Chapter 63

No lamps were lit in the room, just a faint, alluring glow from the night pearl painted over the bare skin of his back, casting everything in an intimate haze.
With no fabric left to shield him, the elegant lines of his waist were completely exposed, lean and tense. Under Mu Xue’s gaze, his skin grew dewy, a single bead of sweat welling up, trickling along the curve of muscle.
Cen Qianshan had been handsome since he was a child; in those days at Fuwang City, when he was just coming of age, he took the breath away from everyone on the dazzling Ten-Marvels Street.
Back then, lovestruck girls would sneak to his courtyard fence every day, tossing their embroidered handkerchiefs over the wall for a chance at his notice. Now, that beautiful boy had grown into a man, the years had carved lines and left scars, his shoulders were spattered with blood. The effect was intoxicating: tough, honed, dangerous… all the more irresistible for it.
Mu Xue swallowed, throat suddenly parched, an untamed fire blazing hotter in her chest.
Right now, logic could have supplied a hundred reasons why she shouldn’t go any closer.
But, people are only human, after all, flesh and blood with hearts made for wanting. Love, resentment, longing, greed, bitterness, none of it sits quietly at logic’s command.
She’d felt nothing but anger and disgust the moment she saw that message carved into the stone table: “Choose any partner for dual cultivation at will.”
But now, with this man here undressing in front of her, somehow, the cool, rational voice in her heart went silent. She took a step forward, drawn in despite herself, beyond reason or sense.
With almost every dual cultivation method, it’s an act of one-sided taking and using. The side being “harvested” can only bear the shame and humiliation of it.
Pleasure, senses, even dignity, everything becomes someone else’s to command. Mu Xue could have kept her own robe neat, her demeanor calm, as she decided how and where to take everything most precious to a cultivator’s path, and from whom.
But he, face flushed, ears red, just closed his eyes and lay back, letting his dark hair spill messily across the jewel-bright bedding.
He was like a feast dropped from heaven, placed directly before her, tempting her with its irresistible scent, just waiting for her to indulge, to devour.
Morals? Principles? In this moment, all of it belonged under the table.
Mu Xue reached out, heart beating wildly, nearly leaping from her chest.
His ankle was sheathed in fine skin, blue veins just visible beneath. Warm, just as she’d imagined, but the second her fingers touched, his toes curled hard in response.
A sweetness hung thick in the air. The man she gripped let out a ragged little sound in his throat, head turned away, long lashes trembling over closed eyes. It made her want to test just how adorable he could become, how much further he’d go.
Mu Xue struggled internally for ages, biting her lip, then, with sudden resolve, released him.
Not Xiao Shan. Anyone but him. Not Xiao Shan.
Yes, he’d offered. But he must be forcing himself.
Mu Xue alone knew what Cen Qianshan had sacrificed for her, how long he’d waited. Better than anyone in this world.
Until she understood her own heart, until she could promise him the future he deserved, she couldn't, wouldn’t, rob him like this, just for a quick thrill, just because dual cultivation made things easy.
She let out a soft, frustrated sigh, unwilling but determined, gently letting go of him.
Now, with her head clear, Mu Xue realized something was off. This sweetness in the air, too cloying. And both she and Xiao Shan had gotten swept away too quickly.
In the high corner of the roof, a male silkworm moth, she hadn’t noticed it before, spread its wings and darted for the door, scattering a trail of heady pheromones behind it.
How low can you stoop? Using a Charm-Voice Moth, of all things. Mu Xue’s jaw tightened as she shot out a fire spell; a ball of fierce flame hit the moth midair, reducing it to ash before it could escape.
The male silkworm moth was unique to the Demon Spirit Realm; the blue dust on its wings was a powerful aphrodisiac, used in alchemy to brew the notorious “Charm-Voice” elixir, enough to send cultivators reeling in heat and confusion. The stuff was famous even outside the realm, flooding the wilds with dangerous, beguiling blue dust.
What pissed Mu Xue off most was, just one little bug, and she’d almost lost herself? Was life in the Immortal Spirit Realm really so easy she’d let her guard drop this far?
She flipped out a thin blanket and tucked it snugly around Cen Qianshan.
“Clear your head. That was a male silkworm moth. They really do whatever it takes here just to make people train their techniques.” Mu Xue pressed her hand gently to his shoulder through the blanket, “We can take our time finding the exit, I’m not letting you go through this unnecessarily.”
