Chapter 10: My First Appearance

Fortunately for Mo Ran, Chu Wanning didn't hear all of the "mouth torture" that he was putting on. He was able to get away with a lot of nonsense.

When he got back to his room, it was late, so Mo Ran slept and went to his morning exercises the next day as usual. After his morning study, it was time for his favourite part of the morning: the early morning.

Mengpo Court, where the morning meal is served, gradually becomes more crowded as the morning service breaks up.

Mo Ran sits opposite Shi Mei. Xue Meng arrives late and the seat next to Shi Mei is taken by someone else, so he reluctantly sits next to Mo Ran with his breakfast.

If Mo Ran were to tell us the most subtle aspect of the Top of Death and Life Method, he would say that the discipline does not require incarnation.

Unlike many of Upper Fairy World's more out-of-the-way sects, the Top of the Dead has its own way of practising, with no meat and no fasting, so the food is always plentiful.

Mo Ran sipped a bowl of spicy and fragrant oil tea, sipping along the sides of the crushed peanuts and vegetables, crispy soybeans and a plate of crispy fried buns in front of her, specially ordered for Shi Mei.

Xue Meng looked at Mo Ran with a sidelong glance, rather mockingly, " Mo Ran, I never thought you would come out of red lotus hell standing up. I'm impressed."

Mo Ran didn't even look up: "Then you don't even see who I am."

"Who are you?" Xue Meng snorted, "You're so mad you don't know what you are if your master hasn't broken your leg."

"Oh, I'm an onion, so what are you."

Xue Meng laughed coldly, "I am the chief disciple of my master."

"You sealed it yourself ah hey, I suggest you go to the master to drop a seal and frame it and hang it on the wall for worship, otherwise wouldn't it be wrong for the title of chief disciple."

With a click, Xue Meng crushed the chopsticks.

Shi Mei was quick to make peace with the situation: "Stop arguing and let's eat."

Xue Meng: "Hm."

Mo Ran smiled and imitated him, "Hmph."

Xue Meng was furious and slapped the table: "How dare you!"

Shi Mei saw that the situation was not good, and pulled Xue Meng: " young master, so many people are watching, let's eat, don't argue."

After Shi Mei had persuaded Xue Meng, he was bitterly caught in the middle, talking to both sides.

A moment later he asked Xue Meng: "young master, when is the cat she is keeping going to give birth?"

Xue Meng replied, "Oh, you said the beaver my mother got wrong, it's not pregnant, it's just eating too much and looks big."

Shi Mei :""

A moment later he asked Mo Ran, "Mo Ran, are you going to work at the Master's today?"

"I don't think I need to, I've sorted out everything that needs sorting out. I'll help you copy the door rules today."

Shi Mei laughed, "Why do you have time to help me? You still have a hundred times to copy yourself."

Xue Meng raised her eyebrows and looked at Shi Mei, who had always been a peaceful person, with some surprise: "Why are you copying the rules of the clan too?"

Shi Mei looked embarrassed and before she could say anything, the buzz of conversation in the dining hall suddenly fell silent. The three of them looked back to see Chu Wanning entering Mengpo Court in a white dress, walking expressionlessly to the food cupboard and starting to pick out the dim sum.

With the addition of Chu Wanning to a dining hall of over a thousand people, it was suddenly as quiet as a graveyard. The disciples were all sullenly eating their meals, and even when they did communicate, they did so very softly.

Shi Mei sighed softly and looked at Chu Wanning with his tray, sitting in the same corner where he would normally sit, drinking his porridge alone in silence, and couldn't help but say, "Actually, I think that Master is quite pathetic sometimes."

Mo Ran lifted his eyes, "How?"

"Look, where he sits, no one else dares to come near, when he comes, no one else even dares to speak aloud, it used to be fine when His Holiness was there, but when His Holiness is not there, he doesn't even have anyone to talk to, isn't it lonely"

Mo Ran grunted, "Well, he asked for it."

Xue Meng was furious again: "How dare you mock the Master"

"I'm not mocking him. I'm telling the truth." Mo Ran gave Shi Mei another fried bun, "With his temper, who wants to be with him."

"You."

Mo Ran looked at Xue Meng playfully and said lazily, "If you're not convinced, sit over there and eat with your master, not with us."

In one sentence, Xue Meng is blocked.

He respects Chu Wanning but, like everyone else, is more than a little intimidated. Embarrassed and exasperated, but unable to argue, he could only kick the table leg twice and sulk with himself. With a lazy smugness on his face, Mo Ran glanced provocatively at Little Phoenix before his eyes fell on Chu Wanning across the crowd.

For some reason, looking at the only white figure in a room full of dark blue and silver armour, he suddenly thought of the one who had fallen asleep curled up in the cold metal last night.

Shi Mei is right, Chu Wanning is truly pathetic.

But so what? The more miserable he was, the happier Mo Ran was, and as she thought about it, the corners of her mouth curved up a little more.

The days fly by.

Chu Wanning did not send him to the red lotus water salon, so Mo Ran's daily duties became washing dishes, feeding the chickens and ducks kept by Madame Wang, and weeding the herb garden, which was quite leisurely.

