Chapter 24: The Old Wen Family’s Ancestral Wheat-Food Skill

After two years of spiritual qi circulation, the “cultivation corridor” finally completed its merging, becoming a great bridge spanning the eastern and western sides of the cultivation world. Originally, crossing Yongzhou City required half a month. Now, it only took half a shichen.

Meng Baixu brought the two cubs through it once. When they returned to the starting point, he discovered that the Golden Core cultivator who had been robbed earlier was still in the same place. He was probably waiting for the ice around the Blood Fiend Sect’s tyrants to melt so he could retrieve his luggage.

East Wind Dance Divine Sword could instantly freeze a whole area, like thousands upon thousands of pear trees blooming. Treasures of a lower grade than it could not break open the ice layer, so one could only wait for sunlight.

Jia Liance took dry rations out of his qiankun pouch. His way of traveling was rather old-fashioned. He prepared everything he needed at home. When he was hungry, he ate. He was too lazy to look for shops everywhere.

Meng Wowo and Meng Nangnang looked at the steamed buns taken from the qiankun pouch and could not help licking their rosy little mouths.

Meng Baixu immediately came up with a plan.

There is a road to heaven, yet you refuse to take it. Since you’ve fallen into my hands again, don’t blame me for robbing you.

“Which of you wants to do a bad thing? Go snatch all his food.”

Cultivators would not starve to death if they did not eat. It was perfect to use this to train the children to be villains.

Meng Wowo was still thinking, but Meng Nangnang immediately requested to fight.

“Baby wants to do bad things!”

Meng Baixu’s eyes showed appreciation. One look and Meng Nangnang was an outstanding demon.

“Go. You go. Remember to snatch a lot.”

Jia Liance was eating a steamed bun when a milky little cub suddenly popped out from the grass. The cub had granny-gray hair and round eyes staring at the food in his hand. His plump, fair cheeks were full and soft. By comparison, even the time-honored shop’s large meat bun in Jia Liance’s hand seemed inferior.

Which famous righteous sect’s precious little grandchild had gotten lost?

“I… I am a little demon!”

Meng Nangnang threatened him with full milky force.

Pfft.

Jia Liance increasingly felt that he had grown old. He could now enjoy playing with grandchildren. Why was the little cub in front of him so adorable?

“Oh? You’re a little bad egg?”

Meng Nangnang seriously corrected him. “Uncle, I’m a little demon, not a little bad egg.”

Jia Liance could not help laughing. What a silly baby. He did not even know what demon meant.

“What is your name, little demon?”

Meng Nangnang was about to say that he was called Meng Nangnang when he suddenly heard Sect Leader Daddy’s secret voice: “You can’t say.”

So he repeated in a milky voice, “Can’t say, oh.”

Jia Liance asked, “Then what does the little demon want to do?”

Meng Nangnang said, “I want your little steamed buns.”

Remembering Daddy’s instructions, he emphasized in a milky voice, “And cornmeal buns!”

“I’ll give them to you, I’ll give them to you.”

Jia Liance took out all the steamed buns and cornmeal buns from his qiankun pouch and asked, “What will you use to carry them?”

Meng Nangnang scratched his granny-gray hair.

Doing bad things was not easy. There were too many steamed buns. He could not carry them all.

He squatted on the ground, grabbed steamed buns and cornmeal buns several times bigger than his little fists, and stuffed one into each side of his clothes. After taking three, he could no longer fit any more.

“Baby doesn’t want more!”

Three were enough to eat.

Jia Liance watched and felt his mindset become a hundred years younger. Although being a hundred years younger still meant he was four hundred, he wanted to catch the child and tease him a little, then help him find his father. But in the blink of an eye, the little demon who knew when to stop had already run out of sight.

Jia Liance’s expression turned serious. To run away under his nose and catch him completely unprepared—clearly, he had underestimated this baby.

He was not even two years old, right?

Whose family had produced such a cultivation genius baby? His parents must wake up laughing in their sleep.

Hm?

Jia Liance recalled the baby’s appearance just now and vaguely felt that there were traces of certain old friends in his features.

Jia Liance carefully recalled those old friends. He had not seen them for hundreds of years, and their faces had already blurred.

Wen Tingshu, Xie Tongchen, Meng Fuguang…

Jia Liance was greatly shocked.

How could one milky little face contain traces of so many old friends at the same time? He must have been struck by an illusion.

This place was territory controlled by the Fuguang Sect. It was best to leave as soon as possible.

Jia Liance patted his own forehead, wanting to clear his head. When he looked closely, there was a white, reflective object in the grass before him.

He picked it up and saw that it was actually a jade cicada.

The cicada’s body was carved vividly and lifelike. What was unusual was that the patterns on the cicada wings were water ripples.

