Mo Ran looked to the direction that the voice came from only to see its source waddling unsteadily in a little jog from the stone steps of the residence.
It was a small child, three or four years old, a bamboo pinwheel in hand as he bounced toward Chu-gongzi. He was dressed simply, with a jade pendant hanging around his neck, along with a lock of entrusted name[4] for good fortune and a protection amulet of red silk, and looked every bit like the little shidi, just smaller.
"..." Now Mo Ran truly knew the reason those riders were gossiping.
He couldn't help muttering: "Shidi ah, you and Shizun are both from Lin'an,
and Shizun even has the Chu name. Do you think this Chu family from two hundred years ago might have been your ancestors, and that you two might be distant relatives...? Seems pretty likely to me." Chu Wanning said nothing, staring at the father and son.
He never knew his own origins, and didn't remember much of his childhood either.
Could this Chu-gongzi really be his ancestor...
He was still pondering when Mo Ran reached the front of the line.
Chu-gongzi was just about to hand Mo Ran a talisman when he looked up to see an unfamiliar face. He paused minutely before smiling gently: "Is it your first time here?" His voice was mellow and refined, a world apart from Chu Wanning's icecold severity.
"Uh... uh y-yeah." To be suddenly spoken to in such an open and friendly manner by someone who looked just like Shizun got Mo Ran feeling some kind of way, and he had to scramble for his bearings.
The governor gongzi smiled: "My name is Chu Xun, may I ask your name?" "M-my name is Mo, M-Mo Ran." "Where does Mo-gongzi hail from?" "R-really far, fr-from uh, Shu." Chu Xun-gongzi was gentle and amiable, but Mo Ran just couldn't shake the feeling that he could see right through him.
Chu Xun agreed with a smile: "That is indeed quite far." He paused, gaze shifting downwards to Chu Wanning, surprise showing on his refined features.
"And this is..." "My name is Xia Sini." Chu Wanning supplied.
Mo Ran pulled him closer and pat him on the head, forcing a smile: "This is my little brother."
Doesn't look like me, but looks just like you.
Maybe because there was an imminent battle and more pressing matters,
and Chu Xun didn't have time to dwell on it, or maybe because he was merely part of an illusion and couldn't react much to something that didn't belong in the illusion to start with. Whatever the case may be, he stared at Chu Wanning for a while with scrunched brows, then simply handed them each a talisman.
"You are our guests from afar, especially in these difficult times, so please accept these talismans. And if you have no other plans, then please stay for a couple of days." Mo Ran said: "I heard about it already, that gongzi intends to bring the people in the city to PuTuo? And what're the talismans for?" "These are spirit-quenching talismans." Chu Xun explained, "They can conceal the aura of the living when worn on the body." Mo Ran understood at once: "Ah, I get it. If the aura of the living is sealed,
then the ghosts won't be able to tell the living from the dead, that way even if we walk right past any ghosts, they'll just be too confused to do anything." Chu Xun smiled: "Precisely." Seeing that he was quite busy, Mo Ran didn't want to take up more of his time with questions, so he thanked Chu Xun-gongzi and pulled his little shidi along to the side.
The two of them found a spot by the wall to sit down. Mo Ran turned toward Chu Wanning to see his little shidi spacing out at that talisman, and asked:
"What are you thinking about?" "I was thinking that this is a solid plan." Chu Wanning said quietly, still deep in thought, "So then, just what happened, that they couldn't make it out in the end." "Is it not in the books?" Chu Wanning said: "This two hundred year old disaster is covered in the most detail in "The Lin'an Records" , and even that book only has a few lines of text about it." Mo Ran asked: "And what does it say?" "Lin'an was besieged, the situation therein unknown. By the time the resistance army broke through, corpses strewed the roads, and the vast majority of houses were empty. Of the approximately one hundred people of the governor's residence and the seven hundred and forty common people, none survived." "..." Mo Ran said, "Nothing about how they died?" "Nothing. Lin'an City was completely surrounded, and hardly anyone survived. The feathered tribe saved a few lucky survivors later on, but they rarely involved themselves in mortal matters, so they saw things differently from how we would. As far as they were concerned, the truth of what happened wasn't all that important, and even if they knew, they still wouldn't talk about it unless there was some particular need to." Chu Wanning paused before continuing: "But, since they're setting off in two days anyway, we'll find out what happened soon enough. In the meantime, we might as well walk around and see if we can find some clues." The two of them tucked their spirit-quenching talismans away for safekeeping, and were just getting up to leave when there was a sudden burst of footsteps, followed by a tug on Chu Wanning's sleeve.
