At night, the two of them lay on the wide stone bed. Trying to pass the time while locked up was a task in and of itself—they had already trained and eaten,
and now there was nothing else to do.
Chu Wanning, calm and tranquil by nature, wasn't all that bothered, but Mo Ran paced this way and that in the constricted space of the cave, and time only seemed to crawl even slower.
"Ahh I'm so bored, so bored, what to do? What to do?" Chu Wanning, with his eyes closed: "Sleep." "But it's still so early." Mo Ran glanced at the hourglass and shook his head,
"Way too early." Chu Wanning ignored him.
Mo Ran rolled about on the bed, then suddenly scooted over and pulled his cheek.
"Shidi." "..." "Shidi~" "..." "SHIDI!!!!" Chu Wanning's eyes flew open angrily: "What do you want!" Mo Ran took his hands in his own and swung their joined hands back and forth shamelessly: "Play with me." "...Am I the shidi here, or you?" Chu Wanning wrenched his hands back,
beyond irate, "Who's gonna fool around with you!" Mo Ran smiled sweetly, truly and completely shameless: "You of course.
Who else is there?" Chu Wanning: "..." Mo Ran took off the narrow red cord holding his hair up, tied the ends together, and wove it around his fingers into a distinct pattern.
Despite his protests, Chu Wanning sat up after all, asking grumpily: "What is this? How do you play it?" "It's called cat's cradle. Mostly girls play it, not so much boys, but I grew up in an entertainment house full of girls, so I ended up learning it too." "..." "It's pretty fun actually, see, hook your finger around this string here... no not that finger, use your pinky, yeah, like that. Then take your thumb and forefinger and hook around these two strings here..." Mo Ran instructed slowly and patiently.
The candle flame crackled, casting its warm light on them, one big and one small, their heads lowered in concentration as they passed that loop of red string made from a hair tie back and forth, both their expressions slowly softening.
Chu Wanning held segments of the string taut between his fingers as he followed Mo Ran's instructions to weave a new pattern, but accidentally missed a string, so rather than turning into the new pattern when it exchanged hands,
the red string returned instead to its original shape of being just a simple loop.
He stared at it blankly, hands still held in mid air, face full of incomprehension as he muttered: "Why did it fall apart? What happened..." "Haha, you probably just missed a string again." "...Again." "No more, no more." Mo Ran laughed, "The same thing over and over gets boring, let's do something else." "No." Now it was Chu Wanning's turn to be displeased, "One more time." "..." They spent three days in the cave. Their fourth night there, and Mo Ran was busy making preparations to cook something delicious for Chu Wanning as usual. He had figured some things out during these last few days together; his little shidi truly was from the same place as Shizun, they even had the same exact tastes in food.
Tonight's delivery from the feathered tribe guard was a hen and a couple of mushrooms. Mo Ran planned to make chicken soup with mushrooms, then add in some of his handmade noodles, and it shouldn't taste too bad.
"Are we having chicken soup tonight?" "Mhm." Mo Ran answered, glancing to the side at Chu Wanning. The kid was a genius in the martial arts, yet simply couldn't get a grasp on cat's cradle. But he was also stubborn to a fault and would play around with a hair cord trying to figure it out every chance he got. Mo Ran couldn't help smiling at that mulish look of his.
