Chapter 344: The Second Guest Elder |
Fang Bu’ai had been gone for seven years. This courtyard had been simple to begin with, and after seven years of wind and rain, it was badly run down. Still, both of them are Foundation Establishment cultivators, and with Big White and Little Black helping cut fresh bamboo, vines, and grass, it only took them less than an hour to put together a decent bamboo building. It was good enough for Lin Shuangyu to move right in.
Lin Twin Fish nodded, satisfied. “From today on, this will be the Guest Courtyard of the Sanxuan Sect. Sect Master, you should head back and get some rest.”
Liu Xiaolou agreed and returned to his small bamboo courtyard in the grove. He went back to cultivating his Three-Mystery Sword, working out the tricks of drawing and sheathing the blade, getting familiar with the many variations of the Yellow Dragon Sword Art, and going over the general principles of the sword manual again and again.
As for which two people might show up in the end, he could not be bothered to care. Telling Big White and Little Black to step in was probably just a half-joking remark anyway.
It turned out Lin Twin Fish really had been joking. The very next morning, as the sun was just starting to rise, someone came up the mountain.
About halfway up, the person suddenly stopped. Tilting his face toward the sky, he looked around as if searching for something. Pretty soon he found it. He circled past a few old pine trees and emerged from behind them onto the mountain path leading to the mid-slope flat.
Before long, he spotted Lin Twin Fish waiting for him at the edge of the terrace. “Senior Sister,” he called out, “I’m here.”
Lin Twin Fish gave a small nod. “So it really is you. Why are you a day late? I thought you would’ve made it last night.”
The man sighed. “Yeah. I got held up.”
He caught it with one hand. His left cheek twitched as he looked it over. “Guest elder? Haha…”
Lin Twin Fish studied him. “You’re injured? Who did it?”
“It’s nothing,” he said. “Seventh Junior Sister.”
Lin Twin Fish looked a little surprised. “Seventh Junior Sister? I thought it was Second Junior Brother.”
He shook his head. “Seventh Junior Sister has improved fast. That sword of hers, too.”
Lin Twin Fish snorted softly. “Your problem has always been your sword. There are seventeen high-grade blades in the Sword Vault, and you never managed to get your hands on a single one. Maybe this time you’ll run into some luck. Come on. I’ll take you to pay your respects to the sect master.”
He followed Lin Twin Fish up the mountain. “So he’s the sect master now?”
“The sect master is the sect master,” she said flatly. “Not ‘he.’”
When they reached the bamboo courtyard, Liu Xiaolou was already waiting out front. He had a smile on his face, though there was a hint of awkwardness to it.
The ghost banyan was growing right on the mountain path, a bit lower down than the Half-Pine Terrace, so Liu Xiaolou had noticed the newcomer even earlier than Lin Twin Fish had. Now that the man was standing right in front of him, Liu Xiaolou was finally certain. This was the mute he had run into that night on Xiqiao Mountain, by the Cloud Cliff Waterfall.
Lin Twin Fish made the introductions. “This is Sect Master Liu. Sect Master, this is Wu Changeng, a guest elder of your Sanxuan Sect. He used to be my third junior brother…”
Wu Changeng blinked. “Used to be?”
“For the next three months, yes,” Lin Twin Fish said.
“Oh.” Wu Changeng clasped his hands toward Liu Xiaolou. “Greetings, Sect Master.”
Liu Xiaolou returned the salute. He held back for a long moment, but in the end he just swallowed the question back down; he still didn’t want to ask. No matter how badly he’d been toyed with that night at Cloud Cliff Waterfall, it was all for the sake of the Yellow Dragon Sword Art. Everything else didn’t matter one bit.
Wu Changgeng acted like he’d completely forgotten about that night, as if he’d never even met Liu Xiaolou before. Starting fresh from square one, he just patted his belly.
After getting injured, he tended to get hungry way easily. And after rushing thousands of li all the way from Xiqiao Mountain to Wulong Mountain, his belly started growling in protest.
Hearing it growl, Lin Twin Fish’s eyes lit up. “Changeng, you haven’t had breakfast yet, have you? Perfect, come on, come on…”
“No need,” Wu Changeng said. “I grabbed a piece of fruit down below while I was coming up.”
