The patriarch was taken aback by the unexpected verbal attack and felt annoyed. Someone whispered beside him, "Forget it; don't argue with a child."
He sheepishly replied, "Of course not; how could I argue with an untamed young boy…"
Lan Qingren watched as the coffin was loaded onto the carriage, reinforced with new restraints, then turned back to ask, "Where's Forgetfulness?"
Just now, he had been planning to have Blue Vastness brought back to Cloud Deep Not-Deep for a long talk—yet in an instant, his companion vanished. After pacing around, he called out, "Forgetfulness! Where are you!"
Blue Xiuzhui said, "I told Senior Wei that we had brought Xiaoapple and left it outside the temple. Then Hong Guang Jun and he went to check on Xiaoapple together."
Then what happened? The rest was unnecessary.
Lan Qingren looked at Blue Xichen walking slowly behind him in a daze and sighed deeply before leaving.
When Jin Ling heard that Wei Wuxian and Blue Vastness were gone, he rushed out in great haste but nearly tripped over the threshold of the Guanyin temple. No matter how urgent it was, he couldn't catch up to them anymore. The fairy circled around him joyfully, panting and wagging its tongue. Jiang Cheng stood under a towering old tree by the entrance of the Guanyin temple, turned back, and said, "Wipe your face."
Jin Ling wiped his eyes vigorously and then his face, saying, "Where are they?"
Jiang Cheng replied, "They left."
Jin Ling exclaimed, "You just let them go like that?"
Pausing for a moment, Jiang Cheng sneered, "What else could I do? Stay for dinner? Say one hundred 'thanks' and 'sorry'?!"
Jin Ling became agitated, pointing at him, "That's why they left! Uncle, you're such an unpleasant person!"
With a furious look, Jiang Cheng raised his hand but said, "Is this how you speak to elders? Do you have any manners at all! You'll get what’s coming to you!"
Jin Ling retracted his head as Jiang Cheng's slap missed him and fell short.
He said, "Shut up, Jin Ling. Shut up. Let's go back. Go your way and I'll go mine."
Jin Ling was stunned for a moment before finally closing his mouth.
Walking side by side with Jiang Cheng, he asked, "Uncle, did you have something to say just now?"
After a long silence, Jiang Cheng shook his head, "There's nothing worth saying."
What could be said?
That year, it wasn't because I insisted on retrieving my parents' bodies from Lotus Manor that the Wen family caught me.
In the town we were fleeing from, when you went out to buy provisions, a group of Wen family cultivators chased after you.
I discovered them early and hid at an alley corner. They didn't catch me, but they would soon run into the one buying provisions—the very person I had come to save.
So I ran out to distract them.
But like Wei Wuxian who never told him the truth back then, Jiang Cheng couldn't bring himself to say it now.