Flying Dust - Chapter 22
The moment Mo Fei Chen woke up again, his chest was stuffy and painful, he couldn’t get up, however he was very thirsty.
When he turned his face to the side, he found himself lying in his original guest room, opposite to Li Du’s bed, where that guy seemed to be asleep. It seemed that Lu Qingmo should already have taken care of that woman Leng Yufang, otherwise how could Li Du be sitting there sleeping, in perfectly good condition
The door opened and a man came in holding the medicine, precisely, it was Jun Wushuang. He put down the bowl of medicine and when he saw Mo Fei Chen awake, he came to the bedside with a happy face.
“You’re awake!” Jun Wushuang lifted him up, “You’ve been out for two days and you’re finally awake! Come on, drink the medicine.”
Mo Fei Chen’s lips had just touched the medicine juice before then he turned his head away, “Mom, what’s that? It’s so bitter!”
“You still dare to dislike it bitter?” Jun Wushuang smiled coldly and Mo Fei Chen immediately shivered, “You’ve got a lot of face. During these two days you were in a coma, not only did Manor Leader Wen personally come to see you and Lu Qingmo kept watch over you at night, I, myself, even fed you the medicine. Forget it, then I’ll serve you!”
“No need to bother Jun Shi Xiong anymore. No need to trouble you.” Mo Fei Chen shook his hand as he said it but Jun Wushuang took a mouthful of the medicine and kept it in his mouth, holding his neck with one hand and fed the bitter juice into his mouth.
The tip of Jun Wushuang’s tongue stirred, Mo Fei Chen panicked and swallowed it down with a gulp. When Jun Wushuang made a move to take a second sip of the medicine, Mo Fei Chen hurriedly reached out and brought the bowl,”No need, no need! I’ll do it myself!”
After saying this, he finished the bowl of medicine in two or three gulps.
Mo Fei Chen spent a few more days recuperating in the manor, as the martial arts general assembly and tournament ended hastily with Jing Shui Sect stirring up trouble.
But Mo Fei Chen had now become a little famous, not only did the sect leaders praise him for his promising youthfulness, but word of his relationship with Lu Qingmo that they had become sworn brothers, was somehow spread. All of this ran in the opposite direction to what He Yunfeng had told him on the mountain.
In the evening, when Lu Qingmo came to see him, Mo Fei Chen was lying stiff like a corpse in the bed, “How can everyone know that we had become sworn brothers? From now on, how can I wander around in Jiang Hu?”
“There was nothing I could do about it. On that day, I accidentally taught you the cultivation method of our Mu Yun ShanZhuang. Wen Shi Xiong said that although it was urgent at the time, we still had to have an explanation right now, so I say that you and I have become sworn brothers. You have also become half of the Mu Yun ShanZhuang’s people so don’t bother or fuss so much about it.” Lu Qingmo’s finger touched briefly at Mo Fei Chen’s space between his eyebrows, although his fingers were as slender as Jun Wushuang’s, it didn’t have the same jade-like sense of beauty and there were thin calluses on the center of his fingers. It looked like he must have painstakingly practiced hard when he was young.
“Why did it sound so strange to me? Half of Mu Yun ShanZhuang’s people? Does it sound like I’m married to you?” Mo Fei Chen pouted his lips, still keep thinking about it.
It was Lu Qingmo who laughed out loud, “I didn’t think of that when I said it, but when you said it, it really sounded like that. Don’t worry, if my Shi Xiong really blames you, then I’ll marry you!”
“I don’t dare to marry then, at that time, when you see me in front of you and think of your Wen Shi Xiong, I’ll be bored to death!” Mo Fei Chen gave him a blank look. Lu Qingmo simply fell into bed with his clothes on his side.
“You’re going back to Kun Yun Mountain Manor with Manor Leader Wen in a couple of days, so do you have any plans?”
Mo Fei Chen laughed, “Of course I’ll stay at the manor and occasionally go to the town to hang out but I’ll never come back to this troublesome Jiang Hu.”
Lu Qing Mo took a look at him, “Then I’ll go and have a drink with you.”
