Shen Mo took one step at a time, treading on the snow.
His pace was steady — so steady that it was almost impossible to discern any abnormality.
But his hands were trembling.
They had been trembling since he descended the mountain last night, and they hadn’t stopped until now.
It wasn’t because of the cold.
The night wind blew in, carrying the chill of early winter; it should have been freezing.
Yet, he felt the wind was just right.
Perhaps even… not enough.
Shen Mo frowned and reached out to feel his own forehead.
It wasn’t hot.
However, the dry heat burning through his body became increasingly obvious, as if something were slowly waking up within his blood.
He looked down at his hands.
Those hands were still shaking.
But this time, the trembling was different from when he had been in the Luoxia Mountains.
His entire body went soft without any warning.
That heat had already spread from his blood to every part of his body, like countless ants crawling, biting, and gnawing at his sanity.
Shen Mo’s expression shifted.
This wasn’t a normal fever.
The fire burned until his whole body was weak, his heart was flustered, and his mind was —
He suddenly remembered something.
That night.
Yun He.
The main hall of Jiaoyue Peak.
That stick of Aphrodisiac Incense.
It was the same effect.
Shen Mo’s heart sank to the bottom.
He looked down at his wrists. There were several red marks left behind from his struggle earlier.
But at this moment, those marks glowed with an unnatural, vivid crimson, as if something were seeping out from beneath the skin.
He curled up on the cold bluestone floor, his entire body as hot as a piece of glowing charcoal.
The heat surged from his Dantian, racing through his Meridians. Wherever it passed, his skin broke out in an unnatural flush.
It hurt.
It wasn’t a sharp pain, but a dull, dense agony, like thousands of ants crawling through the gaps in his bones.
It itched.
It wasn’t the kind of itch that could be scratched, but a sensation emanating from deep within, as if something were wriggling inside his veins, making him wish he could tear open his own flesh to reach it.
Shen Mo grit his teeth, refusing to let himself make a sound.
But the agony was too intense.
His body began to twitch uncontrollably. His fingers clawed at the ground, leaving behind streaks of blood.
The plain white robe that symbolized his status as a husband was already soaked with sweat, clinging tightly to his body.
It traced the lines of a waist that was slightly thin from years of hard work yet remained remarkably resilient.
He bit his lower lip hard until he tasted the metallic tang of blood, refusing to let out a shameful moan.
Qin Shuying couldn’t tell what his symptoms were, so she grabbed his pulse point and sent her Spiritual Power inside to investigate.
In an instant, her face changed.
“Passion Entwining Ointment.”
Those three words fell from her lips, as cold as ice.
The toxin was coiled outside his Dantian like a dormant snake, slowly burrowing its way inside.
Wherever it passed, his Meridians glowed with a faint red hue, as if they had been scorched by fire.
It had already entered his system.
Shen Mo didn’t understand what that was.
But he could read the look on her face.
Passion Entwining Ointment was a forbidden item of Yunyin Mountain.
It was said to be an ancient recipe refined from dozens of types of aphrodisiac spiritual herbs.
When applied to the skin, it would slowly seep into the body and lie dormant for days or even months before suddenly erupting at a specific moment.
Upon eruption, the victim would endure unimaginable suffering — the body would feel as if it were being burned by fire, the Meridians would feel as if they were being devoured by ants, and their sanity would blur bit by bit until they finally died in the gap between ultimate pleasure and ultimate pain.
It was a miserable way to die.
There was only one cure.
To be saved —
The person who saved him would either be a Dao companion who treated him with sincerity or a villain who took advantage of his peril.
He didn’t want Qin Shuying to become the latter.
“Peak Master Qin…” He took a deep breath, forcing his voice to remain somewhat steady. “You should go… I… I can endure this on my own…”
Qin Shuying looked at him.
She looked at that face, which was clearly burning with delirium yet still struggling to hold on.
He said, “I don’t want you to become a second Yun He because of me.”
Qin Shuying remained silent for a moment.
“Shen Mo,” she called his name, her voice dropping low. “Do you really want to die that badly?”
His eyelashes trembled slightly.
He didn’t want to die.
He didn’t want to die at all.
He was only 20-some years old; he hadn’t yet seen the vastness of this world.
He hadn’t even waited for his wife to complete her secluded cultivation, nor had he heard her say, “You’ve worked hard all these years.”
He didn’t want to die.
But he wanted to live like this even less.
Forced by a drug, driven by lust.
Pleasuring a woman who wasn’t his wife.
That was a fate worse than death.
She watched him for a long time.
So long that the patterns had already spread from his wrists to his arms, and from his arms to his chest. Before long, they would reach his heart.
So long that he began to shake, to curl up, and to let out tiny, suppressed moans.
Those moans were like needles pricking her heart.
“Peak Master Qin, I beg you… stay away from me…”
He reached out with a trembling hand to push at the hem of Qin Shuying’s robe.
The moment his fingertips touched the cool silk, he flinched as if burned, but then he humbly grasped it. “Don’t make me hate you… and don’t make me… look down on myself.”
“Shen Mo, do you think you still have the luxury of choice?”
She grabbed his wrist and gave it a light pull, dragging the man before her like a rag doll.
Their breaths instantly became intertwined.
The faint scent of medicinal herbs that Shen Mo carried from years of managing household affairs mixed with the sweet, cloying aroma of the aphrodisiac. It was like a suffocating net, trapping Qin Shuying tightly within.
She had looked forward to this day, but she had secretly hoped he would offer himself willingly.
Not like this — not by force.
What she wanted was for this man, in a state of sobriety, to feel forced to kneel at her feet and offer everything because he feared her power and admired her status.
She wanted total submission from soul to body, not a puppet controlled by a bag of poison as he was now.
“Ngh…”
Shen Mo finally couldn’t help but let out a broken whimper.
The heat inside him felt like countless ants gnawing at his bone marrow; he felt his reason collapsing.
He couldn’t see clearly who was in front of him. He could only smell a cold scent of cedar — the unique scent of a high-level Female Cultivator’s spiritual pressure.
He instinctively wanted to draw closer to that coolness, yet because of his views on male chastity, he tried desperately to shrink away.
“Save… save me…”
His voice was incredibly hoarse, carrying a sob, like the wail of a small animal drenched by the rain.
Seeing him in this state, the destructive urge in Qin Shuying’s heart expanded further.
She leaned down, her cold fingers trailing across his burning cheek, feeling the violent tremors he suffered at her touch.
“Shen Mo, look clearly at who I am.”
Shen Mo opened his eyes in a daze.
A frost-cold face was reflected in his pupils.
Panic instantly triumphed over lust. His entire body stiffened, and he instinctively tried to shrink back.
“Lord… Lord Qin…”
Shen Mo’s teeth were chattering. The sense of shame made him wish he could die right then. “Kill me… I beg you… kill me…”
He would rather die than show such an ugly side of himself to a woman other than his wife.