Chapter 17
Chapter Summary: [Wei Wuxian bought a bunch of random things in Caiyi Town and brought them back to Cloud Recesses, where they were all divided up by the other young masters. Because Lan Qiren went to Qinghe…]
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Wei Wuxian bought a bunch of random trinkets in Caiyi Town and brought them back to Cloud Recesses, where they were quickly divided up by the other young masters. Since Lan Qiren had gone to Qinghe, there were no classes for the next few days, and the young men were having a blast, all sleeping on the floor in Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng's room, eating, drinking, arm wrestling, playing dice, and looking at picture books all night. One night, Wei Wuxian lost at dice and was sent down the mountain to buy Emperor's Smile wine, finally allowing everyone to enjoy a feast. However, the next day, before dawn, the room was filled with people sleeping haphazardly, like a pile of corpses, when suddenly someone opened the door.
The sound of the door opening startled them. Half-asleep, they saw Lan Wangji standing in the doorway with an icy expression, instantly waking them. Nie Huaisang frantically shoved Wei Wuxian, who was sleeping with his head down and body up, calling out, "Brother Wei! Brother Wei!"
Wei Wuxian, dazed after being shoved a few times, asked, "Who? Who else is coming?! Jiang Cheng? Fine, let's fight! Are you scared of me?!"
Jiang Cheng, still suffering from a headache from drinking too much last night, lay on the ground with his eyes closed. He grabbed something and threw it towards the direction from which Wei Wuxian's voice came, saying, "Shut up!"
The object hit Wei Wuxian in the chest, flipping through several pages with a clatter. Nie Huaisang looked closely and realized that what Jiang Cheng had used to throw at Wei Wuxian was one of his treasured, rare erotic picture books. Looking up again, he saw Lan Wangji's sharp gaze and almost choked with rage. Wei Wuxian muttered a few words while holding the book and fell asleep again. Lan Wangji stepped into the room, grabbed him by the back of his collar, and dragged him out the door.
Wei Wuxian was lifted up for a while, and after a moment of drowsiness, he finally woke up to about 50-60% of his senses and turned his head to ask, "Lan Zhan, what are you doing?"
Lan Wangji remained silent, dragging him forward. Wei Wuxian regained some consciousness, and the others lying on the ground were also startled awake. Jiang Cheng, seeing Wei Wuxian being dragged away by Lan Wangji again, rushed out and asked, "What's going on? What are you doing?"
Lan Wangji turned around and said, word by word, "I accept the punishment."
Jiang Cheng was drunk and drowsy, and only then did he remember the mess in the room and how many of the Cloud Recesses' rules they had broken last night. His face stiffened.
Lan Wangji dragged Wei Wuxian to the ancestral hall of the Gusu Lan Clan, where several senior Lan Clan disciples were already waiting. There were eight of them in total, four of whom held unusually long sandalwood rulers, densely engraved with square characters. All of them had a cold and stern demeanor. When they saw Lan Wangji bring Wei Wuxian, two of them immediately stepped forward and firmly pinned him down. Wei Wuxian knelt on the ground, struggling but unable to move. He said, "Lan Zhan, are you going to punish me?"
Lan Wangji stared at him coldly, without saying a word.
Wei Wuxian said, "I'm not convinced."
At this moment, the group of teenagers, who had mostly woken up, rushed over, only to be stopped outside the ancestral hall and prevented from entering. They scratched their heads in dismay, and upon seeing the ruler, gasped in shock. Then, Lan Wangji lifted the hem of his white robe and knelt beside Wei Wuxian.
Everyone was completely dumbfounded as they watched the events unfold in the blink of an eye.
What happened? Why was I suddenly punished?
Seeing this, everyone felt like they had forgotten something, but they couldn't remember it at all, until Lan Zhan in the shadows shouted, "Attack!" and they remembered something extremely terrifying.
Miss Niangui! Please release it slowly!!!
