Hua Qing felt that the most suspicious person was the newly recruited Cheng Xi shidi. Every time he saw Mo Tianliao, his derisive face just screamed “This trash”.
Xuanji thought that what his second disciple said was reasonable and called Cheng Xi for questioning.
This Cheng Xi didn’t appear for a while, making the suspicion in everyone’s hearts deepen. They waited a long time before they saw a man wearing a black cloak enter, walking the approximate speed of a snail.
“Cheng Xi, how can you come to Master like that?” Hua Qing appeared very dissatisfied and shook his colourful clothes. He should wear something better when meeting Master.
“It’s not good to be too extravagant,” Yu Li shidi could not help but mutter. He was standing beside Hua Qing, looking at those rainbow-like clothes made him feel dizzy.
“What do you know!” Hua Qing raised his hand and gave his shidi a knock on the head. “I call these ‘Filial Jester’.”
This grown man dressed like a diva every day, which had caused him to be mistaken as “shijie” several times. Yu Li wanted to squirt water on him but since he was human, he could only make like a dead fish and ignore him.
Yuan Hai slowly turned, looked at his two quarrelling shidi, then slowly turned back. He spoke too slowly anyway; he’d better not even try to mediate.
Just then, the man in the black cloak approached, the wide hood covered his face so thoroughly that they could not tell who he was.
“Disciple has met Master,” The man in the cloak said weakly, the voice sounded familiar, was this really young Cheng Xi, who was always so disdainful?
“Cheng Xi shidi?! Why are you dressed like this?” This was very upsetting for Hua Qing to see. Why would he come to see Master wearing a bed sheet? He strode over and removed his hood.
There was a moment of silence in the hall as all present saw that the originally handsome young man now had green facial hair and green eyebrows, even his few visible nose hairs were green. His once bright and clean forehead had also grown a layer of short green fluff; the whole person looked mouldy.
“Er… Shidi? What’s wrong with you?” Hua Qing secretly pinched his thigh to prevent himself from laughing and asked with concern.
“I- I don’t know…” young Cheng Xi was almost crying.
Yesterday, Mo Tianliao gave a dazzling performance in front of everyone. Someone who had just started a year ago was able to not only reach Foundation Establishment but also defeat a cultivator mid-way through Foundation Establishment. As soon as he had left, everyone present during the fight had erupted into chaos.
Returning to Woxuan Abode, Cheng Xi had felt like everyone was looking down at him. Someone with a double spiritual root could achieve Foundation Establishment within one year. His own heavenly spiritual root looked like a joke. How could he reconcile himself to it? That damn Mo Tianliao, he must have taken some secret pills… secret pills… That’s it!
Cheng Xi took out the celadon vial he got from Hua Qing and recalled that Mo Tianliao had also received some. To be able to reach Foundation Establishment in such a short period of time, these must be godly pills that can improve one’s cultivation instantly! He summoned up his courage, swallowed the medicine, gathered qi in his Dantian and waited for it to be absorbed.
However, nothing happened, he couldn’t feel even a trace of spiritual fluctuations. Young Cheng Xi felt something was wrong and tried to use qi to kickstart the process, yet the night passed and still nothing happened.
When shixiong, who came to summon him to the main hall, came in, he was so horrified that he couldn’t speak for a long while, “How, how did you end up like this?” Cheng Xi knew then that something had gone wrong with his training.
“…” The people in the hall were shocked into silence for a moment.
Yuan Hai walked slowly over and patted the boy on the shoulder, “Um… Your green hair looks very nice.”
Cheng Xi instantly shed a few tears. Da-shixiong was a really good man.
“You may go,” said Xuanji with a dry cough, motioning with his hand to let Cheng Xi retire. He also excused him from several days of training.
“Master, why didn’t you interrogate him?” Hua Qing blinked curiously.
“Someone with such a low mental capacity…” Yu Li shook his head, he never heard of someone so stupid being a spy.
Mo Tianliao had just stepped onto the zigzag bridge when Cheng Xi ran head-on into him. Cheng Xi bumped against his solid divine tree body and was immediately knocked to the ground, his hood slipping off his head.
Just like in a storybook, the peerlessly handsome young master bumped into the youth who was in a hurry. The naïve and innocent young man hurriedly tried to catch the hood but could not stop it and could only let his cloak slip off, revealing that which the teenager didn’t want to be seen… a face covered with green hair.
“…” Mo Tianliao’s mouth twitched.
This credulous kid really ate those pills?!
“Waa waa waa…” His shame was seen by his sworn enemy, young Cheng Xi cried even harder, stood up and ran away, inconsolable.
In the centre of the zigzag bridge was the main hall of Woxuan Abode, Xuanning Palace. Its outside appearance was completely normal, but it was like another universe on the inside.
The floor of the whole hall was paved with a kind of transparent crystal. When the sunlight came in, the clear lake water was plainly visible under the floor. The water reflected the sunlight, the shimmering waves made the floor sparkle. It was really beautiful.
“I’ve met shibo.” Mo Tianliao came forward to salute.
Xuanji nodded, “What can I do for you?”
“I want to ask shibo about something,” Mo Tianliao said directly.
“Ah, well, let’s go to the rear hall,” Xuanji said, looking at his three disciples.
“Master, I just remembered I left some medicine on the furnace. Oh, wow, look at the time. If I don’t go back, it will burn. If you’ll excuse me!” Hua Qing slapped his forehead and left hurriedly.
