Chapter 59 – “Have You Pinched Enough?”
In the end, the small boat didn’t stop at any dock. Instead, Shi Wuluo stored it in his Mustard Seed Pouch, along with the boat full of miscellaneous items. Chou Bodeng watched him put it away without saying anything. Afterwards, the two of them walked along the black stone path of Zhunan City, wandering aimlessly.
The ancient alley was quiet, half-lit and half-dark.
Chou Bodeng’s little finger was hooked around a thin hemp rope, from which hung the square piece of Gold-Thread Fish meat wrapped in oiled paper. As he walked, the oiled paper package swung back and forth. The sunlight, filtering through the roof tiles, cast a hazy, warm glow on his hand and the edge of the oiled paper.
Shi Wuluo unknowingly slowed his pace, falling behind to watch that fingertip, as red as new jade… He suddenly remembered how Chou Bodeng had bitten his knuckle under the white moon.
Chou Bodeng suddenly turned back.
Shi Wuluo hastily averted his gaze, calmly looking straight ahead.
The lines of this person’s face had a natural coldness. The only thing that could easily betray his thoughts, his ears, happened to be in the sunlight, their redness a mere optical illusion.
“Staring for so long…”
Chou Bodeng simply turned around and walked backwards, meeting his gaze.
“What are you thinking about?”
No answer.
Chou Bodeng stared at him for a while. Those silver-gray eyes were as still as water. Finally, Chou Bodeng snorted with laughter, tossed the oiled paper package into his arms, and turned to walk away.
Footsteps followed.
“Is it okay for you to appear like this?” Chou Bodeng didn’t look at the person beside him, his fingers laced behind his head. “I don’t want a bunch of people popping up to fight and kill wherever we go.”
If he were to go to a high tower in Zhunan and shout, “Shi Wuluo, enemy of gods and ghosts, is here—”
The number of people who would swarm over, trying to kill him for a chance at instant wealth, would be in the tens of thousands, if not more.
“Mm. They don’t recognize me.”
The implication was that most who had seen him were already dead.
Chou Bodeng glanced at him sideways.
No wonder Zuo Yuesheng coveted this guy’s bounty so much, even compiling a statistical chart for Becoming the World’s Richest Overnight, Volume One. Yet, despite meeting him several times, he still hadn’t recognized him. It made sense. So many legends, yet none of them had a frontal description of what he looked like. The keywords were just one person and one saber, and they didn’t even know what kind of saber.
Not to mention, after he became famous for defeating the head of the Ten Shamans, the lone swordsman style became instantly popular throughout the world.
—Every swordsman wanted to bask in the glory of this ruthless man.
Chou Bodeng pondered for a moment.
Too many imitators actually protected the real one… Could this be the fan effect?
Chou Bodeng turned to face Shi Wuluo, studying his face, trying to place this lean, cold figure on a brightly lit stage. Below, a group of burly men dressed like demons and monsters would hold up light sticks and wave them vigorously, shouting hoarsely, “A Luo, A Luo, our role model,” and then, one, two, three, four, again…
“A Luo, A Luo, our role model!”
Chou Bodeng cleared his throat and shouted it out with conviction.
Shi Wuluo lowered his eyelashes to look at him, his expression bewildered, not knowing how to respond. Chou Bodeng, with his hands behind his back and a smile on his lips, deliberately waited without speaking.
After a moment, Shi Wuluo gently and earnestly corrected him, “You don’t need a role model.”
You don’t need a role model. No one is worthy of being your role model.
“As expected…”
He really did answer earnestly.
Chou Bodeng couldn’t hold it in any longer and burst out laughing, his body shaking so much he nearly crashed into the nearby wall.
Shi Wuluo reacted with incredible speed, grabbing his waist and pulling him back.
He was a head taller than Chou Bodeng. When he pulled him in, his warm breath fell like fine sand on his chest, feeling scorching hot even through his clothes. Chou Bodeng was already thin, and the waist under his fingers was shockingly slender… Shi Wuluo instinctively tightened his grip, wondering if he could really encircle it with just one hand.
His chin was suddenly bumped.
Chou Bodeng’s beautiful black eyes glared at him unkindly, his fair face faintly flushed in the sunlight. “Have you pinched enough?”
Shi Wuluo’s ears instantly burned.
This time, not even an optical illusion could save him…
Chou Bodeng slapped his hand away.
He turned and walked away.
Shi Wuluo, unusually embarrassed, hesitated for a moment before following at a distance.
