Chapter 101: The Master, the Last Fire in the World

Mo Ran did not speak, and after a long time, smiled brightly.

"What a great story of a salve with only one master living in it. What a great story."

His bare, well-toed feet, which are well shod, tread on the cold stone surface, the bruises on the backs of his feet hidden, and stop in front of Song Qiutong.

Mo Ran then lifts one foot, nudges Song Qiutong's chin with the tip of her foot, and makes her look up at herself.

"You've been holding these words in your heart for a long time, haven't you?"

He looked at her frightened face and smiled: "Empress Song, there are many things in the past that I have not yet asked you about, since you have said something heartfelt and personal to me today, why don't we confess to the end, come, I will talk to you."

"Let's start with the recent events. On the day I went to Snow Walk Palace, I locked Chu Wanning in his chambers, so tell me how he ended up on Kunlun Hill and who unlocked him and sent him to me."

Song Qiutong's body shuddered, and he said, "I don't know."

She was so eager to defend herself that she even forgot to say "I" instead of "concubine".

Mo Ran then smiled, and said, "Well, if you don't know this, then I'll ask you the next one. That year I made you a queen, and made you a coordinator of the pinnacle of death and life, but later I had to go to the Yin Mountains, and when I left, Chu Wanning was being held in the water prison for disobedience."

When he mentioned this, Song Qiutong's face could not help but turn blue and his lips shivered.

"You took the opportunity to visit him by scouting the prison. Only to be treated with contempt by him"

"Yes, yes." Song Qiutong was busy saying, "But Your Majesty Mo Ran, I told you all about this back then, Master Chu he told me to get out of the heavenly prison and there were many insults in his words, he not only scolded me, but also scolded His Majesty together, I was angry I"

"I know." Mo Ran smiled faintly, "You were angry, but Chu Wanning was a felon, and you could not punish him without my permission. So you punished him in a small way by having his ten nails removed and thorns nailed to each of his fingertips."

Song Qiutong, with frightened eyes, argued, "Your Majesty, when you returned, you complimented me on my good work."

Mo Ran smiles: "Oh yeah?"

"The more she spoke, the softer her voice became, and finally, looking at Mo Ran's creepy smile, she collapsed to the ground, tears in her eyes. " Mo Ran "

Mo Ran sighed softly as he laughed, " Qiutong, so many days have passed that what I said and what I didn't say back then has been forgotten."

""The woman's body shook violently at the words, even though she had already guessed what Mo Ran was thinking.

"I've been dreaming these past few days, dreaming of the day I returned from the Yin Mountain and entered the water prison, seeing his hands festering and covered in blood." Mo Ran spoke slowly, and at the end, his voice tightened suddenly, a cold light in his eyes, "I'm not happy."

Song Qiutong was at a loss for words, "Your Majesty, Your Majesty no, Mo Ran you listen to me you calm down and listen to me"

"This seat is not happy."

Mo Ran, as if he had heard nothing, lowered his face expressionlessly and looked coldly at the woman curled up in a ball on the floor.

"Just coax me, okay?"

The frosty look on his face, paired with such arrogant entreaties, made Song Qiutong's scalp tingle with goose bumps, even after all her years of being with the king. She caught the scent of the storm and lifted her dark brown eyes to look up at him as she crawled over to Mo Ran's ankles.

"Yes, whatever Mo Ran says, whatever Mo Ran wants me to do to be happy I'll be nice and nice"

Mo Ran leaned down, pinched her chin and lifted her face.

He smiled and was adorably naive.

It was as if he had first seen her at the Confucianism School, sweetly showing two deep dimples, tugging at her sleeve and begging, "Little sister, what's your name?" "Don't be afraid, I won't hurt you, talk to me, okay?"

No shivers.

After many years, he said something else with almost the same look and in the same tone of voice.

He said sweetly and tenderly, " Qiutong, I know you are sincere and would do anything to make me happy"

His fingertips rubbed over her soft lips.

The resemblance to Shi Mingjing is striking on her entire face.

Mo Ran's eyelashes fluttered lightly and he looked at those two petals of flower-like lips without moving, but finally he said, "Then you, go to the Yellow Spring and wait for this seat for a while."

""

He asked, without fail, "Is it good?"

Song Qiutong's eyes burst into tears, not out of sadness, but out of fear. She had known that if Mo Ran brought up her abuse of Chu Wanning now, she would never get off on the wrong foot, but the most she could think of was caning and deportation, and it took all her courage not to think that Mo Ran would

How could he have been willing to

He he he

Crazy.

