Should Have Drunk Alcohol Instead Today...

Su Yang looked back.

The person turned out to be Xu Yunzhan, who was supposed to be in seclusion. 

In the dim sky before dawn, Xu Yunzhan’s eyes were tranquil, and they carried a mysterious meaning as they gazed straight at Su Yang.

From the sound of his rapid inhaling, it was obvious he ran all the way to catch up, directly across the iron chain bridge.

Not knowing why, Su Yang felt a little disappointed when he saw the person was Xu Yunzhan.

But out of politeness, he asked, smiling, “You came out of seclusion?”

Instead of answering, Xu Yunzhan threw out his own question, “Are you leaving?”

Su Yang shrugged and replied, “Yes I am. I finished my apprenticeship as I completed my mental skill training.”

“I…” Xu Yunzhan stepped forward with an expression of masked confusion, “Are you…going back to the Evil Sect?”

Su Yang nodded, “Naturally, where else would I go?”

Xu Yunzhan stayed silent for a moment before saying in a whisper, “That means…we could be enemies if we meet in the future.”

Su Yang laughed.

He lifted his head to gaze at the golden glow in the eastern sky and muttered, “That’s correct. We will be on opposing sides when we meet again, and at that time I won’t show mercy.”

Xu Yunzhan took another step forward.

Seeing that he had nothing more to add, Su Yang smirked. “Alright, this is farewell. It is time for me to go.”

As he finished saying goodbye, he turned to leave.

Xu Yunzhan suddenly embraced him from behind.

Su Yang was completely dumbfounded as he looked back at Xu Yunzhan. 

As soon as he had Su Yang in his arms, he let him go murmuring, as if to himself, “If this is goodbye…I'd rather we don’t meet again…”

He tugged at the corner of his lip and showed an indescribable smile. “You saved my life. If we meet again during a dispute, I will repay you.”

Stating that, he stared deeply into Su Yang’s eyes, then twisted away and departed just as quickly, as if he was escaping from something he feared. 

Su Yang scratched his head and thought, ‘This kid must have been forced by Mo Shixiong to see me off and wish me farewell. He even ran away after a few words, no, bolting away should be a better description. He must really dislike me…’

Thinking of this, he sighed to himself and turned to walk into the stone forest array. 

The overwhelming aura that always emitted from the stone forest array lingered in the atmosphere, but it could no longer suppress Su Yang, who was now armed with richer internal energy. He promptly used light movement skill to jump to the top of a large boulder in the forest. A completely different perspective than his first time appeared from this angle. 

He tapped his toes lightly and sprinted toward Mount Mei Zhu’s cliff. 

It was not until he returned to Mount Mei Zhu’s gate, and saw his petal retainer standing quietly outside the gate, that he remembered—he thought he would be eliminated from entering the House of Jade so he left his petal retainer here. And he had completely forgotten about him.

It shocked him to see his servant was still waiting outside of the mountain gate. He quickened his pace and dropped in front of the petal retainer. “Have you been waiting for me here for two years?!”

When the petal retainer saw his own Sect’s Young Master, he seemed very pleased. Smiling, he said, “It’s this one’s duty to wait patiently for you.”

Su Yang: “!!!”

The petal retainer continued, “Our Sect opened an inn outside of Mount Mei Zhu forest. Now that the Young Master is back, we can go there to rest and freshen up.”

Hearing this, Su Yang was relieved. It turned out this guy did not live in the mountains for two years. Instead, he established a line of business nearby for the Evil Sect.

That was right. Only a fool would wait on the mountain. There seemed to be a lot of business in the Evil Sect’s hands. Opening an inn at the bottom of the mountain fits the Sect’s background design from the script.

The two chatted about random topics while traveling through the forest to the town at the base of the mountain. 

This town was not prosperous, it only had two crisscrossed signs with north, south, east, west on each end by the main street, surrounded by narrow residential alleys. There were many shops on the crossroad, but none of them had an ostentatious display. Su Yang could only recognise the shop by the vertical banner hoisted under the roof or the board nailed outside of the door.

The petal retainer led Su Yang into a small, narrow-looking building. The shopkeeper looked up and saw Su Yang, and said with a smile, “Dear guest, please watch your step going up the stairs. Please enjoy your stay in our largest room.”

Su Yang walked up the inn’s wooden steps to the second floor and reached the room at the end of the eastern wing. The shopkeeper opened the door and let him in. As soon as he entered the room behind the shopkeeper, the shopkeeper immediately turned around and saluted him, “This one’s name is Lan Wu, Orchid Hall, number five. Greeting the Young Master.”