Before he could even mobilize all his spiritual power, Tianying had already begun.
Wei Wuxian stared in disbelief and hurriedly said, "Wait, wait, I admit it! I admit it! I admit it! I was wrong... Ah!"
Both men received over a hundred blows to their palms and the backs of their legs with a ruler. Lan Wangji, without needing to be held down, remained ramrod straight, kneeling properly, while Wei Wuxian howled and screamed without any restraint, causing the surrounding disciples to wince in pain. After being beaten, Lan Wangji silently stood up, bowed to the disciples inside the ancestral hall, and then walked out, showing no signs of injury whatsoever. Wei Wuxian, on the other hand, was the complete opposite; after being carried out of the ancestral hall by Jiang Cheng, he continued to groan and scream all the way. The young men swarmed around them, asking, "Brother Wei, what happened?"
Not to mention Wei Wuxian in Tianying, everyone in the outside space was also suffering terribly. Those hundred-plus strokes of the ruler were an undeserved disaster. What had this troublemaker done this time?!
Wei Wuxian stared dumbfounded at the haphazardly scattered crowd in the space, and the incessant screams that sounded so familiar.
No wonder he
"Senior Sister! Lan Zhan!"
Realizing what was happening, he quickly looked at the two people beside him, rubbing one's back and blowing on the other's hands.
Lan Zhan was alright, but his sister was a delicate woman; how could she endure such pain?
"Senior sister..."
Wei Wuxian looked at Jiang Yanli with concern.
Once the pain subsided, Jiang Yanli held Wei Wuxian's hand tightly, smiled gently, and ignored the cold sweat on her forehead, as if she hadn't been the one who had just empathized with her.
"Don't worry, senior sister isn't that fragile."
She missed out on so much of her younger brother's time, and now this empathy, this movie viewing, is both an opportunity and a form of compensation.
Wei Wuxian kept his eyes fixed on her, only turning away when he was sure she was alright, though he still held her hands tightly.
He thought, given all that has happened since then, why not find an opportunity to get Niangui to help him regain his empathy?
"It's one thing for Lan Zhan to punish you, but why did he get beaten up too?"
Wei Wuxian, leaning on Jiang Cheng's back, sighed deeply: "Alas! A miscalculation, a miscalculation! It's a long story!"
Jiang Cheng said, "Enough with the nonsense! What exactly did you do?"
Wei Wuxian said, "I didn't do anything! Last night I lost at dice and went down to buy Emperor's Smile wine, didn't I?"
Jiang Cheng said, "...Don't tell me you've run into him again."
Wei Wuxian said, "You're absolutely right. I don't know what kind of luck it was, but when I was carrying the Emperor's Smile wine up there, he caught me red-handed. I suspect he's really watching me every day, isn't he?"
Jiang Cheng said, "You think everyone's as free as you? And then what?"
Wei Wuxian said, "Then I still greeted him, saying, 'Lan Zhan! What a coincidence, it's you again!' Of course, he ignored me again and slapped me without saying a word. I said, 'Hey, why are you doing this?' He said that if outsiders repeatedly violate the curfew, they have to go to the Lan Clan Ancestral Hall to receive punishment. I said, 'There are only the two of us here. If you don't say anything and I don't say anything, no one will know whether I violated the curfew or not, right? I promise there won't be a next time. We're so familiar with each other, can't you do me a favor?'"
Everyone looked utterly miserable.
Wei Wuxian continued, "Then he put on a stern face and said we weren't familiar, then drew his sword and attacked, showing no mercy whatsoever. I had no choice but to put aside my Emperor's Smile wine and fight him back. He used both fists and palms, chasing relentlessly, and I couldn't shake him off! Finally, I got so impatient with him that I said, 'Are you really not going to let go? Not let go?!'"
He still said, "I'll accept the punishment!"
