(2) THIS VENERABLE ONE LIVES
"My heart has stilled, and my thoughts turned to ash / Yet unexpectedly, the light of spring shines through the cold night. / Could it be that the heavens pity the blade of grass in the secluded valley? / Yet I fear that the world is unpredictable and full only of hardship."
The warbling sound of a woman's clear voice wafted to his ears, the poetic verses cascading like pearls and jade, but all the sound did was make Mo Ran's head throb. The vein by his brow twitched madly.
"What's with all the noise?! Where'd this wailing banshee even come from?! Servants, kick this bitch off the mountain!"
Only after bellowing this did Mo Ran realize, with a start, that something wasn't right. Wasn't he supposed to be dead?
Hatred, cold, pain, and loneliness coalesced as a stabbing sensation in his chest. Mo Ran's eyes flew open.
Every memory of what had happened right before his death scattered like snow in the winds. He found himself lying on a bed; it wasn't his bed at Sisheng Peak, but a bed carved with a dragon and phoenix, the wood heavily fragrant. The worn bedding was colored pink and purple and embroidered with mandarin ducks— the kind of bed only found in a whorehouse.
Mo Ran froze. He knew where he was. This was the house of accommodation near Sisheng Peak. (This so-called "house of accommodation" just meant "some brothel"— come for the fun, no strings attached.)
In his youth, Mo Ran had gone through a period of debauchery during which he spent his nights at this exact establishment more often than not. But this place had been sold and converted into a wine shop long ago, when he was in his twenties. How, after dying, had he ended up here of all places?
Had he transgressed too terribly in life and wronged too many people, so much so that the King of the Underworld had punished him by making him reincarnate as a prostitute to take customers?
While Mo Ran's imagination ran wild, he casually turned over in bed. Unexpectedly, he came face-to-face with a slumbering person.
What the hell! Why was there a person next to him?! A man, at that, and a totally naked one to boot!
The man had an androgynous appearance with gentle, lovely features that were pleasing to the eye. Mo Ran kept his expression blank, but his heart was full of turmoil. He stared at that pretty boy's slumbering face for a while before it hit him.
Wasn't this the boy toy he'd doted on when he was young? Hadn't he been named... Rong San? Or was it Rong Jiu?
It didn't matter whether it had been San or Jiu; what mattered was that this prostitute had caught a sexually transmitted disease and died so many years ago that by now, even his bones had rotted away. Yet here he was, delicately curled by Mo Ran's side, neck and shoulders dotted all over with blue and purple love bites.
Mo Ran grimaced, lifted the quilt, and took a peek downward.
This Rong Jiu or San or whatever— he'd just call him Rong Jiu for now— this Rong Jiu's pretty little body was covered in rope burns, and his pale, tender thighs were still intricately bound with red rope.
Mo Ran stroked his chin. How interesting. Consider: this exquisite rope art, this skilled technique, this familiar scene... Wasn't this his own fucking handiwork?!
Being a cultivator, the concept of rebirth wasn't new to him, and he began to suspect that he had somehow gone back in time.
To confirm his suspicions, Mo Ran went to find a copper mirror.
The mirror was worn but in good enough condition to vaguely make out his appearance within it.
Mo Ran had been thirty-two when he died, but the face reflected in the mirror was rather young. It was a charming face that exuded a youthful audacity, and it looked no older than fifteen or sixteen.
There was no one else in the room. Thus, after much consideration, the once cruel ruler of the cultivation world, the Despot of Sichuan, Emperor of the Mortal Realm, and Lord of Sisheng Peak, Taxian-jun, Mo Ran himself, expressed his honest thoughts: "Fuck.." At this, the sleeping Rong Jiu was "fuck"—ed awake.
The pretty thing sat up languidly, thin quilt sliding off his shoulder to reveal an expanse of pale skin. He gathered his long, soft hair and, lifting his peach-blossom eyes smudged with red ink, yawned.
"Oh, Mo-gongzi, you're up early today."
Mo Ran did not respond. Way back when, he had indeed liked Rong Jiu's type: delicate and androgynous. But now the thirty-two-year-old Taxian-jun couldn't figure out what the hell he had been thinking when he found this kind of man attractive.
"Did you not sleep well last night? Nightmare?"
This venerable one fucking died— how's that for a nightmare?
