Chapter 15 Perfection—Part Five

Wei WuXian was a man skilled at finding amusement, especially talented at finding joy in boring situations. With nothing else to play with, he could only play with Lan WangJi. He called out, “WangJi-xiong.”

Lan WangJi remained motionless.

Wei WuXian, “WangJi.”

He looked as if he didn’t hear anything.

Wei WuXian, “Lan WangJi.”

Wei WuXian, “Lan Zhan!”

Lan WangJi finally stopped writing and stared at him coldly. Wei WuXian backed away, raising his hands defensively, “Don’t look at me like that. I called your name because you didn’t answer when I called you WangJi. If you’re upset, you can call me by my name back.”

Lan WangJi said, “Put your foot down.”

Wei WuXian’s sitting posture was extremely inappropriate, with his body crooked and his legs propped up. Seeing that he had finally teased Lan WangJi to the point where he started talking, Wei WuXian chuckled inwardly, as if he had finally seen the clouds disperse and the moon rise[1]. Listening to Lan WangJi’s words, he lowered his legs, but his upper body slowly moved closer, and he pressed his arms against the table. It was still an unacceptable sitting posture. He asked in a serious tone, “Lan Zhan. Let me ask you a question. Do you… really hate me?”

Lan WangJi lowered his head, his eyelashes casting a faint shadow across his jade-white cheeks. Wei WuXian hurriedly added, “Hey, don’t be like this, ignoring me again after just a few words. I want to admit my mistake and apologize to you. Look at me.”

After a pause, he spoke again, “You don’t want to see me? Okay then. I’ll start talking. That night was indeed my fault. I was wrong. I shouldn’t have climbed the wall, I shouldn’t have drunk alcohol, and I shouldn’t have fought with you. But, I swear! It wasn’t that I was intentionally provoking you—I really didn’t read the sect rules. The sect rules in the Jiang Sect are all written down; nothing is written down. Otherwise, I definitely wouldn’t have done that.”  I definitely wouldn’t have finished that bottle of Emperor’s Smile in front of you. I would have kept it and taken it back to my room, secretly drinking it every day and sharing it with everyone until we all had enough.

Wei WuXian continued, “And, let’s talk rationally—which one of us attacked first? You. If you didn’t attack, we could have communicated properly and settled things. However, if someone hits me, I have to retaliate. It’s not entirely my fault. Lan Zhan, are you listening? Look at me. Young Master Lan?” He snapped his fingers, “Second Brother Lan[2], why don’t you help me out and look at me?”

Lan WangJi didn’t even lift his eyes, “Copy it again.”

Wei WuXian’s body immediately tilted, “Don’t be like this. It’s my fault, okay?”

Lan WangJi exposed his lie mercilessly, “You don’t feel any regret.”

Wei WuXian spoke as if he had no self-respect, “Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry. I can repeat it as many times as you want. I can even say it on my knees.”

Lan WangJi put down his brush. Wei WuXian thought Lan WangJi couldn’t take it anymore and was finally going to hit him. Just as he was about to put on a goofy smile, he found his upper and lower lips glued together, preventing him from laughing.

Her face quickly changed. She struggled to speak, ”  Mmph  ?  Mmph  mmph  mmph  !”

Lan WangJi closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. When he opened them, his calm expression returned. He picked up the brush again, as if nothing had happened. Wei WuXian had long been aware of the Lan Sect’s hated silencing spell, and he refused to believe it. However, even after trying his best, scratching the corners of his lips until they were red, he still couldn’t open his mouth. So, he took a piece of paper, wrote as if the brush were floating, and threw it away. Lan WangJi glanced at him. “Pathetic,” he replied, crumpling it into a ball and throwing it away.

Wei WuXian was so angry that he rolled around on the mat, climbed onto it, and wrote again, then slammed it down in front of Lan WangJi. Once again, the paper was crumpled into a ball and thrown away.

The silencing spell was only lifted after he finished copying. The second day, when he returned to the Library Pavilion, the scattered paper balls had all been removed.

Wei WuXian always forgot about pain after his wounds healed.[3] Although he had suffered greatly from the silencing spell on the first day, after a while, his mouth felt itchy again. After speaking a few times without thinking, he was silenced again. He couldn’t open his mouth, so he scribbled on a piece of paper and handed it to Lan WangJi, who crumpled it up and threw it to the ground. The same thing happened on the third day.

He was silenced many times. However, on the last day he was to “face the wall and reflect,” Lan WangJi noticed that Wei WuXian seemed a little different.

During his stay in Gusu, he had left his sword everywhere and was never seen carrying it properly. However, he had brought it out today, slamming it heavily onto the table. He even started writing without a word, a stark contrast to his usual behavior of constantly annoying Lan WangJi in every way. He was so obedient it felt strange.

