develop desire for someone who was as innocent as his seven-year-old self??? The real Chu Wanning would skin him alive.
A pair of cold hands extended toward Mo Ran and touched his face without warning. Chu Wanning merely wanted to look at Mo Ran's face. Unfortunately, this innocent move caused Mo Ran to switch to fight-or-flight response.
"No...!" he shouted in panic, pushing the man in front of him away from him.
Chu Wanning widened his eyes in shock. He was not prepared to be shoved like that, so he quickly lost his balance. Once Mo Ran realized what he had done, it was too late. Chu Wanning slipped on the floor and was falling backward...
"WANNING!!!"
Mo Ran immediately lunged forward like a cheetah. He covered the back of Chu Wanning's head with one hand to prevent his head from hitting the floor. They ended up crashing against the floor together and both of them groaned from pain. A wave of relief flooded Mo Ran's body when he saw that Chu Wanning had his inner robe on. It was slightly in disarray due to the fall, revealing the half of his chest and a shoulder. Mo Ran cleared his throat, trying to disperse the heat that climbed up his cheek. The embarrassment quickly subsided when he looked at Chu Wanning's face.
Chu Wanning pressed his lips together. There were some droplets of tears sticking to his tender eyelashes. He had a trembling hand pressed against his lower stomach and whimpered, "Pain..."
Mo Ran's heart almost stopped on spot. He must have accidentally bumped against his shizun's stomach during the fall. Panic caused him to forget all sense of propriety. He lifted his half-naked shizun in his arms and carried him to the bed hastily. Chu Wanning curled up as soon as his body touched the soft mattress.
"Hurts..." he whined.
Mo Ran's heart was pounding like mad. What should he do? It was only the second day and he already hurt his shizun's recovering body! What if it has an adverse effect on the resurrection process???
Master Huaizui, I beg you. Please come back soon. Help my shizun.
Mo Ran reached out to rub at Chu Wanning's stomach but the latter unexpectedly slapped his hand away.
"No," Chu Wanning said with a glare.
Mo Ran turned beet-red and stammered, "I... I don't mean to... I just..."
Chu Wanning turned away from him and buried his face into the pillow. He was angry. Mo Ran looked at his back helplessly.
"Wanning, does it hurt so much? Do you want me to do anything for you? Please say something..."
Chu Wanning threw Mo Ran an aggrieved look. "Why did you push me?"
The Adam's apple at Mo Ran's throat bobbed up and down nervously. What was he supposed to answer? That he was horny and he didn't want Chu Wanning to notice? That he was trying to maintain the last shreds of sanity in his mind?
"I... I am sorry," Mo Ran sincerely apologized. "It was... uh, an accident."
Chu Wanning shot him a glare, clearly not believing a word he said.
"Alright. Alright, I was wrong. Please forgive me, Wanning."
Chu Wanning's gaze softened. "Okay," he said meekly.
Mo Ran pulled Chu Wanning into a hug and kissed his cheek. "Wanning is so good," he praised. And so easy to coax.
Chu Wanning's face turned slightly pink when hearing the compliment. He pressed a palm against Mo Ran's one cheek and kissed his other cheek wordlessly in return. Mo Ran grinned like an idiot because of this one kiss that was sweeter than a hundred lotus root pastries.
"Does it still hurt...?" Mo Ran asked, resisting the urge to touch Chu Wanning's stomach.
Chu Wanning shook his head. "Not anymore."
Mo Ran cupped Chu Wanning's face with both hands and smiled. "Then, Wanning, be good and get dressed properly first, okay? I will dry your hair for you."
If anyone were to enter the room at that time, they would find the scene rather eerie. There was Chu Wanning who was putting on his clothes layer by layer, while Mo Ran stood behind him with his head tilted backward and his eyes locked at a mysterious dot at the ceiling. Spiritual power poured continuously from his extended hands and dried Chu Wanning's long, inkjet-black hair slowly. Soft steam rose from Chu Wanning's head as the water evaporated. It was unclear why a similar wisp of steam also rose from the top of Mo Ran's head.
After Chu Wanning was properly clothed and dried, Mo Ran ran out of the room to grab a cultivation manual from Red Lotus Pavilion's library collection. He gave it to Chu Wanning to read while he took his bath. Chu Wanning obediently read the book while Mo Ran hastily drew his own bath, not bothering to warm the cold water at all before he jumped inside. While reading, Chu Wanning heard a weird sound coming from behind the room divider. It sounded almost as if Mo Ran was crying. As if someone was bullying him.
"Mo Ran, is everything alright?" Chu Wanning asked.
"Yes. I am fine."
