The Husky and His White Cat Shizun

Chapter 248: "Dragon Blood Mountain" Forgotten

Knowing he had no other choice, Chu Wanning finally donned his thick fox fur cloak and held up an oil paper umbrella before heading to the Wu Mountain Temple.

The intertwined silver and copper lamps inside the hall shone with resplendent light, their ninety-nine flames flickering like stars in a river, illuminating the entire Wu Mountain Temple with a dazzling glow. The attendants, accustomed to seeing Master Chu being summoned, bowed their heads as he entered. Chu Wanning passed through the side corridor expressionlessly, making his way towards the resting area at the back of the palace – when he reached the carved lacquer red gate, he stretched out his hand and pushed it open.

The room was warm, a stark contrast to the cold rain outside. A rich aroma of wine filled his nostrils. Mo Ran lounged lazily on the couch, his fingers, as white as jade, holding a small red clay pot as he sipped his drink.

"You're here."

"..."

"Sit down."

Chu Wanning walked to the bamboo mat farthest from him, sat down, and closed his eyes.

Mo Ran didn't insist on him coming closer; he was already slightly drunk, a hint of pink tingeing his pale face. He slanted his eyes, his dark purple irises shimmering with a faint sheen. Taking another sip, Mo Ran looked up at the ceiling adorned with carved dragons and phoenixes, tapping his fingers gently on his knee.

Suddenly, he asked, "Can you still make wontons?"

Chu Wanning's eyelashes fluttered slightly, but he still replied, "I won't anymore."

Mo Ran persisted, "You have before. That year... the year he left."

"I wasn't good at it," Chu Wanning said, his face devoid of much expression. "You're right, it was like the story of Dong Shi imitating beauty."

Mo Ran narrowed his eyes. "Are you holding a grudge against this seat?"

"No."

"What if this Venerable orders you to create one right now?"

Chu Wanning remained silent, as Mo Ran gazed at him intensely, pressing him: "I'm asking you. If you were to do it now, would you still be willing?"

"Even if I did," Chu Wanning finally opened his eyes, gazing at him with an icy detachment, "would you eat it?"

Unexpecting the counterattack, a flush of color stained Mo Ran's cheeks, as if from the intoxication of alcohol or the surge of anger. In any case, his eyes suddenly became perplexed, lost in thought for a moment before he snapped back to reality. With gritted teeth and agitation, he violently knocked over his wine cup, spilling the premium pear blossom liquor across the table.

Mo Ran rose with a malevolent intensity, his figure towering like a majestic mountain. He stepped over the shattered pottery, striding purposefully toward Chu Wanning. With a fierce grip, he seized the other's collar.

"You too, Song Qiutong," Heaven-Stepping Lord growled through gritted teeth. "Both of you will give this Lord nothing but misery."

He released Chu Wanning, pacing back and forth like a vulture, circling the spot.

Suddenly, his footsteps ceased.

He turned to glare at Chu Wanning and asked, "When did you teach me to read a letter as if it were a personal visit?"

By now, Heaven-Stepping Lord was half-drunk, speaking without any semblance of reason, his words flowing freely from his thoughts.

"I don't remember that at all."

His wrist was seized by a cold, large hand, and Mo Ran dragged him over to the desk. Ink was prepared, and a heap of scrolls were unrolled. Mo Ran said, "Write it down for me. Teach me again."

Chu Wanning was already running a low fever, and under this coercion, his anger and distress only intensified, causing his face to flush red as he coughed.

Mo Ran thrust the brush into his hand, his voice dark and agitated. "Write."

He urged impatiently, "Hurry up."

Chu Wanning's spirit core had been shattered during their previous master-disciple showdown, leaving his health in a fragile state. As he continued coughing, blood frothed at the corners of his throat.

Only then did Mo Ran freeze, staring at the spots of blood before slowly releasing his grip.

"In the end, it was just a letter filled with casual greetings. What significance could it possibly hold?" Chu Wanning finally managed to stifle his coughing fit. He let out a long sigh and used a handkerchief to wipe away the blood from his lips.

Raising his gaze, he caught his breath and looked at Mo Ran. "In the past, you would always start your letters like this. But perhaps it's been too long since you last wrote, so you've forgotten."

"I...wrote a letter?" Mo Ran's dark eyes widened as he stared at him. "To whom?" He nearly snarled. "Who would I write to? Who in this world could I possibly write to? Nonsense... Complete nonsense... Utter rubbish!"

When Mo Ran spoke these words, he was filled with weariness and frustration, his eyes shimmering with a hazy glow.

It was during that moment that Chu Wanning vaguely sensed something amiss. But at the time, he didn't give it much thought, assuming that Mo Ran's intoxication had affected his memory. Thus, he merely frowned but did not respond.