The young men listened with bated breath. Wei Wuxian spoke with great enthusiasm, completely forgetting that he was still on Jiang Cheng's back. He suddenly slapped Jiang Cheng's shoulder and said, "I said, 'Okay!' Then I stopped dodging, rushed forward, pounced on him, hugged him, and fell over the wall of Cloud Recesses!"
"..."
Wei Wuxian said, "So the two of us fell into the Cloud Recesses! We were so dizzy from the fall that we saw stars."
Nie Huaisang was stunned: "...He didn't break free from you?"
Wei Wuxian said, "Oh, I tried that, but I used both my hands and feet to lock him up tightly. He couldn't break free even if he wanted to, and he couldn't get off me at all. He was as hard as a board. So, Lan Zhan, what do you say? Now you're also outside the Cloud Recesses. We're both breaking curfew, so you can't be strict with others but lenient with yourself. If you punish me, you should also punish yourself. Treat us equally, okay?"
Wei Wuxian said, "He looked terrible after he got up. I sat next to him and told him not to worry, that I wouldn't tell anyone, that only heaven, earth, you, and I knew about this. Then he left without saying a word. Who knew he would do something like this this morning... Jiang Cheng, slow down, you're about to leave me behind."
Jiang Cheng didn't just want to throw him off, he wanted to smash him headfirst into the ground and leave several craters: "You're still complaining even after I've carried you!"
Wei Wuxian said, "It wasn't me who asked you to memorize it in the first place."
Jiang Cheng was furious: "If I don't carry you, I'll see if you can lie on the floor of their ancestral hall for a whole day without getting up! You can't stand the shame! Lan Wangji is fifty feet taller than you, and he walks on his own. How dare you pretend to be a cripple like this? I don't want to carry you anymore, get down now!"
Wei Wuxian said, "I won't go down; I'm injured."
Everyone rubbed their lower backs again, secretly thinking: "Sect Leader Jiang, why don't you just throw him down and smash him!"
But as I was thinking about it, it suddenly dawned on me.
No, aren't they the ones who are in pain? What kind of mess is this?!
A group of people stood bewildered in the wind, on the verge of tears.
Lan Jingyi grimaced for a while, then leaned closer to Lan Sizhui: "Punishing us by making us copy the family rules is really too merciful. But speaking of which, I didn't expect Senior Wei to have the potential to be a storyteller!"
Lan Sizhui: ...
A group of people were jostling and pushing along the white stone path when a man in white robes, carrying a book, passed by and stopped in surprise. Lan Xichen asked with a smile, "What's going on here?"
Jiang Cheng was extremely embarrassed and didn't know how to answer, but Nie Huaisang interrupted, "Brother Xichen, Brother Wei was punished with over a hundred feet of iron. Does he have any medicine for his injuries?"
Lan Wangji was in charge of the punishment at Cloud Recesses. Given that Wei Wuxian was constantly groaning and crying out amidst the crowd, seemingly seriously injured, Lan Xichen immediately approached and asked, "Was it Wangji who punished him? Is Young Master Wei unable to walk? What happened?"
Jiang Cheng was naturally embarrassed to say what Wei Wuxian had done. It was all of them who had encouraged Wei Wuxian to buy the wine, so everyone had to be punished. He could only vaguely say, "It's nothing, it's nothing, it's not that serious! He can walk. Wei Wuxian, why aren't you getting down?"
Wei Wuxian said, "I can't leave." He stretched out his swollen, red palm and complained to Lan Xichen, "Zewu-jun, your brother is really something."
Lan Xichen examined his palm and said, "Ah, this punishment was indeed a bit too harsh. I'm afraid it won't fade for three or four days."
Jiang Cheng, initially unaware of the severity of the beating, exclaimed in shock, "What? It won't heal in three or four days? His legs and back were also struck with the ruler. How could Lan Wangji do this?!" His last sentence involuntarily carried a hint of displeasure, prompting Wei Wuxian to quietly slap him, at which point he realized what had happened. Lan Xichen, however, seemed unconcerned, smiling, "But it's alright. There's no need for medicine. Young Master Wei, I'll tell you a way; it'll be healed in a few hours."