Mad Mad Mad

Mo Ran threw back his head and laughed lowly, his laughter growing more and more unrestrained and arrogant as he laughed and kicked open the doorway of his bedchamber, laughing as he strode outside the hall.

He has trampled on thousands of lives, and now it is her turn.

Mad Mad Mad

Mo Weiyu Crazy

Song Qiutong fell to her knees on the cold gold tiles and stones, the fires of hell already burning in her bedchamber before the passions of love and affection had dissipated, her mouth open and her head tilted back, struggling to see the light of day spilling in from outside the hall.

The dawn comes and the sky is blood red.

It stained her eyes red.

She heard Mo Ran drink distantly, casually, as if ordering what should be served for today's evening meal.

"Men, drag the Queen out."

"Your Majesty," was the panicked response of the attendant court members outside, "Your Majesty, this..."

"Throw it in the oven and fry it alive."

Song Qiutong was suddenly unable to hear anything, as if he had sunk into the ocean, unable to hear anything at all.

"Cooked alive, cooked alive hilarious, cooked alive painful, hahahahahaha"

He walked further and further away, and only the sound of laughter and drinking was like a vulture, circling the top of death and life for a long time.

The rising sun trailed his shadow, a solitary trail that blotted the ground as he walked slowly, slowly.

At first it seems that beside them stand two vaporous figures of teenage Juma, and a tall, erect man in white.

Later, the two shadows disappeared, leaving only the white dress with him.

Further back, the man in white also disappeared into the golden morning sun.

The rising sun, which is pure and holy, takes away the equally pure and holy, leaving him alone to sink in hell, in a sea of blood, among spirits and demons.

He was left alone, and the more he walked, the lonelier and colder he became.

At the end of the walk, he suddenly felt as if he had died, he was dead

The more you go, the crazier you get.

Mo Ran remembers that in the last year before he killed himself, he would sometimes look into the bronze mirror and not recognise what kind of monster was reflected in it.

He even remembers the night before he died, sitting in the bamboo pavilion of the red lotus water pavilion, accompanied only by an old slave.

He then asked the old slave, speaking lazily, " Liu, tell me what kind of a man I was originally"

Before the other man could reply, he looked at his reflection in the pool water and said to himself.

"It seems that when I was young, I never wore my hair in such a braid, and that I never touched such a beaded crown, don't you think?"

Liu then replied with a sigh, "Your Majesty is right, the tassel and the hair braid were both given to you for your contemplation by Queen Song after you ascended the throne."

"Oh, you mean Song Qiutong." Mo Ran snorted and tilted her head back to take a sip of pearly white, "So I was even at her beck and call in the first place?"

Perhaps his days are numbered, and he is not afraid that Jane, who is in the emperor's heart, will have his head on a platter if he does not like it.

Liu said, "Yes, when His Majesty first ascended to the throne, the Empress Song was extremely favoured and for a period of time, whatever the Empress said, His Majesty did.

"Forget," laughed Mo Ran, "no forget, how could I forget?"

After she married Song Qiutong, someone leaked the news to her that His Majesty favoured her only because she looked five times like the late Shi Mingjing. She was a resourceful person, so she pried into Shi Mei's behaviour all the time, and if she did, it came out in the couple's life, as if she were an old friend returning.

How can you forget.

Mo Ran laughed and suddenly took off the tassel from his bun, without looking at it, and threw it into the pond, startling a sea of koi, shining the figure in the lake more and more distorted and hideous.

In this hideousness, he dismantled his hair braid and wore it down like ink, leaning sideways on the edge of the lake, letting the shimmering water reflect his face in a shadowy way.

"Alright, the crown is lost and the bun has fallen apart, Old Liu, help me think of something else that is missing for this throne to return to the way it was before it was crowned"

"This."

"It's a hairband, isn't it?" Mo Ran looked at her reflection and said, "The most common blue hairband for a disciple at the top of the Dead and Alive. Do they still have them in the palace?"

"Yes, when His Majesty took off the disciple's uniform at the top of death and life in his first year on the throne, he had explained to his old slave to put it away. If Your Majesty wants it, the old slave will go and get it for you."

"Excellent, go ahead and fetch all but the hairband as well."

Liu returned with a pile of old clothes in his hand, and Mo Ran sat up, his fingertips touching the texture of cotton and linen, and the past tumbling up, like dead leaves falling on a heart full of holes. On the spur of the moment, he picked up an outer robe and tried to put it on.

