After Jiang Zhou finished speaking those words, all three people at his table fell into silence.
At the neighboring table, Husheng was so excited that his face had turned completely red.
Eldest Brother completely won this round! As expected of Eldest Brother! Isn’t this going to fully win sister-in-law over?
Ji Yunlang first raised his hand, touched the bite mark on the side of his neck covered by the medical patch, assumed a troubled look as he pondered for a moment, and then said, “Then that might not work out very well.”
During his movements, the silver chain on his left wrist was exposed. Jiang Zhou fixed his gaze upon it.
Noticing his stare, Ji Yunlang smiled and asked, “Does it look good?”
Jiang Zhou shifted his gaze to his face and nodded.
It was unclear whether he was answering that the chain looked good or that the person looked good.
“I think it looks good too,” Ji Yunlang lowered his eyes slightly to look at the chain on his wrist, his gaze carrying a touch of tenderness. “It’s a token of love. He and I have one each.”
Jiang Zhou had no expression on his face, but inside his heart, a little flower suddenly blossomed with a pop. He instantly forgave Ji Yunlang for that handkerchief of unknown origin tucked away in his robes.
He touched his own collar, then suddenly rose from his seat, turned around, and went upstairs without looking back.
Seeing him like this, Husheng ran up to Ji Yunlang in a huff. “How could you mention your wife to Eldest Brother? Look at how you angered him into leaving!”
“This is nothing,” Ji Yunlang pulled him down to sit. “I was even planning to tell him that my wife is already three months pregnant and that we are very happy.”
Husheng said, “You can’t do that!”
Ji Yunlang asked, “Why can’t I do that?”
Husheng stomped his foot hard in anxiety. “If you act like this, how is Eldest Brother supposed to like you?!”
Ji Yunlang did not know how to explain it to him, so he could only pat his head and say, “You are still small.”
Husheng wanted to argue with him further, but before he could even open his mouth, he discovered that the look Ji Yunlang directed at him already carried a few hints of coldness.
If he dared to say one more word, Ji Yunlang would genuinely become angry.
He obediently shut his mouth.
Since Jiang Zhou had left, Lin Xiao instinctively wanted to follow him out as well. Ji Yunlang tapped on the table and said, “Shall we chat?”
Lin Xiao’s buttocks, which had just risen from the seat, sat right back down.
Chatting it is then.
Ji Yunlang said, “That senior over there, how much do you know about him?”
Lin Xiao said, “Not much.”
“What is his name?”
“Hu Ye,” Lin Xiao explained. “His surname is Hu and his given name is Ye, two characters.”
Beside them, Husheng’s eyes instantly became bright and crystal clear. “So that is Eldest Brother’s name! Turns out it is Hu Ye, Eldest Brother Hu!”
“That’s not right,” Lin Xiao corrected him. “It’s Hu Ye,” he paused, “Eldest Brother Hu.”
Husheng repeated, “Hu Ye, Eldest Brother Hu.”
“Hu Ye,” Lin Xiao paused again, “Eldest Brother Hu.”
“Isn’t it Hu Ye, Eldest Brother Hu?”
Lin Xiao actually grew anxious for once. “How can you not understand! It is Hu Ye, Eldest Brother Hu. It’s not Hu Ye Eldest Brother Hu, and it’s definitely not Eldest Brother Hu-Ye-Hu, do you understand?”
Husheng covered his head, completely dizzy from the explanation.
Seeing that they had wandered far off into nonsense, Ji Yunlang tapped the table once more. “Then where does this Senior Hu Yeye Hu come from, do you know?”
Lin Xiao’s desire to correct people had been completely aroused by them. At this moment, he threw his fear of Ji Yunlang to the back of his mind and explained once more, “It is Hu Ye, not Ye Hu. Of course, it’s definitely not a chamber pot either. Eldest Brother Hu, he.”
With a flick of spiritual light from Ji Yunlang’s fingertip, the wine on the table flew all over Lin Xiao’s face. “Are you going to waste my time any longer?”
Lin Xiao wiped his face. “No more. Eldest Brother Hu comes and goes like a ghost. I don’t know where he comes from either.”
“If you don’t know, go find out. Once you find out, tell me,” Ji Yunlang looked at him. “Since we are all fellow disciples, surely you wouldn’t be unwilling?”