Lan WangJi had no reason to shut him up, so he glanced at him a few more times, as if he couldn’t believe Wei WuXian was finally being nice. As he expected, after sitting for a while, Wei WuXian repeated his behavior, handing Lan WangJi a piece of paper to look at.

Lan WangJi initially thought it was just another boring sentence, but after a glance, he was surprised to find a picture of a person, sitting upright and reading by the window, with a very realistic facial expression. It turned out to be himself.

Seeing that she didn’t immediately look away, Wei WuXian pursed his lips, then raised his eyebrows with a wink. There were no words needed, for the meaning was clear—  Does it resemble you? Is it good?

Lan WangJi said slowly, “You have free time, yet you scribble instead of copying texts. I don’t think the day of your release from this punishment will ever come.”

Wei WuXian blew on the ink that hadn’t dried yet and said indifferently, “I’ve finished copying, so I won’t come tomorrow!”

Lan WangJi’s slender fingers paused for a moment before turning the next yellow page. Surprisingly, Wei WuXian remained silent. Not provoking any reaction, Wei WuXian lightly tossed the drawing, “This is yours.”

The drawing was thrown onto the mat, but Lan WangJi had no intention of picking it up. All this time, the papers Wei WuXian had written on—cursing, persuading, apologizing, pleading, and other messy scribbles—had all ended up like this. He was used to it and didn’t mind. Suddenly, he added, “I forgot. I need to add something else.”

After he finished speaking, he picked up his paper and brush and added a few strokes. He glanced at the drawing, then at the person, then burst out laughing. Lan WangJi put down the book and saw Wei WuXian add a flower to the drawing, right next to the person’s head.

The corner of his lips twitched. Wei WuXian crawled over and spoke in front of him, “‘Pathetic,’ right? I knew you were going to say pathetic. Can’t you replace it with another word? Or add another word?”

Lan WangJi replied coldly, “Very sad.”

Wei WuXian clapped his hands, “So you really did add one more word. Thank you!”

Lan Wangji averted his gaze, picked up the book he had placed on the table, and opened it again. He only glanced at it briefly before throwing it away, as if it had caught fire.

Initially, he was reading a Buddhist text, but when he opened the page, he was met with an unbearable display of intertwined nude figures. The book he was reading was replaced by a pornographic book, the cover of which was disguised as a Buddhist text.

Even a brainless person would have guessed who the culprit was. It must have happened when  someone  took advantage of the opportunity that opened up when his attention was drawn to the picture, especially since Wei WuXian didn’t even bother to cover it up, banging the table as he laughed out loud, “Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!”

As the book was thrown to the ground, Lan WangJi looked as if he was running away from a snake or scorpion, falling back into the corner of the Library Pavilion in less than a second. He roared angrily, “Wei Ying——!”

Wei WuXian nearly rolled under the table from laughing, raising his hand with difficulty, “Here! I’m here!”

Lan WangJi quickly drew his sword, Bichen. Ever since they met, Wei WuXian had never seen him so upset. He hurriedly grabbed his own sword. Unsheathing it until a third of the blade was unsheathed, he reminded Lan WangJi, “Manners! Second Master Lan! Mind your manners! I brought my sword today too. If we start fighting, will your Library Pavilion be alright?” He knew Lan WangJi would be humiliated into anger, so he intentionally brought his sword to defend himself, lest he be stabbed to death. Lan WangJi’s sword blade pointed at him. Fire could almost be seen shooting out of his pair of light-colored eyes, “What kind of person are you?!”

Wei WuXian replied, “What kind of person am I? A man!”

Lan WangJi snapped, “You are shameless!”

Wei WuXian, “Should I be embarrassed about this? Don’t tell me you’ve never seen anything like this before. I don’t believe it.”

Lan WangJi’s weakness was that he didn’t know how to argue. After holding back for a moment, he pointed his sword at Wei WuXian. He said coldly, “You, get out. We’ve had a fight before.”

Wei WuXian shook his head a few times, pretending to be obedient, “No, no. Don’t you know, Young Master Lan? Fighting without permission is forbidden in the Cloud Recesses.” He continued to pick up the discarded book, but Lan WangJi beat him to it, snatching it away. Wei WuXian quickly guessed that he was going to use this as evidence to report him. He deliberately spoke, “Why did you take it? I thought you didn’t want to read it. Now you want to? Actually, even if you wanted to read it, you don’t have to fight over it. I borrowed it specifically for you. Now that you’ve seen my porn, you’ve become my friend. We can continue to exchange opinions, and…”

Lan WangJi’s entire face paled. He said one word after another, “I. Will. Not. Read. It.”