Chu Wanning frowned. Mo Ran's voice was inexplicably hoarse. And he took an awfully long bath, too. Tired of waiting, Chu Wanning fell asleep while reading the cultivation manual. Almost two hours later, Mo Ran emerged from behind the room divider. He looked more exhausted than refreshed. For the first time in his life, he was glad that Chu Wanning fell asleep on him. He needed time to sort out the mess inside the bathtub.
Mo Ran took the wooden bathtub outside and hacked it into a stack of wooden plates before disposing of them. Then, he left for Wuchang City and bought a new bathtub for his shizun.
Chu Wanning did not wake up for the rest of the day. Mo Ran tidied up the bed-chamber before he lay on the bed and slept next to Chu Wanning. When he woke up the next morning, the spot next to him was empty. Mo Ran's drowsiness disappeared in an instant, replaced by dread.
"WANNING????" he shouted in fright. Mo Ran quickly ran outside to check the ponds. Chu Wanning was not standing at the edge of any pond. He was also not floating inside any pond. Instead, he was sitting in lotus position in the middle of the bamboo pavilion, immersed in deep meditation. Mo Ran exhaled out of relief. His shizun was only meditating. And wow. His shizun was meditating. He knew how to meditate at seven years old??? Mo Ran knew that he was rather late with his cultivation training, but he was sure that Xue Meng was not that advanced at seven years old.
As expected of Chu Wanning, even his childhood was spent in cultivation training... Master Huaizui sure was strict...
Mo Ran sat in front of Chu Wanning and gazed at his handsome face dreamily with his chin resting on top of his steepled hands. Had Chu Wanning always been this good-looking? His tender eyelashes cast a soft shadow over his fair skin. The pair of luscious lips were like blooming flower petals. The sharp eyebrows that used to be pulled tightly to the center were loose, giving him an air of peace and serenity. His long hair fell down his back in a lustrous stream and pooled at the floor. Mo Ran wondered if he should tie up his shizun's hair next, lest his hair got dirty quickly.
Submerged in his daydreams, Mo Ran almost got a heart attack when Chu Wanning suddenly opened his eyes and stared at him.
"...!!!"
Pressing a hand against his thumping chest, Mo Ran squeezed out a smile and greeted his shizun, "Good morning, Wanning. What's wrong?"
Chu Wanning frowned. He looked down at his hands in confusion.
"My spiritual power is gone. Why?"
Mo Ran's throat went dry. He could not tell his shizun that he died and his spiritual core broke, right? It would frighten him. After all he only retained memories of the first seven years in his life.
"Uh... Wanning just recovered," Mo Ran said with a coaxing smile. "You got hurt real bad recently, so... it will take a while before your cultivation returns."
Sadness filled Chu Wanning's eyes. He gave Mo Ran a pitiful gaze.
"Is that why I lost my memory? And where did my shizun go?"
"Master Huaizui is getting something to help you recover. He will come back soon," Mo Ran replied. "Until then, Wanning should just rest and not exhaust himself, alright?"
"Is that what Shizun instructs?"
"Yes."
Chu Wanning pressed his lips together in indignation. Unable to come to terms with the loss of his spiritual power, Chu Wanning rose to his feet and marched toward the Red Lotus Pavilion. Mo Ran hastily stood up and chased after him.
"Wanning, where are you going?"
"I will find a cure to my condition," the man in white announced. "Show me the place where you got the cultivation manual from, Mo Ran."
Mo Ran helplessly led Chu Wanning to his own library and let him scan through the available scrolls and manuals. While Chu Wanning sat on the library floor and read the whole day, Mo Ran went to Wuchang City to get his shizun something delicious to eat. Instead of buying ready-made dishes, he decided to cook for his shizun. Mo Ran thus bought vegetables, meat, potatoes, mushrooms, tofu, tofu sheets, clear-sheet noodles, and all other ingredients that belonged to a Gudong Pot. He took care to only pick stuffs that his shizun liked to eat. After he put everything down in Red Lotus Pavilion, he went to the Mengpo Hall to fetch some firewoods and a huge pot to prepare the soup in.
During the three years that he wandered all over the cultivation world to get rid of evil creatures, Mo Ran got used to cooking in the nature. Before long, he already finished making the soup. It was boiling gently, sending a fragrant smell that wafted into the air. Mo Ran loaded the ingredients that he bought onto plates and then went to get Chu Wanning so they could eat together.
Still sitting on the library floor, Chu Wanning was immersed in a cultivation manual that bore the title "Art of Meditation". He did not even look up when Mo Ran called him. Mo Ran thought that Chu Wanning's face looked somewhat red. He gingerly leaned in to see what it was that captured his shizun's attention entirely. The double-page contained a detailed description of an advanced meditation method, definitely something that would be beneficial to improve one's cultivation level in a later stage.
Against expectations, Chu Wanning was not looking at the complicated instruction at all. He was staring at the drawing that surrounded the serious text. It was an ugly drawing of two naked men that were pressed against each other in an intimate embrace.