Mo Ran said with a smile: "Feel free to play with it while I cook, but I'm afraid the soup's gonna finish stewing before you work it out." Chu Wanning let out a cold hmph, and paused before saying: "Is there any ginger left?" "Let me see... yep, there's plenty, they gave us a bunch yesterday." Chu Wanning sounded satisfied: "Put some in, it gets rid of the raw meat smell." Mo Ran stroked his chin: "Oh... and lemme guess, add some wolfberries too?" Chu Wanning's eyes brightened: "Do we have some?" "Pfft. Of course not, I was just thinking that your tastes really are just like Shizun's. He also likes ginger and wolfberries in his soup." "... You remember what he likes to eat?" "Haha, yup yup, I'm super clever." Mo Ran didn't feel like explaining, and it's not like he could talk about things like past lives with his little shidi anyway, so he rolled with it, "I'm a perfect model of a filial disciple following the standard of the Twenty Four Filial Exemplars, don't you know? It's just too bad that Shizun doesn't see my heartfelt sincerity." Mo Ran began cleaning the chicken as he talked absently, and thus completely missed Chu Wanning's expression. He plucked it and removed the innards with a quick, practiced hand, and was just about to boil the blood out when he heard little shidi say in a quiet voice: "He isn't necessarily unaware." "Wha?" Seeing Mo Ran look up, the tips of Chu Wanning's ears turned red. He turned away and cleared his throat: "I said, Yuheng Elder isn't necessarily unaware that you're good to him." "Oh, that. It doesn't really matter, I'm already used to it anyway. Even though I did wish, once, that he would be like other people's masters and ask after me sometimes, or that he'd occasionally know what I liked like how I know what he likes to eat. But that's all in the past now. When I first entered the sect, I was fooled by his pretty looks and thought he was a gentle person. Thinking back on it now is really... sigh, my esteemed Shizun is so illustrious and unapproachable, and busy on top too, how could I possibly dare to hope for his attention? Haha, ahahaha."
Chu Wanning was a little angry at his words at first, but then he thought about it, and although he was concerned about Mo Ran in their daily life, he did indeed always maintain a veneer of aloofness and distance; he hung his head wordlessly, anger turned into consternation instead. After a while, he hopped off the bed and walked quietly over to Mo Ran.
"What's up?" "You're always the one cooking. Today's is simple, so I'll cook for you instead." Mo Ran blinked, then smiled: "Where'd this come from? You're too short to even reach the stove, how are you gonna cook? Besides, I'm your shixiong,
since you've called me that, the least I can do is feed you." Chu Wanning carried a stool over and climbed onto it, then stared at him stubbornly without a word.
Mo Ran: "...Why are you glaring at me?" "I can reach the stove just fine." "..." "Yuheng Elder may not know what you like to eat, but I'm not heartless like him." Chu Wanning said expressionlessly, "Go take a break, I'll cook." And so Chu Wanning busied himself with dinner preparations, refusing to let Mo Ran help at all. There was an aura of menace and a concentrated ferocity in his eyes as he lifted the kitchen knife high into the air and brought it stiffly down on the poor chicken. Mo Ran almost couldn't bear to look.
Mo Ran tried to help, but even the little shidi's temper was just like Shizun,
and hated getting interrupted when he was concentrating on something. So in the end, Mo Ran could only scratch his head and wander off to go plop into bed.
Having finally put the chicken into the pot, Chu Wanning covered it with a clay lid and was just about to turn and say something to Mo Ran when he heard a quiet voice from the cave entrance.
"A-Ran, Xia-shidi, are you there?" As soon as he heard this voice, Mo Ran immediately jumped off the bed as if struck by lightning and dashed to the entrance. Through a gap between the brambles, the first person he saw was someone from the feathered tribe standing there coldly, but then he looked around and found Shi Mei behind her,
dressed in his usual whites and face full of worry. Mo Ran was ecstatic: "Shi Mei!
What... what are you doing here?" "I have something important to tell you." Shi Mei said, "Sect Leader received the report and rushed over to the Peach Blossom Springs at once, he's making negotiations with the feathered tribe as we speak. How have you been, are you being treated okay?" "I'm great, eating well drinking well and jumping around too." Mo Ran paused, then asked, "What about Shizun? Where is he?" "I heard he's still in seclusion and didn't come." "Oh..." Something flickered past Mo Ran's eyes, then he sighed and mumbled to himself, "It's fine if he didn't come... it's fine."
