It was late at night.
In the dilapidated thatched cottage, moonlight spilled through the cracks in the roof, making the room look deathly pale.
Shen Yuyan squatted in front of the stove, stuffing dry firewood into the firebox. The wood crackled as the flames took hold, and the firelight moved across her smooth face. She puffed at a stray strand of hair stuck to her cheek, and for a moment looked so beautiful it almost seemed unreal.
But facing this peerless beauty, Lu Xuan had no time to appreciate it.
He sat to the side, clutching the "Five Animals Transformation Art" in his hands, his eyes glued to the yellowed pages.
"Husband, you rest first. I’ll boil some water and call you when it’s ready."
Shen Yuyan’s soft voice drifted over from the stove.
Lu Xuan gave a hum of agreement but didn’t move.
He flipped to the first page.
The Five Animals Transformation Art: Bear, Deer, Tiger, Ape, and Crane.
By imitating the forms of these five animals and drawing Spiritual Energy from heaven and earth into the body to nourish it, one can expand the Qi Sea, cleanse the Meridians and marrow, and reshape their martial foundation.
Lu Xuan’s eyes lit up. His fingers, which had been steady a moment ago, tightened on the page until it creaked.
Expanding the Qi Sea... cleansing the Meridians and marrow... and reshaping one’s martial foundation?!
That bastard Lu Hao... because his own martial foundation was mediocre, his father Lu Tianhe had used a forbidden method to extract Lu Xuan’s heart vein to supplement his son’s naturally deficient talent. Even now, thinking of that smug face made his teeth ache.
But none of them ever expected that the Lu Family’s old Ancestral Home actually held such a miraculous technique for rebuilding one’s foundation from scratch.
To think he actually obtained this Five Animals Transformation Art.
Every page he turned showed a human figure performing various incredible movements, with dense annotations written beside them.
Lu Xuan flipped through page after page.
He flipped very quickly.
It wasn’t carelessness... he was scanning it. Every page his eyes touched was being absorbed directly by the System, burned into his mind with perfect clarity.
While adding wood to the stove, Shen Yuyan glanced back at him.
The flickering firelight shone on his face. His gaze was focused... one page, two pages, three pages...
He was flipping so fast it barely looked like reading.
As if he were looking for something.
Shen Yuyan didn’t say anything and turned back to the stove. She poked the fire harder than it needed.
But she thought to herself... Is he afraid I’ll see that he doesn’t understand it? Is that why he’s flipping so fast? Stupid man. As if I would ever laugh at him.
The fire crackled, and time passed until Lu Xuan flipped to the last page.
He closed the book and was silent for three seconds. Then he stood up and walked to the stove.
Shen Yuyan looked up. "Finished reading?"
"Finished."
As he spoke, Lu Xuan tossed the Five Animals Transformation Art straight into the fire. It was the only way to make sure no one else, Lu Family included, could ever get their hands on it.
"You...!"
Shen Yuyan panicked and reached out to grab it, but the flames had already licked the cover.
The paper curled in the fire, blackened, and turned to ash before her very eyes.
She turned her head to look at Lu Xuan, her eyes wide with shock. Her hand was still hanging in the air, burned red at the fingertips.
"You... why did you burn it?"
Lu Xuan didn’t speak. How was he supposed to explain? Sorry, I memorized it with my System? He just watched the fire.
Shen Yuyan stared at him for a long moment... and then, slowly, something seemed to click in her mind.
She opened her mouth to say something but swallowed it back. Then she looked up at the man before her, and a trace of heartache surfaced in her expression.
"It’s... it’s okay."
"I... I know. You can’t practice martial arts, so seeing those things must be painful. I should never have brought it out in the first place."
She slowly stood up and took Lu Xuan’s hand. The firelight on her face was stunning.
"It doesn’t matter."
She gave a small smile, and that smile was more heartbreaking than crying. Her lip was trembling, but she kept it up anyway, because she was stubborn like that.
"Don’t... don’t be sad. It’s okay if you don’t know martial arts."
She paused, her voice becoming even softer... as if afraid he would hear, yet also afraid he wouldn’t.
"I... I can do embroidery. One piece can sell for dozens of copper coins. I... I’ll support you! Auntie Wang at the market said my phoenix stitching is the best in the nearby villages, so... so you don’t have to worry!"
The fire crackled again. Lu Xuan stood there, looking at her.
She lowered her head, her ears red... extremely alluring.
At this moment, in Lu Xuan’s eyes, she was no different from a fairy descended from the heavens.
Before he could say a word, she did something he never expected. Perhaps it was the sting in her burned fingertips, or the courage that comes when a woman decides to comfort the man she loves. She threw herself against him.
The intoxicating softness pressed against his chest. The impact was both gentle and fierce, leaving his usually calm mind in utter confusion.
