Sect Master Wen's Junior Martial Brother Who Shared His Hardships Has Returned - Chapter 9

Xu Chaoqi yawned drowsily, wrapping his arms around his Senior Brother’s waist.

Wen Chaoxi paused, the hand holding the brush tightening slightly.

Toward evening, golden light dyed the blue sky. The clouds looked as though they had been soaked in a dye vat—wisps of cloud, thread by thread, dyed half the sky purple.

The courtyard darkened. The fiery-red immortal maple tree swayed in the yard, the cool wind blowing through its leaves with a rustling sound.

His Senior Brother finished reviewing official documents and went out. Xu Chaoqi lay slumped on the desk feeling drowsy, his peripheral vision sweeping toward the bed beside him. He stretched lazily, stood up, and walked dizzily toward the bed.

He lifted the blanket and pressed his cheek against the pillow. Aside from the faint sandalwood scent left by the incense burner, there was no other smell on the bed.

He rubbed his face against it, puzzled—could it be that his Senior Brother didn’t usually lie on this bed?

He took off his shoes, pulled the blanket over himself, and fell asleep at once.

From the kitchen not far away came faint sounds of movement, but the moment those sounds traveled ten zhang from the kitchen, they were blocked off—where Xu Chaoqi lay, there was no other sound besides the wind blowing fallen leaves.

When Fu Xuandao arrived, he happened to catch the fresh aroma of fish and shrimp. His brow gave a sharp twitch, his heart filled with astonishment. He stood in the courtyard, watching the figure moving back and forth inside the kitchen—the one who had always stood at the very peak of the Twenty-Seven Regions now actually carried the mundane, homely scent of cooking smoke about him.

In ten thousand years, this was a scene no one would have dared imagine.

He had once thought he understood his Grand Ancestor somewhat, but now he felt more unfamiliar with him than ever.

He lowered his head, holding the gift list, and walked toward the kitchen. The further he walked, the more he felt that the person before him was unfathomably deep.

“Grand Ancestor.” He stood outside the kitchen and called out.

The Grand Ancestor gave a soft “mm.” His back was turned to Fu Xuandao, his hands not pausing in peeling shrimp shells.

Fu Xuandao let out a breath, unrolled the gift list, and read aloud, referencing the words on it. “The Region Lords of the Twenty-Seven Regions, having learned you descended the mountain, specially sent tribute gifts. From the Northbound Central Region came the long-lost secret techniques of Sect Master Song Yao’s sect, ten million top-grade spirit stones, a hundred crates of immortal spirit herb seeds…”

In Xu Chaoqi’s dream, a fragrant smell kept teasing at him, nearly luring his soul right out of his body. By the time he woke, his nose was filled with the aroma of stir-fried dishes.

He yawned, put on his shoes, and got up. Before leaving, he looked at the messy blankets, and what little sense of shame he had left made him patiently fold the blanket.

Outside, it had already gone dark, the stars brilliant in the sky.

The kitchen was still lit. He shook his groggy head and walked toward it.

“Grand Ancestor, the Eastern Central Region has colluded with the Eastern Central-North Region, squeezing out and suppressing other regions. The cultivators’ balance is disrupted—the Eastern Region has begun to fall into chaos.” Fu Xuandao had not been the Sect Senior for long, and there were still many matters he did not know how to handle.

Wen Chaoxi, pinching a pastry between his fingers, said flatly, “The young lord of the Eastern Central Region is feeble-minded. The sacred treasure of the Eastern Central-North Region can cure feeble-mindedness.”

As he finished speaking, he pinned a fingertip-sized young flower onto the pastry.

Fu Xuandao seemed to understand. He also noticed Xu Chaoqi’s arrival, and so cupped his hands in salute and took his leave.

“This disciple will have someone deliver the tribute gifts first.”

Once Fu Xuandao left, Xu Chaoqi looked thoughtful for a moment, though this had nothing to do with him. So he too rolled up his sleeves and walked into the kitchen to see what new dishes there were today.

