Chapter 79:
This Venerable One’s Shizun Is an Actor
IF MO RAN HADN’T KNOWN Chu Wanning like the back of his own hand, he feared he might have been taken in by his serious demeanor and believed that nonsense.
Xia Sini was Chu Wanning’s son? Yeah right, like he was dumb enough to fall for that!
However, it wasn’t like he could brush off his shizun. So in the days that followed, he simply played along, putting on a show with things like, “Oh heavens,” “So that’s how it is,” “I can’t believe Shizun is actually a playboy,” and other such.
Mo Ran had to admit that it was an interesting time, even though he had no idea what Chu Wanning was up to. Thus Mo Ran made a sport of it, poking playfully at Chu Wanning every so often.
One time, as they stopped at a teahouse for a snack, Mo Ran called out, cheek in hand, eyes bright and round. “Shizun, Shizun.”
Chu Wanning swallowed his tea before lifting his lashes to look evenly at him. “Mn?”
“Why won’t you acknowledge Xia-shidi as your child?”
“It’s not that I won’t acknowledge him, it just isn’t the right time,” Chu Wanning replied.
“Then when will it be the right time?”
“That will depend on him.”
Chu Wanning had such an air of profundity that Mo Ran’s ribs hurt from holding in his laughter, even as he forced himself to put on his best pitying face. “Poor Xia-shidi.”
Another time, as they were traveling side by side on horseback, Mo Ran reached up and snapped a willow branch while passing by. He was fresh out of distractions and bored out of his mind, so he fussed at Chu Wanning again.
“Shizun, Shizun.”
“What is it?”
“Can I ask you something?” Mo Ran was all smiles. “About Shiniang…what kind of person is she? Is she pretty?”
Chu Wanning choked, then hastily cleared his throat to cover for himself. “She’s all right.”
“Eh? Just ‘all right’?” Mo Ran said, shocked. “I was so sure that someone who could catch Shizun’s eye had to be devastatingly beautiful.”
Chu Wanning did not bother to reply.
Mo Ran steered his black horse closer to Chu Wanning’s white one and asked slyly, “Is Shizun still keeping in touch with Shiniang?”
“How would I do that?” Chu Wanning threw him a chilly look and said darkly, “Your shiniang is dead.”
They’d barely started, and he was already offing his own wife? Mo Ran almost choked on his own spit. “D-dead? How did she die?”
“Birth complications,” Chu Wanning said expressionlessly.
That so? Pfft ha ha ha ha ha. If the situation had been any different, Mo Ran probably would’ve fallen off his horse from laughing too hard.
Of course Mo Ran couldn’t 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 some more on the way.
“Shizun, can I know who Shiniang was? What was her name?”
Chu Wanning picked a cherry and ate it with no discernible reaction. “She’s already passed,” he said indifferently. “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 a disciple, should still remember her name and go pay my respects every winter solstice and Qingming.”
Chu Wanning kept eating his cherries. “No need,” he replied evenly. “Your shiniang was not the worldly sort, and she also disliked the smell of incense.”
Mo Ran pursed his lips, rolling his eyes. It’s obvious that you couldn’t make up a backstory for Shiniang on the fly. Can’t believe you’d say she never cared for these things with such a serious face.
Outwardly, he kept smiling. “If Shiniang was so refined, she must have been a cultivator too.”
Chu Wanning paused, then picked 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. He had to give Chu Wanning props for that. Rufeng Sect had always favored male disciples. Although their female disciples received the same education, they were never given the same opportunities to stand out and make a name for themselves. In fact, they never even left their names when they went on missions, so even though the female cultivators of Rufeng Sect were no less accomplished, the rest of the world only knew them as “the female cultivators of Rufeng Sect.” No one knew their individual names. Thus Chu Wanning could make up whatever he felt like and there would be absolutely no way to verify.
Mo Ran wasn’t one to surrender. 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 inventing all that on the spot. When his gaze fell on Mo Ran’s bright, sparkly eyes, he suddenly realized that he didn’t have to answer this question. He pressed his lips together and, with a sweep of his sleeve, said sharply, “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.
Chu Wanning and Mo Ran roamed for a couple weeks, visiting the markets at numerous smaller sects and checking every stall that sold weapons and spiritual stones, but they found absolutely nothing of note.
One 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 Guyueye to continue their investigation.
Guyueye was the foremost medicinal sect of the world, as well as the sect from which Xue Meng’s mother, Madam Wang, hailed.