The doors of Longyin Hall slowly closed behind them.
Su Yingman walked with measured steps, a gentle and appropriate smile always gracing her face, leading the silent Zhu Rongxin by her side toward Sea Calming Hall.
The corridor was quiet, only their faint footsteps and the occasional clinking of Scarlet Armor echoed softly.
“Sect Leader Zhu seems preoccupied,” Su Yingman’s voice broke the silence.
Zhu Rongxin’s Scarlet Armor clanked as she kept her gaze straight ahead, her voice cold and clear: “It’s just a change of residence. What cause for worry is there?”
“Heh heh,” Su Yingman chuckled softly, her delicate figure trembling slightly.
“That’s true. Although Sea Calming Hall is not as central as Longyin Hall, it is still spacious and elegant—befitting Sect Leader Zhu’s status.”
Zhu Rongxin fixed her complex gaze on Su Yingman.
There was an ineffable connection between them.
They were comrades who had fought side by side.
Zhu Rongxin had seen Su Yingman’s seductive and bewitching charm beneath Jiang Huai, supple and serpentine.
Su Yingman had witnessed Zhu Rongxin’s clumsy yet fervent awkwardness with Jiang Huai.
“Near or far, what does it matter? For cultivators, a residence is but a corner to settle in,” Zhu Rongxin said flatly, with her usual pride.
“Sect Leader Zhu’s realm is lofty and admirable,” Su Yingman smiled unchanged, as if genuinely praising her.
Then she shifted her tone, adding a touch of deliberate regret:
“I just feel sorry for Sect Leader Zhu.”
“What is there to feel sorry about?” Zhu Rongxin replied calmly.
Su Yingman feigned regret: “Sometimes, rituals are important. Actually, the matriarch truly likes you, but you refuse to participate in the Entry Ceremony, and you won’t even call her ‘Matriarch.’”
She paused, her tone carrying just the right amount of concern:
“If this goes on, I fear she will be angry.”
Zhu Rongxin furrowed her brow, glancing at Su Yingman:
“I won’t do that Entry Ceremony.”
“Nor will I,” she added, “to deliberately please someone just to rely on them.”
In her bones, she looked down on concubines and would never agree to such an Entry Ceremony.
Su Yingman’s smile grew brighter, but her voice softened further:
“Sect Leader Zhu, you’re being a little too stubborn.”
Zhu Rongxin frowned: “What do you mean?”
Su Yingman stopped and turned elegantly to face her, a mischievous gleam in her eyes:
“You look down on concubine status and the Entry Ceremony.”
“But, Sect Leader Zhu…”
Her voice laced with teasing amusement, she asked slowly and deliberately:
“This morning, when you had Husband Lord apply the medicine for you, did you let him open you up to check?”
Her gaze hinted meaningfully at the lower abdomen wrapped in Scarlet Armor, her voice barely above a whisper, each word sharp as a blade:
“Wouldn’t that count as the most intimate and undeniable ‘Entry Ceremony’?”
“What’s the difference between you and me?”
Zhu Rongxin’s usually cold and proud face flushed red at a visible speed.
Jiang Huai’s warm fingers, his careful touch, the strange sensation of the cooling ointment, and the overwhelming flood of suppressed memories surged back all at once.
“Y-You… you…!” Zhu Rongxin stammered, unable to form a word, a fierce shame rising in her chest.
“You were spying on me!”
Su Yingman enjoyed the colorful display on Zhu Rongxin’s face and walked on with satisfaction.
Do I need to spy on you, you repressed woman?
“Sea Calming Hall is just ahead, Sect Leader Zhu,” she said, pointing toward the towering hall faintly visible at the corridor’s end, her smile still gentle and composed.
“Please follow me. The deep sea view is quiet—a good place for calm reflection.”
One month later, Sea Calming Hall, Blazing Residence.
Time slipped by like a silent current beneath the deep sea, passing an entire month.
For a whole month, Qin Qingyue had kept Jiang Huai firmly locked within Longyin Hall’s Vast Sea Residence, closing the doors to practice Wenxuan Swordsmanship.
