The protective formation around Cold Spring let out a crisp crack.
Several rune-engraved jade stones split apart and rolled in all directions.
Ji Mingyu flattened the remnants of the formation at the entrance to the cave abode with one stomp.
Today, he wore the white martial uniform of a direct disciple of Yunxiao Sect, cloud patterns embroidered in silver thread around the cuffs and collar. His ink-black hair was bound high behind his head with a bright-red ribbon, and that entirely crimson Pure Yang Sword hung diagonally across his back.
At eighteen or nineteen, he was at the age when one was most high-spirited. He acted in a straightforward manner, and there had never been room in his eyes for even a grain of sand.
“Shen Weilan! Come out!”
The young man’s voice pierced through the stone walls.
He strode across the outer hall, the Pure Yang Sword on his back giving off the faintest sound of resonance within its sheath.
“What did you do to Yao’er Junior Sister this time? She went to the main hall to deliver a bowl of Heart-Calming Soup to Master, and when she came back, she curled up alone at the edge of the cliff behind the mountain and wiped away her tears.”
Ji Mingyu reached the stone screen outside Cold Spring without slowing his steps.
“When I asked who had bullied her, she actually stopped me from bringing it up, shielding you at every turn. Aside from you, who else on Cloudsky Peak would make things difficult for her?”
He rounded the screen and barged straight into the inner chamber.
Shen Weilan was leaning against the edge of the pool, which had been built from white jade.
Hearing the commotion, she turned her head.
After cleansing her marrow and tempering her bones, every trace of accumulated filth had been washed away. Her jet-black hair was soaked through, clinging in strands to her pale, smooth back and following the rises and falls of her bones before disappearing beneath the water’s surface.
Shen Weilan recognized this blustering Little Junior Brother.
Lu Yao’s most convenient blade. He was simply a straightforward fool who could be provoked at will. As long as Lu Yao reddened her eyes, Ji Mingyu could draw his sword and smash the original owner’s cave abode into pieces.
Ji Mingyu’s shouting, at the instant he saw the scene in the pool clearly, was like a chicken being strangled. The final word caught hard in his throat.
He stopped two paces from the edge of Cold Spring.
The water was clear to the bottom. Shen Weilan leaned there casually, her skin glowing with a lustrous, icy whiteness beneath the rising steam.
A bead of water hung from her jawbone, neither falling nor remaining, while the alluring charm that seemed to seep from her very bones crashed straight into his field of vision.
Ji Mingyu stood frozen in place.
He cultivated the Pure Yang Sword Art, and his blood and qi were already far beyond those of ordinary people. A wave of heat shot straight to the crown of his head, turning him red from the roots of his ears all the way down to his neck.
He abruptly turned around, his back to the pool.
“You… Why are you bathing in broad daylight?!”
He stammered as he spoke, the confidence with which he had come to demand an explanation completely scattered.
Leaning against the edge of the pool, Shen Weilan looked up and down the young man’s broad, tense back.
Wasn’t this a toy delivering itself right to her door?
A Pure Yang Sword Body—utterly firm and utterly yang. She had just obtained this naturally seductive physique and had been worrying about finding someone to test it on. Since Lu Yao’s loyal dog had broken through the formation and delivered himself inside today, he could hardly blame her for casually digging into her junior sister’s fish pond.
Teasing him a little would be fun, too.
The sound of splashing water came from behind him.
Shen Weilan stepped barefoot onto the Cold Jade stairs. She reached over to the rack, pulled down a white, gauzy robe, and casually wrapped it around herself.
She did not bother looking for the ties.
Water droplets slid down her straight, slender calves. Her toes pressed against the flagstones, leaving behind a trail of dark, wet marks.
She took a step and walked up behind Ji Mingyu.
“Little Junior Brother barged into my cave abode, kicked apart my formation, and ran into my inner chamber.”
Shen Weilan’s voice was very soft.
“And now you’re asking me why I’m bathing in broad daylight.”
Ji Mingyu turned around. His right hand reflexively gripped the hilt of his sword, and with a clang, he drew the Pure Yang Sword.
The tip of the sword pointed forward.
They were too close.
Shen Weilan did not stop. Draped in the half-open gauze robe, she walked straight toward the scarlet sword point.
Ji Mingyu’s wrist trembled. He retreated half a step.
“Don’t dare to attack?” Shen Weilan laughed.
She raised her right hand and pressed the pad of her index finger to the very center of her chest, pushing the thin gauze down slightly.
“Stab here. As long as your hand is steady enough, you can avenge your Yao’er Junior Sister today.”
