Someone asked, “How can you remember it so clearly? How long has it been?”

     How could he not remember it clearly? In Jiang Xi’s memory from the upper cultivation world, it was a very ordinary half a year. In Xue Zhengyong’s memory from the lower cultivation world, it was a full year of emotions.

     But in Mo Ran’s memory, it was thirty-five days of growing despair, in which each day felt like a year. Every day was worse than death; every day was spent in purgatory.

     That year, as soon as the price adjustment order was issued, people were in a panic. Duan Yihan and her child couldn’t get any food, so they could only pick up rotten vegetables and moldy rice noodles to fill their stomachs. Later, more and more people grew hungry, and they couldn’t even have rotten vegetables.

     In the midst of their predicament, Mo Ran couldn’t help but say to Duan Yihan, “Mother, let’s go to Rufeng Sect to find him and ask for some food, okay?”

     However, Duan Yihan muttered, “You can ask anyone but him.”

     Begging and performing on the street, nodding, bowing, smiling, and shouting were all things they were forced to do. But if they went to Nangong Yan, the meaning would be different.

     Although Duan Yihan was poor, she didn’t want to cross this last line.

     Since she didn’t want to, Mo Ran didn’t mention it again.

     The child wasn’t eye-catching, but he was surprisingly agile. On the ninth day after the price adjustment order, he finally stole a white radish from the field.

     Duan Yihan carefully hid the white radish. Every day, she only cooked a little bit of it, the size of a fist, and the two of them shared it. By the eighth meal, the radish was rotten, but because they hadn’t eaten anything for a long time, Duan Yihan sliced the remaining rotten radish in half, barely managing to survive for a few more days.

     On the twenty-first day after the price adjustment, they had eaten the last bit of radish and could no longer find any food to fill their stomachs.

     Twenty-fifth day.

     It rained heavily, and earthworms crawled out of the ground. Mo Ran caged them together, collected some rainwater, and cooked them to eat.

     The slippery feeling of the earthworms in his mouth made him feel nauseous. Mo Ran muttered to the skinny little animals, saying that they were sorry—that they really had nothing to fill their stomachs with. If he could survive through this, the earthworms would be his benefactors. He didn’t want to eat his benefactors anymore. Just when would the nightmare end?

     Twenty-eighth day.

     Mo Ran had a fever.

     No matter how gifted a child was and how high their spiritual essence, they still couldn’t withstand such hunger and suffering.

     Duan Yihan had long since lost her strength, and her eyes were empty.

     On this day, while Mo Ran slept, she finally made up her mind and left the woodshed where she lived. She slowly walked towards the towering immortal city of Rufeng Sect. She had her own bottom line and would rather die than beg for food from Nangong Yan.

     But the child was innocent. He was still so young, so how could he leave the world with her?

     At this time, everyone in the hall was filled with pity. Regardless of whether Mo Weiyu was guilty or not, what happened in the past was really too tragic.

     Someone softened his tone and asked with a sigh, “Did you get it?”

     “No,” Mo Ran said. “Her luck was bad. When she arrived, Nangong Yan was quarreling with his wife.”

     He paused for a moment, then continued, “When the city lord’s wife saw my mother, she flew into a rage. She has a fierce temper. Not only did she not give my mother any food, she even threw her out of Rufeng Sect.”

     “What about Nangong Yan?”

     “I don’t know.” Mo Ran said, “My mother didn’t mention him.”

     Maybe he tried to stop her, or maybe he just stood to the side, helpless.

     Mo Ran didn’t know exactly what happened that day. He only knew that when his mother came back, her entire body was covered in scars. She curled up in the woodshed and hugged him without saying a word. Later on, she began to cough up blood, spitting out blood and acid. The room smelled sour.

     Thirty-fourth day.

     Duan Yihan was on the verge of death. She was almost unable to utter a word and unable to shed tears.

     That night, she woke up from her stupor and actually regained some of her strength. Seeing Mo Ran curled up beside her, trying to use his thin body to warm her, she said very softly and gently to him, “Xiao Ran-er, if you have a way, go back to Xiangtan.”