In a flash, a month of grounding has passed.

On that day, the King's wife called Mo Ran to the Loyalty Palace, touched his head and asked him, "Mo Ran, have you healed all your wounds?"

Mo Ran smiled, "I'm all right, thank you."

"That's good, be careful when you go out in the future, don't make such a big mistake and make your master angry again, do you know"

Mo Ran is particularly good at pretending to be a grandchild: "Auntie, I know."

"There is another matter." Mrs. Wang said as she pulled out a letter from the small yellow pear table, "It has been a year since you were initiated, and it is time for you to take on the responsibility of getting rid of the demons. Yesterday your uncle sent a letter by pigeon, specifically asking you to go down to the mountain to complete this assignment after your grounding has expired."

The rules of the Top of Death and Life are that after one year of initiation, disciples are expected to get involved in the world and get rid of demons.

The disciple's mentor will accompany the disciple on his or her first fight. In addition, the disciple must invite a fellow disciple to go with him or her, so that the disciples can support each other and understand why "the heart of a man can be seen and the life of a man can never be changed".

Mo Ran's eyes lit up as he took the letter of appointment, tore it open and read it over hastily, grinning with pleasure.

Madam Wang said with concern, " Mo Ran, your uncle hopes that you can become famous in one battle, so he has entrusted you with an important task. Although Elder Yu Heng is highly skilled, the sword is merciless in a fight, and he may not be able to protect you.

"No, no," Mo Ran waved his hand and smiled, "Don't worry, I'll take care of myself." And with that he was off in a flash to prepare his bag.

"This boy," Madam Wang looked at his back, her gentle and beautiful face full of worry, "how could he be so happy to receive a commission?"

Mo Ran, what's not to like?

He was entrusted with the task of removing a demon by his uncle in Butterfly Town, at the behest of a local gentleman named Chen.

The point is that in his previous life, it was in Butterfly Town that he lost his mind under the spell of a demon and forcibly kissed Shi Mei in an illusion, one of the few times Mo Ran had been close to her.

Moreover, because he was compelled to do so, Shi Mei could hardly even take it into account. He can't even be held accountable after a white kiss.

Mo Ran's eyes curled into a hook with pleasure. He doesn't even mind that he has to work with Chu Wanning on this assignment.

Why not do this kind of job?

They invited Shi Mei to report to the master and the three of them went on a fast journey to Butterfly Town, where the evil spirits were.

It is a town of flowers, with fields of flowers stretching for dozens of miles outside the settlement, hence the name Butterfly, which is always in bloom in the town.

It was evening when the three arrived, and the village entrance was buzzing with drums and music as a line of musicians dressed in large red garments, playing suona, turned out of the alleyway.

Shi Mei wondered, "Is this a marriage? Why is it at night?"

Chu Wanning said, "It's a plutonic marriage."

The marriage of the dead, also known as a nether marriage, is an afterlife marriage between a man and a woman who died unmarried. The practice was not prevalent in poorer places, but Butterfly Town was so affluent that it was common for young boys and girls who had never married before to find a spouse.

The wedding procession was vast and divided into two columns, one carrying real silk and silk, the other paper dollars and coins. Thus clustered was a red and white palanquin with eight carriers and a full share of gold-lit deacons, which came out of the village in a single file.

Mo Ran pulled the bridle over and stepped aside to let the bridal party pass first. As the palanquin approached, they saw that it was not a living person, but a ghostly bride in papier-mâché. Her lips were bright red, her cheeks were brightly coloured and her face was white, and she was smiling in a very creepy way.

"What a crap habit this village has, so much money to burn." Mo Ran muttered in a small voice.

Chu Wanning said, "Butterfly Town people are very particular about geomancy and believe that there should not be an isolated grave in the house, otherwise the family's luck will be affected by the ghosts."

"There's no such thing, is there?"

"The townspeople believe it has."

"Hey, it's also true that Butterfly Town has been down for hundreds of years, and I guess they can't accept it if they have to tell them that the evil they believe in doesn't exist at all."

Shi Mei asks quietly, "Where is this medieval procession going?"

Chu Wanning said, "Just now we passed an earthen temple on our way here, which was dedicated to more than any one deity, and had the word Xi on the lintel, and red satin piled up on the case table, with messages written on the satin that resembled good fortune from heaven, and good fortune from the spring. I think that's where they were going."

"I noticed that temple too." Shi Mei pondered, "Master, is that a ghostly priestess that is enshrined there?"

"Nice."

It is believed that the dead need to marry each other by exchanging the dragon and phoenix cards, and that they need a master of ceremonies to acknowledge the marriage of two dead people. In Butterfly Town, because of the prevalence of the custom of underworld marriages, it was only natural that a gold body was made for the ghost master of ceremonies, which was placed in front of the graveyard outside the town, and before the families of the underworld marriages were buried, they had to carry the ghost bride to the temple to pay their respects.

Mo Ran, who had rarely seen such absurdity, watched with fascination, but Chu Wanning, after a moment's cold stare, turned his horse around and said, "Come on, let's go to the haunted house."