Wei WuXian continued to twist the facts, “If you don’t want to read it, why did you take it? Keep it in secret? You can’t do that. I borrowed this from someone else, so I have to return it after you read it… Hey, hey, hey, don’t come over here. You’re too close; I’m feeling nervous. Let’s talk nicely. You’re not going to hand this over, are you? Hand it over to who? Your… Your uncle? Second Young Master Lan, do you think you can let the elders see this? They’ll definitely think you’ve read it. With a face as thin as yours, you’ll be embarrassed to death…”

Lan WangJi filled his right hand with spiritual energy, and the book shattered into a thousand million pieces, scattering down. When Wei WuXian saw that he had successfully provoked Lan WangJi to the point that his evidence was destroyed, he finally felt relieved, and said with fake regret, “What a waste!” Then, he picked up the piece of paper that had fallen into his hair, holding it up to show the angry and pale-faced Lan WangJi, “Lan Zhan, everything about you is great, except that you like throwing things everywhere. Tell me, how many rolls of paper have you thrown on the ground in the past few days? Today, you weren’t even satisfied with throwing another roll of paper, and instead tore it. You tore it, so you clean it up yourself. I won’t help.” Of course, he never helped either.

Lan WangJi tried repeatedly to hold on, but he couldn’t anymore. He shouted, “Get lost!”

Wei WuXian said, “Wow, wow, look at you, Lan Zhan. Everyone says you’re an extraordinary man, like a shining pearl in the world, carrying yourself with unparalleled decorum, so it seems like that’s all. Don’t you know that making a fuss is forbidden in the Cloud Recesses? And yet, you’re telling me to “get lost.” Is this the first time you’ve used those words on someone…” Lan WangJi drew his sword and charged at him. Wei WuXian hurriedly jumped onto the windowsill, “Then get lost. Getting lost is my best skill. You don’t need to see me off!”

He jumped down from the Library Pavilion, laughing heartily as he dashed into the forest. A group of people were waiting for him. Nie HuaiSang asked, “How did it go? Did he read it? What was he like?”

Wei WuXian replied, “What did he look like? Ha! Didn’t you hear his loud screams?”

Nie HuaiSang was filled with admiration, “I heard—he told you to leave! Wei-xiong, this is the first time I’ve heard Lan WangJi tell someone to ‘leave’! How did you do it?”

Satisfaction shone across Wei WuXian’s face, “It’s a good thing I helped him achieve this ‘first’. You all saw it, right? The self-control and etiquette that Second Young Master Lan was so praised for were all weak and useless against me.”

Jiang Cheng scolded with a gloomy expression, “What are you proud of?! What’s there to be proud of?! Do you think being told to leave just like that is a glorious thing? You’ve truly disgraced our sect!”

Wei WuXian said, “I really want to apologize to him, but he never pays any attention to me. He’s been shutting me out for days, so what’s wrong with me having some fun with him? I gave him the book out of good intentions. HuaiSang-xiong, what happened to your favorite porn movie is such a shame. I didn’t even get to finish it; it was so good! Lan Zhan clearly doesn’t understand proper relationships. I already gave it to him, but he’s still unhappy. What a pity for his face like that.”

Nie HuaiSang exclaimed, “It’s not a pity at all! You can eat as much as you want.”

Jiang Cheng sneered, “You’ve truly offended Lan WangJi and Lan QiRen. Just wait for your death tomorrow! No one will bury your corpse.”

Wei WuXian waved his hand, putting his arm around Jiang Cheng’s shoulders, “Who cares, as long as I tease her first? You’ve already buried my corpse so many times, so what’s the harm in doing it again?”

Jiang Cheng retaliated with a kick, “Shoo, shoo, shoo! Next time, if you do something like that, don’t tell me! Don’t make me watch either!”

Translator’s Notes

1. Seeing the clouds disappear and the moon appear means finally seeing the results after being patient and waiting for so long.
2. The nickname “Second Brother Lan” will be coming up quite a bit in the future. The literal translation is “Second Brother Lan,” and is meant to be said jokingly. In China, calling someone “older brother,” especially by a girl toward a boy, is usually meant to be teasing. The word for “older brother” in Mandarin is  gege  , and people (especially Heavenly Blessings readers) often describe it as having a soft, doughy tone, sounding like a little girl when someone speaks. The end of the phrase ripples upward, as if it were a smooth ribbon flowing tugging at one’s heartstrings. In simpler terms, it sounds like  oppa  in Korean or  onii-san  in Japanese.
3. Forgetting the pain after the wound heals means that one quickly forgets the things that should have been learned from the punishment.