The radiant heat of her skin seeped into his thin clothes, warming his once cold and lonely soul.
Her smooth arms wrapped around his neck, sliding innocently. Her petal-like lips pressed against his, blindly, clumsily, and without any strategy.
It struck his lips like a muffled thunderclap, a drumbeat, the snapping sound of reason breaking in his mind.
But he forced himself to hold back and did not make any rash moves he would regret later.
Feeling his stillness, she added fuel to the fire, tentatively touching him with her lips again and again.
Before she could react, before she could pull away from her bold attempt, his arm suddenly wrapped around her waist, holding her tightly against him.
Shen Yuyan parted her lips slightly in surprise, as if to say something.
But he couldn’t wait any longer, and he returned a deep, overpowering kiss.
It wasn’t a fleeting glance, nor a perfunctory greeting. Without any build-up or transition, from the very first second, he forcefully captured her lips with a fierce, furious intensity. His breath was heavy and hot.
This was a powerful storm that Shen Yuyan had not anticipated when she took the initiative.
She tried to lean back to dodge him, but his other hand was already pressing down on the back of her head, leaving her no way to escape.
They were pressed tightly together, like a desperate spark licking dry, withered wood, suddenly igniting into a towering flame.
She was flustered and at a loss. All sorts of emotions came rushing over her with that kiss.
She didn’t have time to close her eyes. She kept them open and watched him kiss her with his brows slightly furrowed.
That one second of hesitation became her tacit approval, and with it he grew even more unrestrained.
He kissed her greedily, letting her heart pound wildly against his own chest.
Shen Yuyan was trembling involuntarily.
Perhaps it was the biting cold draft blowing through the dilapidated room, and her thin clothes.
Perhaps it was his sudden change of mood, which caught her completely off guard.
Or perhaps it was his overly possessive and passionate kiss, which made her very soul tremble.
Lu Xuan noticed her trembling. He stopped being reserved and became wild.
The soft touch, the fiery breath, the rapid heartbeat. She was captivated by his bold intensity.
He’s so bad, she thought, as his lips trailed down her neck.
Oh yes, Yuyan... I know exactly what you’re up to, and you’re not getting away after rousing the monster in me.
Lu Xuan thought wickedly, turning the kisses into gentle nibbles. At this moment, he formally merged the bitter obsessions of his past life with the beautiful reality of his new life.
Good heavens, he was so wicked!
She sensed a sweet danger and moaned softly, feeling both unbearable pleasure and deep shyness about what was to come.
But the sound did not stir any restraint in him. Instead, it ignited an even fiercer fire in his heart.
He leaned in closer, his nose brushing her neck, and inhaled deeply. The scent of cold blossom... and beneath it, her body’s warmth.
"Yuyan..." he muttered, voice thick with heat. "You’re so soft..."
At first he touched her only through the robe. His palm settled gently over the silk, and even with the cloth between them, the warmth made his fingers tremble. He caressed her slowly, reverently, in circles, then more firmly, unable to stop. His hands moved lower, past her waist, and squeezed gently, then harder, through the robe.
She simply let him do as he pleased.
He lifted her and carried her to the straw bed in the corner, and she lay back against it. He reached for the sash at her waist and pulled.
The knot slipped loose.
The robe opened with a gentle shift, sliding down her shoulders. The faded red bridal dress fell to the dusty floor like discarded petals, and his own tattered clothes soon followed, leaving nothing between them but the warm glow of the firelight.
Her skin was smooth as polished moonstone, pale and perfect, as if crafted by heaven’s own sculptor. He seemed to wait a long moment, then reached out and cupped her softness again, this time with nothing between them, his hands trembling with desire.
He positioned himself over her, breathing like a beast. Her golden eyes gazed up at him, full of allure. She didn’t look at him with fear. For her, it was her duty toward her husband.
To him?
It was everything.
He pressed against her, breath shaking, a grin curling on his lips, and joined with her.
Warm. Wet. Heavenly.
He was gentle but firm, guiding her through the tender pain of her first time, slowly replacing her nervous gasps with soft, breathless moans. His movements were clumsy at first, then faster, like a monkey finally let out of its cage. His breath turned wild, guttural, sweat beading on his forehead. His hands never left her, as if afraid she might vanish.
The world narrowed to the sound of their movement, the scent of her skin, the feel of her body beneath him, and the rising heat inside himself. He lost control, his hips driving harder and faster, reckless as a monkey thrown into a tempest.
Their bodies moved in a steady, primal rhythm... a perfect union of warmth and tenderness that chased away the cold of the dilapidated cottage.
Under the pale moonlight filtering through the thatched roof, two lonely souls finally found solace in each other.
In that small, broken room, they gave themselves entirely to one another, sealing a bond that neither heaven nor earth could break.