CH 54

Chapter 54: Nanhai Flower Festival



Almost all the disciples of the Red Dragon Sect went to kneel at the ancestral hall. Nian Nian’s palms were red from being struck by her Shifu. She cried so terribly. 



The disharmonious books were all burned. The disciples were subjected to rigorous teaching, had their attitude towards learning rectified and their three views once again corrected.



Song Qingshi was very satisfied with how Yan Yuan Xianjun handled matters. He asked Yue Wuhuan to give little Nian Nian a full set of mathematics textbooks. He also arranged for the messenger bird to send her a collection of exercises from time to time. She was urged to study hard. She would have spot-check exams and her results would be examined. This would help her in going further on the road to becoming a talisman master.



Yan Yuan Xianjun was overjoyed and repeatedly thanked him.



Lan Shijie and the others also expressed that they would help the Medicine King Xianzun to supervise the children’s study and that they would not tolerate mischief. 



Nian Nian cried even harder. Shifu was right. His gentle appearance was a facade. The Medicine King Xianzun was a fiendish man. She would never again fantasize about marrying such a gege when she grows up. He was too terrible! Yue Wuhuan Gege was much better with his gentle temperament and friendly smile. He also helped her to persuade her Shifu not to be impatient, saying that it was better for children to learn slowly; there was no need to be anxious. He could choose simpler textbooks to make her life a bit easier.



She thought it was much better to marry a gege like Yue Wuhuan when she grows up.



Song Qingshi examined Yan Yuan Xianjun’s body. After confirming that there were no major problems, he got ready to leave with Yue Wuhuan.



Yue Wuhuan was a little worried. “If we leave, what would happen to An Dage? He said he was craving alcohol but he didn’t show up in town. Where did he go?”



“Probably off doing something bad,” Song Qingshi smiled, “It’s okay, he’s not a child. He’s also an expert at tracking spells. If he needs to find us, naturally, he can find a way to do so. He has always acted erratic. Before, there would be times when he would do something halfway then just suddenly disappear! It’s infuriating. I usually just leave him to his own devices…Don’t worry, if he runs into a situation, he can send a letter for help.”



Yue Wuhuan had some regrets but he could only give up.



The two rode to Nanhai City. Nanhai City was like spring throughout the year, flourishing blossoms created a magnificent landscape. The Flower Festival had already begun. The whole city had been transformed into a country of flowers. Every household was decorated with flowers. The fragrance of flowers was everywhere. Restaurants offered all sorts of delicacies made from flowers. Young men and women arranged flowers by the side of the temples, laughing and joking. Even old women in their 70s or 80s couldn’t help but pin a few small, white and fragrant flowers on their chests.



Song Qing had never participated in the Flower Festival, it was all rather new to him. 



He secretly looked at the cheat sheet in his sleeve, confirmed the answer and prepared himself to explain the local customs to Yue Wuhuan.



Yue Wuhuan smiled and interrupted his recitation, “Master, I have been here before.”



“When?” As soon as Song Qingshi spoke, he understood. His memory was full of when Yue Wuhua first came to the Medicine King’s Valley. He kept forgetting that he had been sleeping for ten years and that he had not kept up with Yue Wuhuan’s growth, still stuck in the past.



The things he hadn’t done, Yue Wuhuan had done himself. The places he hadn’t been to, Yue Wuhuan had gone to himself. 



He was truly stupid.



“I seldom go out,” Song Qingshi thought up to this point and laughed, “Wuhuan, can you show me around?”



During the Flower Festival in Nanhai City, visitors came in droves. People were all crowded together, swarming the entire city.



Song Qingshi couldn’t use the alchemical fire to open the way nor could he use poison to injure the innocent. From time to time, something strange or new in the roadside stalls would attract his attention. And so, he was repeatedly buried in the crowd and dragged away. 

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

Pa jirb kjrc’a mbcnfclfca obg Tef Qetejc ab erf atf Dibbv Blcu Nlcf ab olrt tlw ogbw atf mgbkv. Coafg atlcxlcu jcv atlcxlcu, fcveglcu jcv fcveglcu, ktfc tf kjr bcmf jujlc qeiifv bnfg ys j gbjvrlvf nfcvbg rfiilcu ogelar yfmjerf bo tlr atlc-rxlccfv cjaegf, Tef Qetejc olcjiis gfjmtfv bea, ugjyyfv tlr jgw jcv ifv tlw jkjs. “Ktfgf jgf abb wjcs qfbqif. Gbc’a ub kjcvfglcu boo.”



Song Qingshi took out one of the two blue fruits he had just bought and handed it to him. Smiling, he asked, “Would you like to eat one?”



“This is very sour. It’s not tasty.” Yue Wuhuan took the fruit, “If you want to taste it, I’ll pickle it with sugar first and then give it to you to eat.”



