MDZS Characters Watching the Future

18. Whip Scars and Brand Mark

The Cloud Recesses prohibited liquor. Because of this, the first time they met, they had a small fight. Lan WangJi ended up spilling a jar of the "Emperor's Smile" which he brought back from the city of Gusu. After he returned from Gusu to Yunmeng, Wei WuXian never had the chance to drink the "Emperor's Smile" made exclusively by Gusu's experts ever again. He had thought about this for his entire life, always telling himself to come back to taste it if he ever received the opportunity. But, the opportunity never came. Hidden in here was no other than the liquor-he didn't even need to open and taste it, and knew that it was an "Emperor's Smile" just by the smell of it. He would never have thought that he would find a liquor-hiding vault in the room of a person as scrupulous and abstinent as Lan WangJi's. Karma really outdid itself with this reincarnation.

"But why is he storing alcohol though?" asked Nie Huaisang.

"Don't tell me he started to drink alcohol." exclaimed Wei Wuxian.

"No." said Sizhui.

"Then why do Wangji have alcohol in his room?" asked Lan Xichen.

"It is for a-niang." answered Sizhui.

As Wei WuXian exclaimed upon the matter, he finished one jar already. He had a high tolerance for alcohol and loved to drink. After he came to the conclusion that Lan WangJi still owed him a jar of Emperor's Smile and it was time to collect his interests, he drank another jar. When he was just starting to get tipsy, a thought suddenly passed his mind. How hard was it to get the jade token? In the Cloud Recesses, there was a cold spring with a lot of miraculous effects, for the male cultivators to use. It was said to be able to calm down one's heart, clear one's mind, quench one's fire, and so on. When he went into the cold spring, he was bound to take off his clothing. Then, with his clothing already off, there would be no where to put it aside from holding it in his mouth, which was definitely out of question.

"Don't tell me he is going to sneak into the spring." said Jiang Cheng.

"That's the only reasonable conclusion for Wei-xiong's thoughts." said Nie Huaisang.

Wei WuXian clapped his hands and finished the last gulp in the jar. After searching, he found that there were no places to throw it away, so he filled the empty jars with clear water and sealed the lids again, stuffing them back inside and closing the wooden board. With this done, he ventured out to find the jade token.

"Why do you need to fill it with water?" asjed Jin Zixuan.

"For him to drink someday." said Jiang Cheng.

"Or for Wangji-xiong." laughed Nie Huaisang.

Although the Cloud Recesses had been burnt down before the "Sunshot Campaign" happened, the rebuilt structure of the area was the same. Wei WuXian walked through the winding paths from memory, and soon found the cold spring, situated at a quiet and obscure place.

"How did you know about the cold spring?" asked Jiang Cheng.

"I don't know either. It is my first hearing it so why do I know where it is located?" Wei Wuxian asked back.

"Cloud Recesses was burnt down before?" asked Qingheng-jun.

"Mn." answered Sizhui.

"Why?" asked Lan Qiren.

"You will know it." answered Jingyi.

The disciple on duty for watching over the cold spring was quite a distance away. The female cultivators were in another quarter of the Cloud Recesses and didn't come here to use it. Nobody in the Lan Sect did an impudent thing such as coming to the cold spring to watch others bathe, anyway. Therefore, the security wasn't strict at all and it was extremely easy to overcome, making it easy for Wei WuXian to go and shame himself. And, coincidentally, there was a set of white clothes on top of the white rocks behind the crisscrossed eupatorium grasses, meaning that someone had already came.