Shen Mo felt a chill run down his spine under her gaze.
He wanted to stand up, but his legs were as soft as noodles.
He wanted to push her away and raised his hand, but he didn’t even have the strength to grasp her wrist.
He could only lean into her embrace, tilting his face up as she looked at him that way.
There was something in that gaze.
He couldn’t put it into words.
He only felt that those usually icy eyes were now terrifyingly hot.
“Peak Master.”
A voice suddenly came from the doorway.
The voice was filled with shock, disbelief, and —
Shen Mo turned his head and saw a young girl in green cloth clothes standing at the door.
The girl held a tray with a teacup on it. She stood outside the threshold, her eyes wide and her mouth slightly agape, the expression on her face as if she had seen a ghost.
Chunlan.
A maid of Heavenly Sword Peak, she was on duty tonight to attend to the Peak Master’s daily needs.
She had come to deliver tea.
But what had she seen?
She saw the Peak Master crouching in a cage, holding a man drenched in sweat in her arms.
The man leaned against the Peak Master, his collar loose, his face flushed, and his breath ragged.
Meanwhile, the Peak Master was looking down at him with a gaze —
A gaze she had never seen before.
She had served at Heavenly Sword Peak for 5 years.
In those 5 years, she had seen countless people come to beg the Peak Master, both men and women, old and young.
Not a single one of the men who saw the Peak Master could help but steal a few extra glances — the Peak Master was too beautiful, like someone from a painting.
But the Peak Master never gave any of them a second look.
Once, a reckless male cultivator tried to curry favor in front of everyone, and the Peak Master only said two words.
“Get lost.”
That male cultivator’s legs went weak from fear.
From then on, everyone at Heavenly Sword Peak knew that the Peak Master kept her distance from men and was solely focused on her cultivation.
Those who wanted to climb the social ladder by pursuing her gave up on that idea.
But now —
Chunlan looked at the two people in the cage, and the tray in her hands nearly fell to the floor.
The Peak Master’s gaze.
The way the Peak Master looked at that man.
That wasn’t the gaze one gave to a stranger.
It was…
She couldn’t say what it was.
But she was a 17-year-old girl, not someone who knew nothing of the world.
The married women in her village occasionally had that kind of look when they looked at their own husbands. It was just that the gaze of those women wasn’t this hot, wasn’t this —
Chunlan didn’t dare think further.
“Put it down,” Qin Shuying’s voice rang out.
The voice was the same as usual, cold and without emotion.
But Chunlan could hear something suppressed beneath that voice.
Not daring to look up, she walked in quickly, placed the tray on the stone table beside the cage, and hurried back out.
Reaching the door, she couldn’t help but steal another glance.
The Peak Master was still crouching there, still holding that man.
The man was saying something in a very low voice that couldn’t be heard clearly. As the Peak Master listened, her gaze remained fixed on his face, never turning away.
Then, the Peak Master lowered her head and leaned in closer.
To do what?
Chunlan couldn’t see clearly.
She didn’t dare look anymore and turned to run.
She ran out of the courtyard, past the corridors, and to a deserted corner before she finally stopped, clutching her chest and panting heavily.
Her heart was still pounding.
Pounding violently.
She remembered the scene from just now and the Peak Master’s gaze, her face flushing crimson.
‘The Peak Master… didn’t she hate men the most?’
‘Didn’t she say, “What use does a cultivator have for those things”?’
‘But that gaze just now…’
Chunlan crouched down and buried her face in her knees.
She didn’t dare think about it.
But she couldn’t help herself.
……
Inside the cage, Shen Mo finally gathered enough strength to struggle out of Qin Shuying’s arms.
He used the cage wall for support as he stood up, his legs still trembling.
Qin Shuying also stood up.
She stood before him, looking down at him from a superior height.
Those eyes had returned to their original state, cold and bottomless.
But Shen Mo knew that the look from a moment ago had not been a hallucination.
“Your Spirit Crane,” he began, his voice incredibly raspy, “is alive again.”
Qin Shuying did not speak.
She just looked at him.
Her gaze slowly slid down from his face to his neck, then to his chest, before slowly returning.
It stopped on his lips.
One breath.
Two breaths.
Shen Mo felt his spine go numb under her gaze. That look was too hot, making him feel uncomfortable all over.
He wanted to step back, but the cage wall was right behind him, leaving him nowhere to retreat.
“Peak Master Qin…”
He spoke, his voice hoarse.
Qin Shuying did not respond.
She simply took a step forward.
The cage wasn’t large to begin with, and with this step, there was only half an arm’s length of distance between them. Shen Mo could smell the cold scent on her body, like a pine forest after a snowfall, or the frost of deep winter.
His hand pressed against her shoulder, wanting to push her away.
But his hand was so weak that it landed on her shoulder as light as a snowflake.
“Don’t move,” she said.
Her voice wasn’t loud, but it sounded like a command, causing him to freeze in place.
Her finger landed on his chin.
The tip of her finger was cold, as cold as ice, yet it made his chin ache as if it were burning. She gently tilted his face up, leaving his gaze with nowhere to hide.
“You’re trembling,” she said.
Shen Mo was indeed trembling. He was shaking from head to toe, though whether it was from exhaustion or fear, he didn’t know. Sweat rolled down his cheek and dripped onto her sleeve, soaking into a small, dark stain.
“Separate from her,” Qin Shuying said, watching him word by word. “And be with me.”
The voice wasn’t loud, but it was like a clap of thunder striking his ears.
Shen Mo opened his mouth, but no words came out.
Her hand tightened slightly around his waist, pulling him closer. So close that he could smell that cold scent on her body; so close that he could see those two flickers of ghostly fire deep in her eyes.
“I will give you a life 10,000,000 times better than what you have now,” she said, her voice dropping into a raspy, heart-palpitating tone.
“Whatever you want, I will give you. Elixirs, Magical Tools, Spirit Stones, and Cultivation Methods — you only need to ask.”
Shen Mo’s throat tightened.
“I…”
“We are naturally compatible.” She interrupted him, her gaze fixed on his face.
“You can heal my Spirit Crane, and I can protect your life. Those 7 years you spent on Jiaoyue Peak — what did they count for? Guarding an empty dwelling, waiting for a person who never came back to see you — is that what you call a life?”
Shen Mo’s fingers clenched.
Those 7 years.
For those 7 years, he had guarded that peak for Su Wan’er, looked after those disciples, and managed the ledgers, Elixirs, and social obligations. Everyone praised his virtue, but no one asked if he was tired.
“What did she ever give you?” Qin Shuying’s voice rang in his ear.
“Official status? She gave you status, yet let you stay in an empty room alone. Security? She gave you security, yet allowed you to be pinned down in the snow, waiting for others to save you.”
Her hand slid up from his waist to his back, feeling his tremors through the thin inner robe.
“That kind of life — do you still want to live it?”
Shen Mo’s breathing became erratic.
He wanted to push her away and raised his hand to her shoulder, but he was so weak he couldn’t exert any force.
“I…”
“Stop pretending.”
She suddenly interrupted him.
Those two words made him daze for a moment.
Qin Shuying looked at him, the two flickers of ghostly fire in her eyes burning even brighter.
“In your heart, you’re actually happy, aren’t you?” she said. “For someone like me to personally ask you to stay, to personally say I want you — is there not even a hint of secret joy in your heart?”
Shen Mo froze.
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