     “Mother…”

     “Go back to Xiangtan, find Xun-jiejie, and repay her kindness.” Duan Yihan stoked Mo Ran’s hair. “You need to go to Xiangtan to repay her kindness. Don’t stay in Linyi to seek revenge… Listen to your mother, and be good… When your mother came to Linyi, she owed your Xun-jiejie a lot of money and couldn’t pay it back… Go back, stay by her side, do things for her, and make her happy. In the future, if other people show you kindness, you must remember it well.”

     Mo Ran looked up at her emaciated face in the woodshed with tears in his eyes.

     Duan Yihan’s eyes were so dark that they were shiny, with even a tinge of purple.

     “Then repay your kindness.”

     That was what Duan Yihan wanted for Mo Ran before she died.

     She was afraid that after she left, her child would go astray, so she reminded him repeatedly that he must, must leave this sad place.

     If a person had a sense of purpose, they would not let their imaginations run wild and easily fall into a pit of despair.

     She gave him a purpose—to repay the debt of gratitude.

     Not to take revenge.

     Thirty-fifth day.

     This ridiculous price adjustment order was finally annulled in the midst of the riots. It lasted only a short one month and five days.

     For the wealthy, it was as if a farce had finally come to an end. The whole city of Linyi was filled with smoke and miasma, but they woke up in a soft, warm bed, took the eight treasures tea served by the maids, and rinsed their mouths to clean their teeth. When they heard the news that the price adjustment order was abolished, they only grumbled a few times and yawned.

     It was insignificant.

     But for Mo Ran, it couldn’t be more invigorating.

     No longer having to worry about food rations anymore, there were more kind-hearted people on the streets again. Mo Ran begged for a biscuit and even got a pitiful bowl of meat porridge.

     He didn’t want to drink a single mouthful and carefully held it in his hands. He wanted to hurry back and give it to his sick mother.

     Meat porridge was such a good thing. If his mother drank it, she would surely recover, right?

     He couldn’t wait to save his mother’s life with the bowl of porridge, but he didn’t dare to rush. The porridge bowl was cracked and had a big hole on the side. If he ran too fast, it would be a pity to spill it.

     So, he returned to the woodshed in a state of joy and torment.

     “Mother!”

     He held the broken bowl with both of his hands and used his dirty head to push open the broken door like a little puppy. He had a smile on his face, full of longing for the future.

     How wonderful. There was meat porridge to drink, and his mother would get better soon. The flowers would finally bloom in the warm spring, and they would leave Linyi together. There would be singing and dancing, and people wouldn’t go hungry. With Xun-jiejie, they would no longer have to be homeless and beg for a living.

     How wonderful it was that they would go home together.

     Creak.

     The door opened.

     “She was lying inside.” Mo Ran spoke quietly and indifferently in Loyalty Hall.

     The people in the crowd were either surprised by his indifference or chilled by his cold-bloodedness.

     This person was actually very calm when it came to his mother’s death. There was no warmth, no ripples, not even tears.

     However, no one ever thought about how many years of endurance and heartbreak it took to smooth out the scars and obtain such an impassive face.

     “I called her, but she didn’t wake up,” Mo Ran said. “She would never open her eyes again, and she would never be able to drink that porridge again.”

     There was silence for a long time.

     Madam Wang said in a trembling voice, “Then… then, you… you stayed in Linyi alone?”

     Mo Ran shook his head and said, “I went to Rufeng Sect.”

     Someone exclaimed, “ah!” and said, “You… were you going to seek revenge?”

     “My mother said to repay kindness, not seek revenge,” Mo Ran said calmly. “I didn’t want to seek revenge, I just wanted to bury my mother. But I had no money, and I didn’t have the time to raise money, so I went to his residence and begged him to give me some money.”

     “Did he give you any?”

     Mo Ran almost smiled and said, “No.”

     “N-no? But according to what you said before, there was still a trace of your mother in Nangong Yan’s heart. How could he not even have the money for the funeral…”

     Mo Ran said, “Because his wife had committed suicide not long ago and passed away.”

     “What?!”

