"A little harder... mnn~~"
A woman's voice, muffled and faintly suggestive, reached Gu Ning's ear and jolted her out of her daze.
Her vision cleared. A bewitching face filled it, flushed red at this moment, a silver thread of saliva hanging at the corner of the lips.
Strands of hair brushed the backs of her hands, and only then did she register that both of them were clamped around the girl's throat. She let go as if scalded.
"Cough, cough..." Yu Ruo shot her a resentful glare, her delicate body swaying, and collapsed onto the floor.
"Who would have thought the Sword Sect's senior disciple, famous for being cold and celibate, was into this sort of thing?"
Gu Ning looked down at the girl on the floor, cheeks rosy, breath unsteady, and her whole mind went blank.
"Nani the hell?"
He had been a male computer-science undergraduate on Blue Star, weeks from graduating. He had finally landed a job, cleared his probation period, and settled in for a lifetime as a code monkey.
Then he had worked until nine at night, stepped onto a crosswalk, and a Dayun truck came flying at him head-on and launched him.
In his last moments he had even heard the driver muttering something. "I thought it was a speed bump."
He opened his eyes to find himself in this unfamiliar place.
"Learn how to drive, damn it!"
"Although... are my hands this small? And these clothes?"
She let out a long breath, and as she came back to herself she discovered that her hands were slender and fair as a woman's, and that she was wearing a long white ribboned dress.
And at some point two great mountains had appeared on her chest. No wonder she had felt tight-chested and short of breath this whole time.
Bewildered, she opened her mouth to ask the girl on the floor.
Then a flood of information slammed into her. The headache was unbearable, and Gu Ning clutched her head and let out a low groan.
Gu Ning. The Sword Sect master's personally taught disciple, brought into the sect as a small child, gifted beyond the ordinary, at twenty the youngest Golden Core cultivator the sect had ever produced. Cold by nature, she took to cultivation as though the profound were simple, and she kept herself celibate.
But little by little she had found her cultivation stalling, and then sliding backward. It ate at her like fire.
She had poured no small amount of effort into hunting down the cause and a way to break it, and had come back empty-handed every time.
Somewhere in that process she met her junior sister Yu Ruo, and Yu Ruo saw at a glance that Gu Ning carried the Mystic Maiden Violet Yin Body, what people commonly called a cauldron physique.
Before Golden Core it made cultivation blazingly fast, but afterward the body had to be paired with one specific cultivation art, and that art happened to be the one Yu Ruo practiced.
So, step by step, she laid her traps and sank Gu Ning deeper into them, and in the end this cold immortal fairy was taken, and became one of her harem.
"This hand is rigged!"
The corner of Gu Ning's eye twitched wildly, her lovely eyes full of disbelief, her mind ranting at full volume.
"So I've transmigrated into a Mary Sue novel. And I'm one of the heroine's harem?"
She looked down at Yu Ruo, who was stroking her own throat, exactly like a wounded kitten licking at its hurt, the sort of thing that tugged at the heart.
But Gu Ning knew this kitten would one day eat her down to the bone and lick the plate clean.
Yu Ruo rubbed her faintly aching, fragrant neck and put on a face of wronged innocence.
Then she licked her dry red lips and ran a burning gaze over Gu Ning's slender, graceful figure.
"Hey, hey, hey. If you're going to scheme against me, at least put your little face away properly first!"
Gu Ning broke into a faint sweat. The upward curl at the corner of Yu Ruo's mouth laid her insides bare at a glance. She was up to no good, plain as day!
Under that burning gaze Gu Ning felt wrong all over, and yet her body ran faintly hot, a flush of red spreading across her cold face.
No need to even think about it. It had to be that cauldron physique, whatever it was. Gu Ning groaned inwardly.
But she could hardly call it out. True, she was a Golden Core power now, and Yu Ruo was only a Foundation Establishment junior.
But the girl was holding a Mary Sue script. Go head-to-head with that and she would probably end up an early XP drop and out of the story.
And there was the Mystic Maiden Violet Yin Body. Drag this out any longer and there was no telling what nonsense it would throw at her.
Staying with Yu Ruo carried the risk of falling, true. But at least it carried no risk to her life. Right?
"Cough, cough..."
Gu Ning imitated the words and manner of the body's original owner as she remembered them, parted her red lips, and spoke in a voice cold as frost.
"How is a woman to dual cultivate with a woman? I suspect you are deceiving me. Junior Sister, you may be newly through the gate, but this is bold beyond measure."
"Consider today's matter a lesson from me. Go back now."
So saying, Gu Ning turned to one side, as though seeing a guest out.
In truth, the sight of Yu Ruo's bared skin and that scorching figure had set her heart hammering, and twenty years single since birth had left this card-carrying virgin unable to take it. She was only looking away.
Out of the corner of her eye, Gu Ning caught the stiffness that flashed across Yu Ruo's face.
That pretty face, which a moment ago had worn a smile, now plainly read: miscalculated.
She cheered inwardly. So the script isn't going the way you wanted after all.
In the original, Yu Ruo first named Gu Ning's symptoms, then deceived her into believing that the only cure was to dual cultivate with her and bind themselves as dao companions.
The absurdity of the claim naturally enraged Gu Ning, ironclad straight woman that she was, and she had dealt with her severely for it.
Which was exactly what Yu Ruo wanted. Injured, she circulated her art and eased a little of Gu Ning's symptoms.
Would guilt make her grit her teeth and agree?
In the original, that was how it went.
What Yu Ruo had not expected was that this time she would do nothing at all and simply send her away, leaving her no room to work with.
Everything she had done was perfectly reasonable, anyway. Hold out through today, get a grip on the Mary Sue afterward, find out where the cultivation art was, and wouldn't she be a free woman?
"Heh heh~"
Gu Ning could not help humming to herself, full of admiration for her own brilliance.
"S-Senior Sister, I... I really didn't lie to you. The dual cultivation method is the only way to cure your symptoms."
Just as expected, Yu Ruo began to panic, terrified that Gu Ning would truly throw her out and every bit of her groundwork would be wasted.
Yu Ruo lowered her brows, and with a face made to bring ruin on kingdoms, she looked pitiable enough to move a stone. Ripples went through Gu Ning.
"A Mary Sue, all right. Even the character model is top-tier..."
The old Gu Ning would surely have fallen under Yu Ruo's skirt. This one only wanted to live with her virtue intact.
After a moment's thought, Gu Ning raised a fair palm to usher Yu Ruo out of the room.
"Junior Sister, you had best..." Halfway through the sentence, something soft and warm met her palm. Gu Ning's pupils contracted, and she looked at Yu Ruo in confusion.
Yu Ruo's delicate jade hand had closed around hers. All at once Gu Ning felt a gentle spiritual energy pour into her body and drive straight inward.
And that spiritual energy seemed to be alive. It gathered toward her dantian in an endless stream, crushing and devouring the barrier of her spiritual power in a frenzy.
And it was pushing deeper still...
"This is wrong!"
Gu Ning's pupils shrank and she released her hand at once, but it was already too late. The spiritual energy clung like glue and ran riot inside her.
"Nnh... what a strange feeling."
Gu Ning staggered backward, a stifled whimper escaping her throat. The wrongness surging out through her body was like ten thousand ants crawling over her skin, and a faint fragrant sweat beaded on her forehead.
Yu Ruo's eyes flashed with the look of a scheme come off perfectly, and in the next instant rearranged themselves into concern as she reached out to steady Gu Ning.
TL Note: Cauldron physique, a body prized as a living vessel, drained through intimacy to fuel another cultivator's power; it makes Gu Ning a resource to be used rather than a rival to be fought.