The ancient alley was long, but the walls were not very high. Some green moss grew in the cracks of the stones. The sunlight slanted down, overlapping their shadows, one in front of the other, half on the ground and half on the wall.
Shi Wuluo turned his head and saw the shadow follow the person, passing over the moss-streaked gray wall, as if they were walking together through the years of dripping rain, where new moss was born and old moss silently faded.
Just walking on like this didn’t seem so bad.
Chou Bodeng stopped in his tracks.
“What’s wrong?” Shi Wuluo asked in a low voice.
Chou Bodeng turned his head with a blank expression. “Where does Zuo Yuesheng live?”
***
Zuo Yuesheng fanned himself with his collar with one hand and held a suona horn in the other, kicking open the door with great force.
The smell of alcohol hit him in the face.
“Hoo—hoo—hoo—”
Lu Jing was hugging a jar, sprawled on the floor, drooling and snoring, sleeping in a way that had nothing to do with a “dashing young master,” completely wasting his decent-looking face.
Zuo Yuesheng went to the nearby table and glanced at it.
The best Snow Xuan Paper was crumpled like a rag, the ink in the top-quality Boshan Inkstone had dried up, and the first-rate Purple-Hair Brush was frayed like a squirrel’s tail… Yet, compared to last night, only eleven words had been added to the paper, and they were, for fuck’s sake: Chapter Six, Wrist-Locked Bracelets, Love Sealed for Life.
Lu. Shi. Yi. You’ve outdone yourself!
Zuo Yuesheng was so angry he had to laugh!
Yesterday, in the alley of Red Railing Street, Lu Jing had sworn that he could write three or four chapters of Dream Return Order in one go. But as soon as he returned to the “Wuye Pavilion” arranged by the Mountain Sea Pavilion, this guy chewed on his brush for less than an incense stick’s time before he started making trouble… One moment, he said the stool was too low and uncomfortable, affecting his performance; the next, he said the paper and brush were too inferior, hindering his literary inspiration; then, he said he needed some good wine, as poets of old produced famous works while drinking alone…
For the sake of the senior sisters in the Literature Workshop’s proofreading department, who had praised the first few chapters of Dream Return Order that he had brought for printing, Zuo Yuesheng held his nose and believed his bullshit.
He changed the table and chairs, brought good wine and meat, and was finally kicked out when he wanted to supervise.
The reason was: Your breathing is affecting my train of thought.
“If I don’t write it, I’m a dog, alright?!” “What sixth chapter? Who are you looking down on? At least three chapters, okay?!” “If I procrastinate again, I’m not human!” “Trust me, trust me, just go, go”… Recalling Lu Jing’s solemn vows from last night, Zuo Yuesheng almost wanted to smash this guy’s head in with a hammer.
“Hoo—”
Lu Jing, hugging the wine jar, rolled over and ended up at Zuo Yuesheng’s feet.
Zuo Yuesheng took a deep breath, first stuffing two wads of cotton into his ears, then lifted the suona, brought it to Lu Jing’s head, and puffed out his cheeks—
“Wreeee—waaah—”
Lu Jing shot up like a carp.
“What the hell, are you mourning someone’s grave this early in the morning?!”
Lu Jing desperately covered his ears, but it was useless against the soul-stealing sound that rampaged through his head.
“Stop! Stop! Stop—”
Zuo Yuesheng ignored him, his cheeks puffing in and out, blowing with even more vigor, even managing to get a rhythm out of it.
No need for sobering soup or cold water, the hungover Lu Jing was blown into an unprecedented state of clarity. He scrambled up and rushed over with a ferocious expression to snatch the suona.
Zuo Yuesheng was prepared. While blowing away, he ran around the table, the sound of the suona rising and falling with him, more mind-numbing than a demonic incantation… If the Buddhist Sect’s Great Compassion Sutra had this kind of brainwashing power, why worry about not being able to save all the world’s beings!
“Fatty Zuo—”
Lu Jing chased him for three or four laps, his brain about to be blown out. He leaped forward, hugged his thigh, and roared like a tiger.
“Spare me! This humble one was wrong!!”
Zuo Yuesheng, who had been shameless for years, was for the first time given a taste of his own medicine. He was so shocked that he dropped the suona. “Damn! Lu Shiyi, you learn fast! This level of shamelessness is already at thirty percent of my own.”
Lu Jing was quick on the uptake, snatching the suona and promptly letting go of him. “Haven’t you heard what Young Master Chou said… something about… ‘after a three-day separation, one should be looked at with new eyes’.”