     Jiang Xi narrowed his eyes. “...Nangong Yan’s wife did indeed die very early, and it was suicide…”

     “That woman had been pregnant, but her husband was entangled with other people outside. After giving birth to the child, they were always quarreling, and her life was very unhappy. That day, my mother had gone to find them at their residence. After she met her, she became even more furious. It was said that she stabbed Nangong Yan with a knife at that time, which made Nangong Yan so angry that he said he wanted to divorce his wife.”

     Mo Ran paused for a moment, then said, “She couldn’t bear it and hung herself later that night. She passed away a few days earlier than my mother.”

     Hearing this, no one knew what to say. What started out as a romantic affair with an unrestrained young master ended up causing the beautiful woman’s death and the death of his family.

     “When I appeared, Nangong Yan was being reprimanded by the sect leader. His wife’s family had also come, and they were prominent businessmen of Linyi. Nangong Yan had already been scolded to the point that he was already filled with anger. Seeing me all of a sudden, he didn’t have a good temper at all.”

     Madam Wang’s heart was the softest. Although she knew Mo Ran wasn’t related by blood, she still felt sorry for him and said tearfully, “Ran-er…”

     Mo Ran really didn’t want to mention this past incident.

     Nangong Yan’s face at the time, and the faces of those who were present.

     There was also Madam Nangong’s mourning hall—golden paper and silver flowers, little children made of paper, a mountain of spiritual tools, an embroidered soul-gathering flag, a dark and shiny nanmu coffin, and too many other things.

     Hundreds of people knelt on both sides to mourn and weep for the woman who had committed suicide.

     The lamp was filled with whale oil, and ninety-nine rolls of incense with heart characters burned silently. The wind blew the smoke away, and the incense powder rustled.

     It was a very lively scene.

     And what about his mother?

     Xiangtan’s fairy, Duan Yihan, only had one tattered garment that could never be worn again after removing it and a skinny young son.

     She didn’t even have a straw mat to wrap her corpse.

     “When life is three feet long, you can’t ask for ten feet.”

     —That was what Nangong Yan had said to Mo Ran in the midst of anger and despair.

     Then, under the watchful eyes of the sect leader and his in-laws, this man pushed the illegitimate child out the door and refused to acknowledge him.

     When Madam Nangong died, she was matched with a gold and red coffin, fragrant beads, and a snow-white shroud to protect her body from decay. Silk covered her face, and a satin crane ribbon covered her eyes for her ascension to the heavens.

     Duan Yihan had died, and there were only one person’s tears, nothing else. According to Nangong Yan’s words, he shouldn’t even ask for a thin wooden coffin.

     So who dared to say that people were equal in the face of death?

     Fate was unfair from the beginning.

     To the end.

     She was still flesh.

     She had already rotted into mud.

     “I dragged her to the mass grave and buried her.” Mo Ran only said these few words, understating it.

     He didn’t go into detail about how he begged a passing gentleman to give them a ride or how he spent fourteen days dragging that rotting and smelly corpse to the outskirts of the city.

     He also didn’t talk about how he used his hands to brush away the rocks and soil to bury his mother’s thin body.

     Mo Ran wasn’t used to lamenting in front of others.

     He had always been a person who buried the past deeply and would not speak lightly until he was forced to.

     He had already suffered humiliation, malice, contempt, and slander in the first ten years of his life. His heart was already as hard as iron. He didn’t care what others thought of him. He simply didn’t want to be pitied.

     “Then I went to Xiangtan.”

     He could no longer stand Linyi anymore. One day, he hid behind a Daoist’s handcart and secretly snuck out of the city.

     He began to follow his mother’s advice and walked to Xiangtan. He walked for half a year, from midsummer to early winter. When his shoes wore out, he walked barefoot. In the end, the soles of his feet grew thick calluses.

     Just like this, he continued walking and asking directions. When he reached the outside of Wubei Temple, he finally fell down in the grass because of the cold and hunger.

     “Mother…” The little child was lying prone on the ground, with a pair of unfocused eyes under his black hair. He looked at the vast world.

     It was snowing. It was the first snow of the winter.

