The dim candlelight flickered on the windowsill, casting shifting shadows across the cave residence. It made the room alternately bright and dark, and it also gave Xu Fan’s handsome face an extra hint of eerie gloom.
“System, we have no way out.”
Xu Fan spoke in his heart with deep solemnity, like a great villain pushed into a desperate corner, struggling on the brink of death.
But the system mercilessly exposed Xu Fan’s attempt to drag it onto the same sinking ship in less than a second. “Host, you should change ‘we’ to ‘I’!”
“This system will last for eternity. Even if you die, I won’t!”
Xu Fan’s mouth twitched. His dramatic act broke instantly. He flopped onto the bed helplessly, staring at the small pillow printed with a chibi Ji Hanyue, looking like he was about to cry. “I’ve tried everything, but nothing works! I feel like Master isn’t even pretending anymore. She’s straight-up raising me like her husband!”
Xu Fan grew even more depressed as he said it. “If this keeps going, maybe one day I really won’t be able to hold out, and I’ll end up surrendering to Master’s gentle offensive!”
He could tell that Ji Hanyue had truly put in an enormous amount of effort to “conquer” him.
A black, form-fitting deep V dress.
A deep-purple, maturely seductive tight hip-hugging skirt.
And that sheer, transparent dress that subtly leaked endless springtime allure—where one could even vaguely see the faint, enticing curve of her waistline…
In short, Ji Hanyue wore whatever was the boldest and most seductive. Paired with her near-perfect voluptuous figure and those deadly long, fair, slender legs, even Xu Fan—who had seen it all—would sometimes feel an impulse he could barely suppress.
The moment Xu Fan’s gaze lingered even a little too long, Ji Hanyue would immediately seize the chance to launch an attack on his will.
A peerless master who looked like an eternal iceberg—cold, beautiful, and irresistible—yet she constantly tried every possible way to get intimate with him through physical contact that was too suggestive to put into words.
Even though his will was incredibly firm, Xu Fan sometimes couldn’t help letting his heart wander, even feeling a restless heat spreading through his whole body.
And it gave him a headache like never before.
He didn’t know whether it was because they had spent too much time together, but Xu Fan honestly felt his master was even harder to deal with than all six of his previous “girls” combined. It was as if she wouldn’t stop until she had completely devoured him!
Seeing how troubled Xu Fan was, the system said, “Host, I remember that in one of your lives, you created a technique with extremely powerful aura concealment?”
Xu Fan froze, then actually remembered it, frowning deeply. “That was a long time ago… probably the fifth life, when You Tang and I went to the underworld to retrieve the Red Spider Lily.”
“I remember that secret art was called the No-Life, No-Trace Art. In that life, I created it specifically to evade cultivators’ perception.”
“If one’s cultivation is high enough, it can even allow you to pass through the range of a powerful cultivator’s divine sense without alerting them. The only drawback is that it can’t completely hide your physical body—you can still be seen with the naked eye…”
But soon, a bitter smile appeared on his lips. After all, if even the system could think of it, how could he not have considered it? “System, your suggestion is good, but putting it into practice won’t be easy. At minimum, I’d need cultivation at or above the Divine Transformation Realm to have any chance of fooling Master.”
Xu Fan froze, then felt as if he had been struck by enlightenment. He immediately understood what the system meant.
The grand seven-life plan to return home could not be abandoned, but it didn’t conflict with staying by Master’s side a little longer.
And while staying with Ji Hanyue and quietly improving his cultivation, he could also treat her as well as possible to repay the kindness she had shown him.
Some things were indeed difficult to untangle clearly, but that wasn’t a reason to do nothing. And this was also the only way Xu Fan could feel even slightly better after returning to Blue Star.
After careful consideration, Xu Fan finally settled on this plan.
…
Ji Hanyue suddenly discovered that Xu Fan seemed a little different lately.
For example—
In the past, when he came to greet her in the early morning, Fan’er always looked sleepy and lazy. Even when massaging her shoulders, he would slack off and drag his feet, as if he had 100,000 complaints in his heart. Every time, she had to tease him with words before he would finally do it properly.
But now it was different. Not only did Xu Fan always come with a bright smile, he would even bring her exquisite homemade breakfast snacks. Sometimes, they looked so appetizing that even Ji Hanyue would feel hungry and couldn’t resist eating two or three pieces more.