Lan Xichen's expression froze as he watched this scene.
So, I didn't even know when I had acted as a matchmaker?
[At night, deep in the clouds, where the cold spring is unknown.]
Lan Wangji was soaking in the cold spring water with his eyes closed, when suddenly a voice said in his ear, "Lan Zhan."
"..."
Lan Wangji suddenly opened his eyes. Sure enough, Wei Wuxian was lying on the blue stone by the cold spring, tilting his head and smiling at him.
Lan Wangji blurted out, "How did you get in?!"
Wei Wuxian slowly got up, untying his belt as he said, "Zewu-jun let me in."
Lan Wangji asked, "What are you doing?"
Wei Wuxian kicked off his boots, scattering his clothes all over the floor as he said, "I've already taken my clothes off, so what do you think I'm here for? I heard that your family's cold spring, besides being used for calming the mind and promoting cultivation, also has the function of healing injuries, so your brother let me come in and soak with you. But it's a bit unfair for you to come here alone to heal. Ugh, it's so cold, hiss—"
He went into the water, only to be thrown into a frenzy by the icy cold spring. Lan Wangji quickly distanced himself from him, saying, "I came here to cultivate, not to heal my injuries—don't rush in!"
Wei Wuxian said, "But it's so cold, so cold..."
He wasn't intentionally exaggerating or causing trouble this time; it's true that outsiders find it difficult to adapt to the cold spring of the Gusu Lan Clan in a short time. It's as if remaining still for even a moment would freeze their blood and limbs, so he had to keep splashing around, trying to warm up. Lan Wangji, who was originally meditating peacefully, was splashed all over by him, getting water droplets running down his long eyelashes and black hair. Unable to bear it any longer, he said, "Don't move!"
As he spoke, he stretched out a palm and pressed it on Wei Wuxian's shoulder.
Wei Wuxian immediately felt a warm current flow from where their bodies were touching, which made him feel better, and he involuntarily moved closer to him. Lan Wangji asked alertly, "What are you doing?"
Wei Wuxian said innocently, "Nothing, it just seems warmer where you are."
Lan Wangji placed a palm firmly between the two of them to maintain distance, and said sternly, "No."
Wei Wuxian had originally wanted to get closer to him, hoping to strike up a conversation, but he couldn't get close and ended up being snubbed, yet he wasn't angry. He glanced at his hands and back, and sure enough, the wounds hadn't healed; he really hadn't come here to heal. Wei Wuxian sincerely said, "Lan Zhan, I truly admire you. You said you'd punish me, and you actually punished yourself too, showing no leniency whatsoever. I have nothing to say."
Lan Wangji closed his eyes again, remaining silent and still.
Wei Wuxian added, "Really, I've never met anyone as serious and decisive as you. I definitely couldn't do what you do. You're amazing."
Lan Wangji still ignored him.
After Wei Wuxian felt warmer, he began swimming around in the cold spring. After a while, he couldn't help but swim up to Lan Wangji and say, "Lan Zhan, didn't you realize what I was doing just now?"
Lan Wangji said, "I don't know."
Wei Wuxian said, "You didn't know that? I was praising you, trying to get closer to you."
Lan Wangji glanced at him and said, "What do you want to do?"
Wei Wuxian said, "Lan Zhan, let's be friends. We're already so familiar with each other."
Lan Wangji said, "Not familiar with them."
Wei Wuxian patted the water and said, "That's not fun at all. Really. There are a lot of benefits to being friends with me."
Lan Wangji asked, "For example?"
Wei Wuxian swam to the edge of the pond, leaned against a blue stone, and rested his arm on it. He said, "I'm always very loyal to my friends. For example, if I get a new erotic film, I'll definitely show it to you first... Hey, come back! It's okay if you don't want to see it. Have you ever been to Yunmeng? Yunmeng is a lot of fun, and the food there is delicious. I don't know if it's a problem with Gusu or Cloud Recesses, but the food at your place is just awful. If you come to Lotus Pier, you can eat lots of delicious food. I'll take you to pick lotus pods and water chestnuts. Lan Zhan, are you coming?"