     “I’m coming to see you… I’m sorry… I can’t take it anymore…”

     The snowflakes fell lightly and softly, like a sigh. They covered his eyes and brows.

     In a daze, he heard footsteps approaching. Then a pair of hands pushed aside the grass, and he heard a young voice say, “Shizun, come quickly. Look at him. What’s wrong with him?”

     After a while, a pair of shoes approached. A man was speaking. “Don’t worry about it; go back first. I’ll take a look at him.”

     The man’s voice was deep and cold, without much emotion.

     Mo Ran instinctively felt afraid. He instinctively felt that the boy was close to him, but the man was cold. He didn’t know where the strength came from, but the desire to live made him raise his hand and tug weakly at the corner of the young boy’s clothes.

     Before he could say anything, tears had already started streaming down his face.

     “Rice…”

     I’m so hungry. Please, I want to eat.

     The boy he grabbed was Chu Wanning, who had gone down the mountain with Huaizui that day. Chu Wanning was stunned. “What?”

     Mo Ran barely lifted his dirty face and made a trembling gesture of scooping up rice, swallowing the bitterness in his throat. Everything in front of him was blurry and distorted, and his ears were ringing.

     He cried and begged the person in front of him. He knew that if this xiao-gege abandoned him like all the other old and young masters he’d met, then he would definitely not survive. He would die. He really couldn’t take it anymore.

     “Eat…”

     Later, Chu Wanning fed him a pot of rice porridge.

     A pot of porridge saved the person who was about to starve to death.

     After drinking the rice porridge, Mo Ran left Wubei Temple. At that time, his mind was still muddled. He only remembered a pair of slightly raised phoenix eyes and long, thick eyelashes for the appearance of his savior-gege. He didn’t have any other impressions.

     However, from Wubei Temple to Xiangtan, day and night, he wore the cloak his savior-gege had given him. He was still small at the time, and the boy’s clothes looked particularly awkward on him, especially when he put on the hood, which nearly covered his whole face.

     Along the way, there would always be children who didn’t have to worry about food or clothing. They would cling to their parents, laughing and shouting, “Dad, Mom, look at that little beggar. What is he wearing? It’s so funny!”

     Mo Ran wasn’t angry.

     What did other people’s derision mean to him? He was only grateful that this ill-fitting cloak could shelter him from the wind and rain and give him warmth.

     He wore it, and when it snowed, the snowflakes couldn’t fall on him. When it was late at night, the darkness couldn’t enter his heart.

     When night fell, he would light a fire, and hug his knees by the fire pit to keep warm. He covered his head with the cloak and shrunk into it, watching the melting orange flames from under the soft edge of the fur.

     The cloak was very warm, like his mother’s embrace and also like his savior-gege’s phoenix eyes… The little child would curl up and fall asleep just like that. In his dreams, he could even smell the faint fragrance of the cloak. It was like leaning against a blooming haitang tree.

     Looking back now, it was no wonder why he always felt that Chu Wanning smelled very good. As long as this scent was on the pillow, he could always sleep peacefully.

     It was also no wonder that when he first saw Yuheng Elder under Heaven-Piercing Tower, he felt that his downcast phoenix eyes were extremely gentle. It was as if he had seen them somewhere before.

     It turned out that everything happened for a reason.

     He and Chu Wanning… turned out to have spoken so early, shared body heat, and he’d even licked Chu Wanning’s palm. It turned out that he had smelled the fragrance on Chu Wanning’s clothes so early on. The savior-gege he had been looking for was by his side and had never been far away.

     Mo Ran lowered his eyes, and in this clear and cold Loyalty Hall, he felt a trace of warmth.

     But this was a secret between them. Mo Ran had decided in his heart. It was both sad and sweet. He kept this secret in his heart and wouldn’t tell anyone else.

     He took a deep breath, paused, and then continued, “After I arrived at Xiangtan, I followed my mother’s wish and found Xun Fengruo.”

     At that time, little Ran-er was only five years old, wrapped in a fur cloak that belonged to the young Chu Wanning.

