“Oh, whoops! I misspoke.” Pretty Butterfly deliberately covered her mouth, grinning. “You went willingly.”
Yu Qingtang choked. “You can’t exactly say I—”
Seeing how smug she looked, Yu Qingtang tried to counterattack. He pointed at Ying Wujue. “Look at him.”
“He cultivates the Dao of Emotionlessness. He probably has even more rules than Dharma Academy. One look and you can tell he’s exactly the kind you like—”
Pretty Butterfly glared at him. “What? It’s not like I only like idiots!”
“Let me finish.” Yu Qingtang supplied the rest of his sentence. “One look and you can tell he’s exactly the kind you like teasing.”
He lowered his voice. “If he stays in Nanzhou, give him a hard time for me. Think of it as saving my life!”
He pressed his palms together. “Please, please.”
Pretty Butterfly pursed her lips. “I’ll think about it.”
The proprietor worked quickly. He and the waiter soon brought Ying Wujue an extravagant Hundred-Poisons Feast—then took a little from each dish and placed it all in a small bowl for him.
The proprietor’s likes and dislikes could not have been clearer. He greeted Yu Qingtang and the others with a broad smile. “Let him have a taste. Everything else is on the house for our honored guests!”
His brows danced with delight. “Whenever you visit Curiosities Tower in the future, you’ll all get a discount!”
“Oh, you really shouldn’t—” Yu Qingtang said, already edging toward the table.
When he passed Ying Wujue, he even used Chi Yantian as a shield in case the man suddenly attacked.
Holding his little bowl, Ying Wujue followed Yu Qingtang with his eyes. He watched Yu pick up a bowl, fill it with choice cuts of meat, then return the way he had come and offer it to Tianxin.
“Senior Sister, you should eat too!”
Tianxin had only just accepted it when Pretty Butterfly began clamoring, “What about me? What about me?”
“I spoke up for you just now too!”
“All right, all right.” Yu Qingtang hurriedly agreed. “What do you want, you little tyrant?”
Pretty Butterfly gleefully ordered him around until he was running in circles, looking immensely pleased with herself.
Chi Yantian’s mouth was stuffed full. He mumbled, “It’s not like you’re—”
Before he could get the word “blind” out, Yu Qingtang crammed food into the last remaining gaps in his mouth.
“Eat more, Brother Chi,” he advised earnestly. “Talk less.”
Scholar Xiao was standing beside Ying Wujue with a booklet in hand, preparing to record everything with meticulous care. When he saw Yu Qingtang approaching, he hurriedly waved him off.
“Brother Yu, I don’t—”
Yu Qingtang stuffed two fruits into his hands. “I know you don’t eat this stuff. I was afraid you’d get cravings. At least keep something in your mouth.”
Scholar Xiao looked moved. “Brother Yu—”
Then he lowered his head toward Ying Wujue. “Well? It isn’t poisonous, is it?”
Ying Wujue stared at Yu Qingtang. Only then did he swallow what was in his mouth, his brows drawn together, and slowly nod.
Scholar Xiao asked again, “How does it taste?”
Ying Wujue fell silent for a moment, looking somewhat troubled.
The proprietor’s eyes widened. “If you don’t like it, just say you don’t like it! It’s not as though I forced you!”
“No.” Ying Wujue lowered his head, still looking troubled. “I abstain from ordinary food. I do not know whether food is good or bad, nor do I know how to evaluate it...”
“That’s easy.” With a scorpion dangling from his mouth, Yu Qingtang poked his head out from behind Chi Yantian. “Throw out all those Esoteric Sect rules for a moment. If eating it makes you want another bite, it’s good. If you wouldn’t willingly take a second bite, it’s bad.”
Ying Wujue lowered his gaze to the small bowl in his hand.
After a ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) moment’s hesitation, he lifted another piece to his mouth. His eyes narrowed slightly as he tasted it, and then he nodded with grave sincerity.
“It is good.”
“Well, now!” The proprietor could not help beaming until his whole face glowed. “That’s more like it!”
“We’ll forget about the compensation, then!”
Swaying his head contentedly, he returned to the kitchen with the cleaver tucked into his belt, looking as though he had just enjoyed a fine dish himself.
Ying Wujue froze, apparently unable to understand. “Why did he...”
“Look at this fool.” Pretty Butterfly covered her mouth and laughed, maliciously adding, “But you mustn’t understand. Once you do, you’ll comprehend the seven emotions and six desires, and all your cultivation in the Dao of Emotionlessness will have gone to waste.”
Ying Wujue immediately withdrew his gaze and composed his breath and mind. He pushed the bowl and chopsticks away.
