Only the hand she held and the face she gazed at seemed to serve as anchors, keeping him from completely scattering into oblivion and falling into eternal ruin.
She leaned down, bit hard on his sweat-dampened forehead, then extended a hand, voluntarily covering the joined hands of Shen Mo and Su Wan’er. Three hands stacked together.
Her hand was smaller than both of theirs—delicate bones, soft joints—a young girl’s hand.
Yet between her palms was the blood scent carried out from the Demon Abyss, one that could never be washed away.
Creak— creak—
The joined hands were shaken violently.
She looked at Su Wan’er’s lifeless yet stunningly beautiful face so close before her, and a mischievous impulse suddenly arose.
“By the way, if I channel a bit of Demonic Qi and invade Honored Teacher’s Sea of Consciousness—without waking her, just letting her Spiritual Projection detach and ‘see’ us like this—what expression do you think she’d have?”
Shen Mo’s whole body trembled. His body, which had slightly relaxed from self-numbing, instantly tensed up. A stronger sense of shame surged through him alongside an electric current of pleasure.
She didn’t actually do it. Instead, she feigned disappointment and sighed, releasing her finger from Shen Mo’s wrist.
“Oh dear, how boring. I was hoping to watch a good show.”
Chao’er straightened up, lazily stretched, and revealed a sly, wicked fox-like smile on her face:
“Since Master’s Husband is so scared, I’ll be generous and switch things up.”
Shen Mo had just let out a sigh of relief, barely having time to feel grateful, when Chao’er continued:
“I want to experience Peak Master Qin’s pleasure.”
Take the initiative?
In front of Wan’er?
She was… even going to imitate this? Compare this too?
Shen Mo looked at Chao’er’s eyes above him, filled with anticipation and twisted Pleasure, felt Wan’er’s faint, real pulse beneath his palm, and the bizarre sensation of three overlapping hands.
Ahead lay the abyss; behind, the cliff.
“I… don’t have any strength left.”
It was both an excuse and the truth.
After Spiritual Power depletion, his body was like a garment wrung dry. His limbs had been spread and fixed by Iron Chains for who knows how long. His muscles were so stiff he couldn’t even voluntarily contract them.
He didn’t even have the strength to clench his fist. What could he use to take the initiative?
Chao’er tilted her head and smiled.
“This Disciple will help Master’s Husband.”
She raised her hand.
Pale green Demonic Qi surged from her palm.
It gradually transformed into a pure Spiritual Qi, untouched by any Rune inscription.
Warm, like the last handful of ash dug out of a stove in deep winter—no longer burning, but the residual warmth remained.
That ash fell onto his Dantian.
Shen Mo’s body arched violently.
Spiritual Power suddenly surged into his withered Dantian.
Like a riverbed dried up for too long, suddenly flooded by water released from upstream.
The water rushed over the cracked river bottom, re-soaking the parched, rolled-up mud, sweeping the half-dead things stranded for who knows how long back into the center of the current.
A sensation of being filled and bloated exploded in his Dantian.
In that instant, Shen Mo could no longer control himself. His body convulsed violently.
The channel connecting his Dantian and Spiritual Power contracted frantically, reverse-absorbing the pure Demonic Qi.
The next second, from Dantian to chest, from chest to limbs, everything was refilled.
His Meridians swelled to the point of aching.
His vision blackened in waves. His taut body went completely limp like mud in that moment.
She looked at his foolish expression—eyes rolling back, drool nearly spilling from his mouth—and laughed.
“Can’t take this already? You’re not going to pretend to be unconscious, are you…” She withdrew her hand and moved her leg off him.
Instead, she rolled over and lay flat beside him.
Hands folded over her lower abdomen, legs together, posture as proper as a newlywed young lady.
“This Disciple is lying down properly.”
She turned her head to look at him.
Seeing that Shen Mo didn’t move, she traced a line in the air with her finger.
A wisp of purple Demonic Qi instantly formed into a thin needle, suspended at Su Wan’er’s brow, the needle tip just one inch from her skin.
“Hurry up. Don’t make me use force.”