"I'm really suffering, you've finally come. If no one else takes care of this, I don't even want to live."

The man who commissioned the Top of the Dead to get rid of the ghosts was the town's richest merchant, Mr. Chen.

The Chen family had four sons and one daughter in the powder business. When the eldest son married, his wife didn't like the noise in the house, so they thought of moving out and setting up their own business.

The day the foundation was opened, a few shovels went down and the shovel hit a hard object. The oldest daughter-in-law went over to take a look and immediately fainted.

Butterfly Town was a mass burial site where the townspeople were buried after their deaths. This lone coffin, however, appeared inexplicably on the north hill, with no grave or monument and a blood-red body.

They didn't dare move again and filled the mud back in, but it was too late, and ever since that day, strange things have been happening to the Chen family.

"First it was my daughter-in-law." Chen cried out, "She was frightened and had a miscarriage. Then it was my eldest son, who went to the mountains to collect medicine for his wife's health, but his foot slipped and he fell to the bottom of the mountain, and was already out of breath when he went to retrieve her.

Mrs. Chen also took a handkerchief and wiped her tears, "My husband is right, in the months after this, one by one, our sons had accidents, either they disappeared or lost their lives four sons, three of them lost ah"

Chu Wanning frowned, glancing past the Chen family to the pale youngest son, who looked about the same age as Mo Ran, fifteen or sixteen, good-looking, but his face was slightly distorted by fear.

Shi Mei asked, "Can you tell us what happened to the other children?"

"Alas, Zhongzi was on his way to find his brother when he was bitten by a snake. The snake was just an ordinary grass snake, not poisonous, no one cared at the time, but within a few days, he suddenly collapsed so upright during dinner, and then whimpered, my child ah"

Shi Mei sighed, very unforgivingly, "Well, did the corpse show signs of poisoning"

"Alas, where comes the poison, our family must have been put under a curse the first few sons have gone, the next is the youngest the next is the youngest ah"

Chu Wanning frowned, his eyes fell on Lady Chen like lightning and asked, "How do you know that the youngest will be next, and why not yourself? Does this evil spirit only kill men"

Chen family the youngest shrank there, already his legs were like sieve chaff, his eyes swollen like peaches, and when he opened his mouth his voice was shrill and distorted: "It's me it's me I know the man in the red coffin has found him he's found the Taoist Master, the Taoist Master help me the Taoist Master help me"

As he said that, he started to lose control of his emotions and jumped on Chu Wanning's leg.

Chu Wanning, who is not fond of contact with strangers, immediately avoided it and looked up at Mr. and Mrs. Chen: "What is going on?"

The couple looked at each other and said in a trembling voice, "There is a place in this mansion that we, we dare not go to again the Taoist Master will know when he sees it, it is really evil, really"

Chu Wanning interrupted, "What place?"

The couple hesitated for a moment and reached out their hands, pointing tremulously towards the ancestral shrine room within the house: "That's the place"

Chu Wanning led the way, followed by Mo Ran and Shi Mei, with the Chen family following at a distance.

Inside, the door resembles the incense house where some large families would make offerings to their gods and ancestors, with several rows of spirit tablets in close proximity and pale, long-lasting candle flames burning on either side.

All the tablets in this house are inscribed in shade, painted yellow, with the name of the deceased and his or her ranking in the family.

These spirit plaques are written in a very regular manner, showing the spirit of the ancestor, Khao Khao so and so Tai Fu Jun, and the spirit of Khao Khao so and so Fu Jun.

But the only one in the middle is the spirit tablet, on which, instead of being carved and then painted, is written in red with the following line

The Spirit of Chen Yanji.

Established by Chen Sun, a native of Yang Shang

The Chen family, who were hiding behind the Taoist priest, perhaps because they were lucky, timidly took another glance at the shrine where the white silk was flying, only to see again the words painted in blood on the tablet and collapsed.

Mrs. Chen howled, and her youngest son's face had turned white as if he were alive.

This tablet, firstly, is written in an unorthodox manner, and secondly, the writing on the tablet is so crooked that it looks like a ghostly character written by a man in a drowsy state, almost illegible.

Shi Mei turned her head and asked, "Who is Chen Yanji?"

Chen family's youngest son, with a sobbing voice behind him, trembled and said, "Yes, it's me."

The name of our family member was written on the tablet, and the names on the tablet were all the names of living people. When the name appeared on the tablet, I locked him in the house, scattered incense and ashes outside the door, invited people to perform spells, and tried everything, but he died on the seventh day for no reason at all."

The more he spoke, the more agitated and frightened he became, and with a thud he also fell to his knees: "I have never done anything harmful in my life, Mr. Tian, why did you do this to me?"

Shi Mei was heartbroken, and hurriedly went to calm the crying old man, while looking up and calling out softly, "Master, look at this."

Chu Wanning didn't turn around, he was still looking at the spirit tablet with great interest, as if a flower could blossom from it.

Suddenly, Chu Wanning asked, "Yang Shangren, Chen Sunshi, is that you, Lady Chen?"