“New eyes, my ass.” Zuo Yuesheng rolled his eyes at the sky. “You’re just a case of ‘he who touches pitch shall be defiled’.”
Lu Jing glanced outside and saw many maids standing in the courtyard, watching the commotion. He quickly stood up, took a step, and slammed the door shut with a bang. “Damn it, fatty, you did that on purpose? Bringing so many people to watch?”
“Otherwise, how could it be called ‘treating the symptom’?” Zuo Yuesheng sneered coldly. “You’re the son of the Medicine Valley Master, and you don’t even understand this?”
“The one who can bring the dead back to life is my dad, not me.” Lu Jing turned around and saw Zuo Yuesheng holding his sheet of Xuan paper with a fake smile. He guiltily shrank back. “I can really explain…”
Unexpectedly, Zuo Yuesheng didn’t fly into a rage. Instead, he actually showed a friendly smile that made one feel “like bathing in a spring breeze.”
It was so friendly that Lu Jing turned and ran.
Zuo Yuesheng wrapped an arm around his neck and held him in a tight chokehold.
“Master, spare my life!” Lu Jing struggled desperately. “Let’s talk this out properly!”
Zuo Yuesheng, using his considerable weight, pressed him back down at the table. “I have two things to tell you, one is a small good thing, and one is a big good thing. Which do you want to hear first?”
Lu Jing was trembling, feeling that neither sounded like a good thing. “Let’s-let’s hear the small one first…”
“The good thing is, your Dream Return Order has already been sent to the Literature Workshop,” Zuo Yuesheng didn’t keep him in suspense. “All the senior sisters in the Literature Workshop’s story department have praised you highly, unanimously agreeing that you are a literary talent of extraordinary ability, a reclusive genius who has come to bless their leisure time…”
“Aiya, it’s just worldly fame, just fame!”
Lu Jing’s eyebrows danced with delight, just short of pulling out a folding fan.
Seeing him so smug, Zuo Yuesheng had an expression of “You’re so happy, so I can rest assured,” and with the greatest brotherly enthusiasm, he slapped his shoulder hard. “In less than three days, you’ll be famous throughout Zhunan! Congratulations! Young Master Lu, the great literary talent!”
“Just empty fame! Empty fame!” Lu Jing repeatedly clasped his hands in false modesty.
“Aiya, you don’t have to be so modest about this,” Zuo Yuesheng’s expression turned serious. “The last person to receive unanimous praise from the senior and junior sisters of the Mountain Sea Pavilion’s Literature Workshop’s story department, do you know how many years ago that was?”
“Um…” Lu Jing thought for a moment, trying to be modest. “A hundred years?”
“No!” Zuo Yuesheng shook his head vigorously.
“Two hundred?”
“Too few!”
Zuo Yuesheng held up one hand. “Five hundred years! A full five hundred years!”
“That-that’s impossible, right?” Lu Jing’s mouth was about to split to his ears, but he still had to pretend to be calm. “It must be the senior sisters of the Literature Workshop being too kind.”
“Then do you know who this person was?” Zuo Yuesheng was all smiles.
“Who?”
“Shen Shangqing, Mister Shen.”
Lu Jing was stunned. Why did that name sound so familiar… as if he had heard it somewhere… But Young Master Lu was an idler, and the places he frequented most were teahouses, taverns, and dens of pleasure. The names he could remember seemed to be… not very…
“Aiya, does it sound a bit familiar,” Zuo Yuesheng explained kindly. “It should sound familiar! It’s the guy who wrote The Twelve Romances under the pseudonym ‘Wuqing Si’. I remember back then, after the fourth chapter became popular throughout the Twelve Continents, this person feigned a serious illness and kept dragging out the fifth chapter…”
Lu Jing’s smile slowly faded.
He… seemed to remember what this widely circulated joke was about…
Zuo Yuesheng saw the change in his expression and continued with a smile, “And then? What happened next was the well-known story of ‘Shen Shangqing of North Xuan City fakes illness to avoid writing, Mo Lingyu of Wind Flower Valley captures him with a sword’.”
Lu Jing’s hand trembled slightly.
Yes, he remembered completely now why he remembered the name “Shen Shangqing”!