“I agreed to write an apology letter. Please lend me paper and a brush.”
“You’re really writing it?” Pretty Butterfly looked surprised.
Everyone gathered around him with their bowls, watching as he spread out the paper and began to write.
He did not appear to mind being stared at. Completely ignoring them, he lowered his brush and wrote.
Then, with a soft plop, a scorpion claw bearing half a set of teeth marks landed on his paper.
Ying Wujue slowly raised his head.
Trying far too hard to look innocent, Yu Qingtang hid the remaining half of the scorpion behind his back and pointed at Chi Yantian.
“He—he...”
Chi Yantian loyally puffed out his chest. “That’s right. I did it. What about it?”
He even made a point of chewing the meat in his mouth extra loudly.
Ying Wujue tightened his grip on the brush. He drew a deep breath and reminded them, “Do not speak while eating or sleeping.”
The others exchanged glances, deliberately crowded around his ears, and began whispering noisily.
“Smack, smack, smack.”
“So good, so good, so good.”
Ying Wujue: “...”
“Ahem.”
Behind them, Tianxin braced herself against the arms of her wheelchair, her shoulders trembling slightly as she struggled to suppress her laughter.
When everyone looked at her, she composed herself and inclined her head.
“You should write faster. Once you finish, it may still make tomorrow’s edition.”
Under the group’s relentless assault—which they called supervision but was, in truth, pure sabotage—Ying Wujue stubbornly managed to finish the apology letter.
“The prose is not particularly ornate, but sincerity is what matters in an apology.” Scholar Xiao watched Ying Wujue sign his name, then smilingly folded the paper and slipped it into his robes. “I’ll deliver it to the printers at once. As for this original copy, Four Books Academy will preserve it as evidence.”
His smile turned triumphant. “That way, a hundred years from now, when we have all become great experts, no one can deny what happened.”
Ying Wujue: “...”
Scholar Xiao was already heading through the door. “Everyone, I’ll be going ahead!”
Yu Qingtang looked up at the sky. “He’s gone, so why don’t we head back too...”
His eyes met Ying Wujue’s again.
Yu Qingtang immediately ducked behind Tianxin.
“Senior Sister, I’ll have to trouble you to take me home.”
“Mm.” Tianxin smiled. “Naturally.”
Just as everyone was about to disperse, Ying Wujue—utterly incapable of reading the room—stepped forward and followed behind Yu Qingtang.
He called out, “Yu Qingtang of Biehe Sect in Jinzhou.”
He had not merely used Yu Qingtang’s full name. He had included his province and sect as well.
Yu Qingtang had no choice but to turn around. He positioned Tianxin and her wheelchair between them and stared at Ying Wujue warily.
“What do you want? You can’t try anything with Senior Sister Tianxin here!”
The man looked like a fool, but apparently his brain was not entirely useless. After being subjected to their nonsense for so long, he had somehow remembered his original purpose.
Ying Wujue frowned slightly. “The Esoteric Sect does not intend to harm you.”
“Thanks, but no thanks.” Yu Qingtang rejected him before he could continue. “I have no grand ambitions whatsoever. I’m extremely fond of my little Biehe Sect. My Master took me in from the streets, and I owe him an immeasurable debt of gratitude. I’ve promised to support him in his old age. I have absolutely no intention of joining your Esoteric Sect.”
Ying Wujue fell silent.
Tianxin was unsurprised. “You heard him. You should abandon the idea.”
“Changing sects requires the willing agreement of both sides. He is unwilling, so you cannot take him away.”
Ying Wujue closed his eyes. “But my sect has issued an order. There is something extraordinary about him—”
“I’m not that extraordinary,” Yu Qingtang muttered.
He was merely a soul from beyond this realm. Compared with people who possessed some special bone or miraculous heart, he was hardly that strange.
“How could you not be?” At last, a hint of emotion appeared on Ying Wujue’s face.
He stepped forward and looked directly into Yu Qingtang’s eyes.
“You were born supreme. When Heaven begins to collapse, you must raise the banner for all beneath it and resist the coming calamity!”
“Yet you remain in this rustic little sect, allowing your gifts to go entirely to waste. You are still young. If you return to the Esoteric Sect with me now and allow yourself to be shaped anew, there is still time!”
When he finished, the entire room fell silent.
Not a pin could be heard dropping.
Yu Qingtang was the first to react. He pointed at himself in utter disbelief.
“What? I was born supreme? No, that’s—”
Ye Chenyan’s name almost slipped straight out of his mouth. At the last possible second, he caught himself and merely offered an earnest reminder.
