Memory and Recall
“No, no, no, I already have a shifu,” Mu Yu objected. “People will call me shameless if they find out.”
“Who is your shifu? I’ll kill him. Problem solved.”
“Look, I know I’m a genius, and lots of people want to have me as a disciple; however, killing one another is never ideal, agreed? Whatever it is you think well of me, I will change, okay?”
Ku Mu surveyed Mu Yu, then frowned once he calmed down. “From what I can tell from your swordplay… is your shifu Sword Shadow Dust Gale?!”
Mu Yu’s heart skipped a beat. “What makes you say I am True God’s disciple merely based off my swordplay? I think you are suspending facts more than you should. Though I admit I am suave, handsome and quite the gentleman as he is, I am n-”
“He now goes by the name Feng Haochen, correct?”
Mu Yu faked a smile and tried prudently probing. “Wow, I am glad to hear you know each other. You two must be friends. Did you get to know each other over a drink or sword spar?”
Nostrils flared, Ku Mu responded, “We’re enemies.”
Mu Yu’s smile froze.
What the devil? What sort of luck do I have?
“You should not be enemies. You should let go of all of those unhappy memories after so long, agree? How about you let me go so that I can tell my shifu, and we call it even? Hehe,” suggested Mu Yu, complaining to himself at the same time.
“I know his cultivation has regressed dramatically. I can’t believe he let you off your leash when you’re not even at Primordial Infant Realm. Since he failed to educate you, I shall educate you in his place,” stated Ku Mu, stomping off to his room.
Mu Yu thought Ku Mu would slap him, but Ku Mu just went off in a huff as if he didn’t want to hang around Mu Yu. Mu Yu punched the air while aiming at Ku Mu from behind, muttering, “Let me off my leash? Did you need to go there?”
Mu Yu tried to escape the way he did previously, but Ku Mu had sealed the path. He tried going deeper in, but that wasn’t any help, either.
“Can we discuss letting me leave?” questioned Mu Yu, from within the celestial fiend tree.
“No.”
Mu Yu slept on the bridge at night. Ku Mu forced open Mu Yu’s Cosmic Sleeve to retrieve the stolen items. Fortunately, he had the blanket, granting him restful sleep with the dragon vine and Xiaoshuai. Of course, Ku Mu hung Mu Yu the next day as punishment for using his blanket.
“Memorise Poison Scripture,” firmly commanded Ku Mu.
“Can I leave after I memorise it?”
“No.”
“Welp, I refuse, then,” replied Mu Yu, handing thick Poison Scripture back.
Ku Mu kept his hands behind his back. He shifted his gaze over to the dragon vine and stated, “No memorise. I use. The dragon vine. For alchemy.”
“I suppose we’ll have to apologise to Earthworm in advance,” commented Xiaoshuai.
Mu Yu didn’t approve of the idea.
“How about you sacrifice yourself, Rat.”
“You’re larger, so you’d produce more.”
Mu Yu’s shoulders sunk. “All right, I’ll read it every day, okay?”
“And. Memorise it,” stressed Ku Mu.
Mu Yu’s big sigh echoed the same way he drawled the contents of the scripture henceforward.
“Tiger pattern vineee… Principles… I don’t want to read this! … Effects: restore a man’s manhood… Heh, now you’re speaking my language… A quick kill method… High risk high reward, I like!”
As Mu Yu recited the scripture daily, he’d add his own twist on the herbs listed to reduce the monotone nature of the task. Due to the boredom of reading, he felt for Cai Lie and why the latter scribbled in his own book. He decided to let his soul run free and painted an imagine on the page detailing dragon vines.
“Ahaha, the old greenhead drew you as an earthworm,” chaffed Xiaoshuai, pointing to the painting.
The dragon vine revealed its golden eyes and told Mu Yu to fix the painting.
“Relax. Relax. You can tell Ku Mu never took art class seriously. Don’t worry, though. They called me Golden Child Artist.”
After Mu Yu did some resizing, used various pill grains and added a touch here and there, Xiaoshuai grabbed his belly and laughed hysterically. “Mu Yu has turned you into a centipede.”
“You lack taste. Now it has four legs as mentioned in stories. Look at that dragon beard,” argued Mu Yu, pointing to the ropy dragon beard. “Check out the two horns,” added Mu Yu, pointing to the crooked horn.
“What. Are. You. Doing?” Ku Mu inquired.
Mu Yu: “Painting.”
Ku Mu lifted Mu Yu up and left the latter screaming, “Put me down” from the air.
Ku Mu discovered the page with his portrait. Mu Yu didn’t even paint his nose right! Ku Mu threatened, “How dare you desecrate my blood, sweat and tears. Is this your will?”
“Store it away somewhere safe, then. Why are you making me read it?”
The dragon vine already ran off. Xiaoshuai was hiding in between the dragon vine’s teeth.
Huffing and puffing, Ku Mu blustered, “I would have killed anyone else who touched it already. People would die fighting for this, yet you don’t know better.”
Apologetic, Mu Yu stopped with the disrespectful tone and replied, “Elder, monotonous rote learning will not get me anywhere.”
“… Do you know why I chose you when I’ve turned away so many people?”
Xiaoshuai: “Because I’m a stud?”
Xiaoshuai scuttled back into the dragon vine’s mouth as soon as Ku Mu glared daggers at him, but the dragon vine spat him straight out.
“Because I am the disciple of the man you have a grudge against?” asked Mu Yu, stopping his struggle. “Your defection incitement will not work on me. I will not betray my shifu.”
“Because you want to save Sword Shadow Dust Gale.”
Mu Yu: How does he know that?
“I know far more than you think I do. I’m the only one who can help you.”
“Why do you want to help me with that?”
“Frankly, I want to kill him. The issue is he can’t die because there’s something he needs to do,” answered Ku Mu, clamping his fingers into white-knuckled vice-grips.
“Is this about the elemental demons?”
“No. Just know that you have to do as I say if you want to save him. Otherwise, you can leave now.”
Ku Mu let Mu Yu down and left. Mu Yu bounced straight up after landing on the ground, indicating the flying restriction in the valley had been released. The trio exited the valley without running into any obstructions. Standing at the exit, Mu Yu mulled over why Ku Mu was adamant about saving someone he wanted dead.
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