Chapter Ninety-Eight: The First Disciple’s Three Faults

Since the day Violet Lotus brought me back from Young Master Meng's estate to Spirit Cloud Mountain, I had not seen him again.

For the past few days, I had lain in bed all day long, my mind uneasy. I held the storybooks gathered from the mortal realm in my hands and read them again and again. By the time I had gone through them enough times to know the tales of love and longing by heart, my own restlessness had only grown worse.

Whenever disciples came to bring me medicine, tea, dishes, and meals, I could not help but ask them a few questions. Yet the first one to hear me merely stared at me blankly for a while, then, without a sound, carried the tray and bowl away out of Clear Water Pavilion, leaving me alone again with my dazed thoughts.

I sighed in sorrow, unable to understand how I could frighten a living, breathing person into speechlessness.

Drowsiness overtook me, and I lay down to sleep. In a hazy half-dream, I heard a soft voice by my ear say, "Uncle-Master," sweet and glutinous, gentle and pliant, seven parts coaxing and three parts tentative.

When I opened my eyes, a little pink, chubby face filled my vision, its round eyes blinking as it leaned close beside the bed and stared straight at me.

"Rosy-cheeks?"

Seeing that it was him, I could not help but feel a little surprised.

I had only entered the sect a few days ago and had not yet grown familiar with the senior brothers, senior sisters, and junior disciples from the various halls. Before I had even had time to get acquainted, Violet Lotus had taken me down the mountain to travel among the mortal world. And this so-called traveling had actually consisted of only two places: one was the Pavilion of Beauties, where I had nearly been mistaken by the demon king for someone there to snatch his wife; the other was the Immortal Dwelling, the residence of a fallen immortal, where they had likewise misunderstood me, thinking I had come to take advantage of another man's young wife, who was with child.

Back at the mountain gate, gravely injured, with Violet Lotus avoiding me and refusing to see me, I had been worn out in body and mind. I had originally meant to shut myself up in this room until I went moldy, but who would have thought that Rosy-cheeks, whom I had bullied time and again, would appear by my bedside at a time like this? Right then, his eyes were faintly red, and he was looking at me with an expression of deep distress.

Truly, there is genuine feeling in the mortal world, and true love in the mountains.

My heart warmed. Without thinking further, I was just about to raise my hand and pinch his little dumpling face when a piercing, bone-deep pain suddenly tore through my chest.

Even torn sinews and broken bones could not be much worse than this. It seemed my injuries were truly severe.

"Little Uncle-Master."

Rosy-cheeks' big eyes reddened further, his little thick eyebrows knotting tightly as he fixed his gaze on me. To my surprise, he did not step forward to ask after me. Instead, he bounced on his short legs and ran out, shouting at the top of his voice as he went, "Master, Master, something is wrong! Little Uncle-Master is about to die!"

Die? Hearing him say that, a surge of fury rose in me at once. I was furious, utterly furious. It was only an injury, after all; why was this little fatso cursing me like this? My chest rose and fell sharply with anger, and another searing stab shot through me so fiercely that I clenched my teeth and gasped in pain, nearly collapsing straight back onto the bed.

Soon after, footsteps sounded outside the door, light and hurried, as though more than one person were coming. I turned my head to look, and a man in a blue robe embroidered with bamboo, leading Rosy-cheeks by the hand, stepped inside.

From his attire, and from the way Rosy-cheeks had cried out "Master" when he rushed out, I was certain this man was undoubtedly a disciple of the Void Origin Sect.

Thinking of why I was now so badly injured and bedridden, and why Violet Lotus had been avoiding me and refusing to see me, I felt an inexplicable hostility toward the man in the blue bamboo-embroidered robe.

"Don't talk nonsense, little one. You are always saying the wrong thing."

As he spoke, the man in the blue robe reached out and poked Rosy-cheeks on the cheek.

"Little junior brother, are you feeling any better?"

The man in the blue bamboo robe acted as though we were already old acquaintances. Ignoring Rosy-cheeks entirely, he came over and took my hand in one swift motion, startling me.

"You... who are you?" I asked him nervously, trying hard to pull my hand back, but his grip was simply too strong, and I could not wrench myself free.

"I?" He smiled, then lifted a hand to smooth the strands at his temple. "I am Three Losses, the senior disciple of Supreme Venerable Void Origin. Little junior brother may simply call me Senior Brother Three Losses from now on."