He had mentioned “we are all fellow disciples” several times. Lin Xiao wiped the sweat from his forehead, feeling somewhat uncomfortable, and asked, “You still remember me?”
“Of course,” Ji Yunlang smiled at him, those purple eyes flashing with a profound light. “Even if I were inside a coffin, I wouldn’t forget you.”
Lin Xiao slumped right down from his chair. He hugged the table leg, closed his eyes, and said loudly, “I’m sorry! I was still small back then, you were also still small back then, and we were all still small back then. But being young is no excuse for me committing a mistake. I was wrong, I was truly wrong, boohoo.”
Ji Yunlang bent down in confusion to look at him. “What are you doing?”
Husheng followed suit and bent down from the other side. “It’s very obvious. He is begging a table for forgiveness.”
Lin Xiao opened his eyes. “Aren’t you here to seek revenge on me?”
Husheng looked at Ji Yunlang in confusion. “Do you two have a grudge?”
Ji Yunlang asked Lin Xiao, “Do we have a grudge?”
Lin Xiao: “?”
Seeing that Ji Yunlang had such a poor memory, his panic instantly vanished to the back of his mind. He sat up straight and said solemnly, “Of course we do! More than ten years ago at the Qingxiao Sect, when you were pushed into the mud pit by Jiang the Eighth and his crew, I went over and kicked you. What a total loss of dignity! How could you even forget something like that?”
Ji Yunlang tried very hard to remember. Lin Xiao felt exasperated at his failure to live up to expectations. “What is wrong with you? You are Ji Yunlang! Given your current reputation in the Immortal Region, shouldn’t you be making everyone who used to bully and humiliate you pay the price? Shouldn’t you be telling them what it means by ‘the tides turn every thirty years, do not look down on a poor youth’? Shouldn’t you be taking revenge?!”
Ji Yunlang said, “I already took revenge.” He had done it that very same day.
When he was a child, he lacked capability and could not beat a whole crowd of people. After being beaten up and thrown into a mud pit during the day, Jiang Zhou took him out to stage a surprise attack that very night. Jiang Zhou would strike wherever Ji Yunlang pointed, stuffing all those who had bullied him into burlap sacks to soak in the mud pit. He manipulated bamboo strips to whip their buttocks, used giant shears to trim their fingernails, and finally wiped their memories before stuffing them back into their blankets, treating it as if they had merely experienced a desperate and painful nightmare.
Jiang Zhou did not remember people well. Sometimes, right after taking revenge on someone, he would turn around and forget about it, so he would drag them out to take revenge all over again. That person would then experience two nightmares in a single night.
By the time Ji Yunlang grew a bit older and became capable, no one could bully him anymore, and Jiang Zhou never helped him take revenge like that again.
Therefore, he had actually forgotten long ago who had bullied him in his childhood; every single person who had ever bullied him ended up far more miserable than he did.
Ji Yunlang said to Lin Xiao, “I remember you because you once stuffed a bottle of medicine into my hands and quietly told me that it was for stopping pain. You said you kept a lot of it inside a tree hollow on the back mountain, and if I needed it, I could go and get it myself.”
The way Lin Xiao looked at him back then was incredibly pitiful, as if Ji Yunlang were a wild child whose father did not care for him, whose mother did not love him, and who suffered endless bullying while having no home to return to. That was why Lin Xiao had generously shared his medicine with him. At that time, Ji Yunlang still did not understand; wasn’t practicing fighting supposed to result in injuries?
Besides, Guanhai Peak was piled with plenty of miraculous herbs and elixirs. In the very beginning, Jiang Zhou would teach him how to treat wounds and which medicine to use for which injury. Once Ji Yunlang learned, Jiang Zhou stopped bothering with it and let him run wild outside on his own.
He had brought that bottle of painkiller from Lin Xiao back with him. The crude little bottle looked odd sitting amidst a pile of precious medicinal ingredients. When Jiang Zhou saw it back then, he conveniently tossed it out.
Seeing that he had thrown it away, Ji Yunlang went outside to pick it up. Remembering the tree hollow Lin Xiao had mentioned, he went over that night intending to stuff it back into the hollow to return it to him. He then saw Lin Xiao, whose body was covered in injuries inflicted by the young masters and young mistresses, leaning against the tree hollow while swallowing painkillers.