“That won’t do,” she said, cutting him off. “You have to eat. Big White. Big White? Where’s Big White? Big White. Little Black. Little Black...”
Under Wu Changgeng’s confused stare, Liu Xiaolou climbed all the way to the summit. One hand grabbed a long neck, the other clamped down on the back of a neck. And just like that, he yanked the two soundly sleeping beasts right out from the crack.
Lin Twin Fish’s eyes were sparkling as she introduced them to Wu Changgeng. “Look at these…”
Wu Changeng reached out and picked up Big White and Little Black.
Liu Xiaolou: “…..”
The two little guys were still half asleep. Wu Changeng scooped them up casually, and for a moment they both just froze, totally confused.
Wu Changeng looked them over in his hands and muttered, “Roast goose, that’s my specialty. But this one… is it a leopard? Or a cat? If I can catch a snake, we could make a Dragon-Tiger Stew.”
Still mumbling to himself, he wandered over toward the stove, feeling around for a cleaver.
After a brief moment of silence, everything suddenly exploded into chaos. Loud noises, wild struggling, all at once.
“Honk honk honk!”
“Meow meow meow!”
“Hey! What the hell? A sneak attack? This roast goose has a mind of its own…”
“Changeng, don’t do anything crazy!”
“Dammit! Take this sword…”
“Don’t use the sword!”
“Huh? You little punk… Hey, Sect Master, that sword technique’s pretty good. Is that the Yellow Dragon Sword Art?”
“Changeng, put the goose and the cat down!”
“Where did that sword even come from? No trace at all… Alright, alright, put the cat and the goose down.”
“Honk honk!”
“Meow meow~”
“Sect Master, you should put your sword down too. There, that’s it. Okay, okay, that was good. Really good. Don’t feel down. You’ve only been training a few months, right? Not even half a year yet…”
After the storm comes clear skies. After a chaotic brawl comes calm.
An hour later, the goose feathers and cat fur had been swept clean. The fresh gash on a certain Foundation Establishment cultivator’s arm got treated with a more effective Tiger Bone Pill. The little bamboo courtyard returned to how it had been before.
“Changeng, take a look… never seen anything like this before, have you?”
“Just like I thought, this is really interesting. Haha! Look at them eating. They even eat fish. Alright, time to eat. Sect Master, this gold bracelet weighs seven taels. Please accept it.”
“What do you mean by that, Guest Elder Chang?”
“His surname is Wu, not Chang.”
“Sect Master, this spirit rice of yours has probably been stored too long. It’s starting to go stale. This gold bracelet should be enough to trade for some fresh rice.”
“Stale rice? No way. I just bought it yesterday. The shopkeeper said it was freshly harvested spirit rice from Ewe Ram Mountain.”
“Then the shopkeeper fooled you. You’re no match for a shopkeeper, Sect Master. That’s normal.”
“Senior Sister Lin, does it taste stale to you?”
“Is it stale? I don’t taste anything off.”
“Senior Sister… alright, alright. How could Fellow Daoist Lin not taste it? There’s definitely a hint of an old smell to it…”
v“Guest Elder Chang, are you really planning to use this gold bracelet to get me new rice? Man… I’ve heard guest elders all get a stipend. You don’t even take one, and you’re still subsidizing the sect on top of that. You’re seriously…”
“Sect Master, his surname is Wu!”
“It’s fine. Let’s still swap the rice out.”
“Oh, alright then… Senior Sister Lin, does anything about this rice taste off to you?”
“I don’t think so… Changeng, you’re not telling me you hurt your tongue sparring with Seventh Junior Sister, are you? Stick your tongue out. Let me take a look.”
“Sect Master… Senior Sister, no, Fellow Daoist Lin. Let me try some from your bowls. Huh? Wait a second, something’s not right here…”
“Big White, why are you backing away? Little Black? Little Black? Hey, what are you doing?”
“Senior Sister, no, Fellow Daoist Lin. Why did they jump off the cliff?”
“They probably went to catch fish. That’s what they did when I came yesterday.”
“Guest Elder Chang, I’ll get you a fresh bowl of rice... and I’ll get you a new bowl too…”