Five hundred years ago, before spiritual qi appeared, the entire continent was made up of ordinary mortals. Back then, dynasties rose and fell, split and merged. The Wen family was a famous great clan by the Bohai Sea, and their family totem was the cicada!

Later, spiritual qi revived. In the vast Wen family, only Wen Tingshu had spiritual veins. As time shifted and stars turned, only Wen Tingshu remained, cultivating in longevity.

Wen Tingshu founded the Hengxue Sect but regarded it as a cultivation academy, not family property. He did not introduce the Wen family’s symbol into it, selfless and impartial.

Everything about the Wen family had been drowned in the long river of time.

Only someone like Jia Liance, who had known him in youth, could barely recognize the Wen family’s totem from five hundred years ago.

Had this jade cicada been dropped by that little cub just now?

Could he be Wen Tingshu’s child?

No!

Impossible!

After all his closest relatives passed away, Wen Tingshu had said that from then on, he would be alone and would never again have any relatives. Jia Liance understood that he did not want to suffer the deaths of non-cultivator relatives again.

It was impossible for Wen Tingshu to have children.

That man’s heart was terrifyingly strong. If he said he would not have descendants, then he would not have descendants. There was no reason that could shake him.

***

Meng Nangnang returned from his robbery and happily divided the buns.

“One for Gege, one for Daddy, one for Nangnang.”

Meng Baixu looked at Meng Nangnang, who only cared about holding food and had even lost the jade cicada hanging around his neck.

Little glutton.

Fortunately, the jade cicada around Meng Nangnang’s neck was a replica. The original jade cicada Meng Fuguang had placed with Meng Baixu in his swaddling clothes was around Meng Wowo’s neck. Meng Wowo had discovered the jade cicada in the box by his bed and put it around his own neck.

Meng Baixu did not want to give the other cub a fake either, but there was only one jade cicada pendant. If he did not replicate it, he feared the two cubs would fight.

Do not be fooled by the way the two little cubs stuck together all day and all night. That was only because Meng Baixu balanced everything evenly.

No matter what it was, he prepared two copies. Even meals were fed one bite per person right on time. The brothers had no reason to fight.

After discovering that one cub’s jade cicada had been lost, Meng Baixu quickly took away Meng Wowo’s too, so the twins would not compare things before sleep and realize they were not completely “exactly the same.”

Yesterday, Shi Wumi had given Wowo and Nangnang each a small wooden sword. One sword tassel was red, and the other was green. The two cubs waved them around all day. When they put the swords at their bedside before sleeping, they suddenly discovered that the dangling tassels were different.

Meng Wowo suddenly stopped being sleepy. He crawled out from the blankets, pointed at the sword tassel, and said, “Daddy, Wowo’s is green.”

Meng Nangnang also crawled up and scratched his cheek. “Why is Baby’s green?”

Meng Baixu did not want to bother with these two little ancestors, who were red-green colorblind during the day but suddenly recovered at night.

However, if he did not solve it for them, Meng Wowo and Meng Nangnang would stay on his left and right, constantly asking “why.”

Meng Baixu could only dig Shi Wumi out of bed in the middle of the night and make him weave another red one.

***

“Meng Nangnang, you did well today.”

Meng Baixu praised the little baby who had taken the initiative to rob a cultivator.

When Meng Baixu had gone undercover in the Hengxue Sect, he had directly used his real name, and no one associated him with Meng Fuguang just because his surname was “Meng.”

But after being bitten by a snake once, the righteous path was now very wary of the surname “Meng.” If Meng Nangnang had directly told that Golden Core cultivator his surname just now, he would probably have been suspected of being a demonic sect cub in the next moment.

The Fuguang Sect had countless enemies. Although the two little cubs were at Golden Core, they were still easily deceived and innocent. When outside, it was better not to expose their identities.

Meng Baixu instructed, “Wowo, Nangnang, in the future, when you go out alone, remember not to say your surname is Meng.”

Hm?

Wowo and Nangnang did not quite understand. Then what should they be called?

Meng Baixu pondered. He had to give the children a fake surname.

Wen?

No, no. Although most of the higher-ups in the demonic sect knew his prodigal-child plan and knew these were Wen Tingshu’s cubs, the lower-level sect members did not know.

The surname Wen plus the publicly known fact that he had gone undercover in the Hengxue Sect—then who the saint children’s other father was would become too obvious.

He had it.

Meng Baixu pointed at Meng Wowo. “When you’re outside, you’re called Situ Wowo. Remember?”

Meng Wowo nodded. “Remembered.”

Meng Baixu said, “Oh!”

Meng Nangnang said, “I’m Situ Nangnang!”

