Chapter 66: Teasing You — You Actually Believe It!

“Went to Fengtian City for a spin and learned how to brag?”

The old man’s chest heaved violently, and it took him a long moment to catch his breath. That scare a moment ago had nearly snatched his soul away.

“When did you get back?”

Lu Yuan grinned, said nothing to argue, and walked over to the old man in a few steps. He reached out and snatched the wine gourd from the old man’s hands.

He popped the stopper and held it up to his nose to sniff.

The next second, his whole face twisted.

“Ugh—”

“What kind of junk is this? Spill it!”

Before the words finished, he flipped his wrist and turned the gourd upside down.

A murky stream of wine splashed out and soaked into the cracked earth at once.

The old man slapped his thigh in anguish, his voice changing pitch.

“Aiya!!”

“You wastrel!”

But before his scolding finished, Lu Yuan had already shoved the now-empty wine gourd back into his arms.

Then Lu Yuan jingled a few glass bottles in his hand and deliberately shook them between the two of them.

He wore a look of pure pride.

“You know what this wine is?”

The old man’s cloudy eyes locked onto the shaking bottles, and he shook his head in confusion.

“Maotai.”

“Never heard of it?”

Lu Yuan pulled one bottle out and twisted off the cap.

A rich, mellow sauce-like aroma exploded into the cold wind.

He shoved the bottle mouth right under the old man’s nose.

“Try it!”

After just one whiff, the old man’s dim old eyes lit up instantly.

He threw his head back and drank straight from the bottle.

Watching the old man gulp so eagerly, Lu Yuan smiled and, with a casual motion, fished the empty wine gourd from his arms.

In the biting wind, he squatted down, opened bottle after bottle of Maotai, and poured them into the gourd.

The old man drank several big swigs, exhaling a fragrant breath, his eyes shining like a child’s.

“Good stuff!”

Lu Yuan glanced up at the old man’s radiant face and smiled even wider.

His hands didn’t stop working as he said:

“Aunt Qiao’er’s White Deer Chamber of Commerce got these from inside the border.”

“There aren’t many, so I brought them all for you. I left a whole crate outside for you to drink at New Year.”

“Pace yourself. Don’t drink them all before the first month’s over.”

The old man hugged the wine gourd and, watching his disciple pour for him while squatting on the ground, blinked and asked:

“Why’re you back?”

“What about those two?”

Lu Yuan didn’t even look up.

“We finished things in Fengtian City, so of course we returned.”

“Those two went home. It’s almost New Year, let them take some city goods back and visit their parents.”

When he said this, Lu Yuan looked up at the old man.

“They’ll be back tomorrow night.”

“We came back this time to pick up some techniques, and once we take them we have to leave.”

“This year, I’m afraid we can’t celebrate New Year with you.”

This trip back, Lu Yuan would leave again right away.

Before, when they traveled, they brought a mishmash of items because they didn’t know what they’d encounter.

Now the goal was clear: clear the Nurturing Malevolence Site, so everything had to be exchanged for the right tools.

When Lu Yuan finished, the gourd in his hand was full.

He stood up, shoved the weighty gourd into the old man’s hands, and grinned.

“Then again, who knows.”

“This year’s Luotian Grand Offering starts in twenty days, from New Year’s Eve through the fifteenth day of the first month.”

“We’ll go to the city for the New Year then.”

The old man accepted the warm gourd with a joy-filled face, but he waved off Lu Yuan’s next words.

“I’m not going to join that fuss.”

Lu Yuan raised an eyebrow.

“Huh, you won’t go to the Luotian Grand Offering?”

The old man shot him a sidelong look.

“Go for what?”

“Didn’t I take you last time? You know the procedure by now, right?”

“You go this time. I still need to watch over that ‘living ancestor’ of yours!”

When those words came out, Lu Yuan froze.

Right.

The old man had to look after Gu Qingwan.

That thing could be left alone for a day or two, but the Luotian Grand Offering lasts half a month once it starts, and the old man simply couldn’t leave.

Lu Yuan immediately nodded and turned toward the side hall where Gu Qingwan was.

“Oh right, then don’t go.”

The old man: “???”

“Hey! You brat!!”

“Hey, why didn’t I know you had a sect before? And you even have such an impressive Celestial Master senior brother?”