In the study of Mount Wu Shan's palace, there was a letter box where all correspondence from the Peak of Life and Death was locked away in a Qiankun Box for record-keeping. Mo Ran, like a caged beast pacing around, suddenly remembered the existence of this box. He retrieved it from its dusty resting place and began to open one long-forgotten letter after another.

Those letters were mostly written by disciples from the sect, categorized according to the elders they had learned from. Most of the writers had perished in the year of Mo Ran's betrayal. Among them, Elder Yu Heng had the fewest disciples, only three in total, which made their letters easier to locate. Mo Ran swiftly found a thick stack of correspondence.

He trembled as he unfolded it.

Indeed, it was his handwriting—childish and slanted, but written with utmost sincerity. As he read through each letter, they all bore the same words, "May reading this letter be like seeing you in person, may it bring a smile to your face."

Each and every one of them.

Mo Ran's fingers trembled, his eyes shimmering with an eerie glow.

---

"Mother, may reading this letter be like seeing you, may it bring a smile to your face."

"Sister Xun, may reading this letter be like seeing you, may it bring a smile to your face."

Those long-forgotten addresses sent shivers down his spine, filling him with unease. His eyes narrowed into slits, and dark clouds gathered over his handsome face.

Beside him, Chu Wanning initially paid no attention, but as time went on, Mo Ran's expression became increasingly unsettling... He couldn't help but focus his gaze on the man at the desk, frantically flipping through old letters with a nearly frenzied air.

A tiny terror unfurled its sharp beak, tapping rhythmically against Chu Wanning's heart.

Something was off.

He approached slowly, observing the dazed and frenzied expression on Mo Ran's face as he gazed at the letter.

...What was amiss?

"Spirit Mother is already dead..." Mo Ran muttered suddenly, lifting his gaze to meet Chu Wanning's. "Why would I write a letter to her?"

Chu Wanning watched him intently, a sense of dread gnawing at his heart as if a storm of blood and shadows was about to break free.

Dark clouds descended upon them.

It was odd that Mo Ran had forgotten the oft-repeated salutation "may this letter find you well," but not entirely implausible.

However, forgetting every single letter he'd ever written, with no recollection at all, was genuinely peculiar.

Still flipping through the pages, Mo Ran repeated, "May reading this bring a smile to your face... May reading this bring a smile to your face..." The gleam in his deep purple eyes was a painful paradox.

Indeed, it seemed as though a crucial piece of memory was missing.

In his ears, he could almost hear the sound of a hard shell cracking.

Chu Wanning held his breath, a chill running down his spine. Apart from the two of them, no one else was in the study. In the deafening silence, he moved his lips and whispered softly, "Don't you remember? You once said that even though your mother couldn't receive letters anymore, you still wanted to write to her."

Mo Ran suddenly looked up.

Chu Wanning felt his blood turn icy, his breath crystallizing in the air.

"The first name you learned to write wasn't your own," he said.

Mo Ran was stunned, whispering in confusion, "Then what was it?"

"The first name you asked me to teach you was 'A-mother'."

Thunder rumbled outside, lightning striking violently, while howling winds sounded like countless ghostly claws pounding on the windows, shaking the paper and wooden frames with a loud rustling.

A bolt of lightning illuminated the world with an eerie glow.

The God of Destruction murmured, "...You taught me?... Why don't I have any memory of it... Not even a single one."

The wind blew through the trees, causing them to sway and their shadows to dance. The mountain and courtyard were filled with the ghosts and vengeful spirits of the damned.

Chu Wanning's face was ashen white. He stared fixedly at Mo Ran, his eyes sharp like an eagle's: "You don't remember any of it?"

His heart pounded like a drum.

After a moment of silence, Mo Ran replied in confusion, "Remember what?"

The drumming ceased.

That tiny beak had finally pierced through its shell, unleashing a torrent of fear that stampeded towards the only lucid person in the room, like waves crashing against the shore!

Chu Wanning's scalp prickled—how could he not remember? !

Back then, Mo Ran had said he wanted to write letters to his mother, composing over three hundred of them with the intention of burning them all during the Ghost Festival as offerings to his mother in the Underworld...

How could he have so easily forgotten three hundred letters?

His lips trembled slightly, and a horrifying suspicion arose in his mind. Chu Wanning whispered hoarsely, "Do you... remember what you said the first time you saw Tianwen?"

"What did I say?" Mo Ran asked. "That was so long ago. How could I possibly still remember clearly?"

"You say you desire such divine weapons too," Chu Wanning said. "You want a Heavenly Inquiry of your own..."

The drunk man looked at him with a hint of mockery in his eyes. "What would I do with a Heavenly Inquiry? Kill, perhaps, or interrogate?"

Chu Wanning whispered softly, "Earthworms."

