Shizun, Please Have Tea
Duan Wangyue blinked slowly, thinking to himself, This Immortal Lord is so good-looking. If he finds out that I am a demon, will he kill me with a single sword strike just like he killed the tiger demon?
Would that flying sword piercing through my body feel just as icy as that dagger?
His long eyelashes drooped, concealing the thoughts in his eyes. When he opened them again, they were wide, filled with utter bewilderment as if he had been frightened out of his wits. The entire little cub looked somewhat dazed, watching helplessly as the sword, which had just pierced straight through the tiger demon without a single drop of blood staining it, moved upward. The sharp, piercing tip, carrying a faint chill, pointed straight at him.
It looked as though it would pierce right through his body the very next second. Duan Wangyue did not know how to describe his current feelings; he only knew that if this Immortal Lord were to pierce his body with that fine-looking flying sword, he would definitely…
Would do what?
Before he could come to any conclusion,
The next second, the ropes binding him were severed, and a sensation of falling struck him. Just when Duan Wangyue thought he would crash hard onto the ground and then be ruthlessly impaled by that flying sword, he fell into an embrace that carried a faint chill yet smelled lovely and fragrant.
His nose, rendered numb by the pungent stench of blood, suddenly caught this completely different scent, and it couldn’t help but crave more. Like a small cat, he mindlessly burrowed into the Immortal Lord’s arms, and in the process, the filthy blood on his body easily stained the Immortal Lord’s pristine white Dharma robes with a layer of vibrant red.
Xiao Yuan was momentarily stunned, being rubbed against by the child in his arms. Having spent years dealing with hospital patients, he rarely had any contact with young children. Assuming the boy was terrified, he raised his hand a beat too late and gently patted the child’s back with some unfamiliarity, coaxing him softly, “Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid.”
Based on the scene he had arrived to witness, he could easily deduce that the child had been kidnapped by those burly men. If not for the appearance of this tiger demon, the feather-light child in his arms would not have met a pleasant end.
Xiao Yuan cast a cold glance at the wretched corpses of the burly men lying on the ground; they had better pray they died fast enough, otherwise Xiao Yuan was genuinely afraid he could not help but give each of them a few stabs with his sword. People who abducted children were the ones he detested most in all his life.
Putting away his natal sword and lowering his gaze to look at the child’s hands clutching at his blood-stained and dust-covered lapels, as well as the sticky, bloody stench on the child, he casually cast a dust-removal spell on both of them, and the stains on their bodies instantly vanished without a trace.
Besides, he had not found the protagonist yet anyway, and sending the child home along the way was no trouble at all.
Thinking this, Xiao Yuan lowered his gaze and asked him, “Where is your home?”
Duan Wangyue still had his hood pulled over his head, except that it sat askew and loosely draped, exposing the greater part of his face. His eyes were wide, round, and dark like black grapes, staring blankly and quite helplessly at the Immortal Lord who had just spoken to him so softly.
His chin was somewhat pointed, and the whole cub looked thin and small, somewhat malnourished. The bloodstains on his body had been completely cleaned away, leaving his sensitive sense of smell some breathing room, and the wound on his belly had healed down to just a faint pink trace.
Ever since he was little, Duan Wangyue had suffered a great deal because of this special constitution of his, but right now, Duan Wangyue suddenly grew a little fond of this constitution, all because of the Immortal Lord before him.
He quietly pressed down on his lower abdomen; no warm blood was flowing from the wound, and he let out a quiet sigh of relief.
As long as he hid it well, he would not be an outcast, nor a monster.
Duan Wangyue raised his head slightly, parted his lips, and was just about to answer when a gust of wind carrying a rich, foul stench mingled with the blood of a demonic beast surged straight up his nose into his mind. Cultivators possessed sharp senses, and Xiao Yuan also felt the smell was truly unpleasant, so he silently scooped up the child in his arms and leaped a few times to stand high atop the branches of a tall tree.
Xiao Yuan’s movement was so fast and sudden that Duan Wangyue only had time to stretch out one hand to grab his hood and keep it from flying about. Yet no matter how timely his action was, Xiao Yuan still caught sight of those sleek, delicate little horns, and the look in his eyes changed for a fraction of a second before quickly returning to normal.