As soon as he finished speaking, he saw Song Qingshi wipe the fruit in his hand and then take a bite out of it. It was too late to stop him. “It’s dirty.” 



Song Qingshi thought for a while. “I don’t think it’s sour, it’s delicious.”



Yue Wuhuan said helplessly, “It’s sour.”



Song Qingshi tossed the fruit in his hand and said with a smile, “I was joking. It is really sour.”



The sun was almost reaching its zenith. Yue Wuhuan took him into a clean tea house and found a place by the window. He took out his own tea set, wiped it carefully a few times. He then threw a spirit stone to a young waiter and asked him to bring over some petals. He washed them clean and then personally made a pot of scented tea paired with homemade pastries and handed them to Song Qingshi. 



Along their journey, he would do it like this whenever he had the opportunity.



Song Qingshi knew that he had a serious case of mysophobia, so he accepted it obediently. He looked back at the other patrons of the tea shop around him. He found that the cultivators had long quietly turned their eyes away and didn’t dare look over in their direction.  The pair of lovers at the table next to theirs had left in a hurry. On the other hand, ordinary passers-by who were curious, saw the beauty of Yue Wuhuan’s mask and secretly glanced a lot more.



When An Long had been next to him, everyone was afraid and would avoid them. He felt this was normal. After all, the Alaskan Malamute looked fierce.



Now, An Long wasn’t around but everyone was still avoiding them… 



Although he had a reputation for being fierce as the Medicine King Xianzun, he rarely went outside and very few people recognized him. He had brought Yue Wuhuan to Lecheng before and he had never encountered such a scene. It was the first time for him to come to Nanhai City. It was even more unlikely that he had left any traces. So, was it Yue Wuhuan that these people were afraid of?



Wuhuan, what did you do?



Song Qingshi’s expression became more solemn.



Yue Wuhuan looked around and understood his hesitation. He explained with a smile, “Every year at the Flower Festival, there are sea merchants here. At the time, Ye Lin sent me a message that the Blue Spirit Resin had appeared and so I came.” 



The Blue Spirit Resin was a very rare elixir useful for repairing limbs.



Song Qingshi nodded, indicating that he understood that this had been medicine for him.



“After I bought Blue Spirit Resin with a lot of money, I was targeted by some bad guys.” Yue Wuhuan’s expression was a little aggrieved. “They saw that I was just a Foundation Building cultivator and they thought they could kill me and rob me of the treasure. I really had no choice but to kill them. The method may have been a bit excessive…” He had beaten them at their own game. He set a trap, controlled the wicked scoundrels using Puppet Incense and then experimented with the newly developed Bone Intoxication Poison. After he succeeded, he happily used the Blood King Vine to hang their bodies on the city gate, deterring all other robbers. That’s all.



Had he overdone it a little bit back then and he was now recognized by others? 



If he had known that the Master would come here, he wouldn’t have played around on such a big scale. Or perhaps he would have hidden his true face better when he was playing.



Yue Wuhuan thought about it regretfully and then asked, “Master, have I done something wrong?”



Song Qingshi said resolutely, “You weren’t wrong. You should deal with wicked scoundrels with thunder-like means!”



“En, I will take note of it for the future.” Yue Wuhuan laughed and changed the subject, “Master, there are many interesting things in the Flower Festival. We should stay here. In four hours, there should be floats passing by. The beauties of Nanhai City are very well-known. Every year, the most beautiful girls are selected to play the role of mythological characters on the floats. Many famous painters also gather here to make portraits of the beauties. I came and went in a hurry last time and I didn’t see the floats. It was quite regrettable.” 



What’s even more regrettable was that hadn’t found that damned painter.



Song Qingshi was very curious about the floats. Lying on the windowsill, he looked around to watch the excitement.



He waited for a long, long time and finally the floats came. On the float were twin sisters, one with beauty like a flower’s and the other with looks that could make fishes forget to swim. They wore exquisite buyao crowns on their heads and were dressed in gorgeous feathered robes. They were covered from head to foot in gold and jewels. They were playing the role of the mythical phoenix and hung in mid-air using a Floating Sky Formation. They waved their wing-like sleeves and dance lightly and gracefully, as beautiful as two real birds.



All the spectators watched mesmerized, as though drunk and stupefied.  They did their best to squeeze forward, throwing gold bead spirit stones onto the float. 



This teahouse that Yue Wuhuan chose was still some distance away from the floats. His bare eyes couldn’t see clearly enough.



Song Qingshi quietly released his mental probe. He controlled the surrounding dragonflies and butterflies to fly to the float, winding around it. He looked at everything carefully without missing a single detail.



