AVRL 34

Meng Chi nearly sprayed out a mouthful of tea soup, choking so hard that he felt dizzy and disoriented. Any lingering romantic thoughts he might have had were completely gone.

Yu Tingzhi hadn’t expected such a strong reaction from him. He hurriedly set down the porcelain dish in his hands and gently patted Meng Chi’s back to help him catch his breath.

“Feeling any better?”

Meng Chi’s face was flushed red from choking. He glared at him irritably: “I say, Teacher Yu, could you please stop saying such shocking things?”

Yu Tingzhi furrowed his brows and fell silent. He only felt that Meng Chi, with tears at the corners of his eyes and a flushed face, looked extremely adorable, stirring a sudden impulse in him as well.

“What if I choke so hard I pass out? What then?” To cover his own embarrassment, Meng Chi could only keep scolding him.

Yu Tingzhi’s palm stroked his back as he said calmly, “Then I’d have no choice but to die for love.”

Meng Chi was stunned by those two words. If he didn’t still have tea in his mouth right now, he would definitely choke himself into a daze again and probably need emergency treatment to recover.

But when he looked up and saw Yu Tingzhi’s beautiful eyes gazing intently at him, his heartbeat accelerated uselessly, and his face grew hot. Fortunately, the flush from choking hadn’t faded yet, so his unusual reaction wasn’t too obvious.

“Please have mercy and stop cursing me,” Meng Chi said, trying to change the subject.

“Little Meng, hurry out here!”

The voice of the grandmaster called from the courtyard. Meng Chi immediately slipped out of Yu Tingzhi’s arms, gulped another mouthful of tea to calm his racing heart, and then answered as he ran outside.

Three people stood in the courtyard. Besides the grandmaster, there was a young shaved monk and a blond, blue-eyed young man who was babbling something.

“Hurry over and help. Listen to what he’s saying.” The grandmaster waved toward Meng Chi.

Meng Chi turned his gaze to the foreign friend with blond hair and blue eyes. His skin was fair, his features deep-set, and he looked quite handsome—only his brows were furrowed and his face showed anxiety.

“Grandmaster, I can’t understand either,” Meng Chi said with a dry laugh, speaking softly.

“Hmm? Didn’t you study English? How come you can’t understand?” The grandmaster looked puzzled.

Meng Chi felt helpless, thinking to himself, When did I ever study English? Then he remembered that when he was taking the advanced tea art qualification exam, he had indeed crammed at the last minute, and at that time the grandmaster had happened to visit You Ran Tea House.

Meng Chi sighed inwardly at how good the grandmaster’s memory was, and said, “I just never really learned it, otherwise I wouldn’t have failed to get the advanced certificate.”

English wasn’t actually a required subject for the advanced tea art qualification certificate. But Meng Chi had been unlucky—he’d happened to run into an examiner who required him to introduce things in English. With his half-baked English, of course he couldn’t bluff his way through. But the certificate didn’t really matter to him, so he hadn’t bothered spending more time on it.

From the grandmaster all the way down to Meng Chi, none of them had come from a formal tea studies background. The grandmaster had been a tea farmer all his life, with limited formal education, yet his understanding of tea art far surpassed those so-called orthodox tea experts. He was a true master who could rightfully be called a tea art grandmaster.

Yang Zhengfeng, who had inherited his true teachings, was naturally no weakling either. After entering the tea art profession, Yang Zhengfeng had seen plenty of “tea baskets” who held empty certificates. He actually looked down on these nutrition-less skill exams; he had Meng Chi take them only to temper him.

The grandmaster looked embarrassed. The young monk beside him frowned: “What should we do then? We can’t just drive him away.”

“Wait a second,” Meng Chi was just pulling out his phone to try downloading a translator when he heard the foreigner say something else. Meng Chi’s movements paused. “I somehow feel like what he’s speaking isn’t English.”

“He looks pretty American to me. If it’s not English, then what is it?” the young monk asked in confusion.

“He’s speaking French.”

The three people, completely at a loss, turned at the sound and saw Yu Tingzhi walking unhurriedly toward them.

“You understand?” the young monk asked.

Yu Tingzhi nodded.

“If you understand, that’s great. Hurry and listen to what he wants.” The grandmaster breathed a sigh of relief and handed the foreigner over to Yu Tingzhi.

The moment the foreigner heard Yu Tingzhi speak, the worry on his face instantly turned to delight, and he began babbling away.

“Grandmaster, what’s the deal with this guy?” After handing the person over to Yu Tingzhi, Meng Chi followed the grandmaster into the courtyard.