All of Shen Mo’s resistance crumbled.
He knew Chao’er was serious.
Rather than letting his wife witness this hellish scene while awake… it was better to just let himself rot completely.
Shen Mo closed his eyes, not daring to look into Chao’er’s.
Relying only on his body’s instincts and those shameful images in his memory, he stiffly, bit by bit, sat himself upright.
A pale green Light Curtain enveloped the entire bed.
Sealing all three of their Respiration and body heat within this tiny space.
No gaze from outside could penetrate.
Shen Mo’s hand still held both of theirs.
Shen Mo’s hand still held both of theirs.
His right hand held Chao’er; his left hand held Su Wan’er.
Three hands overlapped in the same pale green light. His palm was sweaty, Chao’er’s was burning hot, Su Wan’er’s was slightly cool.
Chao’er’s Fingertip wrote on his chest.
She wrote her own name.
“Master’s Husband’s heartbeat,” her Breath brushed over the skin of his collarbone—wet with saliva, then dried—”is faster than before.”
Shen Mo didn’t answer.
His gaze rested on the pale green ripples at the top of the Light Curtain.
The gauze curtain condensed from Demonic Qi swayed gently—not from wind.
The doors and windows of the Western Wing Room were tightly shut, and the night breeze had stopped long ago.
It was Chao’er’s breath.
With every exhale, the Light Curtain swelled slightly outward.
With every inhale, the Light Curtain drew slightly inward.
Swell and contract, swell and contract.
The entire bed was like a giant, translucent lung, holding three people within the same single breath.
“Does Master’s Husband know why this Disciple chose tonight?”
Chao’er’s finger moved away from the end of the sixth stroke at his heart, upward across his collarbone, past the side of his neck, stopping behind his ear.
Her thumb pressed against that small patch of skin behind his ear—where an extremely fine blood vessel pulsed faintly beneath the surface.
“Because tonight is the Moonless Night, the day of the year with the strongest Yin energy.”
“The Demon Abyss’s Spiritual Seal will loosen to its widest tonight. Nan Gong Jin’s soul will fully escape from it and merge most completely with this Disciple’s soul. After tonight, it will be impossible to tell who is who anymore.”
Her thumb slowly circled on the blood vessel behind his ear.
“So tonight is the last moment this Disciple can still distinguish Chao’er from Nan Gong Jin. It’s also the last time Master’s Husband can recognize Chao’er on this Disciple’s face.”
Shen Mo turned his head.
Beneath the pale green Light Curtain, Chao’er’s face was inches away.
Almond-shaped eyes, dimples, the scar on her left shoulder blade that was still scabbing over.
Her eyes looked at him. In her pupils, dark red and amber were slowly, irreversibly seeping into each other.
Like two drops of different colored ink falling into the same bowl of clear water—their boundaries blurring, their colors spreading toward one another.
Two gazes looked out from the same pair of eyes.
One carried a young girl’s Obsession; the other carried a thousand-year-old monster’s scrutiny.
“What is Master’s Husband looking for?” she asked.
“Chao’er,” he said.
Chao’er’s eyelashes trembled lightly.
“Chao’er is here,” she said.
Her Voice suddenly became very soft—so soft it was like a child clutching an adult’s clothes in the darkness, speaking at a volume only two people could hear.
“But Master’s Husband—Chao’er is no longer entirely Chao’er.”
Her hand withdrew from behind his ear and fell back onto his heart.
Her Fingertip lightly traced over the half-finished character “Chao” on his chest, from the first stroke to the sixth, from collarbone to the apex of his heart.
“After tonight, when this Disciple looks at Master’s Husband again, I won’t be able to tell whether it’s Chao’er’s Gaze or Nan Gong Jin’s.”
Her finger stopped at the end of the sixth stroke at his heart. She lifted her head and met his eyes.
“So tonight—can Master’s Husband look only at Chao’er?”
The Light Curtain swelled slightly with her breath, then drew in.
Shen Mo looked at her.
His right hand pulled free from her palm.
Chao’er’s fingers chased after him, instinctively trying to grab hold.