Chapter 72:
This Venerable One Stews Soup
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 confines of the cave, and time only seemed to crawl even slower.
“Ahh, I’m so bored. So bored! What to do? What to do?”
“Sleep,” Chu Wanning said, his eyes closed.
“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 scooted over and tugged at his cheeks. “Shidi.”
Chu Wanning continued to ignore him.
“Shidiiii…”
Chu Wanning steadfastly continued to ignore him.
“Shidi!”
Chu Wanning’s eyes flew open angrily. “What do you want?!”
Mo Ran took Chu Wanning’s hands in his own and shamelessly swung their joined limbs back and forth. “Play with me.”
“Am I the shidi here, or are 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 had no response.
Mo Ran took off the narrow red cord holding his hair up, tied the ends together, and wove it into a distinct pattern around his fingers.
Despite his protests, Chu Wanning sat up after all. “What is this?” he asked grumpily. “How do you play?”
“It’s called cat’s cradle. Mostly girls play it, not so much boys. But I grew up in a house full of girls, so I ended up learning it too.”
Chu Wanning eyed him.
“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 him 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, their expressions slowly softening.
Chu Wanning held segments of string taut between his fingers as he followed Mo Ran’s instructions to weave a new pattern. Then he accidentally missed a loop. When the red string exchanged hands, rather than transforming into the new pattern, it returned to its original shape: a simple circle.
Chu Wanning stared at it blankly, hands held in midair and face full of incomprehension. “Why did it fall apart?” he muttered. “What happened…”
“Ha ha, you probably missed a loop again.”
“Again.”
“No more, no more.” Mo Ran laughed. “Doing 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.”
Mo Ran gaped speechlessly at him.
They spent three days in the cave. Their fourth night found Mo Ran busy preparing to cook something delicious for Chu Wanning, as usual. He had figured out a few things during these last few days together, like that his little shidi truly was from the same place as his 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 some of his handmade noodles. Altogether, it wouldn’t taste too bad.
“Are we having chicken soup tonight?”
“Mm-hmm.” Mo Ran glanced sideways at Chu Wanning. The kid was a genius when it came to martial arts, yet he just couldn’t grasp cat’s cradle. He was also stubborn to a fault, and every chance he got, he played with a hair cord trying to figure it out. Mo Ran couldn’t help smiling at his mulish expression.
“Feel free to play with it while I cook,” Mo Ran said with a smile. “But I’m afraid the soup’s gonna finish stewing before you work it out.”
Chu Wanning let out a cold hmph and paused. “Is there any ginger left?”
“Let me see… Yep, there’s plenty. They gave us a bunch yesterday.”
Chu Wanning made a satisfied sound. “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 exactly like Shizun’s. He also likes ginger and wolfberries in his soup.”
“You remember what he likes to eat?”
“Ha ha, yep-yep, I’m super clever.” Mo Ran didn’t feel like explaining. Anyway, it wasn’t like he could talk about things like past lives with his little shidi, so he rolled with it. “I’m the very embodiment of The Twenty-Four Paragons of Filial Piety,16 don’t you know? It’s too bad that Shizun doesn’t see my heartfelt sincerity.”
Mo Ran began cleaning the chicken as he talked absently, and thus he wholly missed Chu Wanning’s expression. He plucked the feathers and removed the innards with a quick, practiced hand, and was about to boil the blood out when he heard his little shidi say in a quiet voice, “He isn’t necessarily unaware.”
“Huh?”
When Mo Ran looked up, the tips of Chu Wanning’s ears reddened. He turned away and cleared his throat. “I said, the Yuheng Elder isn’t necessarily unaware that you’re good to him.”
“Oh, that. It doesn’t really matter; I’m used to it. 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 remember my preferences—like how I know what he likes to eat. 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…” Mo Ran sighed. “My esteemed shizun is so illustrious and unapproachable, and he’s busy on top of that. How could I possibly dare to hope for his attention? Ha ha, ah ha ha ha.”
At first, these words made Chu Wanning a bit cross, but then he thought about them. Although he was concerned about Mo Ran in their daily life, he did indeed maintain a veneer of aloofness and distance. He hung his head wordlessly, and anger turned into consternation. 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 meal is uncomplicated, so I’ll cook for you instead.”