The grandmaster let out a sigh and lifted his chin toward the young monk: “He’s new. Somehow he mistook this foreign young man for you and just led him straight to me.”

At that, the grandmaster chuckled twice: “But if I could really take on a foreign grand-disciple, that wouldn’t be bad either. Let those foreigners know how amazing our Chinese tea is.”

Meng Chi: “Then wouldn’t you have to learn English?”

“Learn my ass,” the grandmaster straightened his back and said proudly, “If they really want to become disciples, they’ll have to learn Chinese properly first!”

Meng Chi laughed softly and glanced back in the direction of Yu Tingzhi.

French pronunciation was soft, without sharp rises and falls in tone, carrying instead a clear, flowing quality like a stream. Meng Chi hadn’t heard much of it, but he felt that when Yu Tingzhi spoke French, his tone was even gentler, softening the sharp edges of his presence and making him seem even more tender.

Although Meng Chi couldn’t understand, that didn’t stop him from sighing inwardly: Yu Tingzhi was simply too outstanding. It was hard not to keep one’s eyes on him.

Yu Tingzhi said something or other, and the foreigner grew more and more animated, smile lines appearing at the corners of his eyes. Meng Chi felt like taking back his earlier judgment—this guy’s looks were only average after all.

After a while longer, the two finally finished talking. Yu Tingzhi said something to the young monk, who then led the foreigner out of the small courtyard. At the gate, the blond, blue-eyed foreign young man still waved brightly at Yu Tingzhi and, in a strange accent, said two Chinese words: one “thank you,” and one “goodbye.”

“This friend of yours is pretty good,” the grandmaster said, looking at Yu Tingzhi and speaking to Meng Chi. “You can tell at a glance he’s not a kid raised by ordinary people. Did you meet him selling tea?”

“No,” Meng Chi shook his head, then said softly, “I met him by accident.”

Thinking of the first time he met Yu Tingzhi, because of that noble, arrogant air about him, Meng Chi had felt dislike and once treated him as a love rival.

At this moment, looking again at that proud, superior aura on Yu Tingzhi, it only felt more and more pleasing to the eye—he simply admired it.

Hearing this, the grandmaster glanced sideways at Meng Chi. He didn’t ask what kind of accident it was, only smiled mysteriously and left behind the words “Fate is truly wonderful and ineffable,” before turning and going inside.

Meng Chi: “…”

Ever since the grandmaster had come to the temple for quiet cultivation, he would occasionally spout a few deliberately profound remarks. Meng Chi had grown used to it, yet the word “fate” still stirred waves in his heart.

A chance encounter by coincidence, an inexplicable physical relationship—it seemed there was no other explanation besides fate.

Having finished the translation work, Yu Tingzhi turned and walked straight toward Meng Chi, who was sitting on the rattan chair under the corridor.

The mountain weather was changeable; a storm was brewing, and the sky had grown dark and overcast. Yet Yu Tingzhi’s heavenly face remained dazzling.

Meng Chi tilted his head slightly upward, narrowing his smiling eyes a little as he looked at him and sighed: “Teacher Yu, how is it that you can do everything? Is there anything you can’t do?”

“There is,” Yu Tingzhi stopped in front of him and answered calmly. “I can’t tie a cherry stem into a knot.”

“…”

Meng Chi glanced at him speechlessly and said with a helpless smile, “You really are…”

He didn’t finish what he really was. Yu Tingzhi asked, “Really am what?”

Meng Chi looked at him for two seconds and said, “Really good at pretending! Clearly a stinking rogue, yet acting all refined and pure like the clear wind and bright moon.”

At those words, Yu Tingzhi’s brows lifted slightly. His gaze, softened by a smile, fell on Meng Chi’s face as he suddenly asked, “You don’t like it?”

The blunt question made Meng Chi freeze for a moment. The pupils looking at Yu Tingzhi dilated ever so slightly for an instant, but then he quickly blinked and suppressed the ripple, saying casually, “It’s okay. Not that annoying.”

Yu Tingzhi stared at him for a few seconds, smiled lightly, and said nothing more. After all, previous experience had taught him that coaxing a little wild cat required not rushing things.

“So what did that foreign friend come for, anyway?” Meng Chi took the initiative to change the subject.

“He came looking for the bathroom,” Yu Tingzhi said.

At that, Meng Chi’s brows shot up high, speechless at such a baffling coincidence.

The grandmaster hadn’t been joking when he said he wanted Yu Tingzhi to guide him in calligraphy. On the other side of the tea room he had set up a rosewood desk, complete with brush, ink, paper, and inkstone. In high spirits he dragged Yu Tingzhi over to practice writing, while Meng Chi was sent off to tidy the tea table.

