If he didn't know Chu Wanning like the back of his hand, Mo Ran was afraid that he really might have been fooled by his serious demeanor and believed that nonsense.
Xia Sini was Chu Wanning's son?
Yeah right, he'd have to be dumb to fall for that!
But it's not like he could just brush Shizun off. So in the days that followed,
he simply played along with it, putting on a show like "oh gods" "so that's how it is" "I can't believe Shizun is actually a playboy" and other such.
He had to admit that it was an interesting time, even though he had no idea what Chu Wanning was up to.
So Mo Ran made a sport of it, poking playfully at Chu Wanning every so often. Like that time when they were stopping at a teahouse for a snack, and Mo Ran, cheek in hand, eyes bright and round, had clamored: "Shizun Shizun." Chu Wanning swallowed his tea before lifting his eyelashes to look evenly at him: "Mn?" "Why won't you acknowledge Xia-shidi as your child?" Chu Wanning replied: "It's not that I won't acknowledge him, it just isn't the right time yet." "Then when will it be the right time?" "That will depend on him." He had such an air of profoundness about him that Mo Ran's ribs hurt from holding in his laughter, even as he forced himself to put on his best pitying act:
"Poor Xia-shidi." Or that other time, as they were travelling side by side on horseback, when Mo Ran had reached up and snapped a willow branch while passing by. He was fresh out of distractions and bored out of his mind, so he clamored for Chu Wanning again.
"Shizun Shizun." "What is it?" "Can I ask you something?" Mo Ran was all smiles, "About Shiniang [Shizun's wife]... what kind of person is she? Is she pretty?" Chu Wanning choked, then hastily cleared his throat to cover it up.
"She's alright." "Eh? Just alright?" Mo Ran was shocked, "I was so sure that someone who could catch Shizun's eye would be devastatingly beautiful."
"..." Mo Ran steered his black horse closer to Chu Wanning's white one, and asked slyly: "Is Shizun still keeping in touch with Shiniang?" "...Keep in touch how?" Chu Wanning threw him a cold look and said darkly, "Your Shiniang is dead." They've barely just started and he's already offed his own wife? Mo Ran almost choked on spit: "D-dead? ...How did she die?" Chu Wanning, expressionlessly: "Birth complications." "..." Pfft hahahahaha.
If the situation wasn't like this, Mo Ran probably would've fallen off his horse from laughing too hard.
Of course Mo Ran wouldn't just let such an amusing subject go. The next day, he washed a pouchful of fresh, plump cherries before setting off, to entice Chu Wanning into talking with him some more on the way.
"Shizun, can I know who Shiniang was? What was her name?" Chu Wanning picked up a cherry and ate it with no discernible reaction, then said coldly: "She's already passed, what's the use in knowing her name." Mo Ran didn't miss a beat: "The sect leader has always taught us to be filial.
Even if Shiniang is no longer with us, I, as an disciple, should still remember her name, and go to pay my respects every Winter Solstice and QingMing." Chu Wanning kept eating his cherries, replying evenly: "No need. Your Shiniang wasn't a worldly person like that, and she never cared for the smell of incense." Mo Ran pursed his lips, rolling his eyes on the inside: it's obvious that you just couldn't make up a backstory for Shiniang on the fly, can't believe you'd just say she's unaffected and beyond common concerns with such a serious face.
But he kept smiling on the outside: "For Shiniang to be so refined, she must have been a cultivator too?" Chu Wanning paused, then picked up another cherry between snow-white fingertips and ate it at his leisure before answering: "Correct." Mo Ran blinked curiously: "Which sect was she from?" Chu Wanning estimated Xia Sini's age and quickly calculated in his head that he would've still been at LinYi at the time, so he said evenly: "Rufeng Sect." "Oh..." Mo Ran's eyebrows went up slightly. Chu Wanning caught a loophole with that one—Rufeng Sect had always favored their male disciples;
although the female disciples received the same teachings, they were never allowed the same opportunities to stand out and make a name for themselves. In fact, they never even left their names when out on missions, so even though the female cultivators of Rufeng Sect were no less accomplished, they were only known as "female cultivators of Rufeng Sect" out in the world, and none knew of their individual names. So Chu Wanning could make up whatever he felt like,
and there would be absolutely no way to check.
But Mo Ran wasn't one to just give up. He perked back up and persisted:
"Then when did Shizun and Shiniang meet? How did you two meet?"
"Er..."
Chu Wanning hesitated, not quite up to the task of making all that up on the spot, when his gaze fell on Mo Ran's bright sparkly eyes, and he suddenly realized that he didn't have to answer the question at all. He immediately pressed his lips together and, with a sweep of his sleeve, said coldly, "What are you doing prying into this master's personal matters?" With that, he urged his horse on, white robes disappearing into the distance and leaving Mo Ran in the dust.
The two of them roamed around for a couple of weeks, visiting the markets at numerous smaller sects and checking at every stall selling weapons and spiritual stones, but found absolutely nothing of note.
On this particular day, after Chu Wanning finished exchanging notes with Xue Zhengyong via haitang message, he and Mo Ran set off from the inn and headed toward the market at Guyue'ye to continue their investigation.
Guyue'ye was the foremost medicinal sect of the world, and the sect that Xue Meng's mother, Madam Wang, came from.
This sect was built on an island named "Rainbell[4] Isle"; it wasn't an actual island, but rather the back of an enormous tortoise. The tortoise was thousands of thousands years old and bound to the founder of the sect by blood pact,
carrying the entire sect on its back as it travelled the oceans and nourishing the flora of the isle with its unique spiritual energy.