An hour later, Fu Xuandao finally finished delivering all the tribute gifts. On his way out, he happened to run straight into Xu Chaoqi.

“Little Grand Ancestor.” Fu Xuandao bowed in greeting. Xu Chaoqi looked at his busy figure, a glimmer of light stirring in his eyes.

He tugged at Fu Xuandao’s sleeve and pulled him under the eaves, glancing around cautiously before saying in a low voice, “Do you have anything here that could relieve boredom?”

At first Fu Xuandao didn’t understand, but hearing the Little Grand Ancestor’s question, he hesitated.

“This…”

He looked up at the eaves, beginning to recall.

“Speaking of relieving boredom, I do remember something. Some of the newly admitted junior disciples always bring in all sorts of storybooks from outside, often getting so absorbed in them that it delays their cultivation. I couldn’t stand it, so I had the people below confiscate any storybook on sight. By now there should be quite a pile of them accumulated below.”

The more Xu Chaoqi listened, the more the corners of his lips curved upward. Seeing this, Fu Xuandao chuckled and handed over a sample.

“If the Little Grand Ancestor wishes to see them, I’ll have someone deliver them right now.”

How could Xu Chaoqi refuse? He nodded, eyes curving with a smile. “In that case, I shall accept with pleasure rather than decline out of false modesty.”

The two exchanged a smile—an understanding shared between them.

At night, Wen Chaoxi walked into the room. The blanket on the bed appeared to have been folded, but crookedly, unevenly.

A soft, nearly inaudible laugh sounded in the room. He undid the blanket, his slender fingers about to refold it, when the scent unique to Xu Chaoqi—wrapped and hidden within the blanket—drifted loose, openly declaring that this person had once pressed his skin against it.

The blanket’s surface had long lost any body warmth, yet beneath his fair, clean fingertips he felt a burning heat.

He lowered his eyes, and at last, calming his heart, folded the blanket properly.

The desk lamp lit up. A figure sat before the desk, and the sound of brush tip touching paper rose in the room.

Xu Chaoqi returned to his room, spread the storybook open on the bed, and pulled out the night-luminous pearl his Senior Brother had given him from his storage pouch. The light shone on the pages of the storybook, and he read with great relish.

He didn’t know that Wen Chaoxi’s brush paused for a moment, then continued writing.

An hour later, Xu Chaoqi was curled up under the blanket, still flipping through the pages with great enthusiasm.

It was somewhat stuffy under the blanket, but it unexpectedly gave him a sense of security.

After finishing a column of writing, Wen Chaoxi looked out the window. Even though other halls and pavilions blocked the view in front of the window, he seemed as though he could see through wall after wall, all the way to somewhere far off.

Another hour passed. Wen Chaoxi’s brush hovered in the air for a long while. Finally he set down the brush and walked outside.

Xu Chaoqi was just at the hottest part of the story under the blanket when footsteps suddenly sounded outside the door. He hastily pulled the blanket tightly over himself, not letting even a sliver of light leak out.

The night was quite cold, the outside pitch black, with only the sound of wind and the swaying of robe hems.

Xu Chaoqi grew a little nervous. He pressed the storybook beneath his stomach. Just as he stuffed the night-bright pearl back into his storage pouch, a soft knock sounded at the door.

He held his breath at once, pretending to already be fast asleep.

The knocking sounded about ten times, then stopped. Xu Chaoqi let out a breath of relief. As the footsteps gradually grew distant, only then did he dare take out the night-luminous pearl again and resume reading the storybook.

The footsteps, growing ever more distant, paused for a moment—as if glancing back at him once.

The next day, the sun was already high in the sky by the time Xu Chaoqi finally crawled out of bed. Yet his energy was full to bursting, not at all like someone who had stayed up all night.

After lunch, he folded a winged tiger out of talisman paper and had it carry him flying beyond the immortal mountain.

At this time, at the disciple hall, there were still quite a few disciples coming to collect their entry-disciple robes.