The surname Situ was good. It sounded like “Shitu,” master-disciple.

Wowo and Nangnang were babies born from a master and disciple. When the time came, would Wen Tingshu still dare to play deaf and dumb about the matter of sleeping together?

“So good!”

Meng Baixu fulfilled his promise. If the babies learned how to do bad things, he would reward them with a steamed bun made by Wen Tingshu.

He rummaged through his qiankun pouch and, from the remaining five steamed buns, found two with similar size and shape.

“Take them and eat.”

Wow!

Meng Wowo and Meng Nangnang looked at them, each picked up one steamed bun, and impatiently started gnawing.

The steamed buns Shizun made did indeed taste even better when eaten by the little cubs!

A small bite mark appeared in the fragrant, sweet, fluffy big steamed bun.

Clink.

A gold coin suddenly fell out of Meng Wowo’s steamed bun!

Hm?

Meng Wowo picked it up and, not understanding, stuffed it back into the steamed bun.

The big steamed bun in Meng Nangnang’s hand suddenly no longer smelled as fragrant. He broke open his steamed bun, but no gold coin fell out.

Nangnang’s steamed bun had no filling!

“None.”

Meng Nangnang’s eyes instantly reddened slightly, and he looked at Meng Baixu pitifully.

Meng Baixu: “…”

Wen Tingshu, look at the good thing you did!

It was one thing not to raise the children, but you even specially did things that sowed discord!

Meng Baixu could only pinch the remaining steamed buns and exchange one with filling for Meng Nangnang.

Who knew whether eating steamed buns made by Wen Tingshu awakened the wheat-food master’s bloodline skill? A few days later, Meng Baixu discovered that Wowo and Nangnang were no longer playing their ball-pushing game in the sandpit. Instead, they were mixing mud and sand with water into lumps and seriously kneading steamed buns.

The two little cubs played until their heads and faces were covered in dust, their fair cheeks streaked with lines of muddy water.

Mud steamed buns of all sizes were scattered throughout the sandpit.

Could this be the old Wen family’s traditional skill?

Shizun had never told him what his parents did. So his family had ancestral pastry-making skills. No wonder Wen Tingshu knew how to make so many wheat foods.

Talent could not be wasted.

Meng Baixu carried the two little cubs into the kitchen and gave them a basin of dough.

“Your task today is to knead steamed buns.”

The stock of Shizun-made wheat foods was running low. Perhaps his sons could make the exact same flavor.

“Awo!”

The moment Wowo and Nangnang saw real dough, they were full of enthusiasm and worked hard with their heads down.

If milk was added to the flour, they could make milk-scented little steamed buns.

One basin of dough could firmly control the two little cubs for an entire afternoon, killing two birds with one stone.

On the twenty-ninth day of the twelfth month, two pots of steamed buns made by filial sons came out.

Meng Baixu looked at the crooked, ugly steamed buns and suddenly thought of Wen Tingshu, who was in seclusion on Hengxue Mountain.

This New Year, was Shizun alone and lonely on Hengxue Mountain?

Would he cook a bowl of noodles for himself?

For some reason, Meng Baixu especially wanted Shizun to taste the steamed buns Wowo and Nangnang made.

If he sent someone through the cultivation corridor now, Wen Tingshu could still eat them on New Year’s Eve.

***

After more than two years, the Hengxue Sect finally received a New Year gift from a certain former disciple who had dropped out.

Zhongli Yun did not dare delay and delivered it to Hengxue Mountain overnight.

“Sect Master, it’s time for New Year’s Eve dinner.”

He stood under the viburnum tree and called once. No one responded.

Zhongli Yun said, “It was sent by the Fuguang Sect.”

In the next second, Wen Tingshu appeared.

Zhongli Yun: “…”

“Here. Steamed buns sent by the Fuguang Sect.”

Wen Tingshu received twelve ugly steamed buns.

These must have been handmade by Lanshe.

The noble Sect Leader, whose fingers never touched spring water, had sent a light gift with deep affection.

Wen Tingshu was somewhat reluctant to eat them.

Since Meng Baixu had sent them on this day, it was clearly for his New Year’s Eve meal.

Wen Tingshu took a bite, and suddenly, his face stiffened.

He slowly spat out the steamed bun. In his palm, among the crumbs, was a cold, hard stone.

“…”

His heart, which had just warmed, turned cold again.

Zhongli Yun witnessed everything and quietly withdrew.

The demon actually teased a five-hundred-year-old elder like this. Those who heard it would feel heartbroken; those who listened would shed tears.

Guiye City.

Meng Baixu looked furiously at the steamed buns before him, all filled with stones, then looked at the two innocent-faced Wowo and Nangnang.

Wen Tingshu, this was learned from you.