M49S Vol 1 Chapter 19. The One Who Knows Me

The first thing Meng Qiqi did after returning to his room was bathe and change. After spending three days in the secret realm, he felt he reeked of beast stench and had had enough.

The Wang clan’s service was impeccable. Even with their masters still battling outside, the servants remained calm as they brought up hot water and sent in a beautiful maid to attend to him.

The maid was nothing like a rough servant girl. She wore a veil of white gauze, and her ten fingers were slender and elegant. Meng Qiqi sighed and shook his head. “I can’t possibly let such a delicate young lady bathe me, can I, Senior Nephew?”

The maid tried to find the right words to offer some flattery. But when she lifted her eyes, she saw that Meng Qiqi’s gaze was entirely fixed on Chen Boyan, not sparing her so much as a glance. She understood his words had a deeper meaning. Whatever she had been about to say, she swallowed it back down.

For a moment, none of them spoke. Meng Qiqi wasn’t in a hurry. He simply waited to see how long it would take Chen Boyan to catch on. After a long silence, Chen Boyan finally took the clean towel from the maid’s hands and said, “You may leave. I’ll take care of it.”

The maid bowed respectfully and withdrew, closing the door behind her.

“Please, Little Martial Uncle.” Chen Boyan said.

Meng Qiqi studied him for a long while but saw not a trace of awkwardness on his face. He was slightly disappointed. He peeled off the human-skin mask, stripped off his clothes, and sank into the tub, not bothering to look at Chen Boyan again.

He had just closed his eyes to rest when petals began fluttering down from above, drifting across the water’s surface until it was covered in bloom. Meng Qiqi looked up at Chen Boyan, who stood there holding a flower basket. “Senior Nephew, such refined taste.”

“These are white kudzu petals. They soothe the nerves, ease fatigue, and help wounds heal,” Chen Boyan explained. “Martial Uncle has many internal injuries. You need proper care.”

As if that’s not your fault. Meng Qiqi cursed him silently, but without much resentment. Feelings required mutual consent. These scars he bore for Chen Boyan were nothing. It was just that, at moments like this, soaking in hot water with his whole body relaxed, the weariness and the pain would quietly seep out through those wounds.

But so what? Chen Boyan had come to his side in the end. What was his, would be his in the end.

Reclining against the edge of the tub, Meng Qiqi tilted his head back and looked up at Chen Boyan behind him. “Is it ugly?”

A few droplets, faintly tinged with the pink of flower petals, slid down his jaw. He stared straight at Chen Boyan, unblinking, as if determined to wring an answer out of him.

“It’s not,” Chen Boyan replied truthfully.

Meng Qiqi was satisfied. He closed his eyes and said no more.

Chen Boyan remained by his side the entire time, occasionally adding hot water to the tub. As the Chen family’s young master and Gushan Sword’s senior disciple, asking him to scrub someone’s back was still a bit too much to ask. Meng Qiqi didn’t plan to push his luck either, so he let him stay where he was.

After soaking for the better part of an hour, Meng Qiqi figured the fighting outside was probably wrapping up. He rose slowly from the tub, took the towel from Chen Boyan’s hands to dry off, and changed into clean clothes.

He acted openly, making no effort to avoid Chen Boyan’s gaze.

Chen Boyan said nothing the entire time, but his eyes never left Meng Qiqi.

Meng Qiqi’s features weren’t striking. Taken on their own, each was rather plain, except for his long, narrow phoenix eyes. When he looked at someone, their attention would often be drawn to the light in his eyes. Because of that, even his otherwise unremarkable features would seem to take on a kind of force that seized the heart.

Especially now. The heat had left his cheeks tinged with red, and a misty shimmer clung to his eyes. The faint scent of white kudzu petals still lingered on his skin.

“Senior Nephew,” Meng Qiqi said as he dried his hair and walked over to sit on Chen Boyan’s bed, “go find out how the fight ended. And bring back something to eat while you’re at it.”

Chen Boyan responded quietly and stepped outside. Just as he opened the door, someone happened to pass by and glanced inside. Chen Boyan frowned and shut the door behind him.

He wasn’t sure why, but he didn’t want anyone else to see Meng Qiqi like that.

Outside Chanhua Tower, the clash between the Wang clan and Wuhou Manor had temporarily reached its end. Jin Man had pressed the attack relentlessly, chasing the Third Elder all the way to Mochou Lake and forcing him to dive in to escape.

The Wang clan’s head and Grand Elder were livid, and the situation briefly spiraled out of control. In the end, Futu Temple and Ruizhu stepped in to mediate, and the other sects also spoke up one after another, gradually calming things down.

Even so, Jin Man was still far from satisfied. He threw down harsh words, demanding the Wang clan give him a proper explanation, then turned and left. One of the Wang disciples, unable to swallow the insult, tried to block his way. Jin Man gave a cold snort, and it nearly led to another disaster.

Wang Changlin, however, lived up to his name as the clan’s head. He was the best at enduring. For the Knock at the Immortal Gate to continue, he forced himself to swallow the humiliation and let Jin Man go. Afterward, he ordered the clan’s disciples to search the lake for the missing Third Elder.

But this incident was only the beginning. Jin Man had delivered a fierce slap to the Wang clan’s face. Even if it was eventually proven that the Third Elder was truly Wuyan in disguise, there was no way the Wang clan would let this go quietly.

When Chen Boyan returned with the news and reported it to Meng Qiqi, Meng Qiqi said the same: “The Third Elder jumped into the lake to escape. That might have been exactly what the Wang clan wanted. If Jin Man had caught him on the spot, it would have confirmed that the Wang clan was harboring Wuyan and helping him wreak havoc. I’d wager the one who wants that elder dead the most right now isn’t Jin Man, but Wang Changlin. Only a dead man can keep a secret forever.”