Xu Chaoqi held the yellow paper his Senior Brother had signed and entered the hall.

The moment he stepped in, the shopkeeper looked up and immediately spotted him. “Oh my, you got your seal stamped this quickly?”

No matter where Xu Chaoqi went, he always carried about him a kind of brilliance unlike that of ordinary people. The shopkeeper, too, had a rather strong impression of this young disciple.

He took the yellow paper Xu Chaoqi handed over, saying as he did, “Ordinary disciples need at least three or four days to get their seal stamped, and even then they can’t avoid being scolded harshly. You’re quite fast.”

The yellow paper was brought before his eyes, the writing on it reflected in his pupils, and the shopkeeper’s smile gradually faded.

He adjusted the corner of his eye, revealing that he had a pair of invisible lenses in front of his eyes all along.

There were still quite a few disciples coming and going inside the hall, someone calling out to the shopkeeper to buy something. The shopkeeper made a silencing gesture, bringing the yellow paper even closer to his eyes.

“Everyone else gets a seal stamp, but yours is handwritten.” Though he said this casually, his voice had already turned deep and hoarse.

“This… something’s not quite right, is it?” He stared fixedly at the name written on it, reached out to pick up the tea on the table and took a sip, his hand trembling slightly as he set it back down.

He appeared composed on the surface, but in fact his hand had already reached beneath the counter, frantically searching for something.

He tried bringing his thumb close to those three characters. When it was still an inch away, his hand was scalded, instantly losing all sensation.

His palm trembled. He set the yellow paper down on the table, stunned for a good while, before numbly taking out a brand-new disciple robe from beneath the counter and handing it to Xu Chaoqi.

Looking at Xu Chaoqi, dazzling as the first light of dawn, an image of the Sect Master surfaced in his mind. Yet his imagination had its limits—even if he racked his brain, he could not connect these two people separated by what seemed like a chasm as vast as heaven and earth.

This, this, this… perhaps he simply hadn’t fully woken up yet.

Xu Chaoqi held the disciple robe and left the hall. He found a place with no one around, took off his outer robe, and changed into the disciple robe.

Wearing the disciple robe was indeed not as comfortable as his previous clothes, but it did feel considerably more natural.

As he tied his sash while walking outside, a faint sound of surprised delight suddenly came from beside him.

“It’s… it’s you!” Xu Chaoqi looked up. Song Shuiqing, his eyes like clear rippling water, stood atop an eagle, his face showing warmth, yet also a touch of timidity.

“Hm?” Xu Chaoqi tilted his head up, his gaze lingering for a few moments on the eagle beneath Song Shuiqing’s feet.

Seeing that Xu Chaoqi rarely showed interest in him, Song Shuiqing hurriedly climbed down from the eagle, the great eagle flapping its wings as it followed behind him.

Seeing that Xu Chaoqi’s gaze still hadn’t left the eagle, he held the eagle’s talon and said shyly, “Its name is Qingqing, because my name is Song Shuiqing, so I gave it one of the characters from my name.”

As he spoke, he rubbed the back of his head in embarrassment. “My father gave me a beating over it when he found out.”

Xu Chaoqi’s eyes curved, though he didn’t laugh aloud. He leaned closer to the great eagle. “I think it looks wonderful.”

Song Shuiqing smiled too, unable to wait to show it off to Xu Chaoqi. “It’s my mount. Back then, to hatch it, I sat on its egg for a whole month. It recognized me the moment it was born…”

As he spoke, he watched Xu Chaoqi’s expression carefully and cautiously. Seeing that the other’s face held only pure interest, the hand he had clenched tight out of nervousness finally relaxed.

“A mount?” Xu Chaoqi looked at him. “Could I raise one too?”

Song Shuiqing grew nervous again, taking two steps back. “This isn’t easy to raise—a mount needs to be of one heart and mind with its master. I was born in the Western Region, and I myself already have a bond with their kind.”

