Chapter 22 – A Cup of Wine, Seemingly Drunk Yet Not
The wind lantern swayed, its light casting shifting shadows.
Shi Wuluo stood by the frame. The light from the burning white perilla seed oil passed through the kudzu gauze, casting the fine shadow of the bamboo ribs onto his cheek. He had been standing in the alley all along, separated by the coming and going crowd, his black and cyan robes blending into the dimness of the alley.
“If you keep staring, I’m going to start charging you.”
Chou Bodeng always spoke with a hint of laziness, making it difficult to tell if he was joking or angry.
Shi Wuluo was silent for a moment.
Chou Bodeng thought the man would hastily lower his gaze or look away, as he had the previous times. But instead, Shi Wuluo placed a hand in front of him. Chou Bodeng let out a soft “Eh?” as he saw Shi Wuluo’s hand, accustomed to gripping a saber, open to reveal several pieces of water jade lying quietly in his palm, glowing like moonlight.
“Witch Mountain Water Soul, will this do?” Shi Wuluo asked.
He actually took it seriously.
So his silence just now was because he was thinking about what to give me? And he ended up with Witch Mountain Water Soul?
The Record of Marvels states: South of Witch Mountain, the Boli River has its source, flowing south into the sea. Within it are Bo jades, and the purest, most flawless among them are called Water Souls. A single Water Soul could fetch at least ten thousand taels of gold at the Mountain Sea Pavilion, and it always had a price but no market. If he remembered correctly, Elder Jun was always complaining that the sect master was too stingy, causing him to “save for a hundred years without being able to afford even a piece of Water Soul.”
“If Elder Jun finds out, he’ll probably want to bang his head against a wall, won’t he?” Chou Bodeng’s expression was strange.
“Will this do?”
Shi Wuluo looked at him.
“It will.” Chou Bodeng tried to hold it in, but couldn’t, and laughed. “Go ahead and look.”
He unceremoniously scooped up all the Water Souls, tossing the priceless essence of water up and down as if they were marbles.
The song of praise from the people of Fu City’s festival, carried by the wind and music, drifted over in intermittent phrases, “…granting you great blessings… its depth is called joy…”
The light and shadow of the wind lantern danced in Shi Wuluo’s eyes, and there seemed to be a faint hint of a smile there as well. It was as if seeing Chou Bodeng happy had also tinged that thin layer of snow and still ice with a touch of warmth.
“Come on, I’ll treat you to a drink.”
Chou Bodeng whimsically tossed all the Water Souls into the air, and just as whimsically, made his decision.
Not long after the young man and the youth walked away side by side, A-Ren, dressed in her dark blue ritual robe, came looking for them. She stood opposite the empty lantern stand, looking left and right, but couldn’t find the person she was searching for.
“He was clearly here just now.”
A-Ren looked at the wall Chou Bodeng had just been leaning against, her delicate brows furrowing slightly. After becoming the City Diviner, the childishness in her features had vanished overnight. In addition to representing Fu City to toast the immortal elders, she had been overseeing the lanterns and crowds, managing the boisterous festival with perfect order.
“A-Ren! Forget it!” A drunken Lord Liu came over, patting his beer belly. “Stop looking! A man like Immortal Elder Chou is not someone you can afford to like, my girl!”
“What are you even talking about?” Liu Aren was exasperated. “It’s not that I like him.”
“If you don’t like him, why do you keep staring at him,” Lord Liu mumbled. “Your dad may be drunk, but he’s not blind…”
Before he could finish, Lord Liu fell to the ground with a thud. Liu Aren jumped in fright and quickly knelt to check on him, only to find him fast asleep.
Liu Aren shook her head and helped her father up.
“My girl, just forget it…”
“I really don’t like him,” Liu Aren said helplessly. As she led Lord Liu away, she glanced back at the spot where Chou Bodeng had been and said softly, “I just felt like he wasn’t very happy…”
At first, Liu Aren hadn’t noticed. The youth in red seemed so flamboyant, with a bold and fearless spirit. When the elders were nagging him with their advice, he was looking left and right for an escape route, listening with an air of total discomfort that made one want to secretly laugh. It wasn’t until later, when she inadvertently saw Chou Bodeng leaning against the wall, silently watching the crowd… as if he were separated from all the noise and excitement by an invisible pane of glass.
Why?
He clearly looked like a pampered noble, born with a silver spoon.
Liu Aren suddenly wanted to walk over and say something to him, to let him know that Fu City, this city, really liked him.
Please don’t be sad.
Unfortunately, a few drunks got too rowdy, and Liu Aren had to go and pull them away, preventing them from hugging the Divine Fu Tree and wiping their tears on it—what if they wiped their snot on it too?