“Sure, I’ll introduce you to my Shi Fu.”
“Do you mean He Yunfeng?” Lu Qingmo turned to his side and looked at him with his hands supporting his head, there was a quiet and serene look in his eyes.
“How did you know that …I was talking about He Yunfeng?”
“You’ve learnt your martial arts from the same branch as your Shi Xiong Li Du, but what you’ve learnt is much deeper and more stable. Li Du has only touched the skin but you have touched the essence. That’s why I guess that you learned it from He Yunfeng.” Lu Qingmo lowered his eyes, and his eyelashes looked like they were drawn by using the Chinese brushes on Xuan paper. (a high quality paper made in Xuancheng (宣城) in Anhui Province, esp. good for traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy)
“Ha ha, my Shi Fu taught me kung fu because he wanted me to play with him. If you go, you two can play together. I’ll just sleep around at one side, eat pastries and watch you two play.”
“Fei Chen…” Lu Qing Mo’s voice slightly sank down deeply, “Can I hug you for a while?”
“Huh?” Although Mo Fei Chen felt that the other party’s request was a bit strange. However, when he thought of the fact that he and Lu Qingmo had become sworn brothers and that he would be leaving in a couple of days, Lu Qingmo probably could not bear to let him go, “Just a hug, then hug bei!”
Lu Qing Mo reached out to embrace him, his fingers dug into the hair at the back of his head, there was a bit of intimacy, affection and doting, but it seemed to be a bit more of regret in it, “If you had grown up in our Mu Yun ShanZhuang, perhaps I would have been able to be truly ‘free and unrestrained’.”
Mo Fei Chen was a bit puzzled by it, so if he was from Mu Yun Mountain Manor, then you wouldn’t continue to be secretly in love with your Shi Xiong?
At night, Mo Fei Chen didn’t feel like sleeping because he had been lying in bed all day, so he and Li Du lay in bed chatting leisurely.
“Li Shi Xiong, if you are able to form your spiritual sword, will you also leave the manor?”
“I know my own capacity and talent. I don’t have the talent of Lu Qingmo nor do I have the state of mind like Wu Liang Chanshi. If I am really able to form my spiritual sword one day, I would also like to stay at Kun Yun Mountain Manor and teach my fellow Shi Dis. Maybe one of them will be the next Wen Qian Liu or Liu Feiying… No,not right, we seem to have only male disciples at our manor.”
The corners of Mo Fei Chen’s mouth curled up, “That’s good. Li Shi Xiong has to be my Shi Xiong forever.”
Actually, the real reason why he couldn’t sleep was because of Yu Jin.
Leng Yufang, the Vice Sect Leader of the Jing Shui Sect, must now know that Yu Jin’s favouritism was the reason why he, Mo Fei Chen, has disrupted the whole plan of the Jing Shui Sect. She said that she would hold Yu Jin accountability when she returned, but what was this ‘accountability’? Would he be demoted or will he be punished more severely? If it wasn’t for himself, Yu Jin would still be just fine doing his job as the protector.
The next day, in the entire day, Jun Wushuang felt incomparably… bored by Mo Fei Chen’s cooperation in drinking his medicine.
“Ei, if you hadn’t been so well behaved. I can still ‘serve’ you.” Jun Wushuang looked at Mo Fei Chen’s distorted features with amusement, reaching out to swipe his finger across the corner of his lips and wiping the medicine stain off.
“As long as you drink the medicine obediently. Your wound will heal faster, and when it heals faster, you won’t have to drink that damn medicine.”
“You’re going back tomorrow. Will you still remember me?”
“Remember, of course remember! If I have nothing else to do, I will go to Xiu Shui Palace to play with you.”
“Come looking for me to play?” Jun Wushuang hummed softly and there was an evil aura in his eyes, “You want to come and see those beautiful looking Shi Jie and Shi Mei of mine, right?”
“He he, you know that we don’t have any female disciples at Kun Yun Mountain Manor, so no matter what, you have to give me a chance, don’t let me be a bachelor for the rest of my life, right?”
