Chapter 72: This seat stews

It was nighttime, and the two of them were lying on a spacious stone bed, the time under house arrest was hard, they had practised and eaten, but there was nothing else to do.

As he walked around the cave, Chu Wanning was quiet and fine, but Mo Ran was different, and he felt like he was spending days and years.

"Ugh, boredom, boredom, what to play what to play"

Chu Wanning closed his eyes and said, "Sleep."

"It's still very early." Mo Ran glanced at the drip and shook his head, "Way early."

Chu Wanning ignored him.

Mo Ran rolled around on the bed a few times and suddenly came to tug at his face.

"Shifu."

""

"Shidoshi."

""

"Shidoshi."

Chu Wanning's eyes opened suddenly and he said angrily, "Do what?"

Mo Ran shamelessly took his hand and shook it back and forth, "Play with me."

"Are you the master or am I the master?" Chu Wanning was furious, shaking off his hand, "Who's messing with you?"

Mo Ran laughed sweetly, very brazenly, and said, "Of course you're the one who's messing around with me. Who else could it be."

Chu Wanning :""

The hair ribbon was removed from Mo Ran's head, a narrow red one, tied at the ends and tied between Mo Ran's fingers, forming a unique knot.

Chu Wanning sat up from the bed after all and asked, not very pleasantly, "What is this how to play"

"It's a flower rope. The girls play it more, the boys don't usually play it, but I grew up in the theater where there were a lot of girls, so I picked it up."

""

"It's actually quite interesting, watch, you come and hook this thread onto your finger no, not this one, the little thumb, well that's it. And then the thumb and index finger hook the two strands over there" Mo Ran spoke in a slow, patient and peaceful voice.

The candle crackles and the warm yellow glow reflects their figures, one large and one small, heads bowed in concentration as they wind the red thread from the hair rope, each other's expressions unable to resist the gradual tenderness.

Chu Wanning's hand is taut with thread as he winds the pattern under the guidance of Mo Ran, who accidentally winds it wrong, and when the red thread turns his hand, he pulls it back into its original shape instead of the new pattern he expected, a simple two-pass.

He watched in awe, his hand still raised in mid-air, but with a puzzled look on his face as he murmured, "How did it fall apart how could this happen"

"Haha, you're going around the wrong way again."

"Come again."

"No more, no more." Mo Ran laughed, "It's no fun playing one all the time, change it to something else."

"No." This time Chu Wanning was not happy and said solemnly, "One more time."

""

The two of them stayed in the cave for three days, and on the fourth night Mo Ran prepared the usual delicious food for Chu Wanning. In the past few days he had worked out that his youngest brother and his master were really from the same village and had the same food likes and dislikes.

Tonight Feathermen sent a hen and a few mushrooms. Mo Ran is planning to make a pot of chicken soup with mushrooms and some home-rolled noodles, which won't taste too bad.

"Chicken soup in the evening"

"Yeah." Mo Ran responded, glancing sideways at Chu Wanning. The boy, though gifted in martial arts, had no idea how to turn a rope, but he was so stubborn that he would just put a head rope in his hand and work on it.

Mo Ran laughed, "You sit by and take your time, but I'm afraid I'll have the soup ready and you won't have worked through the rope yet."

Chu Wanning grunted coldly, paused and said lightly, "Are there any slices of ginger in the leftover ingredients?"

"Let's see yo, there's, extraordinarily, a bunch of ginger given yesterday."

Chu Wanning said with satisfaction, "Put some more in, to go fishy."

Mo Ran rubbed his chin: "Oh, you're not going to put some goji berries in there, are you?"

Chu Wanning's eyes lit up: "Yes?"

"Pfft. Of course not, I just think you have such similar tastes to your master. He loves to put ginger on top of his soup and put goji berries in it too."

"You remember what he likes to eat."

"Haha, yes, yes, I'm a good boy." Mo Ran didn't bother to explain, he couldn't talk about past lives and present lives with his little brother, so he went along with it and said, "I am a good disciple, but it's a pity that my master doesn't see my heart and admiration."

Mo Ran said casually and began to handle the fowl, thus perfectly missing the look on Chu Wanning's face as he nimbly plucked the hair and removed the organs and was about to boil the water to remove the blood, when he suddenly heard his youngest brother whisper, "He may not know."

"What?"

When Chu Wanning saw Mo Ran look up, the tips of his ears suddenly turned red and he turned his head and coughed dryly, saying, "He may not be unaware of the good you are doing to Elder Yu Heng."

"Oh, that, it doesn't really matter. I'm used to it anyway, although there have been times when I've had delusions of grandeur that he'd be like other people's masters and talk to me in a considerate way, or occasionally it would be nice to know what I like as much as I know what he likes to eat. But that was all in the past. When I first started, I was deluded by his pretty skin and thought he was a gentle man, but now I think about it really alas, his old man is unattainable and his days are full of work, how dare I enter his eyes, haha, ahahahaha."

Chu Wanning was a little angry at his words, but on reflection, as he had always acted distantly towards Mo Ran despite his concern, his anger turned into embarrassment and he hung his head in silence. After a while, he jumped off the bed and walked silently over to Mo Ran.

"Do what?"

"You've been cooking for days, today's is easy, I'll make it for you instead."

Mo Ran froze and then laughed, "Why this thought suddenly came to you you are small and tiny, how can you cook a meal that can't even reach the stove top. What's more, I'm your elder brother, and since you call me that, a few meals are nothing."