"Little gege."
Chu Wanning turned around. It was the little gongzi who looked just like him;
he said in a small, childish voice: "Little gege, Papa said you two don't have anywhere to stay, so if you don't mind, you can stay with us tonight." "Um..." Chu Wanning and Mo Ran looked at each other.
Mo Ran asked: "Is that really okay? Your Papa is already so busy." "It's okay." The little guy grinned guilelessly, "There are lots of people with nowhere to go staying with us already, we're all living together. Papa keeps the ghosts away at night, so we don't have to be scared." He spoke with little pauses, not yet used to linking so many words together,
but the open sincerity was heartwarming.
Mo Ran said: "Okay, we'll be imposing on you tonight then. Thank you, little didi." "Hehe, no worries, no worries." Watching him bounce away, Mo Ran tugged on Chu Wanning's hand: "Hey,
really, I gotta say something." "I know what you want to say, so shut it." "Hahaha, you read my mind again?" Mo Ran ruffled his hair, grinning, "Once we get back to the Peak, I really gotta go ask Shizun about this. The two of you,
one looks like the dad, one looks like the son, there's no way you guys aren't related to Governor Chu." Chu Wanning: "...And so what, even if we do turn out to be related?" "Eh?" Chu Wanning looked mildly toward the father and son beneath the tree, then said without any expression: "It's all in the past anyway. They're all dead already." Then he turned and walked away.
Mo Ran stood rooted in place for a while before running after him, muttering:
"Oi, aren't you a little too young to be so despondent? Even if they're dead,
they're still your ancestors. If I was you, I'd definitely put up a shrine for them,
with a statue, nine feet tall, all gold, decked out in jewelry, and burn incense for them every year. I'm counting on my ancestors for protection, you know... hey,
hey hey, what're you walking so fast for!" While walking around the city, they noticed that every family was gathering straw and making fake straw men..
Upon asking about it, they were told that it was something Chu-Xun gongzi had asked for: everyone in the city, the young and the elderly alike, had to have a matching straw man in which to put a talisman with a drop of the person's blood, to substitute as a "fake puppet." It was the same idea as tossing meat-stuffed mantous into the river as offerings to a river deity that demanded human heads.
Some ghosts and deities were simply and fundamentally not that smart; any little trick could fool them, like that ghost mistress from before, with nothing but mud rattling around between the ears.
It seemed that Chu Xun had arranged for at least two layers of precautions for the citizens. The first was the spirit-quenching talismans, so that they won't be discovered by the ghosts while running away.
And the second was the straw puppets, which act as decoys to buy some time for their escape, so that the ghosts won't immediately notice everyone in the city suddenly gone and fly into a rage.
But this only made the haze in their hearts even heavier.
Just how did such a carefully crafted plan end up falling through?
They returned to the governor's residence filled with misgivings. It was already dark by then, and many families had brought bedding to stay the night inside the Shangqing barrier rather than returning to their homes.
The governor kept his gates open at night, with only some guards patrolling the premises.
By the time the two of them arrived, all the rooms of the residence were already filled, with at least three or four families huddled in each. There were people crowded everywhere, with hardly any room left to even stand.
In the end, they could only find a corridor to rest in. There was no bedding, of course, so Mo Ran padded the ground with some straw he had asked the guards for, picked Chu Wanning up, and put him on the makeshift pallet.