Rong Jiu thought Mo Ran's continued silence was the symptom of a bad mood, so he slipped off the bed to stand before the carved window and wrapped his arms around Mo Ran from behind. "Mo-gongzi, pay attention to me," he sang coyly. "What are you spacing out for?"
Mo Ran's face turned blue at this embrace. He wanted nothing more than to rip this hussy off of himself and grant that fragile-looking face a couple dozen slaps, but he managed to suppress the
urge.
His head was still spinning with uncertainty about the whole situation. After all, if he really had been reborn, then he couldn't just beat up Rong Jiu out of the blue after spending the previous day being all lovey-dovey with him. That would make it seem like he'd lost his marbles. Definitely out of the question.
Mo Ran arranged his features to put on a pretense of forgetful-ness. "What day is it?"
Rong Jiu blinked at him, then smiled.
"The fourth of May."
"Thirty-third year?"
"That was last year. It's the thirty-fourth year now. They do say that great men tend to be forgetful; Mo-gongzi is no exception." The thirty-fourth year... The gears in Mo Ran's head turned rapidly. This was the year he would turn sixteen, and in which he had been identified as the leader of Sisheng Peak's long-lost nephew.
Overnight, he had gone from being a pathetic, bullied dog to a phoenix on the branch.
Then… had he really been reborn? Or was this just a hollow dream in death?
Rong Jiu smiled. "Mo-gongzi is so hungry, he doesn't even remember the date. Wait here a moment. I'll go fetch some food. How do fried youxuan pancakes sound?"
The newly reborn Mo Ran wasn't sure how to deal with all this yet, but he figured that things ought to be fine if he just followed the same approach as before. And so he thought back to his charismatic manner of those long-gone days and, suppressing his disgust, playfully pinched Rong Jiu's thigh. "Sounds delicious," he said.
"Bring a bowl of congee, too, and when you get back, I want you to feed me."
Rong Jiu pulled on some clothes and left, soon returning with a tray, atop which was balanced a bowl of pumpkin congee, two crispy youxuan pancakes, and a plate of appetizers.
Mo Ran happened to be a little hungry and was just about to dig into the pastries when Rong Jiu brushed his hand away. "Allow me to serve Gongzi."
RongJiu picked up a pancake and seated himself on Mo Ran's lap.
He wore nothing but a thin robe, and his smooth-skinned thighs spread wide open as he sat flush against Mo Ran. He even rubbed against him now and again, his intentions self-evident.
Mo Ran gazed at Rong Jiu's face for a long moment.
"What're you staring at me for?" Rong Jiu asked in mock-displeasure, thinking he was getting horny again. "The food's going to get cold."
Mo Ran was silent for another moment. As he recalled the "good deed" Rong Jiu had done him behind his back in his previous life-time, the corners of his lips curved into a sweet smile.
The great Taxian-jun had done plenty of gross things. There was nothing too gross for him so long as he felt like doing it. This right here would be just putting on a show— mere child's play.
Mo Ran casually leaned back against the chair and smiled. "Sit."
"I… I'm already sitting?"
"You know very well where I'm telling you to sit."
Rong Jiu blushed and sputtered. "Why the rush, Gongzi? Why not finish eating fir— ah!"
Before Rong Jiu could even finish his sentence, Mo Ran pulled him forward and pressed him back down. Rong Jiu's hands shook and knocked the bowl of congee to the floor. "Mo-gongzi," he managed between gasps, "the bowl…"
"Leave it."
"B-but you should still eat first… nngh.. ah…"
"Am I not eating right now?" Mo Ran held his waist, the lovely visage of Rong Jiu with his head flung back reflected in his pitch-black pupils.
In Mo Ran's previous lifetime, he'd liked to kiss those captivating red lips during these moments of intimacy. After all, Rong Jiu was pretty and knew just the right words to say. It would have been a lie to say that Mo Ran had never felt anything for him.
But now that Mo Ran knew what treacherous things those lips had done, he found them unbearably foul and had absolutely no interest in kissing them.
The thirty-two-year-old Mo Ran was different from the fifteen-year-old Mo Ran in many respects. For example, the fifteen-year-old him had still known gentleness in love and intimacy. However, the thirty-two-year-old him knew only violence.