“The second-generation disciples will be learning water magic today. I have to go and supervise.” Yu Li glanced at Mo Tianliao and shook slightly. He slipped away without waiting for his Master to speak.
Yuan Hai was exiting the temple at an excruciatingly slow pace when his Master grabbed him by the collar, “Yuan Hai, I know you’re free today.”
Xuanji dragged Mo Tianliao to the rear hall, which was a magnificently decorated room also paved with transparent crystal. There were many unconventional wooden shelves covered with various types of twine.
Long hemp ropes passed through the beams and draped over the wooden shelves, crisscrossing, looking like snakes crawling all over the room.
“I saw that move of yours yesterday, the one full of vines. What is it called?” Xuanji dragged a basket of dried hemp fibre from the corner and casually sat on the floor.
“Myriad Vines Into One” Mo Tianliao followed suit and sat on the ground. He wanted to ask questions, so naturally when in Xuanning Palace , he must do as the locals do.
Yuan Hai had no choice but to sit down and help his Master weave hemp.
Xuanji nodded. “It’s a good move.”
“Myriad Vines Into One” was high-level wood magic. Mo Tianliao had seen it being used in his past life, it seemed very powerful so he remembered it. Yesterday, elder Yun Song had also used it, only his was much more powerful when compared with Mo Tianliao’s. Had Xuanji also studied it?
“Since you like those types of moves, you must like ropes and such.” Xuanji eyes glowed at him.
“…Eh?” Mo Tianliao was flabbergasted. What did this have to do with ropes?
“In that case, come and weave twine with me when you have time. It’s good for tempering one’s mood.” Xuanji handed Mo Tianliao a handful of hemp and motioned for him to weave it.
Mo Tianliao pursed his mouth. If he really was a novice, he might have still been fooled. He had never heard of weaving hemp twine to improve one’s mood. However, it’s not like he could say that. Mo Tianliao picked up the hemp and wove the rope quickly and skilfully. As a world-class craftsman, most people would not have dared to ask him to do such a small task as weaving hemp rope.
Slender fingers moved back and forth between the hemp, weaving the most complex type of eight-strand rope. Xuanji stared, eyes huge, he slapped his thigh. A good seedling! He looked back at his senior apprentice, who was still so slow and couldn’t even weave a three-strand rope. He waved his hand in disgust, “You’re not needed here. Go and play by yourself.”
Yuan Hai got up feeling as if he had been granted a pardon, he walked slowly out of the rear hall. It was not that he didn’t want to run, it was that he couldn’t run. Walking into the main hall, he saw a silver carp waving its head and tail below the floor. It looked very happy. Yuan Hai tapped the floor and the crystal parted in an instant. He fell into the water with a splash and turned into a big turtle, five chi in diameter. He happily chased the carp to play.
God knew the kind of torture it was for Master to make him, a turtle, weave twine!
Mo Tianliao wove the rope and talked to Xuanji beside him, “Master is very close to shibo. This nephew was thinking of coming to pay his respects to shibo from time to time.”
“That’s right, your Master and I grew up together. I made all the twine he played with.” Xuanji was very proud.
Pressing down the twitching corners of his mouth, Mo Tianliao obliquely asked about Master’s soul.
When he heard about this matter, Xuanji immediately became angry, “Tongtong, that fool, I don’t even know for whom he split his soul, if I ever see the bastard, I would definitely tie them up and throw them into the sea to feed the turtles!” He said and patted the floor, the turtle who happened to be swimming below could not help but stumble and tilt in the water.
Hearing the word “split”, Mo Tianliao suddenly felt a pain in his heart and did not even care about Xuanji calling him a “bastard”. He asked earnestly, “Then, is there any way to cure it?”
Xuanji slowly lowered his head and shook it. After so many years, he feared that the soul portion had long been fused to whatever it was protecting, not to mention that it couldn’t even be found. Even if it was found, how could it be returned? There was no way.
Mo Tianliao took the twine ball he had made and walked dejectedly back to Woqing Abode.
“Shidi is back!” The big tiger ran from the yard into the room to inform the fighting dog and cat.
When the Sect Leader remembered that Mo Tianliao had thrown a rock at him last time, he was so angry he couldn’t breathe. He jumped out of the window and became human.
“Sect Leader, why are you here?” Mo Tianliao was very surprised to see the now presentable Sect Leader. Hadn’t he gone out?
“Cough. When I saw Qingtong yesterday, he didn’t look well. I came to visit him.” Tianlang Zhenren touched his beard and entered the main hall with Mo Tianliao.
Mo Tianliao took one look at the hall and quickly headed towards Qingtong’s side. He pressed him into his arms and covered his snow-white hair with his wide sleeves. Mo Xiaozhao had been pretending to have black hair for so many years, he absolutely must not let the Sect Leader know. His unstable soul had made it difficult to change his appearance recently, he could not let anyone see.
The Sect Leader, who had just crossed the threshold, stopped with one foot still in mid-air and almost tripped. The big tiger stood to one side, his mouth open enough to fit an entire sheep in it!
“Shocking! Sect’s Weekly Gossip Magazine”
Article 1: *Headline* Qingtong Zhenren’s Secret Meeting with his Lover Crashed by the Sect Leader!
Article 2: Newly-Promoted Disciple Actually Used the Bed to Attain Success! The World Sure is Changing!
Article 3: *Candid Shots of the Suggestive Embrace* Photographs Sent Back by Front-Line Reporter Colourful Tiger! He Risked His Life for These!
Unedited, please point out any mistakes