By the time he finished tidying the tea table, the grandmaster had already finished writing a large piece and was admiring it with a look of intoxication.

“Little Meng, hurry and look—how are these characters of mine?”

Meng Chi walked over and looked at those big blobs on the white paper—oh no, a few thick Chinese characters—and, against his conscience, called out “Good!”

The grandmaster wasn’t so easily fooled. He glared at him: “Hypocrite!”

Meng Chi rubbed his nose and said softly, “It would be even better if they were a bit more slender.”

The grandmaster furrowed his brows, put on his reading glasses, examined them carefully for a moment, then changed to a new sheet of paper and continued.

===Chapter 31===

Yu Tingzhi watched from the side, occasionally speaking up to correct his brush-holding posture, as well as the method of using the tip of the brush and applying force.

This time, the grandmaster wrote much better than before. Looking at the characters that had become more slender, he sighed to Yu Tingzhi: “I was saying I wanted to take you as a disciple, but now it seems I should become your disciple instead!”

“Better not,” Meng Chi twitched the corner of his mouth and joked, “If you become his disciple, wouldn’t that make me his great-grand-disciple?”

The grandmaster shot Meng Chi a sideways glance: “You think too much. We don’t even know if he’d be willing to take you.”

Yu Tingzhi laughed: “No need for that. This is just simple exchange.”

The more the grandmaster looked at Yu Tingzhi, the more he liked him. He barely paid attention to Meng Chi anymore, asking about Yu Tingzhi’s situation in every other sentence. When he learned he was a university teacher, he admired him even more.

The older generation who had come through the 1970s almost all held a special yearning for university students, and for teachers who could teach university students, the filter was even thicker. While praising Yu Tingzhi, the grandmaster didn’t forget to remind Meng Chi to learn more from Teacher Yu, to make up for the regret of never having gone to university.

Meng Chi smiled faintly and nodded repeatedly, looking half perfunctory and half helpless.

While the grandmaster concentrated on holding the brush and writing, Meng Chi ground ink with one hand and leaned close to Yu Tingzhi’s ear, lowering his voice: “Teacher Yu, you’d better stop showing off your divine powers.”

Yu Tingzhi turned his eyes at the words and heard him continue: “My grandmaster is almost treating you like his own grandson. And do you know that ‘other people’s children’ can sometimes be really annoying?”

Yu Tingzhi still knew the meme about “other people’s children.” He smiled lightly and said softly, “I shouldn’t count as ‘other people’s child.’”

Meng Chi raised a brow: “How not?”

Yu Tingzhi thought for a moment and said: “‘Other people’s children’ shouldn’t have tattoos.”

Tattoo.

Almost instantly, Meng Chi recalled the scene when he had clearly seen that tattoo. A black thorn vine about two fingers wide became vivid in his mind, winding and taking root on Yu Tingzhi’s fair, jade-like skin—wild and erotic at once.

If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, Meng Chi would never have imagined that Yu Tingzhi had a tattoo so completely at odds with his temperament.

Meng Chi restrained his thoughts, trying not to complete that sensual scene in his mind.

“What secret are you two whispering about?” the grandmaster asked while waving his brush, eyeing them sideways as if afraid they were speaking ill of him.

“Nothing,” Meng Chi immediately put distance between himself and Yu Tingzhi. Noticing the wind outside growing stronger and a few raindrops appearing on the glass, he said, “It’s going to rain. Teacher Yu should head down the mountain.”

The grandmaster turned to look at the sky outside and asked Yu Tingzhi: “Do you have something to do down the mountain?”

Yu Tingzhi shook his head: “Nothing particular.”

“Since you have nothing, then don’t leave. With wind and rain, going down the mountain isn’t safe either,” the grandmaster said. “Perfect—tomorrow I’m going to make some handmade tea. You and Little Meng can both stay and help.”

This “help” didn’t actually mean doing work; it meant for him to stay so that after the tea was made, he could take some back.

Meng Chi had already planned to stay a few more days at the temple, but the grandmaster wanting to keep Yu Tingzhi was beyond his expectations. For the grandmaster to speak up and invite him to stay, and even offer handmade tea he made himself, showed just how much he liked Yu Tingzhi.

“By the way, you two can just share the side room next door,” the grandmaster added while Meng Chi was still in a daze.

Yu Tingzhi glanced at Meng Chi, who was still stunned, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly as he nodded and answered “Alright.”

Meng Chi: “…? That doesn’t seem right.”