Ji Yunlang had viewed people and things in a simple manner since childhood: if someone was bad to him, he had to pay them back, and if someone was good to him, he had to pay them back even more. He returned to Guanhai Peak, scooped up all the precious wound medicines Jiang Zhou had just prepared for him, and stuffed them into Lin Xiao’s tree hollow in the dead of night.
This was the most appropriate return gift his age could conceive.
Later, Jiang Zhou discovered that the medicine was disappearing quite fast. He dragged Ji Yunlang to his side to check exactly where he was injured to be using so much medicine.
Ji Yunlang, who was around twelve or thirteen at the time, put on a mature and deep front. Clutching his chest, he coughed twice and said, “Internal injuries.”
Sustaining internal injuries from a fight was a serious matter. Jiang Zhou immediately wanted to take him to find a medical cultivator. Ji Yunlang hurriedly grabbed his arm and said, “No, I lied to you. I spilled those medicines and threw them all away.”
This was because if they were to see a medical cultivator, Jiang Zhou would go look for Master Yun again. Jiang Zhou had to report to Master Yun no matter who he met, and once he went, he would not return for a very long time.
Ji Yunlang did not want to wait for him all alone on Guanhai Peak.
As his thoughts drifted far away, Ji Yunlang poured himself a cup of wine and drank it on his own.
Hearing him mention that he had stuffed so much medicine into the hollow as a return gift, Lin Xiao stared at him blankly, the rims of his eyes instantly turning red.
Husheng hurriedly used his palms to fan him. “Oh dear, there’s no need to be touched. You absolutely must not fall in love with my sister-in-law! My Eldest Brother has more than enough love rivals already!”
Lin Xiao slowly covered his own chest, the tears at the corners of his eyes falling drop by drop, one after another.
“If I say it out loud, you guys might not believe it, but since childhood, there has been a fairy sister in my heart. She was gentle, beautiful, had a pair of gorgeous eyes, and would quietly stuff my tree hollow full of medicine while I was asleep… Now you are telling me that it was all your doing. I find this a bit difficult to accept.”
Husheng’s hand fanning him stopped instantly. He patted his chest and let out a sigh of relief. “Fortunately, the one you liked was a fairy sister, not a fairy brother.”
Ji Yunlang asked, “Are you and Ye?”
Lin Xiao said, “Hu.”
Ji Yunlang asked, “What are you and Senior Hu doing here in Luxi City?”
Speaking of this, Lin Xiao glanced upstairs, lowered his voice, and said to Ji Yunlang, “I didn’t know before exactly what Eldest Brother Hu was doing by following me. Now I guess that from the very beginning, he came entirely for you.”
Husheng brought his head over. “Does that even need guessing? No matter where Eldest Brother appears, he is definitely coming for sister-in-law.”
Lin Xiao nodded. “Otherwise, he wouldn’t have asked me about the Bafang Region the moment he came up.”
Husheng grinned. “We are familiar with the Bafang Region! Let Eldest Brother come ask sister-in-law about it, he can ask whatever he likes!”
Ji Yunlang touched the bite mark on the side of his neck, lost in thought.
Jiang Zhou locked himself inside the wing room and sat motionless before the table. The little flower inside his heart had been blooming for a good while. A fluffy cat tail made of black mist emerged to nuzzle against his face.
Feeling ticklish, he caught the cat tail and stuffed it right back in.
Tantan is truly clingy, how annoying.
The little flower had bloomed just about enough. He rose, preparing to go downstairs, as the proper business had not yet been discussed.
However, just as he reached the doorway, he caught the scent of appetizing food. Accompanied by the sound of footsteps, he happened to open the door and run right into Ji Yunlang.
Ji Yunlang held a food box in his hand and smiled at him. “Senior?”
The moment Jiang Zhou saw Ji Yunlang smiling at people like this on the outside, he felt uncomfortable inside. The flower that had just bloomed withered slightly.
He took a few steps back to let them into the room.
Ji Yunlang set out the food and wine from the box and said, “Senior left so suddenly just now and didn’t get to eat.” He tapped two of the dishes. “I happened to show off my skills a bit. Would Senior care to have a taste?”
He is even cooking for others on the outside?
Jiang Zhou walked over with a stiff face.
That little flower withered away completely.