     The hem of the cloak had dragged on the ground and was already dirty. The child poked out a dirty bird’s nest of a head from the fur. He looked up with a sallow and emaciated face and asked softly, “Excuse me… Xun Fengruo-jiejie, is she here?”

     “Xun Fengruo?” The performer he pulled laughed and looked him up and down. “Top performer of the music house? Although we don’t sell our bodies as performers here, who wouldn’t like Miss Xun’s appearance more than her singing voice? Little brother, how old are you? You actually know how to look for her?”

     Mo Ran’s eyes were wide, and his expression was clear. He didn’t understand her words at all.

     However, the ridicule in the girl’s eyes was obvious. Mo Ran was embarrassed because of this. He gripped the collar of his cloak tightly and said with a red face, “Please, I want to see Xun-jiejie. My, my mother asked me to come find her…”

     “Huh? Who’s your mother?”

     “My mother’s surname is Duan. Her name is Duan Yihan…”

     “Ah!” The singer’s expression changed. She took a step back and covered her mouth with her handkerchief; even her lazy peach blossom eyes suddenly widened. "You, you’re the music fairy Duan’s child?”

     Back then, when Duan Yihan’s name was known throughout the world, she never acted superior to others. She often gave extra jewelry and money to her sisters who were old and no longer sang like before. So when the singer heard that he was Miss Duan’s child, her attitude immediately changed. She hurriedly took him to  Nuan Pavilion, where he met Xun Fengruo lying on the bed in the room.

     After closing the door, Mo Ran bowed to Xun Fengruo and told her the whole story. Xun Fengruo’s heart was filled with grief.

     She immediately found the madam and expressed that she wanted Mo Ran to stay with her. The madam initially refused, but after several pleas from the top performer and taking a look at Mo Ran, she felt that this child could at least do something for the pavilion. So, she reluctantly agreed. They were afraid of beggars bringing bad luck when they entered the pavilion, so according to the rules, they had to burn all their clothing and then thoroughly wash clean.

     There was no problem with taking a bath, but when they said he had to burn his clothes, Mo Ran cried.

     “What are you crying for?! It’s not like I won’t buy you new clothes in the future!” The madam knocked Mo Ran on the head impatiently with a water pipe. “Be sensible. I’ll give you food and a place to live. Others can’t laugh even if they want to. Look how poor you are!”

     Mo Ran was afraid that he would implicate Xun-jiejie, who had already put in a good word for him. So he bit his lip and endured it. He rubbed his red eyes and stood in front of the fire, sobbing silently.

     At that time, he really didn’t understand why all of this happened.

     Why was it that he wanted to keep an old piece of clothing, but because he was weak, because he was lowly, because he was a stinky beggar, and in order not to bring back luck and trouble to others, he could only let others take it away from him? He had to let them take it off of him. He couldn’t struggle, couldn’t say “no,” and didn’t even have the right to cry.

     It once gave him so much warmth, support, and solace. In order to protect him from wind and rain, it was so dirty that its original color couldn’t be seen.

     Now that he had a place to stay, perhaps he wouldn’t need it anymore. He just wanted to wash it carefully and fold it neatly. Even if he never wore it again, it would be good to keep it in a small box. It was his friend, not just an old piece of clothing.

     But now it was out of his control.

     With a boom, the dirty cloak was thrown into the flames. The person who threw it had thrown it casually. In the end, they even thought that their hands were dirty. But to Mo Ran, it was a cremation, a funeral.

     He watched helplessly.

     The tongues of fire suddenly rose up, blurring the magnificent splendor of the world.

     “Slow down, slow down. If it’s not enough, there’s more…”

     “Where did you come from…?”

     The boy’s gentle voice still rang in his ears. That was one of the few kindnesses he had received in his humble life.

     It was all turned into ashes.

     Just like that, Mo Ran recognized the madam of the House of Drunken Jade as his godmother and had also acquired the surname, Mo, from her. From then on, he became an errand boy in the building and was able to live a peaceful life.

     However, the good times didn’t last long. At that time, Xun Fengruo was no longer young. According to the rules of the building, although the music house wasn’t as good as the brothel, when one reached a certain age where they couldn’t earn enough “self-pity money,” then the young ladies’ first night would be sold to those rich young masters and businessmen by the madam.

