The Ebony Hairpin loosely tied her hair, a few strands falling, making that glass-like, exquisitely beautiful face appear even more ethereal.
“Miss Chu, what brings you here so late at night?” Shen Mo asked.
Chu Yi sat down on the chair opposite him.
She did not rush to speak, but folded her hands on her knees and quietly studied him for a moment.
Then she took out a jade bottle from her ring.
It was snow-white all over, the bottle covered in fine Array Patterns, its mouth sealed with a layer of spiritual film as thin as cicada wings.
Shen Mo recognized this Thing—he had seen similar vessels in the pill room at Jiaoyue Peak, a “Soul-Locking Bottle” used to seal extremely precious spiritual materials.
She placed the jade bottle on the writing desk, then sat on the cushion before it, her posture as proper as a cultivator about to begin lecturing on scriptures.
“Twenty-three years ago, I began refining the Qie Tian Pill, using my father’s remains left in the Luoxia Mountains as the pill embryo, nurturing it in the Stealing Heaven Furnace, never extinguishing day or night.”
“But the Qie Tian Pill can only reshape the physical body, not recall the Spirit Soul. My father’s Original Soul has been trapped by Yun He at the bottom of the Cold Pool for a thousand years, long since too deeply entangled with the Extreme Yin Energy in the pool water. To fully extract him, one thing is needed as a catalyst—the natal Essence of a Pure Yin Constitution,” she said softly.
“Not ordinary Spiritual Power, not ordinary Essence Blood—it is the single thread of true yang in your body that can resonate at the same frequency as the Extreme Yin Energy.”
She looked below Shen Mo’s lower abdomen, at a hidden acupoint between his Dantian sea of qi and pubic bone.
Essence.
What was meant to come had still come.
Shen Mo had managed mundane affairs at Jiaoyue Peak for seven years, and was no stranger to the pharmacopoeia and pill formulas of the cultivation world.
Essence is the vital essence condensed within a man of Pure Yin Constitution, one drop every ten months, and can regenerate after loss.
And Essence is that thread of true yang containing the source of life and the power of procreation.
Once extracted, it means permanently losing fertility.
“For a Pure Yin Body, the primordial yang is deeply hidden in the perineal sea, locked within utmost yin. Ordinary external force cannot touch it, let alone extract it.”
“Only through the union of yin bodies, using yin to guide yang, using desire to draw out Essence, can one, when the primordial yang spontaneously surges and circulates to its peak, use a Secret Art to intercept and extract its most core thread of true yang essence.”
“This process requires your… Body’s natural reaction to reach its extreme.”
Shen Mo instantly understood the meaning in her words.
Not with a Magical Tool, not with medicine, but with her own Body forcibly joining with him, to stimulate, guide, and finally seize that origin Essence sustaining his fertility!
This was a thousand, ten thousand times more humiliating than any torture.
At least those were external violence, but this was making his own Body, while fully conscious, produce the most primal, uncontrollable reaction to a woman he feared and loathed, and using that as the bridge for plunder!
Chu Yi turned a blind eye to his resistance.
She removed the silver hairpin holding her hair.
The instant her long hair fell over her shoulders, her entire person changed.
She looked a few degrees colder than in the daytime, and her features resembled someone even more—Yun He, with a clear beauty touched by an otherworldly air unstained by dust, skin like congealed fat, brows and eyes like a painting, spring mountains holding emerald, autumn waters in silhouette, as if the creator’s most biased masterpiece.
That figure was good too: arms as white and tender as lotus roots, a waist that could be held in one hand, perfectly full curves, long legs without an ounce of excess flesh.
Immediately after, she untied the fastenings of her outer robe. The movement was not exactly elegant, even somewhat stiff, and soon revealed a Body with exquisite curves.
“You have no choice.”
Chu Yi stood up and walked to the window.
Outside the window was Boundless City with its ten thousand lights.
Shen Mo did not speak.
He watched Chu Yi’s back. The candlelight stretched her Shadow very long, casting a thin silhouette on the screen.
Her shoulders were tenser than usual, as if she were doing her utmost to suppress some surging emotion.
She squatted down before the couch.
Level with him, even slightly lower.
She raised her face and looked at him.
The faint blue glow of the bone wick fell into the depths of her eyes.
“I will give you the time of one incense stick to prepare yourself.”
She walked back to the Glazed Lamp. Instead of closing the lampshade, she turned the wick up a notch.
The faint blue glow spread like a tide, wrapping the entire Quiet Room in a hazy halo.
Because obtaining the Essence required him to be extremely aroused.
That Condition was of the Body, impossible to fake.
So what Chu Yi had to do was not persuade his Brain, but persuade his Body.
She turned herself into a woman who needed his pity, making him lower his guard on a level beyond will.
This was not taking by force, yet it was more brilliant than taking by force.
Shen Mo thought of that lotus seed.
Underground Teleportation Array.
Chu Yi said they would set out after dawn.
If he could find that path before dawn, perhaps he would not need to wait for anyone to rescue him.
“I will not force you.”
Chu Yi suddenly said.
Shen Mo raised his eyes, the corners still tinged with fading red.
“But in the end, you will take the initiative. This way it will be easier on you—”
She reached out, her Fingertip hovering by Shen Mo’s cheek.
