Mo Ran smiled helplessly. “All right, all right. I figured it’d be like that. I won’t complain too much as long as you feed me.”
“Of course we shall do so.” She paused. “Henceforth, everyone, please be on your guard to prevent any further accidents. Anyone who did not arrive here with due swiftness will be questioned one by one to eliminate suspicions. Furthermore, I will be informing the leaders of each sect, especially Sisheng Peak, which is most heavily involved. If possible, I would like to invite your shizun here for a chat.”
At this, Mo Ran’s expression instantly changed. “Shizun?!”
Chu Wanning stood quietly without a word.
“I don’t want Shizun to come! Will my uncle do?”
“Issues involving a disciple shall be reported to their master. This has always been the rule in the cultivation world. Is it different at Sisheng Peak?”
“No, but…” Mo Ran scratched his head in frustration, letting out one sigh after another, but he didn’t know what to say.
Issues involving a disciple shall be reported to their master—of course that made sense. However, the mere thought of Chu Wanning’s indifferent face and his crisp, cold eyes… It made Mo Ran certain that if his shizun were to come, he would doubtless give Mo Ran a dressing-down first and foremost, regardless of who was in the right and who in the wrong. Mo Ran would prefer not to see him at all.
In the end, no matter what he said, there was nothing he could do. Both he and his little shidi got locked up.
The prison at Peach Blossom Springs was a cave, not very big but also not too small, and its entrance was covered by ancient brambles that only obeyed the commands of the feathered tribe. The interior never saw the light of day, but thankfully there was a firepit with enchanted flames that burned continuously.
The furnishings inside were simple: a wide, plain bed of stone padded with golden-red cushions made of woven feathers, a stone table and four stone stools, one copper mirror, and a couple sets of bowls and cups. Mo Ran and Chu Wanning were imprisoned there together.
Although judgment had yet to be passed, the one in charge of them seemed to have been close with Eighteen. As Eighteen had lost her life for no apparent reason, the feathered tribe guard took it out on them by making their lives more difficult.
On the first night, the guard deigned to deliver some food; it wasn’t great or much, but there was enough to eat. However by the second day, she brought only some raw meat, vegetables, rice, flour, and salt, which she tossed casually into the cave along with a few words about not having the time to take care of their meals and how they should sort it out themselves.
“Fine, we will sort it out ourselves, then. It’s just cooking. What’s so hard about that?” Mo Ran muttered huffily where he was crouched on the ground, picking out the usable ingredients. “What does shidi want to eat?”
“Whatever.”
Mo Ran sighed. “There’s no dish more difficult to cook than the one called ‘Whatever.’ Let’s see here, we have pork belly, napa cabbage… Tsk, this bird sure is stingy, it’s only the outer layers of the cabbage. There’s quite a bit of rice and flour, but I’m not sure how many days this is supposed to last us.” He muttered while counting the ingredients, then looked up at Chu Wanning. “Do you want rice or noodles?”
Chu Wanning was resting on the bed, tummy-down. He thought about it, then said, “Noodles.” A pause, then he added: “Soup noodles with spareribs.”
“Ah ha ha, where am I gonna get spareribs?”
“Then whatever’s fine.”
Mo Ran sat cross-legged on the ground, one hand on his knee, cheek squished against the other, and thought for a bit. “There aren’t many ingredients here. How about noodles with minced meat?”
“Noodles with minced meat?”
“Would you like that?”
“Sure. Is it spicy?”
Mo Ran grinned. “There isn’t even a shadow of a pepper in what that bird gave us.”
With dinner decided, Mo Ran set about kneading dough. Chu Wanning was short and not that strong, so he didn’t bother trying to make a pretense of helping. He watched Mo Ran knead the soft, white ball from where he lay in bed, his gaze growing softer.
Chu Wanning suddenly felt that this wasn’t so bad. Mo Ran didn’t know who he was, so he could stay by his side, and when Mo Ran cooked, he bothered to ask what Chu Wanning wanted to eat. It really wasn’t bad. He even felt a little uneasy, as if he had been given too much—as if he had stolen it all from a child named “Xia Sini.”
Mo Ran finished cooking the noodles and placed the stir-fried minced meat on top. They had pitifully few seasonings, so he couldn’t make anything fancy, but the noodles were pulled to a chewy consistency with just the right softness. He had also cut off the fatty part of the pork and used it to fry the meat. The meat sizzled as it was poured over the noodles, and it would no doubt be delicious once mixed in.
“Shidi, dinner’s…” Mo Ran looked up to find that Chu Wanning had fallen asleep, still lying tummy-down, face turned to the side with his head pillowed on his arms. His long lashes rested against his cheeks, his expression peaceful.
“Ready…” Mo Ran finished at a mumble, then walked over to the bed and stroked Chu Wanning’s smooth, inky hair.
“When I see you like this, you really do look like Shizun. I wonder what relationship you have with Shizun and the Chu family of Lin’an. Also, exactly who’s after us?” Mo Ran sighed. “Wonder what Shizun’s up to right now. If he knew what had happened here, would he blame me again, regardless of everything else?”
The color in Mo Ran’s eyes darkened a little as he played with a strand of Chu Wanning’s hair around his finger. He sighed again faintly.
“You don’t know him, but anytime anything happens, he always gives me hell… He really doesn’t like me at all.”
However, Chu Wanning was asleep, and these words scattered weightlessly into the silence of night without an answer, just like the misunderstandings that had coiled around them for decades and decades, and across two lifetimes.
Mo Ran waited for the noodles to cool down a bit before waking Chu Wanning. “Shidi, dinner’s ready.”
Chu Wanning covered a yawn and blinked blearily. “Oh, dinner…”
Mo Ran carried the noodles over. He liked to cook, but he hated doing the dishes, so purely for the sake of having one less dish to wash, he had dumped the noodles directly into the pot in which he’d fried the meat.
Chu Wanning was flabbergasted by this unorthodox and uncultured way of eating, his eyes wide as he stared disbelievingly at the big pot of noodles. “How…are we supposed to eat this?”
“Together, of course.” Mo Ran handed him a pair of chopsticks and was already putting his hands together with a grin. “The race to see who can scoop out more noodles is about to begin! Who’s gonna get to eat more? We’re about to find out.”
Chu Wanning had no words.
Mo Ran laughed gleefully, his eyes smiling. Chu Wanning stared at him for a moment before saying, “It’s almost like, as long as you have food, you’re very…”
“Very happy, right?”
“Mn.”
“Ha ha, food is the most important thing, after all!” Mo Ran cheekily scooped up a big clump of noodles for himself, slurping it all up until his cheeks puffed out. “It doesn’t look great, but it’s pretty tasty.”
Chu Wanning’s expression was dark as he stared for a long moment before he eventually said, “Don’t slurp while you eat.”
“Ha ha ha!” Mo Ran laughed, slapping his leg. “How is a little kid like you so much like my shizun? He also tells me to not slurp, but you know what? Once, when I was eating with him, I purposefully threw a bone in his bowl, and he got so mad! Ha ha ha ha ha—”
Chu Wanning ground his teeth. “Impudent!”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah! That was exactly his reaction, how did you know? Even the delivery was just like his! Hey, Shidi, seriously, I think you two might be distant relatives. Why don’t you ask Shizun about it when he gets here? O-oi—wait, not the egg, the egg’s mine—”