This “Shi Mei” was not his junior martial sister.

     Shi Mei was in fact male, and in terms of seniority, he was actually Mo Ran’s senior martial brother. His unfortunate name was all due to the scant learning of Sisheng Peak’s Sect Leader.

     Shi Mei was an orphan picked up from the wilderness by the sect leader. The child was frail and sickly, so the sect leader thought he should give him a humble name, since humble names bring about easier lives.

     The child was born with an especially captivating appearance and looked like a lovable little girl, so the sect leader racked his brains and finally started calling him Xue Ya, with the simple meaning of “little girl,” but it was unintentionally a homonym with vulgar implications.

     As Xue Ya grew older, he continued to become more and more elegant, with a pretty face and slender figure. Even the tips of his brows and the corners of his eyes were full of charm, making him a striking and peerless natural beauty.

     It would be alright for the uncouth farmer men of countryside villages to live with a name like Xue Ya, but had anyone ever heard of a remarkable beauty whose name sounded like “Dog Balls” or “Steel Cock”?

     The other disciples of the sect couldn’t bear it any longer and gradually stopped calling him Xue Ya. But it was inappropriate to change the name bestowed by the sect leader, so they began calling him “shimei” as a joke.

     After hearing “shimei” day after day, the sect leader simply waved a broad hand and said sympathetically, “Xue Ya, why don’t you change your name to Shi Mei? You can use the character ‘mei’ as in ‘ignorance.’ How about that?”

     He actually still dared to ask how it was… How could any normal person accept this absurd name? But Shi Mei was good-tempered by nature. He looked up at the sect leader to find the latter looking at him with cheer, somehow thinking he’d done a wonderful thing, and Shi Mei didn’t have the heart to refuse, feeling that even if he felt wronged, he should still save the sect leader some face. So he knelt down and accepted the name with thanks. From then on, his name was Shi Mei.

     “Cough, cough.” The black-cloaked person coughed a few times before catching his breath and looking up at Mo Ran. “Hm? A-Ran? Why are you here?”

     Behind the sheer veil, a pair of eyes as gentle as spring water and as bright as the night stars pierced into the depths of Mo Ran’s heart. With one look, the seal on Taxian-Jun’s tender affection and youthful thoughts that had been buried under the dust for many years was broken.

     It was Shi Mei.

     He’d never be wrong.

     Mo Ran was a scoundrel. In his previous life, he had bedded many men and women. That he hadn’t died from overexertion in bed in the end was a surprise, even to him. But towards the only person he’d ever loved with all his heart, he was very cautious and dared not touch him so freely.

     All those years, he and Shi Mei had been close, and their relationship had a slight romantic impression. But up until Shi Mei’s death, Mo Ran had only ever held hands with him, and the one time their lips had brushed in a kiss, it had been an accident.

     Mo Ran felt that he himself was dirty, while Shi Mei was gentle and pure. He didn’t deserve him.

     Mo Ran had cherished this person very much when he was alive, and even more so after his death. After he died, Shi Mei had completely become the ray of white moonlight in Taxian-Jun’s heart. But no matter how much he missed him and tried desperately to cling to his memory, that person had already returned to the earth, lost to the underworld without a trace left behind.

     But at this very moment, Shi Mei was standing in front of him, alive. Mo Ran had to use all the strength he had to contain his emotions.

     Mo Ran helped him up, dusting off the dirt on his cloak. His heart ached with an almost physical pain. “If I hadn’t been here, how much more would you have continued being bullied by them? Why don’t you fight back when others hit you?”

     “I wanted to reason with them first…”

     “Why bother reasoning with these people?! Are you injured? Where does it hurt?”

     “Cough, cough. A-Ran… I, I’m fine…”

     Mo Ran turned his head towards the Daoists, his expression fierce. “You dare lay a hand on someone from Sisheng Peak? You’re quite brave.”

     Shi Mei pleaded, “A-Ran… let it go…”

     “Didn’t you want to fight? Come! Why don’t you fight me?!”

     After taking just one blow from Mo Ran earlier, the Daoists knew that this person’s cultivation base was far above theirs. They all preferred taking the easy way out and picking on the weak as opposed to facing the strong, so none of them dared to fight Mo Ran, instead backing away a few steps one after another.

     Shi Mei sighed and tried to persuade him again, “A-Ran, don’t start a fight. Where it is possible to let people off, one should spare them and be forgiving; anyone can make mistakes.”

     Mo Ran turned back to look at him and couldn’t help but feel a pain in his heart, the corners of his eyes growing slightly warm.

     Shi Mei had always been so kind-hearted. When he died in his previous life, he carried no resentment or hatred. He even tried to persuade Mo Ran not to hate their Shizun, who clearly could have saved his life but instead chose to stand by and do nothing but watch.