When she looked back, Chou Bodeng was gone.
I hope someone is with him.
A-Ren prayed silently to the Divine Fu Tree.
***
A gray bird on the Divine Fu Tree flapped its wings impatiently, looking very irritable.
“Brother Bird, please don’t be offended! We didn’t mean to disturb you!”
Chou Bodeng shouted as he and Shi Wuluo made a few agile leaps through the canopy of the Fu tree, quickly making their escape.
The gray bird behind them angrily squawked, “Goo! Goo! Goo!“
It sounded a bit like “Go! Go! Go!”
One couldn’t blame the normally gentle gray bird for being so furious. It had painstakingly rebuilt its nest and was finally looking forward to some quality time with its wife, but then two lunatics showed up in the middle of the night to enjoy the cold wind on the treetop… Even birds with awakened intelligence have a sense of propriety and shame, you know?!
“You really picked a good spot.”
Chou Bodeng sat down on another Fu branch, genuinely praising Shi Wuluo.
Shi Wuluo came over silently, his pale face still wearing that cold, sharp expression, though it was betrayed by his faintly red ears.
Earlier, Chou Bodeng had said, “Come on, let’s drink,” and the two of them had indeed walked for a long time. The main reason was that most people’s idea of drinking was probably not as… fastidious as Chou Bodeng’s. He no longer insisted on the wine being some heavenly dew or star nectar, but he absolutely had to find a good spot. Not only did the wind have to be clear and the moon bright with no dust around, but it also had to be a place Young Master Chou himself deemed suitable—and as for what was suitable, that was entirely determined by his subjective feelings.
After searching and searching, Chou Bodeng couldn’t find a place himself and simply tossed the troublesome task to Shi Wuluo. So Shi Wuluo had brought him to the canopy of the Divine Fu Tree.
As a result, the angry gray bird flapped its wings, stirring up a great gust of wind that showered them with feathers and Fu leaves.
“Forget it.”
Chou Bodeng unsealed the wine jar, and the fragrance of millet and reeds brewed with water from the Reed River wafted over the rim.
Fu City had a river named the Reed River, which flowed through the city from northwest to southeast. In the river lived Silver Shad, which loved to chase falling leaves. The people of Fu City used its water to brew wine. The resulting wine was clear in color. Chou Bodeng lifted his sleeve with one hand and poured the wine with the other. The cold liquor fell into the cup like a sliver of moonlight. Shi Wuluo stood beside him, watching the Kui Dragon Bracelet on his wrist, and remembered the question with “only one correct answer.”
Shi Wuluo wasn’t sure if the answer he’d been thinking about these past few days was the right one.
But Chou Bodeng seemed to have already forgotten that day’s question, showing no intention of bringing it up again. Shi Wuluo hesitated, unsure how to begin.
Chou Bodeng handed him the filled cup, and Shi Wuluo took it.
“Before, I thought it didn’t understand anything.”
Chou Bodeng didn’t pour himself any wine. He swirled the jar, listening to the clear sound of the liquid, and gazed out at the city, speaking out of the blue.
The Fu branch they had hastily chosen was on the southern side of the wide canopy. It wasn’t as high as the center where the gray bird had nested, but the branch was very long, extending horizontally almost to the city wall. Sitting here, the miasma fog outside the city seemed very close. The silver light of the Fu tree, usually not very obvious within the city, became distinct, stretching along the crenelated city parapets to fight against the demons and monsters of the world.
“Later, I discovered it wasn’t that it didn’t understand anything.”
It was only after he woke up, buried under a deluge of silver Fu leaves, that he realized this.
The Divine Fu Tree was just a tree, but it knew who had saved it.
For the past few days, whether it was him, Zuo Yuesheng, Lu Jing, or Lou Jiang, whenever they went out, one or two silver Fu leaves would always twirl down and quietly land on their shoulders. Lu Jing would occasionally mutter, “Why did it fall on my shoulder again,” while smugly putting the Fu leaf away, saying he wanted to preserve the evidence of his handsome, tree-attracting charm.
Since it understood kindness and goodness, why couldn’t it understand evil and greed?
“So stupid.”
After saying this, Chou Bodeng found himself a bit amusing. Who could understand what he was talking about, rambling on like this? Just as he was about to change the subject, Shi Wuluo spoke up.
“Perhaps it understands everything. It just wanted to save this city.”
Shi Wuluo watched Chou Bodeng and spoke slowly.