Yue Wuhuan leaned over. Seeing that he was looking so intently, he endured and endured. He felt a little unhappy and the Blood King Vine, following his feelings, snuck out from the ground and quietly wrapped around his leg, tightening its hold. He then moved close to his ear and asked in a coquettish tone, “Master, do they look good?”



Song Qingshi turned around and said sincerely, “They look good, but not as good as you.” 



The pair of sisters were all dressed up as fake phoenixes. His family’s Wuhuan was a real phoenix that needed no embellishment.



Yue Wuhuan asked happily, “Then how about if Master doesn’t look at them and looks only at me instead?”



Song Qingshi retracted his gaze from looking at the float. He sat down again and looked at him seriously. “Okay.”



Master is so good… 



Everything was going according to his wishes. There was nothing to make him sad.



Yue Wuhuan felt a little uneasy for some reason. He kept feeling like something was wrong. This place wasn’t suitable for touring. There were too many bad people outside and too many dirty things. He has to hurry up and dispose of all these troublesome matters. He’ll feel much more at ease once he brings Master back to the Medicine King’s Valley.



The two looked at each other, not uttering a word. They drank tea in silence.



The sun was still a ways away from dusk but the two of them already went to the inn where they would be staying. Yue Wuhuan said that these past few days, they’ve been running around too much and he hadn’t been sleeping well. He was really tired and wanted to stay in his room and read quietly. Song Qingshi came to accompany him; stumblingly, he told him a strange story about “Little Red Riding Hood” and wrote up some math problems. Seeing that Yue Wuhuan still wasn’t sleepy, he made him a cup of tea to help him sleep. Yue Wuhuan couldn’t refuse and could only drink it. He didn’t expect that the Peaceful Sleep Tea made by the Master himself would be super effective. After a while, he had to fight to keep his eyelids open. He clearly wanted to stay up a little later but he couldn’t keep his eyes open. He worked hard to resist the sleepiness but he gradually drifted off to sleep. 



In this dream, he became a big bad wolf. He tied his Master in the forest and did terrible and dirty things.



Master had been crying, begging for mercy, begging him to stop…



He wanted to stop, but couldn’t stop.



In the end, he forcibly awakened himself from the dream. Filled with unbearable pain, he faced the traces of his body’s release. He wanted to scratch his body bloody, wanted to use the Blood King Vine to whip himself as punishment. But he was afraid of being discovered. In the end, he restrained himself, pinching a few red marks on his palm. He slowly calmed his breathing. 



The Blood King Vine was swimming around him…



Suddenly, he realized that something seemed to be missing. The smell floating in the air was that of the Peaceful Soul Fragrance.



There was no one in the next room. The Blood King Vine wrapped around the Master’s foot was loose. Where has Master gone?



Did he run away? Was he gone? 



Yue Wuhuan’s breathing was going chaotic. Limitless fear struck him. He put on his clothes in a mess, put on the mask and frantically rushed out of the room…



He couldn’t lose his treasure.



That was his only reason for living.



… 



The moonlight was like water, tranquil and silent.



The painter was wielding his brush, making a painting. On the picture scroll was the pair of beautiful Phoenix sisters, their fresh faces were depicted to be enchanting, seducing people’s souls.



Suddenly, he realized that someone was lightly knocking on the window behind him. He turned his head and saw a clear-eyed young man with a childlike, tender appearance, wearing layer upon layer of snow-white clothes. He sat on his window sill, calmly and quietly watching him for who knows how long. He seemed to be very interested in his paintings.



Could it be that he came here to ask to be painted? Did he not know what kind of painting he was asking for? 



The painter harshly scrutinized the appearance of the young man. He was far from being a stunning beauty. The figure was thin and frail but he had a clean temperament and his skin was flawlessly white. If he could take off his beautiful snow coat so that he would be half-covered and half-exposed and put on an appearance as though welcoming but wanting also to refuse, he could arouse his creative desires.



His strange gaze made Song Qingshi a little uncomfortable. He gathered up the white vestments on his body and then cautiously said, “Excuse me…are you the painter of “Beauty of the Golden Age“?”



When the painter heard him mention his proudest work, he was delighted. “That’s right.”



“Great, I’ve been looking for you for a long time,” Song Qingshi sighed in relief. He had controlled the insects to go around the float parade several times and found that this artist’s style was very similar to the style of the person he was looking for. But he’d been worried that he was mistaken. He was very apprehensive. He didn’t dare tell Yue Wuhuan and secretly ran out to verify, “I didn’t expect to meet you here. You, do you like painting that kind of painting?” 



The painter smiled and said, “Naturally, I like it. Don’t be so shy. Should I draw a picture for you?”



Song Qingshi lowered his head and smiled embarrassedly. The beautiful black lotus bloomed in his hand, the lotus petals opening one by one.



Those who paint the scenes of purgatory should return to purgatory.