After Mo Ran was done, he looked at Rong Jiu, passed out from getting fucked to within an inch of his life, with an undercurrent of something dark in his gaze. As he looked, his eyes curved faintly, carrying a hint of that sweet smile. He was incredibly good-looking when he smiled, his eyes a bold, rich black with, from certain angles, a sheen of arrogant purple. Still smiling, he dragged Rong Jiu onto the bed by his hair and casually picked up a shard of the broken bowl from the ground, which he held by Rong Jiu's face.
He'd always avenged every grievance done to him; this time would be no different.
As Mo Ran thought about how well he had taken care of Rong Jiu in his last lifetime, how he'd even thought about buying Rong Jiu's freedom, and how Rong Jiu had repaid him by scheming against him with others, his eyes couldn't help but curve more deeply into a smile, and he pressed the shard against Rong Ju's cheek.
This person's body was his livelihood. Without this face, he would have nothing. He would be forced to wander the streets like a dog, to crawl on the ground, be kicked, and suffer all kinds of spurning and abuse... Mo Ran was so delighted by this mere thought that even the disgust he felt from fucking Rong Jiu vanished like smoke.
His smile became even more lovely. His hand pressed down ever so lightly, and a thread of blood, captivatingly scarlet, seeped forth.
The unconscious Rong Jiu seemed to feel it and made a low, pained sound. With his tears clinging to his eyelashes, it made for quite a pitiful sight.
Mo Ran's hand jerked to a stop. A dear friend had come to mind.
Suddenly, he realized what he had just been about to do. It was a few dazed moments before finally, slowly, he lowered his hand.
He had done so much evil that it had become habitual. He'd even forgotten that he was now reborn.
At this moment, all those things had yet to happen. Irrevocable mistakes had not yet been committed, and that person… still lived.
There was no need to walk the same cruel path. He could do it over.
Mo Ran sat down, one foot propped on the bed, and absentmindedly toyed with the piece of broken porcelain in his hand.
Noticing a greasy pancake that still sat on the table, he grabbed it, peeled off the wax paper, and tore into it with his teeth, eating until crumbs flew everywhere and his lips grew shiny with grease.
Youxuan pancakes were a specialty of this brothel. They weren't that good— kind of flavorless actually, especially compared to the delicacies Mo Ran would taste in the future— but after this place went under, Mo Ran would never again get to eat one. However, in This moment, even after everything that had happened in the past, here he was, once more tasting this familiar flavor.
The unreal feeling of having been reborn lessened with every swallow. By the time he finished the pancake, his mind was finally clear of the stupor it had been in ever since he woke.
He really had been reborn. Everything hateful in his life, everything he couldn't take back, all of it, had not yet come to pass.
He had not yet killed his uncle and aunt, not yet razed seventy-two cities to the ground, not yet betrayed his teacher and ancestors, not yet gotten married, not yet...
No one had died yet.
Mo Ran savored the taste in his mouth, licking along his teeth and feeling the thread of joy in his chest balloon rapidly into a feverish excitement. He'd rebuked heaven and earth in his last life, experimenting with all three of the forbidden techniques of the mortal realm. He had mastered two of these three; only the last, Rebirth, had eluded him, despite his natural aptitude.
Unexpectedly, that which he had failed to obtain in life had, in death, fallen effortlessly into his lap.
All the distaste, the revulsion, the desolation, the loneliness, all of his complicated feelings from his previous life remained locked in his chest. The sight of the army marching on Sisheng Peak, the ten thousand fathoms of torch fire, was fresh in his mind.
At that time, he really hadn't wanted to live anymore. Everyone had said that his very existence cursed all who came close to him and that he was fated to die alone. Everyone had turned their backs on him. Toward the end, even Mo Ran himself had felt like the walking dead, apathetic and isolated.
He didn't know what and where things had gone wrong, for an irredeemably wicked person like himself to get the chance to redo everything after ending his own life.
Why destroy Rong Jiu's face over such a measly grudge from so long ago? Rong Jiu loved money. Mo Ran would just not pay him this time, and on top of that, he'd take some silver to teach him a lesson. As for Rong Jiu's life— he didn't want that burden just yet.
"I'm letting you off easy, Rong Jiu." Mo Ran said this with a smile and tossed the porcelain shard out the window.
He then proceeded to clear out Rong Jiu's jewels and valuables, tucking all of them into his pouch, before unhurriedly getting dressed and tidying himself up. Finally, he leisurely strolled out of the establishment.
Uncle, Aunt, Cousin Xue Meng, Shizun, and... Mo Ran's eyes softened at the thought of one last person. Shige, I'm coming.