Beneath the blanket, she heard a soft, nasal “mm,” tinged with barely-perceptible grievance.
Outside, a clay pot simmered gently, sending out savory steam that drifted into the yard.
Inside, on the stone table, Qianji’s head sat neatly separated from its body. Cen Qianshan was hard at work, repairing the puppet’s badly battered form after their recent battle.
Qianji’s construction was unusually intricate, and the materials, rare, precious metals, were things Cen Qianshan had painstakingly collected for years. You couldn’t just patch a thing like this up the way most people did with the cheap puppets Lanlan played with.
Cen Qianshan rummaged through his storage pouches for materials, even dismantled a few components from his other talismans, just to rig up a temporary fix for Qianji.
“Master, you’re not used to having no one to talk to, huh?” Qianji, head perched on the table and unable to move, was bored out of its mind and kept pestering Cen Qianshan for a response.
Cen Qianshan focused on his work, ignoring it.
No answer meant he agreed, Qianji got excited.
“You said step three…I followed it exactly. Still useless,” Cen Qianshan said suddenly.
“I saw that, Master!” Qianji’s little mouth flapped in giddy encouragement, “I think you should be a little bolder. Seriously, you can’t just wait for a girl to push you down herself.”
“But,” Cen Qianshan sighed, hands finally pausing, pretty brows drawing together in distress, “that’s my Master. If it were anyone else…”
Respect for his Master had already been carved deep into his very bones, a habit, instinctual and unbreakable. Reaching even this point already felt like the farthest he could possibly go. Of course, that also meant there could never be anyone else. Before he’d even realized how he felt, there’d only ever been room for her; she’d filled up his heart completely, with no space for anyone else, not in this lifetime.
Cen Qianshan mussed up his hair, raising a hand to hide his face. These past few days, he’d said every humiliating word imaginable, shame burning under his skin. He’d done things that would make anyone want to crawl into a hole, eyes squeezed shut, dignity thrown out the window.
Every second since reuniting with his Master was a tug-of-war, bliss and torment bundled together. The urge to pull her into his arms battled nonstop with the guilt of craving something so taboo. That internal war was pushing him to the brink.
“No kidding, right?” Qianji blinked his little metal eyes, watching his master. For these past few days, Cen Qianshan had spoken more than probably the last hundred years combined. Qianji wasn’t even sure his master could actually talk this much!
Too bad even a bombshell like Master Mu could hold out without blinking. No wonder they called her “Ice Queen Mu.”
Wait, what if she just wasn’t into her master, and wanted to run off doing dual cultivation with some hussy instead? Qianji’s mechanical eyeballs spun, sweeping across all the human figurines sprawled on the desktop for clues.
“Tch! Not a single one of them is anywhere near as good-looking as my master,” Qianji declared with a huff. “Well, maybe that Xiao Changge is barely passable. But ha! Too bad he isn’t, ah, wholly unspoiled anymore...umph, ”
Mu Xue walked in just in time to catch Cen Qianshan sealing Qianji’s mouth shut with a wisp of spiritual power, muffling his yelps into a tinny whimper.
“Unspoiled? What exactly do you mean by that?” She leaned in beside Cen Qianshan, one hand braced on the back of his chair, watching him repair the puppet construct.
Qianji had followed Cen Qianshan for years, his most powerful weapon by far. With three transformation modes, giant demon, battle armor, and its ordinary miniature state, Qianji’s tiny body was packed with every bit of craftsmanship and secret technique Cen Qianshan had mastered over a lifetime.
Mu Xue loved it at first sight and couldn’t resist getting involved to help.
“This sensory-transfer array is really something. Did you add a self-regulating spiritual power system to it?” Mu Xue tapped at an exquisitely engraved little silver disk tucked at the back of Qianji’s neck. “Did you design it yourself?”
Cen Qianshan’s eyes flicked over, meeting hers.
“It’s impressive, truly,” Mu Xue praised, heartfelt.
He couldn’t help the upward curl of his mouth, that smile was impossible to hide. “Last time, at the Dongyue Temple, I saw their puppets and it just…stuck with me. I’ve been itching to try new materials ever since, just haven’t found the right ones until now.”
