Volume Five: Destitute and Downcast, Cloud Stele to the North Chapter Five: Reunion

Before Zhuo Hua could even speak, Su Mengling sprang to the old man’s side and said joyfully, “Father, look! This is the surprise I just told you about!”

The old gentleman ignored his daughter entirely. His eyes shone as he looked Zhuo Hua up and down, then asked, “Could you turn around and let me have a closer look?”

Zhuo Hua nodded and turned to face the door, his back to the old man.

“Benefactor!” A sobbing cry made Zhuo Hua whirl around. The old gentleman had already dropped to his knees and was bowing frantically to the floor.

“Sir, please, you must not do that.” Zhuo Hua hurried forward to help him up.

“Ten years! For ten long years I have been searching for my benefactor! I never dreamed, never dreamed that I would meet you in my own home today. I am weeping for joy and have lost my composure, lost it entirely! Please forgive me for my rudeness, Benefactor!” As he spoke, the old man led Zhuo Hua to the seat of honor.

Zhuo Hua waved a hand. “I have already intruded upon you by visiting so late at night. How could I possibly take the place of the host? I beg you not to insist.”

“If my benefactor insists on declining, then so be it. Still, you speak true. Tonight let me fulfill my duties as host and let us both enjoy ourselves. Steward Su, give the order: prepare wine and a feast. Tonight I shall welcome my benefactor properly and wash away the dust of travel.”

Steward Su answered and withdrew from the hall with a bow to arrange the wine and dishes.

Once Steward Su had gone, Zhuo Hua cupped his hands and said, “I came in such haste that I have not yet had the honor of asking your name, sir.”

The master of the Su residence, seated in the hall, beamed with pleasure. “This old one bears the surname Su and the name Kuang. I have always loved bamboo, and so I have taken the style name Ge Weng. Ten years ago I took my daughter Mengling to visit relatives in another place. Who would have thought that on the road we would meet a tiger demon just emerging from the mountain? Had we not been fortunate enough to meet my benefactor, then...” At that, Su Kuang rose again, as though about to bow once more to Zhuo Hua.

Zhuo Hua quickly stood and supported him. “Old Mr. Su, since you call me your benefactor, then listen to a word from me. On that day I had merely been wandering the world and happened to pass that ruined temple, where I encountered a monster harming the people. How could one of our cultivation world stand by and watch? I beg you not to take it to heart.”

At the mention of cultivation, Old Mr. Su finally steadied himself and studied Zhuo Hua more closely.

“Hm?” Ge Weng suddenly frowned. “Benefactor, your attire is rather unusual. Could it be some new style of cultivation garb?”

Su Mengling, who had been standing behind Zhuo Hua all this time, burst out laughing. Covering her mouth, she said between laughs, “Who would ever cultivate dressed like that? The qi he finally gathered would all leak right out!”

Zhuo Hua felt a little awkward after hearing this. Seeing that the benefactor looked embarrassed, Ge Weng snapped at his daughter, “What would a girl like you know? This is a secret formula of the immortals.” Then he turned back with a grin to Zhuo Hua.

“What secret formula? My big brother was robbed! His cultivation is gone, and so is his money! As for those two sleeves, I tore them off myself,” Su Mengling explained to her father.

“This...” Ge Weng was momentarily at a loss for words. After thinking for a while, he called out, “Lanzhi, go at once to the Wonder Garments Shop on East Street and ask Master Tong for a few sets of clothes that fit my benefactor.”

The maid who had twice been seen suppressing a smile at Zhuo Hua’s expense was apparently named Lanzhi. Head lowered, she took small steps to the front of the hall and curtseyed. “Master, it is already late. Master Tong may no longer be receiving customers.”

“She only cares for money. Go. Take my calling card and draw twenty taels of silver from the accounts room to pay her for opening the door. She sees money and her eyes will open at once. Hurry there and hurry back.” Master Su took a calling card from his sleeve.