It wasn’t that it didn’t know it would die after exhausting its life force. It wasn’t that it didn’t know the people of the city were just bait to kill it. It wasn’t that it didn’t know someone was waiting to take the last bit of its true spirit after it withered.
But it wanted to save this city, to save the hundred thousand people who worshipped and believed in it.
Chou Bodeng was silent for a while.
“Then it’s even stupider.”
He said softly.
A bright moon rose from behind the clouds, hanging high in a sky with only thirty-six stars, imprinting the distant shadow of the Mysterious Rabbit in Chou Bodeng’s pupils. Shi Wuluo watched him, not realizing that as he spoke, a silver Fu leaf had silently fallen into his cup. He drank the wine in one gulp.
When Chou Bodeng came back to his senses, he saw Shi Wuluo holding a Fu leaf in his mouth, unable to either spit it out or swallow it, and he burst into gleeful laughter.
These past few days, Chou Bodeng had encountered similar things whenever he wasn’t paying attention; he was almost numb to it.
While laughing, Chou Bodeng tossed the letter from the Mountain Sea Pavilion’s Master to Shi Wuluo.
Shi Wuluo put down his cup. As he caught the letter, his sleeve swept past, and the silver Fu leaf he was chewing on vanished. Chou Bodeng didn’t see clearly how he did it and curiously examined his sleeve, guessing whether he had swallowed the leaf or spat it out.
Shi Wuluo unfolded the letter.
The Master of the Mountain Sea Pavilion must have had a rare attack of “fatherly love,” forcing himself to praise his disappointing son at the end of the letter. He wrote a few lines like, “My son is dull, but his nature is pure and good. Traveling and touring with him, there is nothing that is not good,” and so on, tactfully expressing his hope that Chou Bodeng could befriend Zuo Yuesheng.
Shi Wuluo finished reading the letter, his gaze lingering on the last few sentences.
“So?” Chou Bodeng’s tone was full of a desire to stir up trouble. “Want me to help with the fight?”
The Hundred Clans would probably cough up blood in anger if they knew their grand southern expedition had been demoted to a mere “fight” in Chou Bodeng’s mouth.
“No need,” Shi Wuluo said.
Chou Bodeng raised an eyebrow, thinking he most likely knew why the Hundred Clans were launching a southern expedition.
These past few days, Zuo Yuesheng and Lu Jing, with nothing better to do, had made plenty of wild guesses. Zuo Yuesheng had asserted with conviction that it must be because the Witch Clan was preparing to formally step out of the Southern Borderlands—before this, Shi Wuluo was the only Great Shaman walking the Twelve Continents.
“Right.”
Chou Bodeng suddenly remembered that Zuo Yuesheng had mentioned the Hundred Clans once went so far as to part the Si River to kill Shi Wuluo, creating a thousand-mile flood like a natural disaster. Those people thought he would surely die and joyfully gathered for a celebratory banquet. After three rounds of wine, Shi Wuluo appeared at the feast, alone with his saber. All the members of the Hundred Clans who had participated in parting the river were slain that night; only the host, Bei Zhuqing, escaped.
“Why didn’t you kill that old geezer Bei Zhuqing back then?”
Chou Bodeng was a little curious.
He didn’t think Shi Wuluo was the type to hold back because of the Beizhu Clan’s power.
“Bei Zhu…?”
Shi Wuluo repeated slowly, a little hesitantly.
“Bei Zhuqing, descendant of the Taiyin God, the one in charge of opening the gorge pass when the Si River was parted,” Chou Bodeng reminded him. “Why did you let him go?” Although that fellow had actually been scared to death directly.
Shi Wuluo paused for a moment, seeming to recall.
“His wine was well-brewed.”
Shi Wuluo said softly, staring fixedly at Chou Bodeng.
Chou Bodeng suddenly felt something was off about him. He met his gaze for a while and realized that although the man was still sitting ramrod straight and showed no signs of drunkenness on his face, his silver-gray eyes were more vacant than ever before. He had even met his gaze for this long without hastily looking away.
“Are you drunk?”
Chou Bodeng asked hesitantly.
Shi Wuluo didn’t answer, just looked at him. Then he suddenly leaned forward, reached out, and pulled the wooden hairpin from his hair. As soon as the hairpin was removed, his raven hair fell like a waterfall.
“…”
Chou Bodeng was a little stunned.
Seriously? The guy who would spare someone’s life because their wine was good is actually a one-cup lightweight?
“It’s messy,” Shi Wuluo said slowly. “Don’t move.”
“Fine. But I’m warning you,” Chou Bodeng’s fingertips traced the rim of the wine jar, “acting drunk is one thing, but if you’re pretending, that’s unforgivable.”