The disciples of Guyue'ye have always been enigmatic and removed from the world. The sect rarely ever interacted with the outside; only on the first and fifteenth of each month would the tortoise dock at the YangZhou port so that other sects could board and purchase medicines, and merchants could peddle their weapons, spiritual stones, and other wares that aren't usually found on the island itself.
Yet the most famous attraction on Rainbell Isle wasn't Guyue'ye, but "Xuanyuan[5] Pavilion." Xuanyuan Pavilion was a subsidiary of Guyue'ye, and a well-known trading post.
They opened their doors twice per month, auctioning goods like Guyue'ye's top-grade medicines and rare treasures from various sellers. The merchandise often toed the line of permissibility in terms of the cultivation world's taboos, but no one was so bored as to make an enemy of Guyue'ye—after all, most of the medicines out there came from this sect. All things considered, Guyue'ye was no less powerful than the leading Rufeng Sect.
"Put your hood on, too many eyes here." More and more people were arriving at Rainbell Isle. Chu Wanning quietly reminded Mo Ran while tugging the hood of his own cloak lower.
Xuanyuan Pavilion's auction house had lavish private rooms for each of the great sects as a show of respect, but since this was where shady deals went down and stolen goods exchanged hands, cultivators generally kept their identities hidden so as to not attract any undue attentions or fatal misfortunes.
Mo Ran and Chu Wanning stepped into Xuanyuan Pavilion. The inside was split into three floors, with the center of the first floor occupied by a platform of white jade, shaped like a nine-petaled lotus flower and shrouded by nine layers of impenetrable defensive barriers—this was where the merchandise is displayed during auction.
With the white jade platform as center and extending into the four cardinal directions were rows of redwood benches, several hundred in all. These were the standard seats.
The second floor were private booths, each with a large window made of golden cedar and a curtain of silver moon silk that allowed those inside to see the outside clearly, but blocked sight from the outside in. These booths protected the privacy of the guests, but they were expensive—nine thousand gold per two hours.
Chu Wanning disliked crowding along with others, so he took out the gold pieces Xue Zhengyong had sent and didn't even hesitate.
The servants of Xuanyuan Pavilion that attended to the guests all had death pacts with the master of the pavilion, and would never leak any of the guests' personal information. But even so, Chu Wanning remained wary. He booked the booth with the best view and had the servant bring two pots of snowy fragrance tea, eight pieces each of fresh and candied fruit, four pastries and four sweets,
and then sent the servant away.
With only Mo Ran and himself left in the room, Chu Wanning finally lowered his hood as he stood by the window looking down at the masses of people below.
"According to the sect leader, Xuanyuan is going to be auctioning off a weapon named Guilai [To Return]." "Guilai?" Mo Ran shook his head, "Never heard of it." "It's a holy weapon." Mo Ran started: "A holy weapon? But didn't Jincheng Lake already——" "I know. But supposedly this Guilai was found in a nameless grave at the Jun Mountain. Its master probably didn't have any heirs to pass it to, and so had it buried with him." "...I see." But a holy weapon took as master only the one who named it, and, upon his death, would then accept his heirs. Even if someone else were to get their hands on the holy weapon, they wouldn't be able to draw out even a tiny fraction of its true power. As far as Mo Ran was concerned, there wasn't much point to buying a weapon like that.
Seeing through his thoughts, Chu Wanning said: "It's true that a holy weapon that does not acknowledge its user as master will not display its true power, but even then, it's still many times stronger than normal weapons. These people will definitely go all out." Mo Ran grasped the situation: "I understand Shizun's meaning now. Most people go their whole lives without even seeing a holy weapon. Since this 'Guilai' was found in a nameless grave, and an ages old one at that, everyone here will more likely than not draw out their own spiritual energy to test it, on the off chance they happen to be a descendent of its original master. There's no harm to trying, after all." "Precisely." Mo Ran continued contemplatively: "Holy weapons are rarely even seen, but one without a master just so happens to pop up for sale right at this juncture? No matter how you look at it, this has got to be that fake Gouchen's work, bringing out a high quality fake to bait everyone into release their spiritual energies so that he can see if anyone here has the spiritual essence he's looking for." Chu Wanning sat down in a cushioned chair, poured himself a cup of snowy fragrance, and leisurely drank it. Then he looked at the swarm of people below and said in a quiet voice: "It's exactly as you said. But regardless of whether the holy weapon is real or whether it's part of the fake Gouchen's scheme, it can't hurt to check it out." Just then, there was a ruckus down below.
Chu Wanning and Mo Ran peered downwards, and were both a little bewildered—— Xuanyuan Pavilion's golden gates stood wide open, and two rows of bluerobed young men with their hair done up in jade crowns were striding openly through the crowd of cloaked cultivators with their faces hidden under hoods.
The one in the lead was slender and handsome, not bothering with any form of concealment as he strolled right into the black market.
Mo Ran uttered, surprised: "Ye Wangxi?"
Author's Notes:
Mini-theatre
Xue Meng: Ancient black iron sabre. (Zhang Qiling, are you going to leave!!) Shi Mei: Black...
Meatbun: Shut up!!
Shi Mei: Black wok stain remover, I wasn't done talking.
Meatbun: ...Oh.
Mei Hanxue: Are beauties for sale? Since the olden times, the black market has always sold beauties of all kinds, I want all the exquisite ones, so I can bring them back to the palace as ornaments on display.
Ye Wangxi (kicking the door down): ....All against the wall, and squat down. Police.
[4] 霖 Lin rain, 铃 Ling bell
[5] 轩辕 Xuanyuan name of the Yellow Emperor, a legendary sovereign