The system made no attempt to conceal its schadenfreude; for a system, it was truly of no use whatsoever.
Not only was it completely unhelpful, but it was also deeply passionate about eating melon seeds and watching the drama unfold.
As night fell, Shen Wang naturally and smoothly helped Bai Qiuluo undress.
He looked just like a devoted mortal wife attending to her husband’s garments.
Shen Wang hung the removed outer robe over the folding screen, while Bai Qiuluo stood clad in a single layer of white inner wear.
The interior of the cave was illuminated brilliantly by a luminous night pearl, and the cold jade bed was unusually lined with a soft layer of down feathers.
Long since accustomed to Shen Wang’s service, Bai Qiuluo reclined onto the bed a step ahead.
As a cultivator with sharp senses, he heard the faint sound of Shen Wang unfastening his own buttons one by one.
Lying on the bed, Bai Qiuluo unexpectedly felt a strange and eerie sense of tension, even though he and Shen Wang had shared the same bed many times before.
Perhaps the words Shen Wang had spoken during the day had ultimately left some lingering impact on him.
It left him feeling slightly suspicious and jittery, tossing and turning uneasily against the mattress.
Fortunately, Shen Wang did not leave him in suspense for long. He quickly climbed onto the bed and pulled Bai Qiuluo entirely into his arms.
His arms wrapped around him like iron bands, forming an inescapable posture of confinement.
The two of them wore only thin inner layers, and the moment Shen Wang pressed close,
Bai Qiuluo felt wave after wave of continuous heat wash over him, scorching temperatures transferring directly through the patches of skin where they touched.
They were far too close; Shen Wang’s breathing brushed against the sensitive skin of his neck, sending a series of involuntary shivers cascading down his spine.
Just as Bai Qiuluo instinctively tried to struggle, he was pulled even tighter into the embrace of the person behind him.
“Master, I missed you so much these past few days away. I missed having Master coax me to sleep—without Master coaxing me, I simply couldn’t fall asleep.”
Standing a whole head taller than Bai Qiuluo and completely enveloping his slender frame, Shen Wang still spoke in a muffled, wheedling tone as he acted spoiled toward Bai Qiuluo.
“Do you think you are still a mere child?”
Unable to hold back, Bai Qiuluo tossed out a sarcastic retort. He simply refused to believe that a Demon Lord who had lived for over a millian years err, a thousand years, couldn’t fall asleep without someone coaxing him.
Shen Wang’s gaze darkened slightly, though he remained silent, simply pressing his chin gently against the crown of Bai Qiuluo’s head.
His master was beginning to grow more and more wary of him; if so, just how had his master managed to discover his true identity?
Suppressing his discomfort, Bai Qiuluo endured. Every minute movement Shen Wang made seemed infinitely magnified against his skin.
He closed his eyes tightly and forced himself to feign deep slumber. Shen Wang simply watched his master pretend to sleep.
After a short while, Shen Wang spoke up abruptly, a teasing smile playing across his face as he leaned right into Bai Qiuluo’s ear.
“Master, are you asleep?”
Receiving no response from Bai Qiuluo, whose dark hair sprawled in winding waves across the bedding as if he had drifted into a profound sleep, Shen Wang let out another low chuckle.
Naturally, he knew his master was only faking it.
He leaned downward, closing the distance until he hovered directly above Bai Qiuluo’s face.
Their breathing intertwined closely, and Shen Wang’s hot, burning torso pressed heavily down from above.
With an intensely fiery gaze, he traced the contours of Bai Qiuluo’s brows and eyes before pressing a tender kiss against the corner of his lips.
[!!!]
Shock surged limitlessly within Bai Qiuluo’s heart, his entire body instantly freezing in place.
Acting as if he noticed nothing, Shen Wang began pressing a rapid succession of light, delicate pecks along the edge of Bai Qiuluo’s lips.
His kisses were feather-light, leaving behind no traces, yet punctuated by a sense of deep cherishing as he nipped and brushed against them repeatedly.
