Chapter 139: The Master's Good Dream

Mo Ran froze in a flash.

The familiar scent of begonias on his nose, Chu Wanning's lack of expression, but the cuffs that fell over his eyes were gentle and carefully wiped. The point is that this man, white as snow, is standing so close to him that he can see the delicate texture of Chu Wanning's lips, and he could easily kiss them with just a nod of his head, taking the soft, tender stamen between his lips and teeth.

"You won, but you didn't wake me up and you didn't win."

Chu Wanning finished wiping the sweat from his brow and suddenly said this.

Mo Ran froze and then smiled, "I didn't win, it was the Master who won."

"You didn't cut the rice again this afternoon."

"No, there wasn't much left, I went to the market, bought some winter supplies and went from house to house, which took some time." Mo Ran said, "So it's still the Master who cut more than I did."

Chu Wanning grunted, not too softly, as if satisfied.

After a while he asked, "What did you buy for the mattress at the market?"

Before Mo Ran could say anything, Ling, who was standing next to her, interjected with a smile, " Your Mightiness has bought a lot of things, and it's exhausting the horse that humped the goods."

"There wasn't much, just charcoal and stuff, some meat and some sweets."

"Not only that," Ling says. Ling said, "Your Mightiness even bought a mattress for each family, and the old lady who plays cotton came straight into the village with him, with a cart full of them."

Chu Wanning was a bit surprised: "Where did you get all that money?"

"I've been saving them for a while." Mo Ran laughs, "Actually those mattresses are not expensive, they are much cheaper than the ones at Upper Fairy World."

"What about the meat?"

"I bought it off the shelf and asked the village chief to take it back and cook it for everyone tomorrow."

Chu Wanning, his face unchanged, asked again, "What about the sugar?"

As soon as Mo Ran came back, he gave them all the malt candy and osmanthus cakes.

She paused and said, seemingly a little sweetly, "I got a piece of that, too."

The girl was one of those girls who knew what she was doing and was naturally familiar with it. Chu Wanning didn't mind when she interjected several times earlier, but after this sentence he rolled his eyes and gave her a cold glance.

"Is it good?"

Ling, mischievously: "Yummy, it's so sweet."

Chu Wanning seemed to sneer, "Then you should eat more." He brushed off his sleeves and left. Mo Ran didn't know what had upset him again and was about to chase after him, when suddenly a blackness spread before his eyes and Chu Wanning threw the robe he was wearing into his face.

"Master."

"Naked like you're not cold, I'm cold looking" Chu Wanning snapped, "Put it on."

""

Mo Ran was hot, but since Chu Wanning had said so, he didn't say a word and immediately pulled his clothes on, sweat clinging to the fabric and making it a little uncomfortable as he raised his ruffled eyelashes and stared blankly at the other man.

Chu Wanning frowned and said, "Who's looking at you with your lapels pulled up?"

"Mo Ran immediately straightened his lapels again, folding his collar so high and tightly that not an inch of flesh was now exposed, but there was an added sense of forbidden beauty. When Chu Wanning saw this, he was inexplicably more indignant, cursed and left, leaving Mo Ran alone in a dumbfounded state.

The mayor and his wife and Ling looked on, bewildered, and Ling said with concern, "This Your Mightiness is so fierce, I've never seen anyone with such a temper," she whispered with some pity, even ingratiation.

"Your master treats you really badly, and you are the only one who is mild-mannered enough to put up with no"

She turned around as she mumbled, but suddenly she met Mo Ran's gaze and half of her words shattered between her lips. She saw that Mo Ran, who had always been smiling and pleasant, suddenly had a sullen look on his face and a wolf's tooth-like look in his eyes.

Ling's heart raced, wondering if she was hallucinating, or if the man in front of her, as steady and generous as a mountain, had revealed a different face in a moment.

Mo Ran said in a muffled voice, "Sorry, you guys get busy, I'm not sure about him, go check it out." And with that he walked away in a big way.

Chu Wanning stands at the edge of the pond, where the reeds are flying, the sun is half-submerged in the sparkling water and the river is burning like a fire.

