She bent down, and her red lips pressed against him.
There was no deepening, only a cold, seal-like touch.
Her hand slid down along his chest, brushed over his taut waist and abdomen, past the last thin layer of undergarment… Her movements were too practiced, and instead exposed her inexperience.
Someone truly skilled would not first pinch the corner of the cloth when untying a waist sash, as if confirming the belt was real.
Nor would she pause for an instant after slipping off her gauze garment, much less, when lying down, first let her shoulder touch the bed surface, then her waist, then her legs, lowering herself segment by segment, as if measuring a distance she had never measured before.
Shen Mo caught every one of these details.
Chu Yi turned over and looked down at him from above.
Her long hair fell down like a curtain, framing both their faces within an extremely small space.
Her eyelashes were long, her nose tip straight, her lips pressed into a line—that was her usual expression, the kind that said she had everything under control, that everything was within plan.
But the hand gripping Shen Mo’s wrist had trembling fingertips.
Was it an illusion?
That person, always cold and aloof, flawless in calculation, as if all things were within her control, had actually panicked in such an unsightly, utterly despicable scene.
If not for skin pressed against skin, it would have been impossible to notice.
It was her first time.
He was certain.
And she read that look, the hand gripping his wrist suddenly tightened, and she curled her lips and said, “What, are you surprised?”
“Will it hurt?” she asked.
“It will,” Shen Mo said.
Chu Yi was silent for two seconds.
Continue.
Shen Mo felt the muscles of her abdomen drawn taut like a bowstring, close enough to catch everything she did not let out—her clenched teeth, her stalled breath, and the flash of tears in her eyes.
Chu Yi’s feigned calm was not to fool him, but to fool herself.
To fool herself that this was only gathering medicine, no different from extracting essence from spiritual herbs.
But her hand was still trembling.
In the first time she had imagined, it was not like this.
Perhaps it should have been with someone whose heart was connected to hers, natural and effortless.
Even if not supreme bliss, it should have been…
Not like this, so purposeful.
Chu Yi began to move.
Her rhythm had no method at all.
She, who had originally been so unhurried, was completely thrown into disarray in this moment.
She closed her eyes, pretending those clumsy, flustered, overly hurried gasps were not her own.
Recalling the forbidden books she usually peeked at, storybooks depicting mortal love and passion.
The pages were yellowed, filled with red candles and dimmed silk bed curtains, and all sorts of details.
She gradually regained her confidence.
“Mm… uh…” Shen Mo’s breathing was rough and disordered.
He wanted to break free of control, but instead sent himself deeper into the other’s control.
Her movements were not intense, yet carried a strange rhythm.
Just as the critical point on the verge of release was about to arrive, Chu Yi’s eyes flashed with sharp light, and her hands formed a seal swift as lightning.
At the same time, a spiritual power within her with sucking force suddenly locked onto the most core, most blazing, most precious wisp of pale-gold True Yang.
That force was like countless tiny greedy mouths.
Following the surging hot blood and the bursting True Yang, it flowed upstream and rushed straight into the deepest depths of his Dantian.
Her hand seals changed again. Using a Secret Art, she drew the golden light into an acupoint within her body used to temporarily contain and refine it.
It worked. A flash of joy surged in her heart.
The scene shook, cold piercing to the bone.
A little girl about five or six years old, wearing thin brocade clothes, her lips purple from cold, curled up beside a huge mystic ice coffin radiating cold air.
The coffin was crystal clear, and inside lay a man whose face was blurred, yet who radiated suffocating beauty and the aura of dead silence.
The little girl had a pair of eyes that had lost innocence too early.
She did not understand betrayal or death.
She only remembered that long ago, a pair of warm large hands had lifted her high, there had been hearty laughter, and a pleasant scent like sunlight on pine wood… But that memory was too blurred, too distant, long since covered by years of ice-cold and her mother’s oppressive gaze.
The scene changed.
The little girl had grown a little older, about ten years old.
In the corner of a Secluded Chamber piled with Ancient Books and reeking of decay, she discovered a hidden compartment.
Inside the hidden compartment was only a letter.
The paper was yellowed, the handwriting forceful and flying, yet carrying a trace of imperceptible tenderness.
“My wife Yun He, seeing these words is like meeting face-to-face. This journey west is unpredictable in danger. Yet the Eclipse Moon plot concerns the dignity of men in this world, so I must go. Yi’er is young, and her temperament follows yours—cold outside, warm inside. She will need more of your care.”
“Do not be too harsh with her. She is only our daughter, not a continuation of the unfinished Dao Path between you and me. If I do not return from this journey… I hope you treasure yourself, and… let Yi’er go, let her grow up like an ordinary girl, find a good man, and live in peace and joy. That is my final wish. Do not mourn me, do not seek me.”
Chu Yang’s final words.
In the corner of the letter paper was long-dried, dark-colored bloodstain. It was unknown whether it had been left by the writer or stained later.
Little Chu Yi held the letter with trembling hands, reading word by word, her glass-gray eyes wide open.
Father… so this was what Father thought?
He hoped she… would be like an ordinary girl? Safe and happy?
“What are you looking at?” Yun He’s figure appeared behind her.
Little Chu Yi trembled in fright, and the letter paper drifted to the ground.