The Wind Flower Valley was composed entirely of women, whose temperaments were severely polarized. The gentle ones were like autumn water, the tempestuous ones like raging fire. Unfortunately, this Elder Mo Lingyu was of the raging fire variety, exploding at the slightest provocation… Anxiously waiting to see if the protagonist of The Twelve Romances would live or die after falling into danger, Elder Mo came out of seclusion, first went to Ghost Valley, spent three hundred thousand taels of gold on a divination to find the location of ‘Wuqing Si’, then crossed three continents to North Xuan City and kicked open Shen Shangqing’s door…
According to the great talent Shen’s neighbors, that day, wails like those of a “maiden being abducted” came from the courtyard.
Alas!
“Three hundred years, a full three hundred years, Shen Shangqing was dragged to a deserted island by the great Elder Mo to write in seclusion for a full three hundred years! Not only did he finish The Twelve Romances, but he also wrote Twenty Bridges on a Moonlit Night, and even published a book called A Hundred Years of Facing the Wall. When he was taken away, he was only at the Mind Illumination Stage. When he came out, he was almost at the Half-step Guardian Stage!”
“Lu Shiyi, the great literary talent! I think you have the potential to become the next great talent Shen Shangqing!” Zuo Yuesheng slapped Lu Jing’s shoulder hard. “Isn’t this a great thing?”
“Great, my ass!”
Lu Jing was so scared his soul was about to fly out of his head.
“Look! It’s a win-win-win. Not only is the book updated! You’ve earned money! Your cultivation has improved! You even have a wife! You’ve achieved fame and success, and if you work hard, you might even have both a son and a daughter. Isn’t this a great thing?” Zuo Yuesheng had a joyful expression and repeatedly clasped his hands. “Your brother here congratulates you in advance!”
“Get lost, get lost!”
Lu Jing was like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. He shot up and started pacing the room like a headless fly.
“Didn’t you tell me that using a pseudonym would be fine?! Fatty! You tricked me!”
Zuo Yuesheng pulled out a chair and sat down with an air of composure. “Yes, using a pseudonym means you won’t be hunted down by Young Master Chou, but… I never said that if you drag out the chapters, you won’t be hunted down by various female heroes. Lu Shiyi, oh Lu Shiyi, from now on, I won’t have to urge you to write… heheh!!”
He had a smug look on his face.
Lu Jing was dumbfounded, once again understanding what “no merchant is without deceit” and “the martial world is treacherous” meant.
“You… win!”
After a long while, Lu Jing squeezed out the words from between his teeth.
“Come, come, please—”
Zuo Yuesheng stood up with a smile, smoothed out the Xuan paper for him, ground the ink, and dipped the brush.
Lu Jing sat back down at the table with a look of deep resentment, chewing on his brush and staring at the paper before him as if it were a mortal enemy. He couldn’t bring himself to write for a long time.
Zuo Yuesheng was puzzled. “Lu Shiyi, weren’t you just clamoring yesterday that the main characters had given you material, that you could produce content? Why are you wilting again today?”
“You don’t know shit,” Lu Jing glared at him. “Do you understand what it means to speculate on a character’s psychology? If you don’t, then shut up.”
“…”
Zuo Yuesheng felt that this guy had been acting strange ever since he started writing this story.
Lu Jing buried his head and scribbled a few words, then suddenly seemed to remember something and turned around abruptly. “Yesterday, when Young Master Chou saw that person, do you remember the first thing he said?”
Zuo Yuesheng thought for a moment. “I think it was… ‘You’re here’?”
“Right!” Lu Jing slapped his thigh. “You heard it too, so I didn’t mishear. It was ‘You’re here,’ not ‘We meet again’ or something similar. This means the two of them probably arranged to meet at the Mountain Sea Pavilion long ago. Do you think… maybe they actually met in Ru City?”
Zuo Yuesheng thought for a moment. “We were trapped in an illusion array at the time, and Young Master Chou wasn’t with us… Hey, if you put it that way, it’s really possible.”
Lu Jing hesitated for a moment, then asked tentatively, “Then do you think… is it possible that…”
“Can you stop stammering when you talk?”
Zuo Yuesheng was impatient.
“I was thinking,” Lu Jing considered his words carefully, “could the sunrise in Ru City have something to do with that person? Zhou Ziyan wanted to kill Young Master Chou, was it actually the person behind him wanting to confirm this point?”
Zuo Yuesheng instinctively wanted to deny his guess. “The orbits of the sun and moon, for thousands of years, have only been controlled by the Kongsang Hundred Clans…”
“Don’t you find it strange?” Lu Jing interrupted him. “Your dad, and Elder Tao, their attitude towards Young Master Chou is abnormally respectful—including the people from the Taiyi Sect. Even if he’s the disciple of some grand ancestor of Taiyi, they don’t need to treat him with the etiquette of a grand ancestor, right? To put it bluntly, you and I are both second-generation heirs, don’t we know how second-generation heirs are treated?”