This was not an ordinary human child, and furthermore, this was the northern region the system had mentioned.
In other words, this was the disciple who would later slice him into skeleton pieces, and he had found him.
Right in his arms, a small, feather-light bundle, so fragile it seemed as though he could crush it to death with a single hand.
Duan Wangyue clutched his hood, completely unaware that the secret he had worked so hard to hide had been discovered before he even began concealing it. He tilted his head back slightly, revealing only his sharp, fair, and tender chin, and spoke in a voice that was barely audible: “I have no home.”
The child before him did not even reach his leg in height, his entire person enveloped in a black hood. The hands grasping the hood lacked the plump dimples of a child that age, making him look tiny and exceptionally pitiful.
Yet in a place where Xiao Yuan could not see, the corners of Duan Wangyue’s eyes were faintly flushed, and his thin cheeks also bloomed with an excited flush, as if he were reminiscing about some delightful scene.
Xiao Yuan was momentarily stunned. True enough, did not Dragon Sovereigns always have tragic and miserable backgrounds, shouting out that classic quote, “Do not bully the young for being poor in the thirty years of the east and thirty years of the west,” before embarking on a path of acquiring all sorts of opportunities and fiercely slapping faces everywhere?
He looked at the little Dragon Sovereign, who at this moment did not even reach his waist, and thought that if this little cub did not listen to him properly, he would not mind acting as a stern father. For a little cub destined to destroy heaven and earth in the future, he did not mind helping him have a complete childhood, after all, filial piety stems from the stick.
If he did not obey, a beating would fix it. If one beating was not enough, then two.
“What is your name?”
“Duan Wangyue.”
Xiao Yuan repeated the little Dragon Sovereign’s name. He had not originally intended to say to Duan Wangyue, “Would you be willing to take me as your master?” But suddenly, his mind flashed to the scene he saw when passing a kindergarten after getting off work: little toddlers with tiny backpacks joyfully crashing into the arms of their mothers squatting on the ground. No matter how many times he saw it, he felt that should be a very happy gesture.
Therefore, when Xiao Yuan lightly tipped his toes and landed steadily on the ground, he casually set the little cub in his arms down onto the earth, and with a great deal of ceremony, squatted down so that his line of sight was level with the bewildered little cub, and asked, “Would you be willing to take me as your master?”
Duan Wangyue looked as though he had not understood, merely gazing at him blankly as the black hood was whipped upward by the wind, revealing his sleek, translucent dragon horns on and off.
Xiao Yuan certainly noticed this detail, and he became even more profoundly aware that the little cub in front of him was a baby dragon, a legendary divine beast of the Huaxia realm.
He said, “Once you take me as your master, I will be your family.”
Duan Wangyue looked as though he had heard something utterly unbelievable, the pure and innocent expression on his face almost slipping. Family, how much he used to crave this word was precisely how much he now loathed it.
His family only ever humiliated him, called him a monster, threw stones at him, watched him dodge frantically from the rocks, and clapped their hands while laughing gleefully, asking why he had not gone and died yet.
Duan Wangyue gave him a deep look. Are you this kind of family too?
“Wangyue is willing to take the Immortal Lord as his master!”
It did not matter. If he was, he would fight back, just like that raging fire that burned through the Duan estate for an entire night.
“From now on, Wangyue will call me Master.”
Duan Wangyue looked up at Xiao Yuan, feeling somewhat novel, and called out in a crisp voice, “Master!”
Xiao Yuan bent down to scoop his newly minted little disciple back into his arms and answered him, “Good disciple.”
Carefully identifying the direction to return to the Sword Sect, it was Duan Wangyue’s first time flying through the sky. Looking down from the high altitude, everything he saw felt novel. When his gaze paused on a certain spot, the next second, a cool hand with faint calluses blocked his vision, and he heard the Immortal Lord’s cool yet gentle voice ring out: “Don’t be afraid.”
Duan Wangyue certainly was not afraid, but that did not stop him from seizing the chance to burrow further into Master’s arms. His breath was filled entirely with Master’s scent, so fragrant.