Lan Wangji said, "I'm not going."
Wei Wuxian said, "Don't always start your sentences with 'no,' it sounds so cold. Girls won't like that. Let me tell you, the girls in Yunmeng are especially beautiful, not like the girls in your Gusu." He winked at Lan Wangji with his left eye and said smugly, "Really not coming?"
Lan Wangji paused for a moment, then said, "No..."
Wei Wuxian said, "You're rejecting me like this, not giving me any face at all. Aren't you afraid I'll take your clothes when I leave?"
Lan Wangji said, "Get lost!!!"
Before the pain in my body had fully subsided, the icy, bone-chilling spring froze the entire space.
Zewu-kun! Why did you send him to the Cold Spring?!
Have pity on us!
At this moment, Lan Xichen himself was also suffering from this pain. Although he was familiar with the Cold Spring, he was not someone who was often injured, okay?
Nie Huaisang recovered and said to Wei Wuxian, "Brother Wei, you're trying too hard to get close to me. It's a wonder that Brother Wangji listens to you."
"Hmph, he's using all the tricks he uses to seduce young girls on Lan Wangji," Jiang Cheng complained.
This is a huge scourge!
"My second brother is willing to listen, are you just jealous?"
Wei Wuxian was not lagging behind at all.
The two looked at each other, then averted their gazes as if children were sulking.
"snort!"
After returning to Gusu from Qinghe, Lan Qiren didn't send Wei Wuxian back to the library to copy the Lan Clan's precepts. Instead, he publicly berated him. Simplifying the citations, the gist was that he had never seen such an unruly and shameless person before; he should get out, get out as far away as possible, and stay away from other students, especially from defiling his prized disciple, Lan Wangji.
While he was cursing, Wei Wuxian listened with a smile, showing neither embarrassment nor anger. As soon as Lan Qiren left, Wei Wuxian sat down and said to Jiang Cheng, "You're only telling me to get lost now? Don't you think it's a bit late? You've already defiled him before telling me to leave; it's too late!"
The Water Abyss in Caiyi Town has brought great trouble to the Gusu Lan Clan. This thing cannot be eradicated, and the Lan Clan cannot drive it away like the Wen Clan did. The Lan Clan Head has been in seclusion for years, and Lan Qiren has been expending a great deal of energy on it, with his lectures becoming shorter and shorter, while Wei Wuxian has been spending more and more time wandering in the mountains with his followers.
That day, he was surrounded by seven or eight teenagers as he was about to go out. Passing by the Lan family's library, he glanced up and through the magnolia branches, he could see Lan Wangji sitting alone by the window.
Nie Huaisang asked, puzzled, "Is he looking this way? But wait, we weren't making any noise just now. Why is he giving us that look?"
Wei Wuxian said, "They're probably thinking about how to find fault with us."
Jiang Cheng said, "Wrong. It's not 'we,' it's 'me.' I think he's only staring at you."
Wei Wuxian said, "Heh. Just wait. See how I deal with him when I get back."
Jiang Cheng said, "You think he's boring and dull? Then stop provoking him. You're just asking for trouble. You're like pulling whiskers from a tiger's mouth or provoking the Grand Duke Jupiter. You're just courting death all the time."
Wei Wuxian said, "Wrong. It's precisely because a living person can be so uninteresting that it's truly fascinating."
It was nearly noon when they returned to Cloud Recesses. Lan Wangji sat upright at his desk, tidying up a stack of papers he had written on, when he suddenly heard a soft creaking sound from the window. Looking up, he saw someone climbing in through the window.
Wei Wuxian climbed up the magnolia tree outside the library, beaming, and said, "Lan Zhan, I'm back! How was it? Did you miss me after not copying books for a few days?"