"But Xuanji Elder came to vouch for Xia-shidi." Shi Mei asked, "Is Xia-shidi already asleep?" Mo Ran: "No he's making soup. Shidi——come over here!" Chu Wanning put down the little bamboo fan he was using to fan the flames and walked over to the entrance. He looked at the two people outside,
expression not the least bit surprised, and said flatly: "What is it?" Shi Mei didn't even get a chance to speak before that feathered tribe person hmph'd and shot back: "What else could it be? People from your Sisheng Peak came. Your master says he'll vouch for you, and is meeting with our Great Immortal Lord right now." "...My master?" "Xuanji Elder." "Oh." Chu Wanning paused, face totally expressionless, "Good." The corner of the feathered tribe person's mouth twitched: "You two can come out. Everyone is already gathered at the Dewsip Pavilion waiting to hear your explanations." Chu Wanning turned to look at the chicken soup on the stove and said: "I'll pass. The soup isn't done cooking yet, I have to keep an eye on it. Mo Ran, you can speak for me." Hearing his words, the feathered tribe person thought him to be an immature, unreasonable child and smiled coldly, trying to scare him: "You'll miss your chance to defend yourself if you don't go. And if you get judged to be the murderer, there goes your head." But Chu Wanning wasn't even concerned, a face of indifference as he shot her a cold glance and turned to leave.
Shi Mei was about to call out after him, but Mo Ran shook his head with a smile: "Let him be, I'll go." "But Xuanji Elder came all this way, it would be rude to not greet him..." Before Mo Ran could say anything, Chu Wanning's voice came from afar:
"Mo-shixiong, please send shizun my regards." "..." Shi Mei had said it so quietly but it still got heard; feeling a little awkward, he cleared his throat and waited for the feathered tribe person to open the brambles covering the cave entrance, then immediately grabbed Mo Ran to leave.
Unexpectedly, Chu Wanning turned around just then and called: "Shixiong." "Did Shidi change his mind and want to come along after all?" Mo Ran smiled.
Chu Wanning's little hand waved in his sleeve: "Of course not. I just wanted to remind you to come back soon, or the soup will go cold." Mo Ran blinked and then laughed helplessly: "Alright, wait for me." "Mn." Chu Wanning said nothing else, watching Mo Ran walk away and disappear behind a corner before turning back around to attend to the soup.
The Dewsip Pavilion wasn't far from the lockup cave. On the way there, Shi Mei asked offhandedly: "A-Ran, you seem to have grown even closer with Xiashidi these days?" Mo Ran smiled: "Yeah, we went through a lot together. What, is Shi Mei jealous of a little kid?" "...Nonsense." "Hahaha, no need to worry, my favorite person is and will always be Shi Mei." "...Stop talking nonsense, I just feel like Xia-shidi is a little odd..." "Odd? Oh..." Mo Ran thought for a bit, then nodded, "I guess he is pretty odd." "You think so too?" "Yup." Mo Ran grinned, "He's such a little thing but talks just like an adult,
and his magicks are no joking matter either. Oh and, I haven't gotten a chance to tell you guys yet, but the stuff that happened in the illusion was even more bizarre. I think he might be a distant relative of our Shizun, you know." Shi Mei's eyes shifted slightly, and he asked: "Why do you say that?" "We saw someone in the illusion, the son of the Lin'an governor from two hundred years ago. His surname was also Chu, and looked just like Shizun, and his son also looked..." Just when he was getting to the important part, a sudden burst of loud cursing came from the front. He looked up just in time to see Xue Meng striding over with a thundercloud on his face, still cursing without stop: "Bastard! BEAST! SHAMELESS MUTT!"
Author's Notes:
Weiyu-er 🐟: Why hasn't Shizun's identity been revealed up till now? I want to let Shizun return to his adult form.
Meatbun: If he goes back to his adult form, can I still develop the plot properly? I locked you and him into a small, dark room; thankfully, he's still in the form of a little boy, otherwise, wouldn't I have to cook a fucking 10000-word meal [smut]? With this sort of performance, you still want to have sex? Dream on, trash.