Yun He bent down and picked it up. Her gaze swept over it, and her face instantly darkened terrifyingly.
She stared at the final entrusting words, sneered, and flame ignited at her fingertip.
The letter instantly turned to ash:
“Forget what you saw. Your father was wrong. In this world, there is no peace and joy, only the strong preying on the weak. If you do not become stronger than everyone, if you have no value, then you are Unworthy to be my daughter, Yun He! Remember, your life has existed for cultivation since birth! Beyond that, everything is illusion!”
Ash drifted onto Little Chu Yi’s face, carrying residual warmth, yet making her feel as if she had fallen into an ice cavern.
Her parents were like two giant pincers, violently tearing at her heart.
She lowered her head and looked at the ashes. The last bit of light belonging to a child was completely extinguished.
——
The young Chu Yi stood before a huge floor-standing Bronze Mirror.
The girl in the mirror had a figure just beginning to bloom, her face incomparably clear and beautiful.
Especially those golden eyes—clear yet cold—bore five or six parts resemblance to the man’s outline in the coffin.
She wore a luxurious dress. Yun He had prepared it for her according to Chu Yang’s preferences in her memory.
The material was exquisite and the cut fitting, yet it always made her feel like a refined shackle.
That day, she came into contact with the secret of her mother killing her husband.
The scene jumped to the brilliantly lit, extravagantly noisy Ten Thousand Flower Pavilion.
Chu Yi sat high in an elegant box, looking down indifferently at the Flower Queen Competition below.
She had no interest in those men and women competing in beauty.
This trip was only to make contact with the Ten Thousand Flower Pavilion, and incidentally to watch for anyone with a special constitution who could be used for elixir refinement or as a medicinal catalyst.
Then she saw him.
Shen Mo.
That youth whose gaze was startled like a deer’s, yet breathtaking.
The instant her gaze touched him, Chu Yi’s frozen heart-lake suddenly shattered, rippling outward in a circle.
It was an indescribable throbbing and resonance from the depths of her soul.
She abruptly looked away, raised the cold wine cup and drained it, trying to suppress that untimely throbbing. Yet the shock brought by that fleeting glance
left a deep trace in the bottom of her heart.
She began unconsciously paying attention to rumors about him.
She learned he was Su Wan’er’s husband, that he entered the competition to obtain Dragon Marrow Liquid to save his wife, and even through a special Water Mirror, saw the scenes of him being forced to change into those shameful clothes and pose for private images.
Watching the youth in the Water Mirror looking as if he wished to die of shame and rage, her hand gripping the cup tightened little by little.
An inexplicable irritation.
Mixed with a trace of impulse.
Destroy those Shadow Recording Stones, tear apart Liu Guanjia’s nauseating smile, and pull that youth out of that suffocating situation…?
This thought was ruthlessly snuffed out by Chu Yi.
He was a medicinal catalyst, a tool.
As for the throbbing… it was merely an insignificant, brief illusion toward fragile beauty amid long suppression and scheming.
But why, when she learned he had been taken away by Chao’er, was there not only anxiety in her heart, but also Jealousy?
Why did she feel a faint jealousy toward Su Wan’er?
Even to the point of insisting on personally collecting his Essence?
(Real-world perception, ripples spreading)
Chu Yi quickly withdrew and immediately sat cross-legged, hands forming seals, fully circulating her Cultivation Method.
She guided that wisp of True Yang Essence and carefully transferred it into a specially made jade bottle prepared beside her.
The jade bottle trembled slightly. The Formation on its body lit with soft light, firmly locking and sealing the aura within.
“Can you still speak?” she asked.
Shen Mo did not answer.
He turned his head and looked at the eternal, unchanging lights of Boundless City outside the window.
That blue light was too bright, like countless pairs of eyes watching everything happening in this tower.
The lotus seed in his palm was gripped too tightly; the writing on it had been blurred by sweat until unclear.
“I will send someone with elixirs to consolidate your foundation and nurture your essence tomorrow morning.” Chu Yi tied her belt and her voice returned to its usual calm.
“This journey will not be too long. After we reach Yin Lu’s Myriad Beast Mountain, you will not need to see me again.”
She walked to the door, but her steps stopped again.
“You asked me just now what difference there is between Yun He and me. Now I can answer you.”
She paused.
“Yun He never feels guilt before you, while I—”
She opened the door.
“I will remember tonight.”
The door closed.
Outside Boundless City.
A figure swept over the Prohibition Seal Light Curtain above the city gate at astonishing speed.
The guards did not even see clearly who the newcomer was.
They only felt a frost-cold
Sword Intent swept past overhead.
Their protective Spiritual Power was forced to activate automatically by that Sword Intent, but in the next second—that Sword Intent withdrew again.
Qin Shuying landed on the plaza before the high tower. The bloodstains on her robe had dried to dark brown.
She had already sensed something—whether it was a Sword Cultivator’s intuition, or the fact that the aura she had left on him that day in the Cold Pool cabin was being covered and erased by something.
It was very similar to after he was first touched by Chao’er, but more thorough.
“Peak Master.” Han Yi caught up breathlessly. “Senior Xie’s reply has arrived. She said—”
“Say what.”
“She said, three feet underground, the lotus seed opens the door.”