Lan Wangji remained as still as an old monk in meditation, oblivious to everything around him, even numbly continuing to organize the pile of scrolls. Wei Wuxian deliberately misinterpreted his silence: "Even if you don't say it, I know you must be thinking of me. Otherwise, why would you have been looking at me through the window just now?"
Lan Wangji immediately glanced at him, his gaze filled with silent reproach. Wei Wuxian sat by the window and said, "Look at you, you took the bait after just a few words. You're too easy to catch. You can't even hold your tongue."
Lan Wangji: "Go."
Wei Wuxian: "If you're not going to leave, why are you pushing me off?"
Looking at Lan Wangji's face, Wei Wuxian suspected that if he said another word, Lan Wangji would really abandon his last bit of self-control and nail him to the windowsill. He quickly said, "Don't scare me like that! I'm here to offer a gift as an apology."
Without a second thought, Lan Wangji immediately refused: "No."
Wei Wuxian asked, "Really not?" Seeing the hint of wariness in Lan Wangji's eyes, he magically produced two rabbits from his robes. Holding them by the ears, they resembled two plump, round snowballs. The snowballs were still kicking wildly. He presented them to Lan Wangji's eyes: "It's strange here; there are no pheasants, but lots of wild rabbits, and they're not afraid of people. How about they? Fat or not? Want some?"
Lan Wangji looked at him coldly.
Wei Wuxian said, "Alright. If you don't want it, I'll give it to someone else. My mouth has been feeling bland these days."
Upon hearing the last sentence, Lan Wangji said, "Stop."
Wei Wuxian shrugged: "I didn't leave."
Lan Wangji asked, "Who are you going to give them to?"
Wei Wuxian said, "Whoever roasts the rabbit meat best will get it."
Lan Wangji said, "Within the Cloud Recesses, killing is forbidden. This is the third rule on the Discipline Stele."
Wei Wuxian said, "Alright. I'll go down the mountain, kill them all outside the border, and then bring them back up to roast. Anyway, you don't want them, so why bother?"
"..." Lan Wangji said, enunciating each word clearly, "Give it to me."
Wei Wuxian sat on the windowsill and chuckled, "Want it again? You always do this."
Both rabbits were plump and round, like two fluffy snowballs. One had dead fish eyes, lying on the ground slowly without moving for a long time, its pink three-lobed mouth chewing on vegetable leaves with deliberate slowness. The other seemed to have eaten a cricket-fighting pill, jumping and leaping incessantly, crawling, rolling, twisting, and bouncing on its companion, never still for a moment. Wei Wuxian tossed a few vegetable leaves he had picked up from somewhere, and suddenly said, "Lan Zhan. Lan Zhan!"
The lively rabbit had stepped on Lan Wangji's inkstone earlier, leaving a dark ink paw print on the desk. Lan Wangji didn't know what to do and was seriously considering how to wipe it clean with a piece of paper. He didn't want to pay attention to him, but hearing his serious tone, he thought there was a reason and asked, "What is it?"
Wei Wuxian said, "Look at how they're stacked like this, isn't it...?"
Lan Wangji said, "Both of them are male!"
Wei Wuxian said, "Male? How strange." He grabbed the ear and looked at it, confirming, "It really is male. Male it is male. I hadn't even finished speaking, why are you so harsh? What are you thinking? Speaking of which, I caught these two, I didn't even notice if they were male or female, yet you've seen them..."
Lan Wangji finally yanked him off the library shelf.
Seeing the previous comments, people said that this guy finally knew how to apologize.
But the more I looked at it, the more something seemed wrong.
Two rabbits stacked on top of each other...
Now look at Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji...
No, no, no, I can't think about it anymore, otherwise I'll never be able to look at rabbits the same way again.
Lan Qiren's face darkened.
No wonder Wangji was so insistent on raising rabbits before; so that's how the rabbits in Cloud Recesses came about!
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