“I can also make you not remain as a bachelor.”
Mo Fei Chen laughed a bitter laugh, “Oh my, Jun Shi Xiong, is it just a joke that I made when I collapsed in front of you? At that time, I almost died, why do you still bother about this?”
This time, Jun Wushuang’s face, on the contrary, didn’t have much expression, “Then remember what you said, and come and see me at Xiu Shui Palace.”
“Hn.” Mo Fei Chen all smiled, “Then you should also find the good-looking Shi Jie and Shi Mei to accompany me to play.”
That night, Li Du packed his bag for the return trip and sat on the edge of his bed as he sighed with feeling. He had gained a lot of insight (widened his knowledge; enriched one’s experience) this time.
Mo Fei Chen also muttered while he packed his own things, “Li Shi Xiong, do I have the sedan chair to sit on when we go back? You can see that I’m wounded in action…”
“Keep dreaming that beautiful dream of you!” Li Du fell back and fell asleep.
Mo Fei Chen heard the sound of Li Du’s regular and even breathing, thus he quietly got out of bed and picked up his own bundle wrapped in a cloth. He just stepped out of the door when he heard a voice from the bed, “Where are you going again?”
Mo Fei Chen was stunned and lowered his eyes, “Li Shi Xiong, I have something very important that I want to do…”
“I know. That’s why I won’t stop you.” Li Du turned over and faced the wall.
“There is a small bundle on the table, please give it to Shi Zu for me. Tell him I folded one, every time I miss him.”
“Okay.”
The small bundle wrapped in a cloth on the table was full of grasshoppers made of grass.
Mo Fei Chen left Mu Yun Mountain Manor at night. He remembered that he had heard that the main base of Jing Shui Sect was located in the Mirror Valley, so he went to the town where the Mirror Valley was located according to the information he had heard.
He was lucky that he had not spent any of the spare money given to him by He Yunfeng, otherwise he would have starved to death before he reached the valley. He thought very clearly that if Yu Jin was only demoted and put in a small dark room, then he would pretend that he had never been there. But if the blockhead Yu was really hurt badly in any way, he would take him back to Kun Yun Shanzhuang even if he had to die.
Mo Fei Chen looked at the desolate street and turned over the long sword on his back. He suddenly realized that he might not have the intention to venture around Jiang Hu, yet Jiang Hu still didn’t let him go.
Forget it, what’s the point of thinking about it so much? With a grasshopper in his hand, Mo Fei Chen staggered as he walked under the moonlight.
After leaving Mu Yun town, Mo Fei Chen came to a village and settled in an old man’s house. The old man’s daughter had married in the town two years ago and only came back once every two or three months. Moreover his wife had also passed away, so he was very happy to have Mo Fei Chen come and talk to him.
The old man brought him a bowl of sweet potato rice and said in a low voice, “Child, some people have come to the village and I think it’s not very peaceful. In the night, just stay in this old man’s house and please don’t go out.”
“People have come? What kind of people?” Mo Fei Chen’s attention was drawn by this.
“This…” The old man thought for a while, “They wear black clothes and do not look like a good person….Some of them wore masks while the others carried their masks on their backs.”
“Did the mask look fierce too?”
“Hn! Hn!” The old man nodded his head.
Mo Fei Chen was eating his meal and thought to himself, ‘Aren’t these people’s attire like people from Jing Shui Sect? Instead of going to the main assembly altar of the Jing Shui Sect. Why not grab one of the disciples and ask them what they wanted to do here? He needed to ask whether Yu Jin had returned to the assembly base and also whether Leng Yu Fang had done anything to him?
At night, that old man tidied up Mo Fei Chen’s bed and called him to sleep. Mo Fei Chen was afraid that he might be worried, so he directly tapped his acupuncture point before he quietly went out of the door.
According to the old man’s instructions, Mo Fei Chen came to the ancestral temple of the village. This group of people was really lacking in virtue, the ancestral hall was supposedly dedicated to enshrine and worship the ancestors, but these guys went to the ancestral hall to eat, drink and sleep…