On hearing this, Su Yang paused to gather his thoughts before saying, “Get up…I just completed my apprenticeship and haven't had breakfast yet. Bring me some snacks. Oh! And get a bath ready for me.”

Lan Wu nodded, went out of the room to do those tasks right away.

Su Yang pondered for a moment, turned toward the loyal petal retainer beside him, and asked, “So, what’s your name?”

He had a lot of things on his mind the first few days he transmigrated and forgot such an important thing like this. Luckily, this petal retainer wasn’t suspicious of him, nor questioning any of his actions. Otherwise, he would have been executed very early on for impersonating the Young Master. 

The petal retainer lowered his gaze and replied, “This one is Mei Shisan, Plum Blossom Hall, number thirteen.”

Su Yang smiled with his eyebrows raised. “Plum Blossom, Orchid, Bamboo, and Chrysanthemum梅蘭竹菊 or the Four Gentlemen/ Four Noble Ones is a collective terms referring to the four plants: the plum blossom, the orchid, the bamboo, and the chrysanthemum. They are common subjects in traditional ink and wash painting, belonging to the category of bird-and-flower painting in Chinese art. (So Su Yang is not throwing four types of random plants/ flowers out).?”

Mei Shisan clarified, “Our Sect has four halls: Plum Blossom, Orchid, Lotus, and Chrysanthemum. Sect Leader doesn’t like the fact that bamboo doesn’t blossom, so there is no longer a Bamboo Hall in our sect.”

Hearing this, Su Yang laughed. “Bamboo does also blossom.”

This knowledge shocked Mei Shisan.

Su Yang continued to say, “However, bamboo flowers only bloom once in their life. After it blooms, it will wither and die. Not particularly lucky when you think about it. If there is no Bamboo Hall, that’s fine...Tsk, I really have too much free time on my hands. Why am I rambling on...”

Soon, Lan Wu presented morning tea and refreshments, and also helped the Young Master prepare a bathtub. 

Su Yang enjoyed his morning tea, then took a nice, long bath.

After coming out from behind the folding screen, he found that Mei Shisan had brought him a new set of the Evil Sect’s attire—signature crimson red robes, with layers upon layers of hemlines, and various intricate designs. All were distinctive features of the Evil Sect. 

Enjoying the convenient service of being dressed by the petal retainer, he suddenly remembered the morning before he was accepted into the House of Jade, the time when he and Gu Feidi were in the farmhouse, having to work through the headache-inducing Evil Sect clothes. 

Both of them were quite embarrassed. But now, in retrospect, he found the whole thing amusing.

At the memory of Gu Feidi, his thoughts were successfully diverted. 

—It was summer now. If Gu Feidi was going to catch up with the False Tomb of the Sacred Swords’ plot that was scheduled for this year’s second month of autumn, he would be finishing up his training soon.

As Xu Yunzhan said, he and Gu Feidi would become each other’s nemesis. When that moment came, how would Gu Feidi feel?

* * *

“Since we stand on different sides, crossing swords in the future is inevitable.”

Gu Feidi took a sip of his tea and sighed, “It’s very unfortunate that he was the first to finish his apprenticeship. I missed him by half a day. I wanted to challenge him in the garden, to have a taste of his creation, Drunkard’s Plum Wine Slash…”

Xu Yunzhan lifted his cup, gazing at his tea for a long time, before gulping down the entire contents.

Gu Feidi said grinning, “It seems that tea is not suiting you today. Instead, drink some liquor.”

Playing with the empty teacup, Xu Yunzhan chuckled softly. “Yes, you are right. Alcohol is more appropriate. Will you accompany me for a drink?”

Gu Feidi raised his teacup, gently tapped the edge of his cup against the cup in Xu Yunzhan’s hand, and said, “It’s best if we don’t. You are in a foul mood today. Drinking would only hurt you.”

Xu Yunzhan smiled again but said nothing. 

Gu Feidi asked, “What’s wrong? I haven’t seen you for more than a year. Are you not happy that I came out from the Hidden Pearl Pavilion?”

Xu Yunzhan stayed silent and turned to gaze at the orange-red sunset outside the pavilion. There was a sense of unspeakable melancholy in his eyes.

Not pressuring his friend, Gu Feidi took the teapot and poured more tea for both of them. He quickly picked up his cup.

“A question for you, if you…” Xu Yunzhan suddenly inquired, “Only just separated recently, but you missed the other immediately, is this…caring for that person?”