Poor Bai Qiuluo had never encountered such a scenario in his life. He didn’t even dare to open his eyes, terrified that if their gazes met, his embarrassment would cause him to perish on the spot right then and there.
Yet right at that moment, Shen Wang seemed unsatisfied with mere pecks.
Parting his lips, he took Bai Qiuluo’s prominent lip-pearl directly into his mouth, tracing it lightly with the tip of his tongue without pushing the intrusion any further.
He played with the lip-pearl inside his mouth, his clever tongue sweeping across it before finally releasing it with an air of complete satisfaction.
[Could this Demon Lord possibly be a total pervert? He—he—he actually kissed me…]
Bai Qiuluo’s inner voice tumbled into incoherent panic, as though utterly incapable of accepting reality.
Acting completely oblivious, Shen Wang reached out and used his fingertips to trace the outline of Bai Qiuluo’s eyebrows once more.
From there, his finger slid down to trace his high nose bridge, finally coming to rest upon his thin lips.
“Master, your lips are far softer than your words. The things this mouth says can be truly ruthless, yet when kissed, it feels so wonderfully soft.”
The teasing, intimate whisper grazed Bai Qiuluo’s ear, making his ears burn bright red with anger.
He felt an urge to throw caution to the wind, open his eyes, and brawl with this damned Demon Lord right here and now.
Bai Qiuluo was certain of it: this Demon Lord was simply out to humiliate him!
Seemingly deciding that Bai Qiuluo had absorbed enough shock for one day, Shen Wang finally settled back down beside him, wrapping his arms around him once more as he drifted off into a sweet slumber.
Ensuring the breathing of the person beside him had grown steady and even, Bai Qiuluo opened his eyes, their gaze sharp and cold.
Turning his head slightly, he brought a hand up toward Shen Wang’s throat, intending to choke him—only to halt his hand mid-air.
Bai Qiuluo knew that killing Shen Wang right now was simply out of the question.
Although this avatar of Shen Wang was only at the late Foundation Establishment stage, his main body had already reached the peak of the Mahayana stage, merely a single step away from the Tribulation Transcendence stage.
If he made a move against Shen Wang now and completely tore down the facade, he feared Shen Wang might force his way directly into the cultivation realm to snatch Su Wanwan away.
There were still a few hidden powerhouses at the Tribulation Transcendence stage lingering within the cultivation realm, which was precisely why Shen Wang didn’t dare bring his main body here.
Yet if he exposed Shen Wang’s identity over such a trivial matter right now, nobody could predict how the subsequent plot might warp.
Bai Qiuluo had no grand ambition to save all living beings under heaven; those were burdens meant for the protagonists to shoulder. But neither did he wish to see the world destroyed because of him.
The male and female protagonists had not yet grown strong enough to contend with the Demon Lord.
Despite possessing the cultivation of the peak Integration stage, he would still find it difficult to stand single-handedly against the Demon Lord’s true form.
After weighing the pros and cons repeatedly, Bai Qiuluo pulled his hand back.
His fingers brushed against his own lips, which still burned with a vivid, ravishing crimson, looking as though they had been ruthlessly bruised and ground down.
Even the small, delicate lip-pearl felt swollen and carried a faint, stinging sensation when touched.
[Just treat it like I was bitten by a stray dog. I can’t tear down the facade or attack him just yet, so I’ll just grit my teeth and bear it.]
Admonishing himself inwardly, Bai Qiuluo closed his eyes once again and forced himself to sleep, choosing to pretend that the existence of Shen Wang beside him was nothing more than thin air.
Yet habit is a truly terrifying thing. Once he drifted off to sleep, Bai Qiuluo instinctively wriggled into Shen Wang’s embrace, burying his small face straight against his chest.
Even deep in slumber, however, his brows remained tightly knitted and his lips pressed into a hard line, radiating an aura of deep preoccupation.
When the pale light of dawn broke completely across the sky, Shen Wang was already nowhere to be seen beside him.
Propelling his body up from the bed, Bai Qiuluo stepped out, only to find a bright crimson Dharma robe hanging quietly over the folding screen.