     “But they…”

     “I’m fine now, see? It’s best to avoid unnecessary trouble. Listen to your shige.”

     “Ah, fine, I’ll listen to you. I’ll listen to everything you say.” Mo Ran shook his head, shooting a glare at the Daoists. “Hear that? My shige is pleading for leniency for you! Why don’t you hurry up and get lost? By still standing around here, are you waiting for me to send you off?!”

     “Yes, yes, yes! We’ll get lost now! Right now!”

     “Wait,” Shi Mei suddenly said to the Daoists.

     Those people felt that since Shi Mei had just been severely beaten up by them, he probably wouldn’t let them off so easily. They kneeled down and kowtowed repeatedly. “Xianjun, xianjun, we were wrong! We didn’t recognize an important person when we saw him! Please let us off!”

     “I said this to you decently earlier, but you didn’t listen.” Shi Mei sighed. “You kidnapped other people’s children and committed such crimes, causing the parents to feel pain as if they were having their hearts cut out. Can your conscience be clear?”

     “It’s not clear! It’s not clear! Xianjun, we were wrong! We won’t do it again! We won’t do it again!”

     “You must be upright and honorable in character from now on. Don’t do any more evil deeds. Do you understand?”

     “Yes! Xianjun is right! We… We've learned our lesson! We’ve learned!”

     “If that’s the case, please apologize to this woman and give her child medical treatment.”

     With the matter settled, Mo Ran helped Shi Mei up onto his horse, borrowing another horse for himself from an inn. The two of them rode side-by-side, heading back to the sect at a leisurely pace.

     A crescent moon hung high in the sky, its light streaming through the leaves and scattering upon the forest path.

     As they went, Mo Ran felt even more cheerful. He originally thought he would first need to return to Sisheng Peak before he could meet Shi Mei again. He didn’t expect to run into Shi Mei by chance after he’d come down the mountain to help others. This assured Mo Ran all the more that he and Shi Mei were indeed destined.

     Although he and Shi Mei weren’t together now, there had already been some moments between them in his previous life. It was obvious that his past experience would naturally only make progress even easier. The only thing he needed to worry about now was protecting Shi Mei well and preventing him from dying tragically in his arms like he did in the past…

     Shi Mei had no way of knowing that Mo Ran was reborn, so he chatted with him as usual. The two spoke until they reached the foot of Sisheng Peak.

     Who would have thought that even though it was the dead of night, there was someone standing before the mountain gate, glowering at them like a tiger observing its prey?

     “Mo Ran! You still know how to come back?!”

     “Ah?”

     Mo Ran looked up. Oho, such an angry little darling of the heavens.

     This person was none other than Xue Meng as a young boy.

     Compared to the Xue Meng he saw before his death, this fifteen-year-old Xue Meng looked even more willful and extravagant. He wore a simple set of light armor with a black base and blue trim, and his hair was pulled into a high ponytail, adorned with a silver headpiece.

     There was a lion’s head belt fastened around his sturdy, slim waist, and gauntlets wrapped around his wrists and ankles. A narrow scimitar with a dazzling, icy brilliance was secured on his back, and a silver sleeve arrow quiver on his left arm sparkled with a shining light.

     Mo Ran sighed internally and came to a blunt conclusion:

     Hm, flashy.

     Xue Meng, be it as a teenager or a grown man, was truly quite flashy. Just look at him—rather than sleeping properly, he was dressed in complete Sisheng Peak armor in the middle of the night. What was he planning to do? Was he here to spread his tail feathers like a pheasant or peacock performing some kind of courtship ritual?

     But as much as Mo Ran disliked Xue Meng, it wasn’t as if Xue Meng really liked him either.

     Mo Ran was an illegitimate child. When he was young, he didn’t have any idea who his father was and spent his days doing various jobs in a pleasure house in Xiangtan where he lived. It wasn’t until he was fourteen years old that his family found him and brought him back to Sisheng Peak.

     Xue Meng was the Young Master of Sisheng Peak. More specifically, he was actually Mo Ran’s younger paternal cousin. Xue Meng was an accomplished young prodigy, praised by everyone as the “darling of the heavens” or “little phoenix.”

     Normally, it would take an average cultivator three years to learn the basics and establish their foundation, then ten years to form a spiritual core. But with Xue Meng’s natural talent, it had only taken him five years from beginning to end. This was a delight to his parents and earned him acclaim from all sides.

     But in Mo Ran’s eyes, it didn’t matter whether he was a phoenix or a chicken, a peacock or a duck, he was still a bird. The only difference was the length of their feathers.

     Mo Ran looked at Xue Meng: Damn bird.

