Chapter 87:
This Venerable One Doesn’t Want You to Take Any More Disciples
THE LITTLE DRAGON LEFT and returned like the wind, zooming back through the window only ten minutes later to holler, “I got it, I got it! So many magic traces in this inn, wa ha ha ha!”
“Hey li’l eel, what are you, afraid the neighbors won’t hear? Yell louder.” Leaning on the table, Mo Ran extended a finger and stroked the little dragon’s body. Its tail swung over with a whoosh to smack his hand, but it didn’t remotely hurt. Rather, it tickled—it was made of paper, after all.
“Don’t touch this venerable one, you annoying pretty boy! This venerable one has yet to take a wife. Can’t just let you cop a feel whenever you like!”
Mo Ran broke out into laughter. “Wait, what was that? This paper dragon wants a wife?”
“What! Puh, puh, puh! Who’re you calling paper?! You damn mutt!”
“Huh, how come even you call me that? Is your surname Xue or something?”
“Xue? Hmph, idiot brat. This venerable one is the Dragon of the Candle, mighty and unmatched, splitting the heavens and cleaving the earth, day and night as I open and close mine eyes, summer and winter with each draw of mine breath! My name is Zhu Jiuyin, and don’t you forget it!”
“Yeeeah, didn’t get a word of that.”
“Wa ya ya ya!” The little dragon turned cartwheels of anger, smashing into the candlestick with its little two-finger-wide head, which made the flame flicker and the wax sway. Mo Ran hurriedly steadied the candle, but as soon as he reached out, the little dragon bit his hand—not that it felt like much of anything, being paper and all. Mo Ran picked up Zhu Jiuyin by the tail and flung it to the side, making it splat against the collar of Chu Wanning’s robes and droop glumly there.
“Chu Wanning.” The little dragon lifted one of its whiskies and prodded him weakly. “That mangy mutt hit me.”
Chu Wanning didn’t feel like wasting his breath on this. He peeled the dragon off himself and casually slapped it onto the table. “What spells did you find?”
“Hmph, hmph. You gotta call this venerable one ‘Dragon-taizi’ three times first, then—”
Chu Wanning pinned it with a cold glare. “Speak.”
The little dragon fell silent, but it bloated with anger at the disrespect, its whiskers pointing straight up as it glared at Chu Wanning with beady little eyes. That venerable mouth hung half-open, huffing and puffing until it heaved up a gush of ink.
Chu Wanning narrowed his eyes. “Waste any more ink and I will set you on fire.” He reached for the dragon’s tail as if to dangle it over the flame. “Then you’ll be a real candle dragon.”
“All right, all right, all right! You win! You win! I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you, all right? Jeez!” The little dragon spit a couple more times, sending more ink splattering while muttering not at all discreetly, “So damn mean. No wonder I never see any wife, even after all these years!”
“Eh?” Mo Ran blinked and snuck a glance at Chu Wanning, grinning cheekily. “Didn’t Shizun say something about a shiniang?”
Chu Wanning ignored him, sword brows lowering as he snapped at the little dragon, “Less talking, more writing!”
“Hmph! Stinky man!”
The little dragon plopped onto the writing paper laid out on the table and used magic to gather ink in its claw. It began to scrawl messily on the page, muttering the whole time.
Alas, it couldn’t simply name the spells that it had seen—there was a limit to how much information a paper brain could process, after all. It would have been too much to expect it to figure out what the spells were, based on leftover magical traces, so it could only draw out its impressions. Luckily, Chu Wanning was more than capable of discerning the original spells. He watched the little dragon scrawl away with lowered lashes and named them as it went.
The little dragon drew a waning moon.
“Soothing spell. Someone here has insomnia.”
The little dragon drew the seven stars of the Big Dipper.
“Celestial bastion array. Someone has set up defenses.”
The little dragon drew a rouge box.
“Radiant countenance spell…”
“Pfft.” Mo Ran laughed, raising his hand. “I know this one! A simple beautification and skin care incantation that girls use at night. Probably that Butterfly-Boned Beauty Feast?”
Chu Wanning didn’t comment. He seemed a bit agitated that every spell thus far had been irrelevant or inconsequential. Furrowing his brows, he tapped a slender finger against the table. “Next.”
The little dragon drew a heart.
“What’s this?” Mo Ran wondered.
“Heart-clearing spell,” Chu Wanning said, frustrated. “It’s unimportant. Someone’s meditating is all. Next.”
The little dragon drew a crooked dog head.
“Beast-taming spell…” Chu Wanning put a hand to his brow. “You. Pick the important spells and draw those. Skip the trivial ones for cosmetics and playing with dogs and helping people sleep and whatnot. Next.”
The little dragon looked up and fumed. “Well, aren’t you picky!”
“Draw!”
Fearful of getting tossed into the candle flame and really living up to its name, the wee paper beast huffily wiped its tiny claws across the paper again. This time it drew an extremely complex, mysterious-looking array.
“Looks like two circles with a cross, and then a vertical line straight down. Some kind of yin-yang divination looking thing?” Mo Ran’s eyes widened, “Shizun, could this be what our guy put on the weapon?”
“No.” Chu Wanning took a single glance and could already feel a headache coming on. “Voice-changing spell.”
“Oh? What’s it for?”
“Some people want to change their voice, either because they dislike it or out of some other necessity. This sound-changing spell lets them do that. It’s not difficult.” Chu Wanning paused. “However, it damages the throat if used for an extended period of time, to the point that it can become very difficult to recover one’s original voice… There’s something unusual about this one; I wonder who’s using it.”
Mo Ran only grinned. “Ah, so that’s what it’s for. Makes sense, then.”
Chu Wanning sighed and was about to move on when he paused, eyes flickering as he realized something. He turned abruptly to Mo Ran. “What do you mean it ‘makes sense’? Do you know something?”
“What could I possibly know? I was just thinking that it’s pretty normal for someone to dislike their voice. Who knows, maybe it’s that Song girl. Maybe her voice is actually hoarse and grating, and she wanted to make it sound sweeter?”
Chu Wanning gave him a long look before smoothing down his sleeve. “Always thinking such nonsense.” Then he turned back to the little dragon. “Next.”
The little dragon drew another heart.
“Oi, didn’t Shizun just tell you to skip things like heart-clearing spells?”
“Puh, what do you know, brat?” The little dragon shot him a seething glare, then smacked its tail on the paper, putting an inky blotch on the heart and proceeding to spread it around until the entire shape was colored black.
“What’s this? Black-hearted spell?”
Chu Wanning grew a little awkward and was silent for a while before saying, “No. That would be an affection spell.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s similar to the Xuanyuan Pavilion’s Infatuation Pills,” Chu Wanning explained. “It bewitches a person to develop feelings of love and affection toward the caster, things like that. Generally used by women.”
Mo Ran’s eyes widened again. “No way. Could it be that Song Qiutong…”
“How would I know about such things?” Chu Wanning seemed irate, flicking his broad sleeve. “Other people’s love affairs are none of my business. Why would I care who’s messing around with whom?”
“But Chu Wanning, ah, are you sure you don’t care about this affection spell?” the little dragon said gleefully, tail swaying this way and that. “This one’s pretty interesting, if you ask me. If you’re willing to call me ‘Dragon-taizi’ three times, then I’ll…”