Following Master Liaoran’s gesture, Marcus sat on a hay mat pced by Wuzui. Something else about this temple was also different, he just could not tell yet. Maybe it was because the many dles pced around him, maybe it was because he never really visited the temple at this time in this manner.
Wuzui went into the inner sanctum then brought out a pin looking cy pot: “Here’s some tea, Detective Cai. ”
Marcus hesitated for a brief moment before accepting a cup. Master Liaoran sat in front of him, across the bamboo skin carpet. Wuzui handed a small cup of tea to Master Liaoran, who then signaled him to sit down alongside them.
“You’ve e with a lot of questions, Detective.” Master Liaoran accepted his cup of tea, took a sip then looked Marcus in the eyes: “But before that, let me lend you a hand - there’s a trag spell pced upon you. I am not certain who pced it on you, but I could remove it for you if you’d like.”
“A trag spell - Oh!” Marcus did not really get what the master was referring to at first. But after a short moment and another sip of tea it came to him - the master was referring to whatever spell Luo Zhuge pced on him. “Uh - this was still useful to me, master. But thank you!”
“Useful?” Master Liaoran slightly narrowed his eyes: “What for? Do you know the person?”
“It’s - it’s a bit of a long story.” Marcus finished his cup of tea before proceeding to summarize everything he went through to the master. The tea was fragrant, rexing and energizing, and it definitely helped.
“That’s quite a lot of things in a short span of time. ” Master Liaoran scratched his jaw, as Wuzui refilled Marcus’ tea cup: “And I just noticed this - your Qi is much more bahan before. And - I’m sorry if this seems overly blunt and iive, but I don’t think you would be capable of achieving this level of harmony in this short amount of time. So this led me to only one clusion: you had sex - and with someone who wielded patible Qi to yours.”
Both Marcus and Wuzui almost spat at the same time. Wuzui hovered his left hand over mouth to cover up his ughs.
“It’s nothing to be embarrassed about, really.” The master smiled and shook his head: “Thirst, hunger and sexual desires are all but natural to all humans. Do you think the great masters of old all remained virgins until their deaths? Some of them did, but not all of them. In fact - ”
“Master - I - ” Marcus tried to interject.
“In fact - ” Master Liaoran raised his hand to show his insisten finishing his sentence: “In fact, a lot of powerful masters were couples, or had partners of patible Qi. And with a correct way of doing things, you will be able to speed up the cultivation of each other’s Qi by magnitudes.”
“Master - ” Marcus could almost find a hole to crawl into, and he just he master to stop, or even to pause for a moment.
“Wuzui, fetch me the Scripture of Yin Yang and Harmony.” Master Liaoran Wuzui: “It’s not some invaluable manual or secret spellbook. It’s just old text with old but time-tested wisdom and philosophies. I am afraid that’s all I help you with, because this is - is a strange area to me as well, and I know only some basid have no experie all. There might be some who could help during the old days, but I ot guarao you that you find them.”
“Well - that’s - that’s very helpful. ” Marcus took a deep breath and pushed his feeling of embarrassment down his stomach. If it could help him, then it would take priority over how he felt about the topic. “My gratitude, Master. But that’s not what I’m here for - ”
“I know. You’re here because you are very close to certain truths of this city.” Master Liaoran Marcus again, and put his cup down: “You may do well to remember this - once you have known or entered enough of the truths, they would have a certain look, and a certain smell. It’s the air around them, their aura, their fire. You are very close, so soon, you will be able to see what we see, hear what we hear, and smell what we smell.”
“I see - ”
“And I want to start with this.” Master Liaoran picked up the teapot and refilled Marcus’ cup: “I don’t know how much you’ve learned about this over the city infrastructure project decades ago. And I don’t know what you’ve learned about my role in it, but if you’d hear it from me, I tell you this, without any burden on you, or asking you to just blindly trust me, that I, WAS, involved in it. But not in the way that you probably thought.”
Marcus let out a breath of relief. This was one of his biggest s regarding ing here. Wuzui appeared to be very calm about this revetion - he knew already.
“The man who worked with the city and tried his best to push for the wide adoption of this eology, as well as the one who actually ied it, he was my mentor at one point.” Master Liaoran proceeded to share another bomb.
