#242 - Old Zhang
A cold wind blew in through the broken window, dispersing the boozy smell in the room.
A'Gou sniffed lightly, his eyes quietly looking at the wine pot, seemingly curious.
Wei Changtian, on the other hand, was dumbfounded.
"What the hell? Be your disciple?!"
"That's right."
The old man nodded calmly, then suddenly seemed to remember something, and quietly confirmed, "You haven't had a master before, have you?"
"No."
"Then that settles it."
Settle my ass!
Who wants to be your disciple!
Wei Changtian cursed wildly in his heart, just about to refuse sternly, but suddenly remembered many clichéd plots from web novels in his previous life.
"Ahem, old man, you want to take me as a disciple, it's not impossible."
"But you have to tell me why first, right?"
"Well, that's natural."
The old man put down the chicken leg in his hand, and replied with some pride, "I've set up a chess stall in Jizhou City for more than ten years, and played chess with tens of thousands of people, but no one has ever beaten me."
"Only you saw the winning method of this Gomoku game, so I had the idea of taking you as a disciple."
"Do you understand now?"
" ."
Good heavens, although this reason sounds familiar, those masters all set up Go puzzles, but you're setting up a Gomoku...
Wei Changtian was speechless for a while, and after a long pause, he asked:
"I understand... but since you want to be my master, you should have some skills, right?"
"Heh heh."
The old man smiled disdainfully, and asked meaningfully, "Disciple, how many years do you think your master has lived?"
"Eighty? Ninety?" Wei Changtian was at a loss.
"Wrong, I have lived for more than one hundred and thirty years!"
The old man stroked the few remaining white whiskers triumphantly, wanting to pick up the pot to drink, but when he lowered his head, he realized that the wine pot had been stolen by A'Gou at some point, who was now hugging it and secretly sipping.
"A'Gou! Little kid, you're not allowed to drink!"
He immediately showed a look of distress, and quickly reached out to grab the wine pot.
Watching this scene, Wei Changtian was extremely speechless.
Lived for one hundred and thirty years, and then what?
Living long also counts as skill?
Then wouldn't it be better for me to find a thousand-year-old turtle as my master?
"Disciple, I don't have so many requirements..."
On the other side, the old man had already snatched back the wine pot, took a sip with satisfaction, and continued, "Now you kowtow to me three times, and we..."
"Stop right there!"
Before the old man could finish speaking, Wei Changtian interrupted directly, "Just tell me what your realm is."
"This, this..."
Like a deflated ball, the old man immediately wilted after hearing this question, and after a long while, he stammered and reluctantly tried to save face:
"Being able to live for more than one hundred and thirty years, what that represents, I don't need to say more, right."
"Heh heh, who knows if what you're saying is true or false."
"I could also say that I've lived for three hundred years, would you believe it?"
Wei Changtian's tone was full of sarcasm, and he had completely classified the old man as a "big swindler".
He probably saw that I was wearing expensive clothes yesterday, so he wanted to swindle some money or something from me.
As expected, the protagonist meets a big shot, and I can only meet a scammer.
"Alright, a con artist, pretending to be a reclusive master."
"Today, I'm not going to argue with you for the sake of this little girl, but in the future, remember to be careful when you scam people."
"If you scam the wrong person, you'll have to pay with your life."
After uttering the last cold sentence, Wei Changtian got up and prepared to leave.
But the old man panicked after hearing this.
"What are you saying! I'm not a con artist!"
"I'm right! The second-rank expert hiding outside the house was brought by you, right!"
"And the scabbard on your waist is definitely not ordinary!"
"Clack!"
In an instant, Wei Changtian suddenly stopped, his face instantly turning gloomy.
"How did you know these things?"
An incense stick later.
"Master! Are you drinking well?"
"Should I send someone to buy some more good wine, so that we, master and disciple, can have a good drink?"
"Little junior sister, stop gnawing on the chicken bones, we'll find a good restaurant later, and senior brother will treat you to something even better!"
"Master, haven't you relaxed in a long time? Tonight, I'll take you to the best brothel in Jizhou City for a stroll?"
" ."
Sitting cross-legged on the earthen kang, Wei Changtian had a bright smile on his face, calling "Master" very affectionately.
The old man, on the other hand, had regained his "expert demeanor", picking his teeth with his little fingernail while waving his hand indifferently:
"We'll talk about these things later, you kowtow for the apprenticeship first."
"Uh..."
Wei Changtian's expression stiffened, and he leaned close to the old man's ear and said with a flattering smile:
"Master, how about we skip the kowtow?"
"When we go to the brothel tonight, I'll find you two, no, three girls, how about that?"
"Ahem! What kind of person do you take me for?!"
The old man glared: "Only this once, never again!"
"Yes, yes, yes, disciple will respectfully follow Master's teachings."
Wei Changtian nodded repeatedly, and asked with a flattering face:
"Master, you just said that you once touched the threshold of the first rank... what exactly happened later that caused your realm to fall to the current ninth rank?"
"Breaking through the first rank is different from breaking through other realms."
The old man yawned and replied: "If you can't go up, you'll fall to the bottom."
"I see..."
Wei Changtian's eyes turned, and he asked quietly again: "Disciple is also curious about one thing."
"Speak."
"I wonder if Master knows what the difference is between the first rank and other ranks?"
"Riding the righteousness of heaven and earth, controlling the changes of the six qi, can change one's own fate, a half-immortal."
The old man replied casually.
" ."
It matches!
Wei Changtian opened his mouth slightly, but not because of this answer, but because this old man actually knew.
So, this inexplicably acquired cheap master is very likely to have really been a peerless expert who almost broke through to the first rank!
"Hehe, Master, what's your name?"
"Hiccup ~"
The old man hiccuped: "Forgot."
"? ? ?"
"But the neighbors all call me Old Zhang, you can call me that too."
"Oh, Old Zhang, my name is Wei Changtian."
"Mm."
"Aren't you surprised?"
"What's there to be surprised about?"
"I'm the only son of the Wei family!"
"Oh."
"I've killed the current prime minister!"
"Oh."
"...Old Zhang, now that I've become your disciple, and you used to be a second-rank expert, don't you have any gifts for me?"
"No, those broken things were sold by me long ago to buy wine."
"Can you look again?"
"I said there aren't any... Hmm?"
Old Zhang suddenly turned around and rummaged in a broken wooden box at the head of the kang for a long time, and finally threw over a jade pendant.
The jade pendant was like jade but not jade, like stone but not stone, and it was unknown what material it was made of.
It was probably because of this that the pawnshop didn't accept it, which allowed it to escape the fate of being pawned.
Wei Changtian curiously touched the ghost-faced dragon carved on the jade surface, and then turned the jade pendant over.
There was no pattern carved on the back, only two small characters were engraved.
Kui Long.
