Chapter 355

“Stack up an old monk, flick his forehead; stack up a young monk, flick his forehead too; finally, stack up the Fanyin Temple and eat my Pegasus Meteor Fist!”

(T/N: this is from the Japanese anime Saint Seiya)

He Zhizhou was bundled up thickly, wrapped into a fluffy white ball as he squatted in the snow, building snowmen with a vicious grin and muttering ominously under his breath.

Lin Xun watched the two misshapen oval snowballs in front of him and cautiously consoled, “Senior Brother He, don’t be upset. Though those days were tough, they did temper our character. There’s always a silver lining in every loss.”

He Zhizhou pouted and huffed coldly.

After participating in the Dharma Assembly, he had lost the joy of being a happy-go-lucky salted fish, only to exchange it for pure, unadulterated suffering.

So much for a “silver lining.”

Nearby, Ning Ning was enthusiastically building a snowman.

Hearing this, she looked up with a sly grin and said to Pei Ji, “Good thing we didn’t join those supplementary classes, or we’d have been just as miserable.”

It was the second day after the Dharma Assembly had concluded.

Their group had returned to Xuanxu sect yesterday, and after a full day of rest and recuperation, Ning Ning had recovered most of her energy.

However, the others were still far from their peak condition.

The plan to tamper with the class roster had failed spectacularly.

He Zhizhou and Lin Xun had been duped by a clickbait title, shivering in the freezing wind and chanting scriptures for days, only to realize they hadn’t conquered any temptations in the end.

Zheng Weiqi, on the other hand, had been forced to study Buddhist classics.

For a long while after, every time she spoke, she involuntarily spouted at least three Buddhist or Daoist philosophies.

They were all pitiful souls, truly tragic beyond measure.

Ning Ning silently sympathized with them before turning her attention back to her snowman.

She poked Pei Ji’s shoulder and asked, “Aren’t your hands freezing?”

The snow was particularly heavy today.

It just so happened that Zheng Weiqi and the others needed a way to vent their frustrations, so they all decided to head up Wangyue Peak to build snowmen.

Ning Ning was very excited about this activity.

However, being a southerner who had barely seen snow, she had no experience with snowball fights or building snowmen.

She tried mimicking what she’d seen on TV, gathering snow into a ball, but each time it fell apart as soon as she picked it up, crumbling into powdery fragments.

Eventually, the responsibility of making the snowman fell entirely on Pei Ji.

Pei Ji’s hands were large and slender, unexpectedly nimble.

His jade-like fingers shaped the snow into various forms, and when he applied just the right amount of pressure, his knuckles turned a faint, beautiful white.

Ning Ning watched, full of amazement.

She heard him respond in a low voice, “They’re not cold.”

After all, she had been transferring her spiritual energy into him to keep him warm.

Ning Ning smiled softly, taking a step closer to him without making it too obvious.

“Where did you learn to make snowmen? Your technique doesn’t look like a first-timer’s.”

She had assumed that Pei Ji, given his usual temperament, would stay far away from such a childish pastime.

Pei Ji hummed in thought.

“When I was young, I used to make them for fun—how about shaping the head like this?”

The little girl beside him eagerly reached out and molded the snowball he was holding.

Naturally, the topic of “building snowmen” was promptly forgotten.

“Snowmen, huh.”

Carrying a sword as always, Pei Ji could hear Cheng Ying’s voice.

The deep, uncle-like tone stopped halfway through its sentence before letting out a nostalgic sigh: “Little Pei Ji back then was so adorable. Unlike now, when you’re only adorable around Ning Ning. It breaks my heart, really.”

Snow was hardly a joyful thing for Pei Ji.

When he lived with his mother, even in the coldest depths of winter, he never had warm clothes.

He often curled up in a corner to preserve what little warmth he had.

Sometimes, when his mother lost her temper, she would drag him out of their underground room and leave him in the icy snow at night.

Snowflakes would drift down, forming a thick, quilt-like layer on the ground.

But when he fell into it, all he felt was bone-deep cold.

At night, the heavy snow and the dusk seemed to press down together.

The darkness he feared surrounded him from all sides.

When the cold numbed his senses and blurred his thoughts, only Cheng Ying would talk to him to keep him company.

That was when he started building snowmen.

The other children wouldn’t play with him, so Pei Ji watched from afar, picking up some techniques.

Back then, his hands were swollen and covered with chilblains.

Every time he touched the snow, it stung with cold.

But he had long grown accustomed to pain.

Watching the white snow gradually form a head and facial features always brought an indescribable feeling to his heart.

The snowman would stand quietly in place, as if it were a companion that couldn’t speak or move.

In such a vast and boundless world, it was the only thing willing to stay with him.

“…Pei Ji?”

A clear, youthful voice pulled him back to reality.

Pei Ji looked down in the direction of the sound and met Ning Ning’s bright, smiling eyes.

Her emotions were always so transparent.

When she was happy, she would unconsciously grin, her dark pupils glimmering with laughter as she stretched out her hand, revealing a few beans and sticks in her snowy palm.

“These can be the eyes and arms. What do you think?”

The shadows of the past dissipated in that instant.

Pei Ji gave a quiet smile and stepped back, gesturing for her to step forward.

“You do it.”

It was her first time building a snowman with Pei Ji, and Ning Ning took the task very seriously.

After carefully placing the beans and sticks, she even pulled a tiny cloak out of her storage pouch and draped it over the snowman.

Just as she finished, a familiar voice cried out behind her, “Wow—Ning Ning and Pei Ji’s snowman is a masterpiece!”

Tian Xianzi and Meng Jue had joined the fun at some point, their white robes dusted with snow like walking snowballs.

The former commented enthusiastically, “Weiqi’s piglet snowman isn’t bad either—round eyes, round nose, round ears. Quite cute.”

“Master,” Senior Sister Zheng said with a ghostly expression, “that’s you.”

Tian Xianzi’s smile froze.

Meng Jue tried to mediate, “Actually, this master is quite good-looking. Just a bit… ugly.”

…What a fu*king mediation this is?!

Tian Xianzi swallowed his grievances and decided to keep his mouth shut when he reached He Zhizhou and Lin Xun.

Instead, he gave his disciple the chance to speak first: “Meng Jue, what do you think of this… doll?”

The snowman before them was a disfigured, lopsided mess with smeared red paint on its mouth.

It looked like it had wandered off the set of a horror movie.

Meng Jue nodded solemnly.

“A grotesque beauty with a hint of perverse allure. Hidden within its sleaziness is an unspeakable elegance. It’s rare to see such dynamic artistry. You can almost imagine it laughing maniacally and crawling on the ground.”

“Wait a moment.”

Something felt off.

Tian Xianzi glared at him.

“Are you saying… this thing represents me?”

Lin Xun blushed and lowered his head in apology.

Tian Xianzi glared angrily at his good disciple Meng Jue.

He felt that this person did it on purpose!

Evil disciples, this bunch of evil disciples!!!!