Chu Wanning moved a bench over and stood on it without making a sound, staring at him insistently.

Mo Ran: "What are you staring at me for?"

"You see if I have enough to get the stove."

""

" Elder Yu Heng doesn't know what you like to eat, but I am not as heartless as he is." Chu Wanning said with an expressionless face, "Go and rest, I will cook for you."

Chu Wanning doesn't let Mo Ran interfere, but instead holds a kitchen knife with a fierce look in his eyes as he cuts up the hen's carcass, with an intensely focused and rigid gesture that is hard to watch.

Mo Ran wanted to give him a hand, but his temper was similar to his master's. He hated to be disturbed when he was concentrating on his work, so after a few times of making a fool of himself, Mo Ran had to lie down on his bed, scratching his head and resting.

When the chicken was finally in the pot, Chu Wanning put the clay lid on the soup pot and turned his head to say something to Mo Ran when he heard a soft voice coming from the door of the cell.

" Mo Ran, Xia Shiyi, are you there?"

At the sound of the voice, Mo Ran was struck by lightning and leapt out of bed. He rushed to the door and saw through the gap a Feathermen standing coldly outside, but when he turned his eyes, he saw Shi Mei standing behind her, dressed in white, with a sad face. "

"I have something important to say to you." Shi Mei said. Shi Mei said, "His Holiness has been informed and has arrived at Peach Blossom Yard and is now negotiating with the Feathermen. How are you? You've suffered these days."

"I'm fine, I can eat, drink and dance." Mo Ran paused and asked, "Where's the Master? Where is he?"

"It says that he is still in retreat and clearing his mind and has not come."

"Oh." Mo Ran's eyes flickered and he randomly sighed and muttered, "It's better not to come or not to come."

"But Elder Xuan Ji has arrived and said he has come to vouch for Senior Brother Xia." Shi Mei asked, "Master Xia is sleeping."

Mo Ran said, "No, he's making a stew. Come over here quickly, brother."

Chu Wanning put down the small bamboo fan that was fanning the fire, walked to the door, looked at the two people outside, and without any unexpected expression, said lightly, "What's wrong"

Before Shi Mei could say anything, the Feathermen grunted and asked in return, "It is not your people from the top of death and life who are here, your master said he wanted to protect you and was discussing with our Immortal."

"My master."

" O Elder Xuan Ji."

"Oh." Chu Wanning paused, his face expressionless, "Very well."

The Feathermen bristled and said, "Come out, you two, for all the dignitaries are gathered in the Pavilion of the Drinking Dew, waiting to hear your explanation."

Chu Wanning looked back at the chicken soup that was simmering and said, "I'm not going, it's half cooked and I can't leave. Mo Ran, you go and say it for me."

When the Feathermen heard that, they said, "You are really a young child, and your speech is so unreliable." So they sneered and frightened him, "If you don't go, you will miss your chance to defend yourself, and if you are convicted of killing the eighteen girls, you will have to pay for the murder and lose your head.

He was not afraid, but looked at him with indifference, gave him a cold look and turned away.

Shi Mei was about to call out to him, but Mo Ran smiled and shook his head, "Let him be, I'll be fine."

"But Elder Xuan Ji has come a long way, and it would be rude of him not to go and greet him."

Before Mo Ran could say anything, he heard Chu Wanning say from afar, "Brother Mo, give my regards to the Master."

"Shi Mei was a little embarrassed that he had overheard her whispering, cleared her throat and, once Feathermen had opened the thorn bush outside the cell, pulled Mo Ran with her and prepared to leave.

At that moment, Chu Wanning turned around and called out to him, "Brother."

"Have you changed your mind and are coming with me?" Mo Ran asked with a smile.

Chu Wanning waved his sleeve with a short hand and said, "I am not going. I just came to tell you to remember to come back early, the soup will be cold and not good if you are late."

Mo Ran froze for a moment and lost his smile, "Okay, wait for me then."

"Hmm." Chu Wanning then stopped talking, only to wait until Mo Ran was far enough away that his figure disappeared around the corner and out of sight, before he turned his head and concentrated on making the soup.

On the way over to the cave, Shi Mei asked, "Mo Ran, you seem to have become more familiar with Xia these days."

Mo Ran laughed, "Yes, I've been with him through thick and thin. What, Shi Mei, you're not jealous of a child, are you?"

"Nonsense."

"Hahahaha, Shi Mei, don't worry, my favourite is still Shi Mei, it won't change."

"Stop talking nonsense, I just think there's something strange about Senior Brother Xia"

"Strange oh" Mo Ran thought about it and nodded, "He is quite strange."

"You feel it too."

"Yes." Mo Ran laughed, "He speaks like an adult all day at a young age, and his magic power is not to be underestimated. Also what I encountered in the illusion earlier was even more bizarre and I haven't had time to tell you about it. Do you know I suspect that he and our master are distant relatives."

Shi Mei's eyes twitched slightly as she asked, "What does that mean?"

"We saw a man in the illusion, the son of the governor of Lin'an city two hundred years ago, also surnamed Chu, who looked particularly like the Master, and who had a son with the same appearance"

As he was about to get to the point, he suddenly heard a loud cursing sound in front of him, and when he looked up, he saw Xue Meng striding towards him with a face full of anger and cursing: "Bastard, beast, shameless dog".