Back then, outside the Red Lotus Water Pavilion, the young, inexperienced boy had smiled as he held up an oil-paper umbrella, saying, "It can save earthworms."

But now, the Tyrant of Immortality narrowed his feline eyes, utterly clueless. "What earthworms?"

Thunder rumbled across the sky, purple lightning slicing through the night.

Chu Wanning's lips pressed together abruptly, his brown eyes fluttering and contracting slightly.

A bone-chilling cold.

That night, Mo Ran hadn't actually done anything further to Chu Wanning. He'd truly had too much to drink and eventually ended up staring blankly at those letters.

Later on, Mo Ran fell asleep with his forehead resting on the desk. Even in his sleep, he mumbled, "What earthworms?... There are no earthworms..."

Suddenly, a strong gust of wind blew open the window with a bang, and the mountain wind mixed with heavy rain poured in, extinguishing several lamps by the window instantly.

The room was plunged into darkness.

Chu Wanning stood beside Mo Ran, his lips and teeth feeling cold as he looked down at the sleeping man. The uncertain thoughts in his mind became clearer and more distinct—why couldn't Mo Ran remember these scattered past events? Why did he selectively forget some pure memories?

Was it because he was drunk? Was it coincidence? Or... had someone deliberately erased the goodness in his heart?

Heaven-Stepping Lord, who was sleeping with his face down on the table, murmured softly, "Cold..."

Chu Wanning's blood ran cold. His entire being was numb, and upon hearing Mo Ran say that he was cold, he instinctively walked slowly towards the window.

Raising his hand, he closed the window, blocking out the wind and rain outside.

After doing all this, Chu Wanning didn't leave. Dazed, he pressed his forehead against the lattice window adorned with bat and deer patterns, his knuckles taking on an opalescent hue.

After a long while, he slowly retrieved a crumpled spirit talisman from his robe.

Rising Dragon Talisman.

He no longer had a spirit core, so Mo Ran assumed that Chu Wanning was completely unable to use any more spells. Thus, he didn't bother to collect the talismans Chu Wanning had once used.

In fact, Mo Ran's assumption was correct. Chu Wanning bit his fingertip and dripped over a dozen drops of blood onto the Rising Dragon Talisman, almost soaking it through. Only then did the tiny dragon on it listlessly emerge.

Its entire body radiated a weak light as it raised its head with difficulty. "Ah... Chu Wanning... Long time no see..."

The little dragon wobbled as it tried to stand, taking a few steps on its dragon claws before collapsing back onto the paper with a thud. It sounded aggrieved and confused. "Why haven't you looked for this seat in so long? And why did you only give this seat such a tiny bit of spiritual energy... Uh, if you can even call it that... What's wrong with you?"

"It's a long story, perhaps better left untold." Chu Wanning gently picked it up and placed it in the palm of his hand. "I need your help with something, please."

"Sire, you only seek me when in need, like Zhong Wuyan, and ignore me when at ease, like Xia Yingchun," the little dragon sighed. However, its power was intertwined with Chu Wanning's, leaving it with little energy to complain. It hung its head and asked listlessly, "So, what do you want this time? Speak your request."

Carrying it with him, Chu Wanning placed it gently beside Mo Ran's sleeping ear, its soft rustling whispering into his dreams.

Fingers curled into a fist, concealed within his palm. Chu Wanning's already unsightly expression turned even paler. "Try your best to examine him and see if there are any unauthorized enchantments on his body."

In truth, that brilliant and obedient youth, who wouldn't even harm a worm, eventually became a demonic tyrant.

As his master, how could he not have any suspicion?

He had watched helplessly as his disciple killed Xue Zhengyong, Madame Wang, Jiang Xi, and Ye Wangxi. He witnessed the destruction of the Confucian Wind Sect, the trampling of bones, and the massacre committed by Mo Ran.

He saw the blood on Mo Ran's hands, the crimson stains on his face and clothes, as he stood amidst corpses, turning to grin maliciously at him.

In his heartbreak, how could he not find it strange?

Mo Ran wasn't supposed to be this kind of person.

Yet when the little paper dragon exerted all its strength to draw a talisman shape on the parchment for Chu Wanning, even though Chu Wanning was prepared, he was still stunned.

The Love Spell.

Mo Ran actually possessed the Love Spell?!

After the little dragon finished drawing the talisman, it exhausted its last bit of strength and transformed into a wisp of green smoke, vanishing once more within the Rising Dragon Talisman. Chu Wanning held onto the thin piece of paper, feeling as if mountains were collapsing and withering away inside his skull.

Yet, upon forcing himself to calm down and examining it repeatedly, Chu Wanning realized that there was something amiss with the image of the Infatuation Formula —

It was inverted from left to right.