“Young Master Shen, I respect you more than Yun He did.”
“What is the difference between you and her?”
“She took your dignity,” Chu Yi withdrew her hand. “I only want your Essence.”
Shen Mo suddenly laughed.
That Laughter was low and hoarse, carrying an absurdity born only after being driven to a dead end.
“…I will not defend myself.” Chu Yi spoke. “Hate me if you want. If hating me makes you feel better, then it is what I deserve.”
She took a step forward.
This time Shen Mo did not retreat. His lower back pressed against the bedpost, his legs weak, no way to retreat.
“I will not take you by force,” Chu Yi said. “But I must obtain the Essence. You can choose to give it to me willingly and comfortably, or have it passively, violently squeezed out—”
“Why did you come personally?”
Shen Mo interrupted her.
His Breath became rapid, fine beads of sweat seeped from his forehead, but his Gaze remained clear, clear to the point of sharpness.
“For this kind of method, could you not send a concubine? Why you—”
He paused, his lips trembling from restraint.
“With a beauty like you, how many Great Figures want to sleep with you and cannot. How could I let someone else get the advantage? In other words, subjectively, I want to sleep with you…”
The air in the Quiet Room suddenly froze.
Another one.
Another woman who approached him with high-sounding reasons, only to discover she was not merely carrying out a plan.
Yun He at first only treated him as a plaything, Chao’er at first was only his Disciple, Qin Shuying at first only came to save a Spirit Crane.
And then?
And then none of them could turn back.
He raised his eyes. In those red-rimmed eyes was an extremely deep weariness.
Chu Yi’s fingers paused on the knot of her belt for three breaths.
Then she untied it.
“I am sorry,” she said.
The robe slid onto the cushion with a very soft thud.
Chu Yi reached out, and her Fingertip finally touched Shen Mo’s collar.
He suddenly realized that the look in Chu Yi’s eyes when she said “I am sorry” was extremely similar to his own eyes that he saw in the Bronze Mirror after Yun He violated him for the first time.
That was the look of someone who clearly knew they were doing wrong, yet could find no way back.
“Lie down,” Chu Yi said, her Voice slightly hoarse. “I will try to be gentle.”
Shen Mo did not move.
So Chu Yi did not urge him either.
She only took out an object from her sleeve—a Soul-Gathering Lantern 3 inches in size—and pressed it to his forehead, so that at the moment his Essence was extracted, his Divine Sense could briefly shift away.
This way, at least it would not hurt.
“You prepared for a long time.”
“I said, I do not need you to fear me.” Chu Yi helped him lie down, her movements somewhat careful, as if afraid of breaking porcelain. “I only need your Essence.”
Her fingers undid his collar, and her fingertips touched the faint scar below his collarbone.
“I need…” He paused, his voice low and hoarse. “To be sure you will not turn on me afterward.”
These words felt vague, but enough to make her feel he was beginning to soften.
Chu Yi’s eyelashes lowered, hiding the emotion that flashed through her eyes.
She placed her other hand over his, both hands wrapping Shen Mo’s hand in her palms.
Her hands were slightly hot.
“How do you want to be sure?”
Shen Mo did not answer.
He lowered his eyes, silently concentrating inward.
Deep in his Dantian, Spiritual Power was slowly gathering along his Spiritual Meridians, sensing the residual aura belonging to Xie Shilan emanating from the lotus seed—the lotus seed had a map carved on it.
The entrance to the Underground Teleportation Array was not at the bottom of the tower.
It was below the bottom of the tower, in a rock layer about 30 zhang deep.
That was not an ordinary Secret Passage, but a spiritual path folded out using the laws of space.
The entrance was hidden by a Prohibition Seal, and the exit led to the wilderness west of Boundless City.
What he needed was an opportunity.
Not this moment. But soon.
Shen Mo opened his eyes.
Chu Yi was still waiting for him, thinking he was hesitating over whether to accept her Condition.
She gently rubbed the back of his hand with her thumb, her Body leaning closer, white skin showing beneath the moon-white gauze.
“Miss Chu, have you ever thought—even if I am willing, it is only because I have no choice.”
Chu Yi’s movements paused.
“I know,” she said. “But you are not the only one with no choice.”
She rested her forehead lightly against his shoulder.
Her long hair fell, covering her side profile, revealing only a small section of pale nape.
The skin behind her neck was very thin, and faint blue-green veins could be seen.
“I have been thinking, what if the Qie Tian Pill fails—what if my father cannot be revived—I would rather you never forgive me, so that at least someone can remember for me that what I did was wrong.”
Chu Yi reached out, not to caress, but again used Spiritual Power to stimulate several sensitive acupoints at his waist, abdomen, and inner thighs.
At the same time, her Body began, with a mechanical rhythm carrying clear purpose, slowly…
“Uh…”
And the friction of that cold Body on top of him, though devoid of any emotion, was still the most direct contact with the opposite sex.
A heat completely contrary to his will began to stir and gather deep in his lower abdomen, bringing a physiological change that filled him with despair.
“Shen Mo…” she called softly, her Voice like the murmur of a lover, yet carrying an unmistakable purpose. “Do not be afraid. Soon… it will not hurt anymore.”