In the side hall, Lu Yuan walked to the coffin and used his shoulder to pry open a crack in the heavy lid.

Leaning in the corner and sitting on the floor, the old man rolled his eyes.

“Nonsense!”

“If I didn’t have a lineage, would all these skills and talismans come from the wind?”

“What would I teach you with?”

Lu Yuan remained noncommittal. By the flickering candlelight, he peered into the gap in the coffin and his pupils suddenly contracted.

The evil curse on Gu Qingwan’s forehead had actually faded by more than half!

“Hey!”

“This…?!”

Lu Yuan turned back in astonishment to look at the old man.

The old man merely glanced casually.

“Mm, once the core ‘eternal’ character of that evil curse is gone, the rest scatters quickly.”

“That’s likely what happened.”

Hearing that, Lu Yuan was more confused than ever.

“What do you mean ‘likely’?”

Mentioning this made the old man furious; he bared his teeth and snapped:

“What else could it be!”

“I tried to open the coffin and she wouldn’t let me!”

“The coffin lid didn’t give me even a slit!”

“Besides guessing, what the hell else could I do?!”

Looking at the old man’s exasperated expression, Lu Yuan couldn’t help but want to laugh.

Before he could speak, the old man suddenly fixed him with a strange look.

“By the way, what exactly did you do in Fengtian City?”

“What did she come to you for that day?”

“After she came back, I kept feeling something was off…”

“Maybe I’m imagining it, but I feel… she has an immortal aura now?”

At this, Lu Yuan was stupefied.

“What a joke. She have an immortal aura??”

The old man shrugged.

“Who says not!”

“I was thinking that her curse’s sudden rapid fading probably has to do with that!”

“Anyway, what were you doing in Fengtian City?!”

“Is this Luotian Grand Offering being moved up early your doing?”

Lu Yuan blinked at the coffin beside him with a puzzled look, not eager to answer that, and instead said right away:

“By the way, your senior brother, a Celestial Master living here—won’t he notice Qingwan?”

Hearing this, the old man sneered.

“He wouldn’t notice a fart!”

“With his skills, a Celestial Master my ass!”

“That old rusty cleaver, his chipped teeth still bite through meat!”

“When he was young looking like that, I’d have beaten him eight times over!”

Seeing the old man’s sour tone, Lu Yuan laughed.

“I’ve never seen you like this before.”

“You so value that Celestial Master title?”

“This year I’ll work hard and earn you one, let you be a Celestial Master too, then you won’t envy others!”

Hearing Lu Yuan, the old man knew what was going on in his disciple’s mind.

This Luotian Grand Offering suddenly held early in Fengtian City definitely had something to do with this disciple of his!

But for Lu Yuan’s words, the old man just sat against the wall, opened the wine gourd and took a swig, his gaze distant.

“You really think the Celestial Master selected every five years truly relies on some ‘save the people with the Dao’ thing?”

“You think that’s something emperors take turns sitting in? This year it’s your house’s turn?”

“Don’t be foolish. That’s all talk!”

“This is about whose temple is bigger, who has more disciples, who has a louder reputation!”

“Look at Shen Jizhou of Wuqing Temple. Ever since he became the temple head, for thirty years now, how many times hasn’t he been Celestial Master?”

Saying this, the old man lowered his head and sighed, his voice full of desolation.

“Power is addictive…”

“There are only seven Celestial Masters. If you are one, then he isn’t.”

“Why should it be you?”

Seeing the old man so dispirited, Lu Yuan fell silent.

A few seconds later, he grinned, that smile pure and earnest.

“Let’s try. Man can conquer heaven, right? You taught me.”

The old man shot him a look and took another drink, mumbling indistinctly:

“Just teasing you.”

“You actually believe that?”

Lu Yuan stared at the old man lifting the wine gourd and was quiet for a few seconds, then smiled with utter seriousness:

“I believe.”

“My master taught me, he never lies to me.”

“You don’t believe?”

The old man’s hand holding the gourd froze midair.

Slowly, slowly, he turned his head and, for the first time, looked at his disciple with such seriousness.

After a long while.

The old man withdrew his gaze and looked up into the deep blackness of the beams.

“I do believe…”

“My master taught me the same way…”

“…”