“Fan’er, how did you make this cake so delicious?”
“Master, your disciple added some homemade monosodium glutamate, ethyl maltol, cinnamaldehyde, and other delicious technological flavorings inside. I prepared it especially for you. As long as you like it, that’s enough.”
“Heh, Fan’er has grown up!”
And for another example—
When going outside the sect to relax, Xu Fan no longer stayed silent like before. Instead, he liked chatting with her about interesting topics—like why apples fall downward instead of flying up, why ordinary students in mortal dynasties end up unemployed right after graduating, why chickens can play basketball, and so on.
Sometimes Ji Hanyue couldn’t understand what Xu Fan was talking about, but she could feel that he was sincerely trying hard to understand her heart. That made her like him even more, to the point where she sometimes wanted to “deal with him on the spot” more than once.
But in the end, Ji Hanyue still held back.
After all, her lifespan was unimaginably long, so she wasn’t in a hurry to tear through that thin veil between them—something they both already understood perfectly well. She simply continued to silently use everything she had to treat Xu Fan well.
She believed that as long as she persisted, Fan’er would eventually put down the worries in his heart and fall into her warm embrace.
She was full of joy, waiting for that day to come.
The next day, Ji Hanyue did not receive Xu Fan’s morning greeting as usual. Instead, inside his cave residence, she only saw a farewell letter with the words “To Master, personally opened” written on it.
[Master, the world is vast, and your disciple wants to go see it.]
[Perhaps one day, your disciple will return to your side again…]
Just two simple lines, yet they made Ji Hanyue feel both amused and exasperated. “Honestly… If Fan’er wants to go out and look around, he could just tell me. Why make it sound like life and death separation?”
Ji Hanyue set down the letter and slowly released her Half-God Realm divine sense—its range terrifyingly vast. A thoughtful look appeared on her stunning face. “Now then… after I find Fan’er, where should I take him? Cloud-Sunny Valley, or the Falling-Flower Azure Sea? I wonder which one he would like…”
But soon, Ji Hanyue’s expression turned wrong. “Wait… why has Fan’er run so far?”
Her heart suddenly sank.
The tenderness in her cold, enchanting eyes—tenderness shown only to Xu Fan—gradually vanished. Her face darkened at a speed visible to the naked eye, and an indescribable twisting pain surged in her heart, instantly reminding her of the scene of Xu Fan heartlessly abandoning her before!
A terrifying thought—one that nearly made her collapse just imagining it—suddenly surfaced in her mind!
Ji Hanyue’s eyes turned crimson with madness in an instant. A distorted, pathological stubbornness rose between her brows and eyes, making her voice hoarse. “No… no… Fan’er wouldn’t abandon me like this!”
Like a drowning person desperately grasping for a lifeline, Ji Hanyue pushed her divine sense to its limit, covering nearly half of the Heavenly Cloud Realm. “Fan’er must be playing hide-and-seek with his master… Fan’er is truly naughty…”
Yet nearly half an hour passed, and Ji Hanyue found nothing.
As the search yielded nothing, Ji Hanyue’s face abruptly turned paper-white. Her heart felt as if it were being pierced through by countless knives, so painful it was as though it was bleeding. “Fan’er!!!”
Ji Hanyue pushed her divine power to the extreme—already a heavy burden on her body. And now, with anger surging to her head, even a Half-God body couldn’t endure it. She spat blood on the spot—an instant splash of brilliant, divine-glowing crimson blood sprayed onto the farewell letter, scattering into countless blood droplets!
“Fan’er, why don’t you understand your master’s heart?!”
There was no longer any brightness left on Ji Hanyue’s face, none of the warmth she used to show only when alone with Xu Fan. All that remained was endless, morbid gloom.
The possessiveness in her heart—so thick it was nearly insane—suddenly devoured her entire body and mind. Her thoughts even became chaotic, leaving only a few murmured words of obsessive madness drifting into the distance.
“Fan’er, you’re not obedient at all… you’ve really become bad… When I find you, I’ll imprison you by my side forever, and torment you little by little…”
“I’ll use every method and every means. Even if I search every corner of the Heavenly Cloud Realm, I will lock you up…”
“My Fan’er… you are absolutely not allowed to leave your master!!! You belong to me forever!!!”
…