He was afraid Xu Chaoqi might come to dislike him because of this, but to his surprise, the other only looked regretful, then immediately asked him, “Are you free today?”

Song Shuiqing shook his head hastily—meaning no, he had nothing on.

Xu Chaoqi stretched lazily, sunlight falling on his face. “I have nothing to do today. Since we’ve met, that’s fate enough—shall we go watch the sea waves together?”

“Ah?” Song Shuiqing was stunned for a moment at this.

“Hm? Going or not?” Xu Chaoqi asked him with a smile.

“Going! Going!” He hurriedly gripped the eagle’s talon, then turned his back to Xu Chaoqi, so that his face couldn’t be clearly seen.

About a quarter hour later, the two of them stood atop the great eagle. The eagle soared into the sky, carrying them flying toward the seaside.

Along the way, Song Shuiqing kept his head lowered most of the time, only occasionally lifting it to smile back at Xu Chaoqi.

They let the sea breeze blow over them for the whole afternoon. During this time, Song Shuiqing took out several steamed buns to share with Xu Chaoqi, and the two of them tore the buns into small pieces to feed the seabirds.

“Do you think,” Xu Chaoqi said, looking up at the sky, “any of these birds could be of one heart and mind with me?”

Song Shuiqing gazed at Xu Chaoqi, seeming even more confident than the man himself, and nodded hurriedly, “There definitely will be!”

Yet though they fed the seabirds for the entire afternoon, not a single bird paid them any attention.

During this time, Xu Chaoqi grew hungry. Song Shuiqing eagerly pulled out a box full of peach blossom cakes from his storage pouch, placing them closer to Xu Chaoqi. Seeing Xu Chaoqi praise how delicious the peach blossom cakes were, he smiled with unhidden joy for a long while afterward.

That evening, Xu Chaoqi returned late. His Senior Brother had been sitting at the table waiting for quite some time.

The dishes were still hot and smelled fragrant, but unfortunately Xu Chaoqi had eaten his fill of pastries in the afternoon, and after only a few bites with his chopsticks, he was already full.

Wen Chaoxi looked at the dishes on the table, set down his chopsticks, and said with a faint smile, “What’s this? Not to your taste?”

Xu Chaoqi lay slumped over the table, lifting his eyes, and said with difficulty, “I ate too many peach blossom cakes outside this afternoon and I’m stuffed.”

“Oh? Peach blossom cakes from where?” Wen Chaoxi picked up a few mouthfuls of food with his chopsticks and put them into Xu Chaoqi’s bowl, as if he had merely asked an utterly unremarkable question.

Xu Chaoqi held his stomach and recounted the afternoon’s events. Looking at the food piling up in his bowl, he hurriedly blocked the chopsticks with his hand.

“No more, I really can’t eat any more.”

Wen Chaoxi didn’t give him any more food after that.

The next day at noon, several extra plates of pastries had appeared on the dining table, much to Xu Chaoqi’s astonishment.

“What are these pastries? I’ve never seen them before.”

He picked up a piece and tasted it—a rich flavor of fish meat spread into his mouth, carrying a faint delicate freshness along with hints of peach blossom fragrance.

The moment he tasted it, Xu Chaoqi knew this was his favorite fish! And he had no idea what had been added to the peach blossoms, but their light fragrance drifted into his nose and mouth, instantly whetting his appetite.

At this lunch, Xu Chaoqi couldn’t hold back—he ate a full three stacks of pastries in one go!

By the end he was so stuffed he could barely stand up. It was only with his Senior Brother using spiritual energy to gently rub his stomach that he managed to recover somewhat.

In the afternoon, Xu Chaoqi and Song Shuiqing let the sea breeze blow over them again, just like the day before.

Seeing that the time had come, Song Shuiqing took out the pastries he had specially prepared from his storage pouch.

The moment Xu Chaoqi saw them, he shook his head hurriedly. “No more, I can’t eat any more—I stuffed myself at lunch!”