The old Unstained Sword knew the way back, carrying its master and the master’s little disciple as it sped across the sky. Down on the ground somewhere behind the two of them, Old Master Du had a massive hole right through his abdominal cavity, his eyes wide open with terror as he stared straight ahead, looking as if he had laid eyes on some horrifying monster.
The naming of the six major peaks within the Sword Sect was extremely arbitrary. According to what was passed down generation after generation, it was simply: Peak names? Just pick anything casually. We are busy cultivating; who has the time to think about so much? Let us just call them the First Peak, Second Peak, Third Peak, and so on.
Since even the main peaks were named so arbitrarily, the names of other places within the Sword Sect were even more haphazard. Places with spiritual springs were called Spiritual Springs; places with mountain cliffs were called Mountain Cliffs; places with precipitous bluffs were called Precipitous Bluffs.
Xiao Yuan carried Duan Wangyue into the Sixth Peak. The moment his toes touched the ground, the Unstained Sword began to circle around him back and forth. The Sixth Peak was covered in snow year-round, yet looking out, it was not an overwhelming expanse of white; red wintersweet blossoms dotted the snowy peak in patches. The gentle wind blew, rolling the faint fragrance of wintersweet to dance about the tip of the nose.
Duan Wangyue caught this scent almost instantly. At a first sniff, it smelled exactly like the scent on his Master, but upon a closer sniff, the scent of the Master holding him was still much nicer.
Duan Wangyue only sniffed briefly before burying his head back into Xiao Yuan’s arms, attempting to inhale more of that wonderful fragrance. In Xiao Yuan’s eyes, this action meant the child was cold. Although the child possessed half dragon bloodline, he was still ultimately a little toddler with half human blood, so feeling cold was the most normal thing in the world.
There were no grandiose or magnificent palaces on the Sixth Peak; there was only a bamboo house constructed from green bamboo.
Upon entering the bamboo house, Xiao Yuan placed Duan Wangyue on the floor and walked straight over to sit at the main seat to the side. Watching the somewhat restrained Duan Wangyue, he used spiritual power to lift the teapot and teacup from the table, suspending them right in front of Duan Wangyue. Within moments, steam began to rise from the tea in the pot. “Wangyue, offer the master-disciple tea to your teacher.”
Only then did Duan Wangyue suddenly understand. He poured a cup of hot tea, walked over to stand before Xiao Yuan, knelt his tiny body on the ground, and held the cup of hot tea high forward with both hands. “Please, Master, have some tea.”
He knelt with absolute naturalness. If one day his Master were to draw a sword against him, he would make his Master repay this kneeling.
Did other people not call him a demon, call him a monster?
A monster was precisely someone who held grudges and repaid wrongs in kind.
Xiao Yuan took the tea, took a small sip, and had just parted his lips to say something when he heard a string of rumbling noises. Turning his gaze to the source of the sound, he saw his freshly minted little disciple pressing both hands tightly against his belly, a blush of shyness appearing on his fair, thin cheeks.
Finding it rather amusing for a moment, he wanted to tease him, yet worried that letting a child go hungry for too long would not be good for his health. Fortunately, he had completely inherited the original body’s memories and knew the layout of the Sword Sect by heart, so he scooped up his little disciple and headed to the disciple dining hall for a meal.
It happened to be the midday dining hour, and disciples who had not yet attained penury were already seated with their close friends, having collected their food. When Xiao Yuan, draped in white robes and carrying a small bundle completely wrapped in a black hood, walked into the dining hall, he immediately drew attention.
Yet not a single disciple in the entire dining hall dared to step forward to greet Immortal Lord Qingyuan. Who dared to provoke the Law Enforcement Elder? A single whip strike from the transformed Unstained Sword could whip a person half to death. The bustling disciple dining hall fell into an eerie silence.
After Xiao Yuan walked away carrying his food box, the dining hall remained utterly silent until a junior disciple who had just entered the inner sect from the outer sect swallowed the rice in his mouth and asked the senior brother beside him, “Senior Brother, is the person that Immortal Lord was holding in his arms just now his child?”
The disciple dining hall grew even quieter. The senior brother sitting next to him, terrified that this foolish junior brother would blurt out something even more heaven-shaking, grabbed a chicken leg, one per person, and fiercely shoved it into his mouth. “Shut up and eat your food!”