     Xun Fengruo didn’t worry. She had already earned a lot of money for the House of Drunken Jade.

     “We’re still short 150,000 gold,” Xun Fengruo said to Mo Ran with a smile. “Xiao Ran-er, when I earn enough money, I can redeem myself. Jiejie will take you to live a good life.”

     Mo Ran was assigned to the kitchen, so he rarely saw Xun Fengruo. The madam was careful not to let the people in the building form cliques, so Xun Fengruo and Mo Ran always met secretly.

     She reached out her hand and pinched his cheek, then gave him a handful of candy. “Shh, take it and eat. It’s a pity that I can’t give you any money, or I’ll be found out. Godmother’s eyes are very sharp, haha.”

     Mo Ran grinned, revealing a mouth with missing baby teeth. “Mm. Thank you, Xun-jiejie.”

     However, Xun Fengruo was only short a hundred and fifty thousand gold from gaining her freedom. How could the madam not know this?

     Although her face remained calm and collected, she was extremely anxious in her heart.

     Losing Xun Fengruo meant losing half of the House of Drunken Jade’s income. The madam planned to make a good profit before Xun Fengruo left.

     At that time, there were many rich families who coveted Xun Fengruo’s beauty. They all offered sky-high prices, enough for the madam to eat for a lifetime. In the end, the madam began conspiring.

     Behind Xun Fengruo’s back, she made a contract with a wealthy merchant. The two of them took advantage of the Lantern Festival. As Xun Fengruo sat on the stairs and played a song, he gave her a cup of tea that had been drugged and brought her to the room…

     That day, Mo Ran had cooked glutinous rice balls and carefully brought them to Nuan Pavilion for Xun-jiejie to eat.

     Before he could enter, he heard heavy breathing coming from inside the room. Mo Ran was startled. He opened the door, and a strong scent of incense assaulted his nose, making him want to throw up.

      In the dim light, he saw a rich merchant who was as greasy as pork belly. He was drooling and his clothes were wide open. He was on top of a weakly struggling Xun Fengruo, who was sore and shaking.

     Clang!

     The porcelain bowl containing the rice balls was shattered on the ground, and Mo Ran rushed into the room. He didn’t know where he got the strength—his natural talent had been amazing ever since he was a child—but he beat the wealthy merchant furiously, then held the fat man tightly and shouted and Xun Fengruo, who was crying like a pear blossom in the rain, so shocked that she didn’t know what to do.

     “Jiejie, go quickly!”

     “But you…”

     “You go quickly! I can’t go. I have to hold onto him! If you don’t leave now, we’ll all have to explain when the madam arrives. Go quickly! If you go, I will run away immediately!”

     Xun Fengruo was his benefactor.

     Mo Ran told her to run away from the House of Drunken Jade and never return.

     That day, he finally became a hero for once.

     Xun Fengruo sobbed and bowed to him, then fled from the building. But Mo Ran didn’t have time to leave. When the madam heard the commotion, she quickly brought people over. When she saw Mo Ran hit the guest and let her courtesan go, her face contorted with anger, as if she was about to vomit blood.

     The madam had a son who was about the same age as Mo Ran. The son had a vicious mind and a belly full of evil tricks. When he saw that his mother was very angry, he had an idea—sometimes, the viciousness of a child could be so naïve and terrifying. The boy punished his peer who had angered his mother in the same way animals were punished.

     He found a dog cage and had people lock Mo Ran inside. The cage was extremely narrow and cramped, and Mo Ran could only crouch inside; he couldn’t lie down or stand. They fed him scraps of cold rice like a dog, and this went on for seven days.

     For seven days, Mo Ran was trapped inside Xun Fengruo’s old home, where the smell of incense mixed with the stench of a man’s bodily fluids.

     He crouched, hunched over.

     Smelling this groggy and greasy smell.

     He wanted to vomit.

     Seven days.

     From then on, he felt sick whenever he smelled incense, and fear and terror seeped out from the cracks in his bones.