Lanzhi kept her head lowered, answered yes, took the card, and went out to fetch the money from the accounts room.

“How could that be proper?” Zhuo Hua rose, intending to say he could not take another man’s things for nothing.

But Su Mengling once again beat her father to the punch, hopping forward with a smile. “Big brother, I ruined your clothes, so of course the Su household should compensate you. As for how many sets to replace, and how fine they should be, that depends on the generosity of the old master of the Su family.” As she spoke, she kept shooting sidelong glances at her father.

“Mengling is right. Setting aside the fact that you saved our Su family’s lives, even if it were only a matter of destroying another’s clothes, compensating you would be entirely proper. Young Master Yan need not refuse.” He then shot Su Mengling a glare and said in a low voice, “You damaged our benefactor’s clothes. I shall settle that account with you later.”

Su Mengling stuck out her tongue. “Not only did I tear off his sleeves, I also hurt big brother!”

“You!” Ge Weng raised a hand as though to strike her, but Su Mengling was far too quick. The moment she had finished speaking, she was already hiding behind Zhuo Hua.

“Ah! You incorrigible girl! Your mother died early, and it is all my fault for spoiling you so much that you have become this willful. Please do not blame her, Benefactor!” Ge Weng apologized.

“It’s nothing. It was all a misunderstanding, and now it has been explained.” Zhuo Hua laughed heartily and turned to glance at the girl.

Su Mengling happened to be looking up at Zhuo Hua as well. Their eyes met. Both froze for a heartbeat, then quickly looked away.

“Oh, right, big brother hasn’t bathed yet, has he? Before the new clothes arrive, why don’t you go and take a bath first?”

“Yes, yes, yes!” Ge Weng nodded repeatedly. “I was so busy talking that I nearly forgot. Benefactor, please bathe in the side chamber first. I shall have the new clothes sent to you shortly. We can talk more at the banquet.”

Seated in the steaming bath, Zhuo Hua felt a wave of utter comfort that nearly drew a moan from him. Every pore in his body seemed to exhale happiness. Since the day Lanling and the others had abducted him to this desolate West Qi Continent, he had been living in wandering hardship, day after day exposed to wind and dew, with no fixed shelter.

This basin of bathwater reminded him that even one such as he, revered by others as though he were a god, still had flesh and blood within.

Thinking back to that day when he had realized it was the Three-Breath Incense, it had already been too late. His mind and body had been entirely beyond his control, and when he finally awoke, he was already in a broken thatched hut in Moonwatch City on the West Qi Continent. His concentration pearl was gone, and he could not gather even the faintest trace of true qi within his body. The Heaven-and-Earth Bag that had once hung at his waist had also vanished, along with the many magical artifacts inside it.

Fortunately, the White Horse Star was still on his hand. Most likely, when that band of Dark-Power clansmen abandoned him, they had not searched him carefully.

But without even a thread of true qi, how could he possibly activate a divine-grade artifact like that?

At the thought, Zhuo Hua punched the water, sending up a spray of droplets.

Several petals drifted across the rippling surface; Su Mengling had insisted on putting them there earlier, saying they would help him dispel bad luck.

“What a foolish girl.” Zhuo Hua smiled at his reflection in the water.

He felt that in some ways Su Mengling was very much like Lanling in her maiden days. The same innocence and brightness, the same peerless beauty, the same admiration for him. Only she lacked that overbearing forcefulness, and that boundless, chilling intent to kill.

“Perhaps a woman like Su Mengling is more lovable after all,” Zhuo Hua murmured.

He thought that if Lanling had not been so competitive and so determined to always prevail, perhaps things would not have ended up as they had. But his own sins were grave indeed. As lord over the people of the world, how could he have trusted an enemy to such an extent?

By now, the Cloud Palace was surely in turmoil. He did not know whether Old Flood Dragon could hold the situation together. The four continents of the world must also be ablaze with war by now, and he did not know whether the Seven Immortal Clans could withstand this new assault from the Dark-Power race.