But the clothes he had as a teenager were already too small and no matter how much he fiddled with them, he could never put them back on.

Steeped in rage.

"Why can't I put it on why can't I go back"

He was like a trapped beast circling in a cage, a frantic look on his face and a horrifyingly bright light in his eyes.

"Is this my garment is this my garment have you ever taken it by mistake if it is my garment why would you not be able to put it on why would you not be able to put it on"

The old slave is used to seeing his master's madness.

I used to think Mo Ran was horrible, but today, for no reason, I feel sorry for the man.

He was not looking for clothes, he was looking for the self that would never come back.

"Your Majesty." The old man sighed quietly, "Put it down, you are no longer the young man you were yesterday."

"" Mo Ran, who was in the midst of a heated rage, turned back viciously at the words and stared at the old man's withered face, but it was as if he was choking, unable to say anything, except that the ends of his eyes were red and he couldn't stop panting, and only after a long time did he say, "No more."

"No more."

"There's no going back."

"There's no going back."

For the first time in his life, the thirty-two year old man's face was dazed and confused in a way that only a child can be, his eyes closed and the knot in his throat twitched, and the old slave standing next to him thought that when he opened his eyes he would open his molars and fangs in a violent manner and tear everything in front of him.

But when Mo Ran opened her eyes again, they were a little moist.

Perhaps it was such wetness that quenched the blazing fire in his heart.

Mo Ran opened his mouth, his voice was hoarse and tired: "Well there's no going back, no going back."

He dropped his robe with infinite weariness and sat down at the stone table, burying his face in his palms.

After a long time, he said, "Tie a hairband, then."

"What is the need for you, Your Majesty?"

"I don't want to be alone when I die." Mo Ran said this without lowering his palms, and no one could see the look on his face, "I want to change my clothes and feel that I have the company of my old friend."

Liu sighed, "That's not true."

"Fake or not."

Mo Ran said.

"False, it's better than nothing."

His long hair was tied up and wrapped around and around again, then from the pile of old clothes he picked up a hair button with faded edges, which he wanted to fasten to the side of his hair as he had done when he was a teenager, but then he looked at his reflection in the water and stopped.

Is it left, or right

It's been so long since I used this hair button that my memory has become so fuzzy, Mo Ran closed his eyes and said, "Old Liu, do you know how I wore my hair back then?"

"Your Majesty, the old slave only came to serve in the palace in the second year after your accession to the throne, and the old slave did not know."

Mo Ran said, "But I can't remember, I want someone to tell me."

""

"Where is such a person, you say, that you can tell me." Mo Ran murmured, "Who can tell me what I looked like in the first place."

Old Liu let out a long sigh but could not name anyone. Mo Ran actually knew in his heart that this old man had no answer to give him, so he took the black hair button in doubt, left, right and finally snapped it on the left.

"It seems that way." Mo Ran said, "I'll ask him."

He then walked deeper into the water pond to the red lotus pool, where Chu Wanning's corpse lay, no different than if he had fallen asleep.

Mo Ran sat down on the ground, he rested his cheeks, and said, "Master."

The wind sends the fragrance of lotus, and he looks at the man with his eyes closed and his eyes closed in a pool full of flushed red intoxication, and suddenly he feels that he has a lot to say, but he doesn't know what to say.

He always seemed to have a full range of emotions for Chu Wanning, but they were so mixed, so sweet and sour, that he couldn't tell if he hated her more or had more feelings for her, and he really didn't know what to do with her.

He once told himself that he kept Chu Wanning with him only to vent his hatred and to satisfy his selfish desires, but when Chu Wanning died, he left behind a corpse that he could no longer linger with, a grave already set up, but he did not want to bury it.

What is the use of actually keeping this cold, immobile, non-speaking corpse

He was about as unsure as he could be.

Having been through so much, that initial little bit of cleanliness has been completely drowned out.

When Chu Wanning was alive, the two of them rarely spent any time together in peace.

Now that Chu Wanning is dead, there is a cruel gentleness between the dead and the living, and Mo Ran used to visit him, carrying a pot of pearly whites, just watching and not saying much.

At this moment, with the army besieging the mountain, he knew that his life was coming to an end, and that Chu Wanning's body was the only one who had been with him since the end of his life.

Mo Ran suddenly wanted to have a good chat with this cold corpse, but Chu Wanning was already a corpse, unable to resist or scold, and he would have to listen to whatever he said.

But he moved his mouth, a lump in his throat.

At the end of the day, only one sentence was uttered.

"Master, you pay attention to me."