Mo Ran was in a hurry to run and was panting a little when he stopped behind him, "Master."

""

"Did I do something wrong?"

Chu Wanning said, "No."

"Then why are you unhappy?"

"I'm happy."

Mo Ran froze: "What?"

Chu Wanning turned back to me and said grimly, "I'm happy not to be happy."

Mo Ran :""

He wasn't going to talk to Chu Wanning in a roundabout way anymore. He took a good look at Chu Wanning's face and suddenly thought of something and couldn't help but smile, "I know why Master is upset."

Chu Wanning's hands clenched in his broad sleeves, his shoulders shifted imperceptibly, but his face remained calm: "I said I didn't."

Mo Ran, however, has come over and is standing under the tree with a smile on his back. The old banyan tree by the river has some thick meridians exposed on the surface, like Thuja veins, slowly rooting deep into the soil.

He then stands on the projecting root vein, which appears higher.

Chu Wanning, alarmed and offended, said, "Get down from there."

"Oh."

Mo Ran leapt gently and delicately, landing on his toes in front of Chu Wanning, off the protruding boil. The tree is a gnarled dragon, with no thick roots, and as Chu Wanning stands on a piece of it, Mo Ran has to stand very close to him to avoid the high ground.

He lowered his head, his breath almost brushing Chu Wanning's eyelashes, so Chu Wanning, a little embarrassed again, sulked, "Get your ass up there."

"" Mo Ran couldn't help but laugh, "Go up and down go up and down, the Master is joking with me"

Chu Wanning also knew he was fooling around in his anger, and when he was exposed, he simply kept quiet and gloomy.

Mo Ran stretched his hand out from behind his back and pulled out a handful of sweets from somewhere, wrapped in rice paper, and held them all in his palm, making a mountain of sweetness.

"Don't be angry, I've saved it for you."

"" Chu Wanning was even more furious, he wanted to vomit blood, he was simply bursting with rage, he pressed his sword brows and bellowed, " Mo Weiyu "

"In" Mo Ran was busy standing up straight.

"Who wants candy do you think I'm a three year old child to coax or do you take me for a girl to coax me at all um"

A candy was nudged to the lips and sent into the mouth.

Chu Wanning is stunned.

In a flash the tips of her ears were red, not to mention her face, not knowing whether it was shame or annoyance, and her phoenix eyes were wide open, staring at the smiling man in front of her with a mixture of shock and anger.

"Buttermilk flavoured." Mo Ran said, "You like it best."

Chu Wanning is suddenly a little mute, a little powerless, like a cat with its claws cut off, its teeth and fur showing threateningly rendered useless.

He was holding a buttermilk-flavoured candy, and a small strand of hair at the corner of his forehead was blowing slightly in the wind from the rush he had just taken, twitching like a blade of grass. Mo Ran felt an itch in her heart to reach out and squash that strand of hair.

He is into practical work.

With this in mind, he then, literally reached out.

Chu Wanning :""

Mo Ran laughed, "I bought some sweets and pastries for everyone in the village, but the ones I bought for Master are the most delicious, the sweets I secretly hid in my sleeve. The pastries are in your room, go back at night and eat them quietly, don't let the little ones see them, they are lotus blossom cakes, they are beautiful, if they see them they will be pestering you for them."

Chu Wanning did not speak, and it was a long time before he rolled his tongue in the melted buttermilk candy and raised his eyes to look at the man in front of him in the rushes, under the old banyan tree.

Half-heartedly, he threw out four words in a foreword: "Cinnamon sugar roots."

Mo Ran smiled, "Bought."

"Lion's Head with Crabmeat."

"Bought it too."

""

Chu Wanning tilted his head, he felt that he had lost a bit of his majesty today and he wanted to pick it up and dust it off, so he had the intention to straighten his posture and his chin was slightly raised, "Unfortunately it's short of pearly whites."

He probably thought he was looking serious and oppressive with his chin up.

However, that was in the past, limited to Mo Ran's teenage years, when he was not as tall as he was.

Little did Chu Wanning know that if he did this again today, he would only be showing Mo Ran the soft lines of his jaw and the knot of his throat exposed by the lift of his chin, and the tube of white neck of the Rooibos.