“You’ve definitely mistaken me for someone else.”
“Ask the others! Doesn’t this sound ridiculous?”
“Exactly!” Pretty Butterfly pinched Yu Qingtang’s face, squeezing his cheeks until his lips puckered like a goldfish’s. “Look at this unintelligent face. Does he look like someone born supreme?”
Yu Qingtang struggled free and reclaimed his face. “What kind of thing is that to say?”
Chi Yantian stared at Yu Qingtang, one eyebrow raised and the other lowered. He was visibly torn.
“They say the Esoteric Sect can read a person’s fate, but with you...”
He looked at Ying Wujue. “Were you bad at your fortune-telling lessons? Did you calculate it wrong?”
Ying Wujue appeared helpless in the face of their blindness. He gently shook his head.
“Appearances are deceiving.”
“The senior members of my sect wished to bring him to the Esoteric Sect because he possesses great talent but has thus far failed to amount to anything. He must be properly shaped.”
Yu Qingtang became wary. “How exactly would you shape me?”
“Jade must be carved before it can become something of worth.” Ying Wujue lifted his eyes to him. “Arduous cultivation. Meditation. Severing attachments. Abstinence.”
Yu Qingtang sucked in a breath. “That isn’t shaping me! That’s torture under a different name!”
He hurriedly turned Tianxin’s wheelchair around.
“Even if I didn’t love Biehe Sect, there’s no way I’d go to your sect just to suffer!”
He rapidly pushed Tianxin away.
Ying Wujue followed.
Yu Qingtang’s head throbbed. “Stop following me!”
Ying Wujue remained unmoved and continued trying to persuade him.
“You are playful now, but when the world begins to collapse and chaos arises, you will watch those closest to you die before your eyes, one after another. Then you will regret failing to—”
“Spit that out!” Yu Qingtang shook his head furiously. “Don’t jinx us!”
“Hey!” Pretty Butterfly could not listen any longer. “Why are you cursing people now? If chaos really is coming, why don’t you cultivate properly yourself instead of pinning all your hopes on someone else?”
Ying Wujue was silent for a moment.
For a brief instant, his expression became desolate.
“I am unworthy,” he said calmly.
He raised his eyes.
“I have no talent.”
“Back then, I was about to freeze to death beside the road. Only after I kowtowed at an Immortal Master’s feet was I taken back to the Esoteric Sect and allowed to cultivate. Otherwise, with the bones of an ordinary mortal, I would never have been worthy of entering the Esoteric Sect...”
Yu Qingtang’s mouth fell open.
Wake up, bro! They’ve brainwashed you!
Tianxin interrupted them. “We’re here.”
Yu Qingtang was about to plunge headfirst into the Immortal-Bewildering Forest. When he saw that Ying Wujue still intended to follow, he slammed on the brakes and turned around.
“I strongly advise you not to come any farther. There’s an unparalleled vicious beast in there. Follow me despite that, and you’re going to get beaten up.”
Ying Wujue’s gaze remained firm and unwavering.
“I would not regret it even in death.”
Yu Qingtang sighed. “I warned you.”
He abruptly broke into a sprint, hoping to gain a head start.
Unfortunately, Ying Wujue’s reactions were extraordinarily fast. Even that failed to shake him.
Inside the Immortal-Bewildering Forest, Ye Chenyan was crouched beside the stream, grilling fish.
When he heard the commotion, he turned around with a smile.
“Today, I...”
Then he saw the group before him.
His gaze settled on Ying Wujue, immediately turning hostile.
He raised an eyebrow. “Where did you pick up this new friend?”
“This one isn’t my friend!” Yu Qingtang hurriedly clarified. “He’s from the Esoteric Sect! He followed me!”
Ye Chenyan casually planted the skewered fish in the ground, brushed off his hands, and rose with a soft laugh.
“So a dog from the Esoteric Sect has chased you all the way here?”
Ying Wujue had been studying Yu Qingtang and Ye Chenyan with a puzzled expression, apparently noticing something between them.
At Ye Chenyan’s words, however, his expression changed, and a hint of anger entered his voice.
“I must ask that you show the Esoteric Sect some respect.”
Ye Chenyan was already standing directly before him.
The Void Raptor Totem flashed behind him as he raised one hand, his fist transforming into a claw.
“Teach the old bastards in your Esoteric Sect some respect first!”
Author’s Note:
Standing behind Three-Fires, Yu Qingtang gestured enthusiastically:
Strength of the bear! Speed of the puma! Eyes of the hawk! Ears of the wolf!
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