“Seems we had the same thought.” Mu Xue got excited as they talked about her favorite art, puppet crafting. She produced a little unfinished puppet of her own, practically vibrating with delight as she shared it with Cen Qianshan. “Look at this, ”
The tiny puppet hugged a shimmering green lotus leaf, its fair feet pattering along the desktop. Suddenly, its whole body melted into a puddle, coursing from one end of the table to the other before resolidifying. Its bright eyes flashed with mischief, shooting a disdainful, mocking glance at the immobilized Qianji.
“So what if you’re good at running away?” Qianji squawked, indignant. “Hey, who are you anyway? Tell me your name! Once I’m fixed up, we’ll see who’s better!”
Before Mu Xue could stop it, the tiny puppet piped up, “I’m Xiao Jin. Shan Xiao Jin.”
Shan Jin for “Cen.” Of course, the little thing didn’t realize it had just spilled its owner’s biggest secret. Still, it boasted proudly, “I’m Master’s favorite puppet! She named me after the person she cares for most.”
Mu Xue could only cover her face, mortified.
“Shan Xiao Jin? Who’s that? Your master’s favorite is Shan Xiao Jin?!” Qianji caught on quick, perking up his mechanical ears. First there was that Xiao Ya, now this mystery Shan Xiao Jin, what a crew of troublemakers.
And as for you, Master, how can you have time to laugh at a moment like this? Has that fox Mu Xue found a new pretty boy rival or something?
From outside, the kitchen fire gurgled soothingly. That was her Master, making chicken soup for his recovery,
Inside, at the stone table, Master and disciple sat shoulder to shoulder, pouring over blueprints and array diagrams, heads almost touching as they collaborated.
For a fleeting moment, time itself blurred, and it felt like being whisked back to that snowy courtyard of years past.
Cen Qianshan suddenly thought, even if he never found a way out, even if he was trapped inside this temple forever, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad after all.
Far away, on the earth above, at the edge of a vast and dizzyingly deep cavern, the disciples of Guiyuan Sect gathered, anxiety heavy on their faces.
“Are you…really going down there to look for them? That place looks like something out of a nightmare.” Lin Yin craned his neck at the yawning mouth of the pit, wind from below whipping his cheeks raw.
The huge, pitch-black cavern gaped like a beast’s maw, strange whirlwinds spinning down its throat. It sent up wailing, ghostly sounds that made the skin crawl.
Just a short while earlier, the enormous God of Pleasure statue had appeared, tearing open this abyss. Xiao Xue, Xiao Changge, and that demonic cultivator, Cen Qianshan, had all been swallowed up, vanishing without a trace.
The group had already tried to venture inside, but even Cheng Yan, the one with the indestructible body, couldn’t last long. The wind nearly blasted him back out.
Only Zhuo Yu’s Hunyuan Pouch could offer any real protection in those monstrous gales.
Zhuo Yu was now donning his armor, fastening his knee guards, getting ready to climb into the pouch and dive into the abyss.
“It’s way too dangerous. Shouldn’t we go tell the elders and see if there’s another way?”
Ding Lanlan had lost track of Mu Xue. Though anxious, she still thought Zhuo Yu throwing himself in alone was too reckless.
Zhuo Yu paused, lacing up his armor. “If they really are in danger, by the time we go and come back, it’ll be too late.”
He wasn’t much of a talker. In the past, Ding Lanlan hadn’t liked him one bit.
But right now, she realized with reluctant admiration, setting aside old biases, that from battles to logistics, this guy everyone hated at the sect had actually done the most for them, quietly, all along. She bit her lip, pulled a little bronze mirror from her robes, and handed it over. “Here. This is the Hundred-Forged Bronze Mirror, my aunt gave it to me for protection, just before we left.”
“Take this. Keep it safe, and please, bring Xiao Xue back to us.” Her voice was grave as she entrusted her much-stronger teammate with the task. “And you need to come back safe, too. We’ll all be waiting for you both.”
Lin Yin pouted but still fished out a tiny medicine vial from her robes. “Here. Hold on to this, Rejuvenation Pill. There’s only one inside. No matter how bad your injuries, this stuff will save you. But I’ve only got one.”
Zhuo Yu collected the defensive talismans and life-saving pills from every friend, he weighed them in his hand. Heavy, in more ways than one.
“Don’t worry. I’ll bring them home.” That was all he said before summoning his artifact, leaping decisively into the abyss.