     Xue Meng looked at Mo Ran: Damn dog.

     Perhaps it ran in the family, but Mo Ran was also astonishingly talented, even more so than Xue Meng. When Mo Ran first arrived at Sisheng Peak, Xue Meng had considered himself to be especially noble and dignified, well-educated and refined, skillful in martial arts and handsome—worlds apart from his illiterate, unkempt, and repulsive scoundrel of a cousin.

     So, the narcissistic little phoenix boasted to his attendants, telling them, “Listen up. This Mo Ran is a slacker, unlearned and without any talent, a street mongrel through and through. None of you are to pay him any attention. Just treat him as a dog.”

     His attendants flattered and said, “Young master is absolutely right. That Mo Ran is already fourteen years old, and to start cultivating now, he would have to study the basics for at least ten years to establish a foundation and twenty years to form a spiritual core. By then, our young master will have already passed his tribulations and ascended to the heavens, while he can only watch from the ground.”

     Xue Meng laughed triumphantly. “Twenty years? Hmph, looking at that useless appearance of his, he’ll probably never be able to form a spiritual core in this lifetime.”

     Who would have thought that this useless person would actually form a spiritual core after just a single year of joyfully following after and studying with his Shizun?

     At once, the little phoenix felt as if he'd been struck by lightning. It was like a slap in the face. Such a harsh truth was hard to swallow, and so, he’d stuck needles into voodoo dolls, secretly cursing the other to slip and fall while flying on the sword or get tongue-tied when reciting spells.

     Every time he saw Mo Ran, the little phoenix Xue Meng couldn’t help but roll his eyes at the other, and his scoffing could be heard from three miles away.

     Mo Ran couldn’t help but smile as he thought of these childhood memories, his eyes curving in amusement. He hadn’t enjoyed such trivial things in such a long time. After ten years of loneliness, even the things he hated so much in the past now tasted sweet to him.

     When Shi Mei saw Xue Meng, he immediately dismounted and removed his black-veiled hat, revealing a peerlessly beautiful face. It was no wonder he chose to dress like this when he went out alone. With just one sidelong peek, Mo Ran felt his heart tremble and his imagination wandering aberrantly. He thought this person truly possessed a remarkable appearance that could captivate one’s soul.

     Shi Mei greeted Xue Meng, “Young master.”

     Xue Meng nodded. “You’re back? Did you settle the matter of the human bears?”

     Shi Mei smiled and answered, “It’s been settled, all thanks to coming across A-Ran. He helped a great deal.”

     Xue Meng’s lofty gaze swept over Mo Ran like a sharp blade in sudden gale, then immediately snapped away. His brows furrowed, and he frowned with disdain, as if looking at Mo Ran for another moment would dirty his eyes.

     “Shi Mei, you go back and rest first. Don’t hang out with him so much. He’s a promiscuous person with many affairs. You’ll learn bad things if you go with him.”

     Mo Ran would not be outdone, and mocked, “If Shi Mei shouldn’t learn from me, is he supposed to learn from you? You’re dressed up in full armor in the middle of the night, strutting about with your tail feathers all fanned out like a bird. Darling of the heavens… hahaha. Isn’t it more like the darling daughter of the heavens?”

     Xue Meng was furious. “Mo Ran, you better watch your mouth! This is my house! Who do you think you are?!”

     Mo Ran counted on his fingers. “I’m your older cousin, so I should be ahead of you.”

     Xue Meng’s expression looked as if he’d just been covered in dog shit. He immediately scowled in revulsion and said sternly, “Who has an older cousin like you?! Don’t flatter yourself! In my eyes, you’re nothing more than a dog rolling around in the mud!”

     Xue Meng really had a habit of cursing others as dogs, using phrases like son of a bitch, dumb dog, dog of a mother, dog of a father—such insults came to his mouth with ease, and his cursing had no rival. Mo Ran was already used to this and only scratched his ear with disinterest. It was Shi Mei who felt somewhat awkward hearing those words and spoke calmly to Xue Meng until he finally let out a cold snort and finally closed his noble beak.

     Shi Mei smiled and asked softly, “Young master is out here so late. Are you waiting for someone at the mountain gate?”

     “What else would I be doing? Looking at the moon?”

     Mo Ran burst into laughter, his hands on his stomach. “I was wondering why you were all dressed up. It turns out you’re waiting to meet someone for a date! Ah, who is so unlucky to be on your mind? I feel so sorry for her. Hahahaha!”

     Xue Meng’s face got even darker, so dark that one could scrape off three catties of coal with their nails. He snapped, “You!”

     “…Me?”

     “I was waiting for you. What do you make of that?”

     Mo Ran: “…???”