Lanling had failed to obtain the Wilderness Cauldron this time and would certainly not give up. She would surely return before long. Yet he had no way of stopping her now.

“Have you finished, Young Master Yan? I have left the spare clothes in the outer room.”

Lanzhi’s voice came through the door, pulling Zhuo Hua back from his disordered thoughts.

“Yes, I have. Thank you.”

He hurriedly splashed a few handfuls of water onto his face to wake himself fully, then rose, dried himself off, draped a bathing robe around him, and went to the outer room to pick up the clothes already laid out there.

Soon Zhuo Hua was fully dressed. He wore a moon-hued outer robe, a white jade coronet on his head, a belt of green jade at his waist, and a pair of black boots on his feet.

When he stepped outside, Lanzhi stared at him for a long while, so long that Zhuo Hua began to wonder whether he had dressed improperly. After checking and finding nothing amiss, he gave a light cough and asked, “Miss Lanzhi, are we to go to the main hall?”

Only then did Lanzhi come back to herself. Blushing and still keeping her head lowered, she answered softly, “The banquet for the young master is being held in the Four Seasons Pavilion. Please come with me, Young Master Yan.”

She turned at once and led Zhuo Hua at a brisk trot through two moon gates into a garden.

The garden was planted throughout with bamboo and adorned with all manner of flowers and shrubs. At that moment, the plum blossoms by the pond were in full bloom. Snow had fallen only recently, and the drifts piled upon the artificial hill by the pond looked like a silver lion made of snow. Tonight the moonlight poured down like a waterfall, bathing the whole garden in silver.

Moonlight, white snow, a pond rippling with blue waves, and the faint fragrance of plum blossoms carried on the air. Such beauty moved Zhuo Hua to speak before he even realized it:

A night of flying snow washes away all sorrow,
A thousand trees of pear blossom seal the northern realm.
At dawn’s chill I stand beside the pond,
While plum fragrance quietly promises how many hearts?

“Excellent poem! Excellent indeed! Young Master Yan is a man of remarkable talent. I, Su, have been blind to it.” Su Kuang stood on the balcony of the second floor of the Four Seasons Pavilion, his face radiant with delight.

Su Mengling somehow came down from upstairs and jumped to Zhuo Hua’s side. Reaching out, she hooked her arm through his and tugged him toward the upper floor, saying as she walked, “My big brother is naturally full of elegance and heroic bearing! Father, you really do know how to say unusual things!”

Stepping up the carved staircase, they entered the second-floor banquet hall. Though not as large as the hall at the entrance, it felt more intimate and sheltered. It was the dead of winter, and thick cotton curtains had been hung throughout the room.

A large round table stood in the center, covered with an array of dishes. In the middle sat a small red-clay brazier, and atop it a copper pot was bubbling vigorously.

With a clap of his hands, Ge Weng had three or four maids bring in plate after plate of thinly sliced beef and lamb, placing them around the brazier.

Smiling warmly, the old man poured Zhuo Hua a cup of wine that had only just been warmed, and introduced the meal. “Benefactor, this is a delicacy unique to the Moonwatch City region of the West Qi Continent. We call it hot pot. The West Qi Continent is vast and rich in grasslands, and the cattle and sheep raised here are exceptionally flavorful. The finest beef and lamb leg bones are simmered in water with a variety of seasonings for a full day and night to create the broth for this pot. The best cuts of beef and lamb are then sliced paper-thin and dipped into the broth for a moment before being lifted out and eaten with sauce. It melts in the mouth, and the aftertaste is endless.”

Su Mengling chimed in from the side as well. “Father only lets me have one meal of this each year, and only when New Year comes around. Luckily you came, big brother, or I would never have gotten to enjoy this second meal of hot pot in all this time.”

Ge Weng extended his hand and said, “Benefactor, please taste it. Let us eat and talk at the same time.”