He is like a cat who thinks he is so high and mighty that he has placed his most vulnerable spot under the lips and teeth of a wolf dog, but he is too proud to know that he has deterred the tigers and wolves, not knowing that they only want to suck his throat between their mouths and tongues, lick and kiss it, and devour it.

Fool.

It took Mo Ran a lot of perseverance to take his eyes off Chu Wanning's chin, and when he looked at the person in front of him, his eyes were a little darker and his voice a little lower.

He forced a smile, doing his gentlemanly his willowy thing, as he said, "Yes."

Chu Wanning didn't react and frowned: "What"

"Pearly white."

Mo Ran exhaled a breath without moving, suppressing his thoughts of lust and saying hoarsely.

"Pearly white, too."

Chu Wanning :""

"Walking around thinking that the Master might want a drink." Mo Ran said, "Luckily I bought it."

Chu Wanning stared at his apprentice, who was trying to please him, and suddenly he couldn't say anything, he suddenly felt that his difficult situation was meaningless, and the hard coldness of his pretence was also meaningless.

He finally eased his taut body and leaned his back against the old banyan tree, looking back and forth at Mo Ran before saying, " Mo Ran."

"Hmm."

"You've changed so much."

After he had said this, he somehow saw a hint of unease under Mo Ran's eyes, before Mo Ran fluttered her thick, slender lashes and said, "Then does the Master like it"

"" Chu Wanning said, "Not annoying."

Then, as if he suddenly remembered something, he stood up straight again and raised his finger, hesitating in mid-air, before landing on the side of Mo Ran's waist.

Mo Ran shuddered and looked down at Chu Wanning with uncertainty and trepidation.

"I read that you fought with the Drought of Yellow River." Chu Wanning said, "It was here that the wound was inflicted."

"Hmm."

Chu Wanning sighed imperceptibly and patted Mo Ran on the shoulder, "You're good enough to be an Ink Master now."

"The apprentice would not dare."

Chu Wanning then smiled slightly and poked his fingertips at Mo Ran's brow before dropping them, "That's right, running around all day in disarray really doesn't look like a patriarch. Let's go, the sun is setting, go back early and rest, what do we do tomorrow"

Mo Ran thought about it and said, "I think it said to steam the rice and to make rice cakes."

Chu Wanning nodded and suddenly said, "Don't take your clothes off again."

Mo Ran's face flushed, "Mmm."

"Rest when you're hot."

"Good."

Chu Wanning thought for a while longer and said, "Remember to bring a handkerchief with you and don't hang around with the unmarried girls.

"No." Mo Ran felt embarrassed.

"So what do you usually use to wipe your face with?"

"Sleeves." Mo Ran felt even more embarrassed by his brownness.

Chu Wanning was a bit speechless and said half-heartedly, "I'll cut a piece for you then."

Mo Ran's eyes lit up instantly: "For me?"

"Hmm."

Mo Ran was overjoyed: "That's great Master when will you go for the cut"

Chu Wanning frowned, "It's got to wait until this is a busy time."

"Then I want the kind with begonias too, is that OK?"

"I'll try."

Mo Ran was delighted to be given a handful of sweets in exchange for a handkerchief, and tossed and turned under her new quilt, unable to sleep.

For five years he has been in a drunken agony.

It was the first time he had been kept awake by joy.

His heart was beating so fast and so long that he could not resist and sat up from his bed, where his window faced the window of Chu Wanning's room. He leaned over the edge, and through the slight gap that opened up, the sweetness of the wild countryside at night was at the tip of his nose, and in front of him was the small courtyard and the candlelight on the opposite side of it.

Chu Wanning is still awake.

What is he doing?

Is he wondering how to cut his handkerchief or is he eating the lotus flower pastry he brought him?

Mo Ran watched the warm yellow light from the opposite window for a long, long time, until the light from across the room went out and Chu Wanning went to sleep, and then he whispered reluctantly.

"Good dreams, Master."

There was another phrase pressed into his heart that he dared not utter even when no one heard it.

Wangning .

Good dream.