“Shizun, it really is still alive!”
“What do we do if it’s still alive? Do we still kill and eat it?”
“Let’s not. It’s so pitiful…”
Shang Qinghua forced himself to ignore this flock of young disciples sitting all over the ground and lowered his head to drink his tea, his heart twitching.
He remembered the last time he’d come, every disciple had worn a face full of great bitterness and deep resentment. They’d stood like pines or sat like clocks, each with an old text in hand, reciting wherever they went like they were chanting curses, quoting chapter and verse when they spoke, a musical cadence to their voices. When he looked at them today… Was this still that renowned Qing Jing Peak that produced countless poser youths full of literary airs?
This place had become a daycare center for ADHD children.
“If it’s still alive, then keep it as a pet,” said Shen Qingqiu.
“Let’s eat it—let’s just eat it,” Ming Fan hurriedly retorted. “We’ve never kept one before; we don’t know how much it needs to eat, and changing its water and taking it out for walks and whatnot will be awfully troublesome…”
Ning Yingying pouted. “That’s enough. If we keep it, it definitely won’t be you taking care of it—Shizun would obviously give it to A-Luo.” She lifted her head and asked, “Shizun, where did you get this strange thing?”
“The Bai Zhan Peak Lord gave it to me. A return gift for the tea.”
At this, Ning Yingying whined, “Shizun, I don’t like Bai Zhan Peak. They’re so annoying… Last time they used their superior sword skills to bully A-Luo; they were chasing and beating him…”
Shang Qinghua thought this quite normal. Bai Zhan Peak’s uniform malice toward Luo Binghe was entirely natural. It was the sort of instinctive reaction single-celled organisms had toward traces of concealed evil. This wasn’t throwing shade at Bai Zhan Peak; Shang Qinghua was a fan of theirs, for his part.
After enumerating their shortcomings, Ning Yingying put forth her request: “Shizun, you have to help us teach them a good lesson!”
“Puh—” Shen Qingqiu choked once, turned toward Shang Qinghua, and smiled politely as he coughed. “These children, what are they on about? There ought to be harmony and familial affection within the sect. How could I ‘teach them a good lesson’ for such a reason?”
Shang Qinghua repeatedly stated his agreement, returning the same forced smile and drinking tea like his life depended on it.
Miss Yingying, ah, your Shizun doesn’t need to make a move; Liu Qingge has already taught them quite a cruel lesson. In fact, Shen Qingqiu is in charge of “harmony and familial affection,” and Liu Qingge is in charge of “teaching them a good lesson.” This right here is the true nature of a hypocrite!
Shang Qinghua was deeply comforted by this. Even after going through a qi deviation and losing his memory, sure enough, Shen Qingqiu was still his treacherous old self!
Luo Binghe had gone to fetch tea leaves, and at this moment, he entered the drawing room to present them to Shang Qinghua.
“Come, Shidi, we have been indebted to An Ding Peak’s care for a long time now…” said Shen Qingqiu.
But one kid on the floor was still unwilling to back down. “Shizun, you have to avenge A-Luo!” Ning Yingying said, im-passioned.
Shen Qingqiu was at the end of his patience. “Yingying, go play outside.”
“You mustn’t avenge me or whatever else,” Luo Binghe said hastily. “It’s just that this disciple’s skill is inferior to theirs, and he lost face for Shizun and Qing Jing Peak.”
“Your foundation is just a bit lacking, and you can’t expect to catch up to them straightaway,” Shen Qingqiu said, offering words of comfort. “As long as you remain diligent, given some time, you will assuredly surpass them.”
Ming Fan scoffed. “It would take a hundred years for him to surpass Bai Zhan Peak.”
Ning Yingying flew into a temper. “If you look down on Qing Jing Peak and A-Luo that much, why don’t you just go to Bai Zhan Peak and see if they’ll take you?!”
Shen Qingqiu put his head in his hands. “Didn’t I tell you to go outside and play? Why are you still here? Binghe, get them outside quick; don’t make a circus of yourselves in here.”
“All right, Shizun. But, as for this thing, are we eating or keeping it…?”
Shang Qinghua was struck dumb. He was choking down so much that his heart was about to stop.
This scene featuring Shen Qingqiu as the ever-attentive teacher and Luo Binghe as the clingiest hanger-on—what the hell was this?!
Don’t fucking tell me Shen Qingqiu really did go to Bai Zhan Peak and mess with people just to avenge Luo Binghe!
This benevolent father and filial son act—no, no, no, it was more like “lifting one’s tray to eyebrow level”—no, no, no, “treating each other as honored guests”!8 This was even more fantastical than Shen Qingqiu and Liu Qingge’s harmonious spar. If things kept going on like this, maybe there really would be a day when they exchanged flirtatious banter. Pah, if that day really came, he’d eat three kilos of shit!
After “Great Master” Airplane finished swearing, he had a rare moment of careful thought. He had never quite used classical idioms properly, and he had hauled out his limited supply to describe Liu Mingyan’s beauty. The ones he used with the highest frequency were “soft bosoms trembling” and “as delicate as the finest gossamer.” To use “treating each other as honored guests” was correct here, right? Hm, if he looked at the literal meaning, then yes, it was correct!
At that moment, the “Great Master” Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky assiduously struggling to recover from this episode had not yet realized that the scum villain Shen Qingqiu had already been replaced by that unmatched hater, Peerless Cucumber.
To think that in days of yore, when this guy’s rants had grown excessively ferocious, Airplane had sometimes casually cursed him, maliciously praying that no matter how peerless his cucumber was, he would never get a chance to use it for the rest of his life. Who could have expected that in some manner of speaking, this curse had been fulfilled?