Zuo Yuesheng frowned and didn’t refute.
“If, and I’m just saying if…” Lu Jing clutched his hair, drawing on the rich experience of conspiracies and schemes he had gained from storybooks and plays, “if that person can really control the sun and moon, and he has an unusual relationship with Young Master Chou… Think about it, our immortal sects have been in a standoff with Kongsang for so long, and we’ve always been at a disadvantage—not counting those lunatics from Taiyi—isn’t it because the Kongsang Hundred Clans control the orbits of the sun and moon?”
“You mean,” Zuo Yuesheng thought for a moment, “our immortal sects want to use that person, through Young Master Chou, to contend with Kongsang—damn it, why does that make our immortal sects sound like some big… what was that word Chou Bodeng used?”
“Big villains.”
Lu Jing’s face was a little pale.
Clearly, he found this particularly hard to accept…
“You were just mulling over this yesterday?” Zuo Yuesheng asked sharply.
“A little bit.” Lu Jing scratched his hair again.
“If you keep pulling your hair, you’ll be able to go become a monk with that bald donkey Budu.” Zuo Yuesheng picked up half a jar of wine and tossed it to him. “This analysis is quite reasonable… However, I’m sure that’s not it.”
“Why?”
Lu Jing was a little unconvinced, thinking to himself, “This is the truth I’ve extracted from countless storybooks after a sleepless night. What gives you the confidence to deny it so decisively?”
“Because of Taiyi.” Zuo Yuesheng also picked up a jar of wine. “Those lunatics from the Taiyi Sect would absolutely not worship someone for such a stupid reason… If they wanted to go against Kongsang, they would definitely just go at it with their sabers themselves, right?”
Lu Jing was stunned, then suddenly had an epiphany.
That’s right! How could he forget what the Taiyi Sect was like? Of the thousands of lunatics in the world, the Taiyi Sect accounted for half… Would lunatics care about utilization, contention, or currying favor? Not a chance! They were more adept at picking up their swords and charging out of the mountains at the slightest disagreement.
“But, you mentioning this reminds me of something…” Zuo Yuesheng scratched his head. “You remember, right? Young Master Chou has no parents.”
“I remember. What about it?”
“I think I heard my old man say once that eighteen years ago, someone from the Taiyi Sect secretly went to the Southern Borderlands.”
“Eighteen years ago?” Lu Jing paused. “Isn’t Young Master Chou exactly eighteen? Are you saying he’s actually from the Witch Clan? Wait… damn!!!”
Witch Clan, Fu City, one person with one saber, fighting against the high gods of Heaven Beyond Heavens… In a flash of lightning, a terrifying inspiration, a horrifying connection flashed through Lu Jing’s mind.
“Are you saying…”
His face was pale, and he was trembling.
“That person might be, be, be…”
“Be what? Just say it already!” Zuo Yuesheng waited for a long time, but the rest of the sentence never came. “Have you started stuttering?”
“Is…”
Lu Jing took a deep breath.
Bang!
Zuo Yuesheng and Lu Jing were startled and whipped their heads around.
“Fatty Zuo, are you trying to build a maze in your house?” Blinding sunlight poured in. Chou Bodeng stood at the door, frowning. “All these twists and turns… Lu Shiyi, what’s with that expression?”
Lu Jing stared at the door in terror.
Zuo Yuesheng was also quite startled.
Because Young Master Chou hadn’t come back alone. Next to him was a certain handsome but frighteningly cold fellow… However, Zuo Yuesheng reacted quickly, taking a step forward to block the table—the Xuan paper with just the title written on it hadn’t been put away yet!
“Young Master Chou, you’re finally back! We were just about to go look for you! And this is…”
Zuo Yuesheng cursed Lu Jing in his heart for being so slow-witted this time, while desperately stalling for time.
Don’t-don’t ask—
Lu Jing screamed internally.
He watched as Chou Bodeng and the person behind him walked into the room together, watched as the door was closed, watched as the daylight was shut out…
Mother…
Your son has a bad feeling about this…
Lu Jing wept silently in his heart.
“Him?”
Chou Bodeng tilted his head to look at Shi Wuluo. Seeing no objection from him, he casually tossed out five words.
“Witch Clan, Shi Wuluo.”