The Gluttonous Little Disciple

"Senior Sister! Where's my bamboo?" Luo Yunji asked blearily.

"Cut it yourself!" Just thinking about it made Tian Linger angry. In the past, the bamboo she had cut had all been taken by her little junior brother to make up his quota. Even though her parents knew she was the one who had cut it, her little junior brother still refused to change, leaving her utterly speechless.

"Oh!" Then Luo Yunji slid down from the boulder, picked up the firewood knife from the ground, and slowly walked ahead.

After waiting a while, Tian Linger still did not see Luo Yunji choose a bamboo stalk to cut. Instead, he was walking farther and farther away. "Little Junior Brother! Where are you going?"

"Back. Isn't it almost noon? Aren't you hungry?" Luo Yunji turned his head in confusion and looked at Tian Linger.

"You!!! You haven't finished your lesson yet!"

"It's fine! Where's your bamboo?"

"That's mine!" Tian Linger was so angry she stamped her feet.

"I know. Eat first!" Luo Yunji still replied in that soft, limp voice.

"You're driving me mad! There's just no getting through to you." Tian Linger stomped hard several more times. This was far from the first time, and in the end, she could only let him do as he pleased and follow after him.

In the blink of an eye, several more months passed. Eldest Senior Brother Song Daren had been down the mountain for quite some time.

So these days, the task of waking Luo Yunji was handed over to Fourth Senior Brother.

As usual, Luo Yunji sat down at the dining table in a daze. After waiting a while, he did not hear his master's customary pre-meal lecture. He forced his eyes open and saw that everyone had already started eating. Just as he was spacing out, Eldest Senior Brother walked in from outside and sat down in his place.

"Eldest Senior Brother! You're back?" Luo Yunji shouted, somewhat happily.

"Little Junior Brother! You only just noticed? Wasn't it Eldest Senior Brother who woke you up this morning?" Seeing Luo Yunji's muddleheadedness acting up again, Sixth Senior Brother said with a laugh.

"I thought it was Fourth Senior Brother!" Luo Yunji gave Eldest Senior Brother an embarrassed, silly grin.

"Hurry up and eat. Once you're done, come with me to Heaven-Reaching Peak," Tian Buyi urged.

"Daren! Are there really only two children and one madman left?" Mistress put down her bowl and chopsticks, looked at Song Daren, and asked.

"Mm! Mistress, I and several fellow disciples searched very carefully. Only those three were left." Song Daren had just picked up his bowl and was about to eat when he heard Mistress's question, so he put down his bowl and chopsticks and replied.

"How pitiful." As she spoke, she looked toward her youngest disciple. Luo Yunji had also been separated from his parents since childhood; no one knew whether he had been abandoned or had simply gotten lost. In any case, as far as she was concerned, this little disciple's life had also been full of hardship.

Luo Yunji, who had no idea what was going on, paid no attention at all to Su Ru's gaze. He just kept eating, stuffing his mouth until his cheeks bulged. With every chew, his puffed-up cheeks wobbled once. The sight was so funny and adorable that everyone, whose pity for him had just been stirred by Su Ru, could not help laughing out loud.

"If you're going to worry about him, you might as well worry more about Big Yellow. Even Big Yellow has more sense than he does." Tian Buyi had also been moved to sympathy over his little disciple's origins, but when he saw the boy's appearance, he did not know whether to laugh or cry as he scolded him.

"What kind of master talks about his own disciple like that!" Seeing her husband's teasing manner, Su Ru complained with some displeasure.

"All right! Hurry up and eat!" Tian Buyi changed the subject, a little embarrassed.

At the whole table, only Luo Yunji had no idea what had just happened. He still had both cheeks stuffed full, like a little hamster, chewing while staring at everyone with a pair of large, dazed eyes, drawing another round of muffled laughter from the group.