"You'll have to make do with this tonight." Chu Wanning said: "Looks comfortable enough." "Really?" Mo Ran laughed, "I thought so too." He flopped down next to Chu Wanning and stretched, then folded his arms behind his head and stared up at the wooden beams of the ceiling above.
"Shidi, take a look, those bird people aren't half bad at weaving illusions huh.
Even with the memories of a survivor as foundation, it's still really something for it to be so detailed that you can even see the texture of the wood on the ceiling." Chu Wanning said: "The feathered tribe are half-immortal, after all. Even if they're not all-powerful, they're still capable of some things that are beyond the abilities of mortals." "I guess so." Mo Ran blinked, then rolled to face Chu Wanning, propping his head up, "I can't sleep." "..." Chu Wanning glanced at him, "What do you want, a bedtime story?" He was being sarcastic, but Mo Ran's face was thick as the city walls,
laughing: "Yes please! I want the one about DongYong and the seven fairies." Chu Wanning hadn't expected him to take it seriously, and was taken aback for a moment before turning away in a huff: "You wish. How old are you already,
aren't you embarrassed." Mo Ran grinned: "It's only human to want the things we can't have, nothing to do with age. I never had anyone to tell me bedtime stories when I was small,
and I was always thinking about how nice it would be to have someone like that.
But that person never showed up, and then I grew up and stopped thinking about it. But, deep inside, I still want it." Chu Wanning: "..." "You didn't have anyone to tell you bedtime stories either, did you?" "Mm." "Haha, so you don't actually know how the story of DongYong and the seven fairies goes, right?" Chu Wanning: "...What's the point to those silly stories, anyway." "Just admit you don't know it, don't just write it off as a silly story. Else you're gonna grow up into a boring person like my Shizun, and everyone will avoid you." Chu Wanning, angrily: "Who cares if everyone avoids me. I'm going to sleep." And with that, he lay down and closed his eyes.
Mo Ran rolled around with laughter until he rolled over next to Chu Wanning.
Staring at his little shidi with his eyes closed, eyelashes long and dark, looking quite adorable, he couldn't help reaching out to pinch his cheek.
"Are you really asleep?" "I'm really asleep." "Haha." Mo Ran laughed, "Then you keep sleeping, and I'll tell you a bedtime story." "You know bedtime stories?" "Yup, just like how you can sleeptalk." Chu Wanning stopped talking.
Mo Ran lay next to him on the straw bed, their heads mere inches away. He cackled for a bit, but seeing that his shidi was pointedly ignoring him, he stopped being quite so boisterous after a while to look up at the ceiling instead, eyes still curved with mirth. The smell of the straw wafted over now and again,
accompanied by the quiet sounds of night.
"The story I'm about to tell you, I made it up myself. I envied those who had bedtime stories when I was young, but there was nothing for it, so every day I would tell myself stories while lying in bed. I'll tell you my favorite one, it's called 'Ox Eats Grass'."
Mini Theater [Bedtime Story]
Weiyu starts bedtime stories like this: A long long time ago, there was a child…
Chu Wanning starts stories like this: The path that takes you to destination could be not the common path. What story? I don't know how to. Recite sutra.
Xue Meng: No, no... pftt! Ok! Fine! I'll listen.
Xue Meng starts bedtime stories like this: Let me tell you, I am an excellent student. I've received a countless number of first places since my childhood.
Today I'll tell you how I won the 14th annual youth blade technique championship haha~ Shi Mei starts stories like this: … En… I'm not very good at telling stories, if it's bad, please don't mind it.
Ye Wangxi starts stories like this: You want to hear a story? Sure, let me go find a book, you can lie down first, tuck yourself into the blanket, don't catch a cold.
Mei Hanxue starts stories like this: Story? Okay, Eldest Shi-Xiong can tell you a kissy kissy story between two male tigers, or one male and one female.
Which version do you want?
[4] A lock-shaped jewelry worn around the neck like so. It's a tradition where parents take their one month-old child to cultivators or a temple to be given an "entrusted name" so that the child can receive the protection of the gods/buddha and won't die young and will have good fortunes. The lock represents locking the child to life, by the power of the gods/buddha.