Gu Feidi’s fingers trembled, a few drops of scalding liquid spilled out and splashed on his fingertips. He involuntarily withdrew his hand. The teacup fell on the table, toppled off the edge of the table, and its life ended as it shattered into pieces on the ground.

“...Recently separated?” Gu Feidi frowned and stared at his friend, and said solemnly, “Could it be that you and Su Yang…What happened between you two in this single year?”

After a long silence, Xu Yunzhan said with a bitter smile, “I am not sure myself either.”

It was Gu Feidi’s turn to remain quiet.

“...It shouldn’t have happened.”

Xu Yunzhan shifted his attention to the red sunset in the west and explained in a calm tone.

“Most of the time, he stayed in seclusion. Even when he was out, it was under Shizun’s order to further advance his martial arts on the training ground. In the beginning, as he made breakthroughs in his mental skill, Lingyun and Fan Xi gradually ceased to be his opponents, and I was the last one in our generation who could compete with him. Although…I’ve never been able to beat him. But I have to admit, fighting him was intoxicating.”

“At first, his swordsmanship was still somewhat unstable. Once, he unintentionally stabbed me. It was a fresh wound, it hardly hurt, but he looked very frightened. I still remember the look in his eyes…panic, helplessness, and guilt. But he was insisting on covering his emotion with a taunting and disdainful appearance.”

As Xu Yunzhan retold his tale, he suddenly chuckled. “You’ve seen his forced arrogant image. You can imagine what I am talking about. But what he himself didn’t know is no matter how hard he pretended, he couldn't hide the emotion in his eyes. At that moment…I had a fleeting thought of holding him in my arms.”

Gu Feidi suddenly interrupted, “You and he are both males.”

No one spoke for a while. Xu Yunzhan sighed, “I understand that even if there are stories about men falling in love with each other in the world, it’s not unacceptable. However, I was born in the Village of Mount Qianfeng, while he is the Young Master of the Evil Sect. No matter what, the thought of starting a relationship with him is impossible.”

After a pause, he laughed at himself. “Only now did I really understand the true meaning of ‘unable to restrain emotions’...”

Gu Feidi did not answer.

He leaned down and gently picked up the pieces of the broken teacup under the table, carefully gathered them up into the largest porcelain piece, and put them back on the table.

His expression was calm. “I once got a glimpse of the tattoo on Su Yang’s back.”

Not knowing this, Xu Yunzhan echoed in astonishment, “Tattoo?”

Gu Feidi nodded. “There is a flower tattoo on his back. Although it’s hard to see through the robe, the flower is so vivid red that a layer of white gauze garments can’t cover it.”

Xu Yunzhan seemed to be petrified and frozen on the spot, learning this piece of information.

Eventually, he said in a hoarse voice, “...He said he was going back to the Evil Sect.”

Gu Feidi noted, “He naturally wanted to return. Although some things are just rumours, we don’t know the details of Evil Sect’s methods, right?”

He lowered his gaze slightly, and his downcast eyelashes trembled. He caressed his leather wrist guard, said in a calm tone, “Best to forget him. Even if we have the chance to meet him again in the future, it will be in a life or death situation.”

Xu Yunzhan exhaled a heavy breath. Then said with a forced smile after a long time, “By the time I finished my training and returned to my village for my coming of age ceremony, my father would have already arranged a marriage for me. What can I do but forget him? After all, I can’t upset my future wife...”

After his rant, he sighed, “It was good to confess this to you. I have been holding this awful secret in my heart, it has been hard...”

Gu Feidi took out a new porcelain cup from the tea tray, poured tea, and sipped it slowly.

He focused on the tea residue in the cup and declared, “...We should have drunk alcohol today.”

Ending this topic, they tacitly changed the conversation and shifted it to martial arts and other related subjects. It was not until the afterglow of sunset faded from the sky, leaving it completely dark, that they returned to each of their courtyards. 

When Gu Feidi returned to his bedroom, he lit up the candle and took off his sword, dagger, and waist guards. 

He fiddled with his wrist guard for a moment and carefully took out a few pieces of paper. The handwriting on the paper has been blurred by water, and some blackened edges also fell off, but the words were still visible on them.

He gently stroked the words ‘Pavilion of Infinite Knowledge’ and ‘Calamity Phoenix’s Everlasting Fire’. Light danced in his eyes under the candlelight, as if the emotions in them were flickering slightly. 

Sometimes, time and distance don’t make things fade away. On the contrary, they might develop into a delicate feeling and fleeting thoughts age into fine, fragrant wine