Flight by magic was forbidden on Heaven-Reaching Peak, so they stopped before two massive wooden doors that towered a hundred feet high. They had heard that Senior Sister Shuiyue was ill. Su Ru had originally wanted to take her daughter and Yunji straight to Small Bamboo Peak, but after hearing from her eldest disciple about the tragedy in Grass Temple Village at the foot of Azure Cloud Mountain, she decided to accompany her husband here first before going to Small Bamboo Peak.

The Jade Purity Hall on Heaven-Reaching Peak could not be entered without a summons. So if there was no major matter on ordinary days, no one wanted to go into Jade Purity Hall. After they got off the Rainbow Bridge, Luo Yunji was stunned by the enormous creature in a water pool.

"That is the Water Kirin!" Seeing his little junior brother's expression, Song Daren explained.

"So big!" This was Luo Yunji's most direct thought.

"Yeah! It could swallow you in one bite!" Tian Linger had seen Spirit Venerable before. It was rare to see her little junior brother make such a fool of himself, his mouth hanging open in surprise, so she laughed and teased him.

"Mistress, I want to play here!" Luo Yunji said, his eyes fixed without blinking on the Water Kirin dozing by the edge of the pool.

"No. I won't feel at ease leaving you here alone." Su Ru immediately objected, then reached out, took Luo Yunji's hand, and led him toward the steps by the pool.

"Mistress! I want to stay here!" Luo Yunji was completely captivated by the divine beast before him. He pressed his lips together and looked at Mistress.

"If he wants to stay, let him stay. In front of Jade Purity Hall, could he really get hurt? Don't worry." Tian Buyi saw the pleading look in his little disciple's eyes and spoke to his wife beside him.

"You're the fiercest when you scold him on ordinary days, and you're also the one who spoils him the most!" Su Ru rolled her eyes at her husband in exasperation, then gave her little disciple a few instructions and let him be.

Luo Yunji curiously studied the enormous head before him. It was covered in scales and armor, with huge eyes and a great mouth. Two sharp tusks gleamed in the sunlight, and its face looked somewhat ferocious. Seeing that it seemed to be sleeping quite deeply, Luo Yunji mustered his courage and slowly stretched out his slightly chubby little paw.

He touched its nose. It was a little soft, damp too, and warm.

Luo Yunji shifted his gaze and saw two fleshy whiskers several meters long near the nose, twitching from time to time, so he reached out and touched them. The scales on its cheeks shone with a halo, so he reached out and touched those too. He touched here, then touched there, not knowing that Spirit Venerable had already opened its eyes and was staring without discernible emotion at the tiny little thing before its nose. It gently blew out a breath. Luo Yunji, whose body was somewhat short and plump, tumbled backward several times, then finally landed on his backside on the ground, his face blank with bewilderment.

Luo Yunji looked left, then right, and saw nothing unusual. So he climbed up and once again stretched his paw toward Spirit Venerable. He was no longer satisfied with its nose and sharp teeth. At this moment, as if he had eaten a bear's heart and a leopard's gall, he climbed right up the nose and onto Spirit Venerable's face, making his way toward the top of its head. He wanted to touch those two fleshy horns.

The kirin was an auspicious beast, and in order not to injure the innocent, its hard dragon horns were wrapped in flesh. Sensing the little fellow stepping on its eyelid as he climbed upward, the Water Kirin slowly half-opened its other eye and studied with some curiosity this one and only outrageously bold little cub in thousands upon thousands of years who dared to climb all over its face and body.

The farther up he climbed, the more a faint fragrance drifted into Luo Yunji's nose. He sniffed hard a few times and discovered that the source of the fragrance was actually his current target, that pair of enormous dragon horns. Drooling, Luo Yunji climbed onto Spirit Venerable's head, then hugged one of the huge dragon horns and sniffed hard several times. The fragrance grew even richer.

If the Water Kirin could have seen the expression of the little cub standing on its head at that moment, it would definitely have become wary, and it would have regretted letting this outrageously bold little cub climb onto the top of its head.

"Wah-oo!" Unable to withstand the temptation of the fragrance, Luo Yunji followed the appetite in his heart and bit down on the fleshy horn before him.