You've Got Mail: Cautionary Tale (YGMCT)

Chapter 73 - The Tree of Jianmu: The Bridge Between Heaven and Earth

Hei’er glanced at Rancui, his expression tinged with a vague resignation.

However, he did not say anything. Accordingly, he sat down at the last table, holding his cup up and toasting Rancui.

Rancui drank, but did not pay anymore attention to him. Instead, he turned to chat with Wu Xingzi, persuading him to eat more. The chef he had invited today was from the capital’s most famous restaurant, and the dishes not only looked exquisite, but their flavours were divine.

Wu Xingzi would naturally not stand on courtesy. Furthermore, in an occasion like this, inwardly, he did feel very out of place, like an ugly duckling stumbling into a lake of swans. It was enough for him to look at all these beautiful men from afar. He completely had no intentions of getting to know them or talking with them, and he just buried his head in the food.

However, as they ate and ate, and when five dishes had been served and they had five glasses of wine each, the originally restrained atmosphere had dissipated by quite a fair bit. People who chose to attend the gathering of the Peng Society, to put it bluntly, were here to look for a soulmate with whom they could spend the rest of their lives with. No matter how refined, how reserved, and how reticent men could be, they were still men. With an innate nature to pillage and publicise, they could not resist wanting to put themselves out there.

Rancui saw that it was nearly time. During the time when the five dishes had been served and five drinks exchanged, most of the fellows had already done their observations. Whoever was interested in who, they themselves were aware of it, and it was time to let the peacock feathers that had been trembling for some time to flare out and display themselves.

Very quickly, one of the men picked up his chopsticks. Rapping on the rim of his glass, he suddenly burst into song.

The man’s voice was quite pleasant sounding, and he was singing a tune describing the scenery of the desert, the melody bringing about the feeling of vastness and unrestrain. This man should be a rather unbridled, reckless sort, and as Wu Xingzi listened to the man, looking at him, he completely forgot to chew on the morsel of food in his mouth.

Smiling, Rancui glanced over at Wu Xingzi, then he leaned in close and whispered, “This is a subordinate of the Ninth Marquis, and he had been stationed in the west for a period of time in the past. Later on, he hurt a tendon in his hand, and had no choice but to return to the capital. On your list, his pengornis is ranked seventh.”

The seventh on the list? A drawing appeared clearly in Wu Xingzi’s mind. This pengornis was actually not especially thick or long, and in conclusion, whether it was the old ranking list or the new one, it could only rank around the middle of the list, mainly due to its very nice shape. To be concise, it was straight and upright, the shaft tapering to its head slightly, looking a little like the head of a spear.

Without thinking, Wu Xingzi wrapped his arms around his tummy, his face blushing red.

“Lord Meng is a frank and forthright person. Don’t look at how refined and scholarly he looks, he possesses an innate power within him. That year, he played an important part in rooting out the weeds, and he can be considered Zhang Fei1 amongst the pengornises.”

Zhang Fei? When Wu Xingzi recalled the Lord Zhang depicted in stories, he could not help but smile.

The moment he smiled, from a distance not too far away, a pair of soft, gentle eyes fixed onto him, and a trace of gloom and bloodlust flashed past those eyes.