“Why would the Wang clan take in Wuyan to begin with?” Chen Boyan didn’t doubt the truth of Meng Qiqi’s words. He was simply puzzled. The Wang clan of Langya had countless disciples. Why get involved with a man everyone wanted dead?

Just as Wang Ziling had said, it was not as if the Wang clan lacked that one broken bronze plate.

“The older a family’s legacy, the more filth they hide beneath the surface,” Meng Qiqi said, sitting cross-legged on Chen Boyan’s blanket, eyes half-closed. “But for a man like Wuyan to become the Third Elder of the Wang clan, that really is strange. I suspect he had some secret in his hands, or a treasure of real value, and traded it for that seat.”

“So you want to make him give up that secret or treasure?” Chen Boyan asked.

“A man who understands me. Truly, Senior nephew, you do.” Meng Qiqi gave him a wink.

All that talk about eradicating evil was just a respectable excuse. The real aim was to pressure the Wang clan and, along the way, uncover what secrets Wuyan had been hiding.

If they could use this opportunity to help Wang Ziling rise, it would also lay the groundwork for future plans. That would be even better.

“Little Martial Uncle is also close friends with Lord Jin Man?” Chen Boyan asked again.

“Also?” Meng Qiqi raised an eyebrow.

“Shen Qingya of Tianlao,” Chen Boyan replied.

Meng Qiqi shook his head. “Shen Qingya can be called a friend. Jin Man… barely qualifies as a killing companion. If one day you see us with blades drawn against each other, don’t be surprised.”

Killing companion? Chen Boyan paused. Killing as in butcher? The term struck him as unusual, and Meng Qiqi as even more so. The Little Martial Uncle of Gushan truly lived up to his reputation.

Meng Qiqi chuckled and asked, “Do you have a problem with me making a few friends?”

“I wouldn’t dare,” Chen Boyan replied, lowering his gaze slightly.

“Fangjun.” Meng Qiqi leaned against the bedframe, smiling. His long, half-dry black hair slid off his shoulders, brushing lightly across a pale scar on his collarbone. He said, “Are you still holding a grudge because I refused to take you as my disciple?”

“I wouldn’t dare,” Chen Boyan answered again, but this time he lifted his head and looked Meng Qiqi directly in the eye.

Meng Qiqi thought, What wouldn’t you dare? You were bold enough to do that kind of thing to me when you were younger. What else is there that you wouldn’t dare now?

He suddenly changed the subject. “Did you see the scar on my collarbone?”

“I did.” Chen Boyan had seen it clearly. A shallow scar across a firm chest and clean collarbone, the kind that stirred all sorts of thoughts.

Meng Qiqi suddenly sat up. He propped both hands on the edge of the bed, leaned in close to Chen Boyan’s ear, and said softly, “That was left by the person I first slept with.”

The teasing heat of his breath slipped into Chen Boyan’s ear. Hearing those shameless words, even someone as unshakable as he was couldn’t stop his body from tensing.

Slept with someone? With who?

An image suddenly surfaced in Chen Boyan’s mind. Meng Qiqi lay on his back, face slightly flushed, breathing faintly. The stiffness in his body grew even worse.

What is this? Why am I picturing that?

Chen Boyan’s once-calm mind was thrown into chaos by Meng Qiqi’s words, but Meng Qiqi had already leaned lazily back onto the bed and said, “Scars are hard to erase. Old memories are hard to forget. I’m someone who clings to the past, which is why I can’t take you as my disciple.”

But what did being sentimental have to do with not taking a disciple? Chen Boyan didn’t understand, yet all that confusion was buried beneath the mess Meng Qiqi had stirred up moments ago, leaving him speechless for the time being.

By the time he thought to ask again, Meng Qiqi had already turned away and fallen asleep.

Meng Qiqi lay on the inner side of the bed, leaving half of it empty. That half was likely meant for him. But ever since the age of three, Chen Boyan had never shared a bed with anyone. And the person lying there now was his Little Martial Uncle. How could he possibly sleep there?

So Meng Qiqi waited and waited, but Chen Boyan never came up onto the bed. When he turned to look, he saw the man already seated and meditating. Meng Qiqi muttered to himself, calling him Chen Boyan, Chen Fangjun, Senior Disciple Chen. He groped around until he found a book that Chen Boyan had left by the pillow, then flung it down to the foot of the bed in irritation.

Hearing the noise, Chen Boyan opened his eyes and saw the poor book lying abandoned at the end of the bed. He had no idea what had triggered Meng Qiqi’s temper this time.

Sometimes Meng Qiqi treated him very well, and other times it was as if he held endless anger toward him. It was impossible to figure him out.

Trying to understand Meng Qiqi was harder than cultivating.

In the middle of the night, Meng Qiqi woke up quietly.

Chen Boyan was still meditating, seemingly unaware of anything happening around him. Meng Qiqi got up softly and dressed, then pushed open the window and stepped lightly outside Chanhua Tower. He moved at an unhurried pace toward the city.

He hadn’t gone far. The red lanterns of the restaurant ahead were still only tiny pinpricks of light when he suddenly turned his head and said, “Senior Nephew, why are you following me?”

Chen Boyan stepped out from behind a tree without the slightest hint of embarrassment. He cupped his hands and said, “Master told me to bring Little Martial Uncle back to Gushan no matter what.”

“You think I’m going to run off?”

Chen Boyan said nothing, which was as good as admitting it.

“You really do listen to your master,” Meng Qiqi said, a little sour, though he didn’t reject Chen Boyan’s company. “If you’re coming, then come. Just make sure you stand properly behind me later and keep your mouth shut. Jin Man can’t stand pretty boys who look better than he does.”

He picked up his pace toward the agreed location, and Chen Boyan immediately followed.