She busied herself with the construction of Nine Heavens Palace, bringing in one batch after another of dragon ladies with thin bloodlines but clear, lovely dispositions, strengthening the foundation of this emerging Major Sect.
Sea Calming Hall, true to its name, was silent and cold.
Every day, Zhu Rongxin saw Su Yingman leave her Welcoming Joy Residence, summoned by Qin Qingyue’s spiritual light, heading toward Longyin Hall.
That gentle figure traveled daily between the core and the periphery, like an invisible link connecting the world from which Zhu Rongxin was excluded.
Yet, her own summons had never sounded even once.
As if her value existed only in the Primordial Yin Body she possessed.
Once that purpose was fulfilled, she would be forgotten in this magnificent palace tucked away in the deep sea, like an abandoned child exiled to a cold palace.
Zhu Rongxin stood alone before the door of her Scarlet Flame Residence, her cold Scarlet Armor reflecting the faint blue pearl light, making her solitude even more pronounced.
A complex, indescribable bitterness of loss and unwillingness quietly welled up within her heart.
Perhaps this was for the best—a form of tranquility.
She tried to convince herself and turned to enter the meditation chamber.
But beneath the tranquility roiled a violent undercurrent.
The Blazing Sect’s core technique was a domineering art of utmost yang and intense heat, imposing nearly cruel demands on a Primordial Yin Body.
Once the Yuan Yin was broken, the foundation of the technique was like the fuel being pulled from beneath the cauldron.
The once smoothly flowing Blazing True Yuan now moved through her meridians with faint signs of losing control and collapsing.
She possessed the overwhelming spiritual power of the Great Ascension Stage but lacked the matching technique to wield it with ease—like a mighty dragon trapped in shallow waters.
What distressed her even more was that the dam of suppressed desire, locked for centuries, had been forcibly broken by Jiang Huai and could never be sealed again.
The body’s memory was so vivid and greedy.
During the day, she could barely suppress it, but at night, when all was silent and she slipped into dreams…
In her dreams, she was no longer the clumsy, passive novice led by Jiang Huai in their first love.
She became the blazing queen, holding down the figure who possessed the Chaos Dao Platform.
She was dominant and wild, with a vengeful possessiveness controlling everything.
In the dream, Jiang Huai writhed beneath her, letting out low moans that made her blood race.
She ruthlessly teased him, making him call her wife, making him call her mistress, making him say all the sweet words to satisfy her desire for conquest.
Every time she awoke from such intense and shameful dreams, the cold silk sheets beneath her and the lingering emptiness deep inside left her humiliated and furious.
That day, she sat cross-legged on the meditation cushion in the chamber, forcing the stubborn technique to flow, beads of sweat forming on her forehead, her brows tight with frustration and helplessness.
Without the technique, Qin Qingyue had not given her a suitable method, and she had no other proper technique except that of the Blazing Sect.
Outside, light footsteps approached and stopped at her door.
It was Su Yingman returning.
Zhu Rongxin’s divine sense stirred, “seeing” clearly what lay beyond the door.
Su Yingman seemed to be in an excellent mood, a faint, lazy, and satisfied curve at the corners of her lips.
More glaring was the faint, nearly dried, milky residue lingering at the corner of her full, crimson lips.
It clearly revealed where Su Yingman had just come from and what kind of intense cultivation she had just experienced.
Su Yingman seemed aware of Zhu Rongxin’s “gaze” from within Blazing Residence.
She did not open the door but tilted her head slightly, her eyes as if penetrating the chamber’s door to lock precisely onto Zhu Rongxin.
Her face slowly blossomed into a gentle, yet patronizing smile full of unhidden pity and mockery.
“Enjoy your tranquility, Sect Leader Zhu.”
Longyin Hall.
“I want to find Zhu Rongxin. I can’t just neglect her like this,” Jiang Huai frowned, sheathing his sword after practice.
“Using someone and then abandoning them is not right.”
Qin Qingyue shot him a glare and ordered, “Don’t. Wait for her to come find you.”
“Everything always going her way? That’s too good to be true.”
“You have to tame your concubine.”
Jiang Huai tilted his head and asked, “What about you?”
Qin Qingyue immediately changed her expression and said seriously, “I must be well-served and wholehearted.”
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