Ji Mingyu continued backing away.
His heel caught on a raised flagstone, and his back slammed heavily into the rough stone wall.
There was nowhere left to retreat.
He still held his sword. The Pure Yang Sword he had always been so proud of had now become a hot potato. He spent every day swinging a sword on the training grounds with his senior brothers and had never even touched a female cultivator’s hand. Faced with such a situation, he had no idea how to respond.
“Stay away from me!”
He freed his left hand and reached out to push her.
His palm had only risen halfway when Shen Weilan took a large step forward.
Ji Mingyu’s finger bones brushed directly across the thin gauze over her chest.
In his panic, he immediately withdrew his hand. As he did so, the strength in his right hand holding the sword fell completely out of order, and the sharp sword qi veered off course.
“Riiip.”
The gauze was slashed open by an extremely long tear.
The fabric slipped down with it.
Her right shoulder, together with the entire expanse of her collarbone, was completely exposed to the air.
Ji Mingyu’s lips parted.
His gaze locked beneath her collarbone.
A bite mark was unmistakably imprinted there.
Ji Mingyu’s breathing came to a complete halt.
Yunxiao Sect had strict rules and stern discipline, and all its disciples cultivated through pure-hearted asceticism. How could something like this appear on Shen Weilan?
Who had done it?
An image of Shen Weilan’s usual clingy behavior toward Master flashed through his mind.
Could it have been Master?
Impossible.
Master had cultivated the Heartless Dao for six hundred years. Aloof and exalted, he absolutely could not have become involved in this sort of thing.
Then who else could it be?
Ji Mingyu stood in the cramped inner chamber, staring at the intensely shocking and intimate mark before him. An indescribable shudder crawled up his spine.
The taboo sensation of stumbling upon someone else’s secret affair churned his originally upright sword heart into chaos.
He knew he should not look, yet he could not move his gaze away.
Clang.
The Pure Yang Sword crashed onto the flagstones.
“You…” Ji Mingyu pointed at her, his finger trembling. “You have no sense of shame!”
Shen Weilan raised a hand and gathered up a handful of her dripping-wet hair.
She took the final step forward.
She lifted both hands and braced them against the stone wall on either side of him with a sharp slap, completely trapping Ji Mingyu between her arms.
That unfamiliar, sweet and cloying fragrance forcefully bored into Ji Mingyu’s nostrils.
Shen Weilan leaned slightly toward him.
The tip of her nose brushed against the side of his face, and her breath fell directly against his reddened ear.
“This is what you call shameless?”
Her voice was somewhat soft.
“With Little Junior Brother’s blood and qi so vigorous, instead of going to find your Yao’er, you have time to come here and demand justice from your Senior Sister?”
Every hair on Ji Mingyu’s body stood on end.
“Shut up!”
He turned his head away, his teeth grinding audibly.
“You aren’t worthy of mentioning Yao’er Junior Sister’s name!”
Shen Weilan let out a light scoff.
That dog of a temper needed to be corrected.
She rapped on the system in her mind: 【Give me a chocolate bean. Put it on credit.】
【Ding! Credit approved. Five initial points deducted.】
Ji Mingyu was still holding his neck stiffly, maintaining his pride.
Shen Weilan’s left hand shot out and precisely seized his jawbone. Her thumb found the joint and pressed downward with force.
Click.
A muffled sound rang out.
Ji Mingyu’s jaw dislocated, forcing his mouth wide open.
With two fingers of her right hand, Shen Weilan gripped the black pellet and stuffed it straight into his mouth.
“Mm!”
Ji Mingyu’s eyes flew wide open as he desperately tried to push it back out with his tongue.
Shen Weilan brought her right fingers together and pressed her palm against the Adam’s apple rolling in his throat. Following the force of his swallow, she pushed firmly downward.
Gulp.
The hard object slid down his esophagus into his stomach.
Shen Weilan released him, retreated two steps, and folded her arms across her chest.
Ji Mingyu supported his jaw with both hands and shoved hard, resetting the joint. He immediately clutched his throat and bent over, dry-heaving toward the puddle on the floor.
Acidic fluid churned up from his stomach and spilled onto the flagstones.
The thing he had swallowed dissolved the moment it entered his mouth, leaving not even a trace to vomit back up.
“What did you make me eat?!”
He straightened and hurriedly wiped the acidic fluid from the corners of his mouth with the back of his hand.
Shen Weilan stood there.
“A lost secret medicine of the Acacia Sect.”
“Love gu.”