Ji Mingyu’s retching stopped.
He straightened. Then, subconsciously, he smacked his lips.
The thing that had just slid down his throat had none of the fishy stench of a poison pill, nor the bitterness of medicinal herbs. What dissolved in his stomach was a rich, sweet fragrance with a faint hint of milk.
This taste was nothing like poison.
He looked around. The spirit-gathering array had been completely destroyed. The stone bed was bare, without even a meditation cushion.
A few months ago, jealous that Lu Yao had taken first place in the sect’s internal competition, she had turned around and poured Bone-Corroding Water into Lu Yao’s spirit-herb garden. The Discipline Hall elders had flown into a rage and punished her by withholding three full years of spirit stones and pills.
A love gu from the Acacia Sect? Something worth a fortune and impossible to obtain even on the black market—had she traded her life for it?
Ji Mingyu clenched his teeth.
“Shen Weilan, stop pretending to be mysterious!” he shouted, raising his voice to conceal his panic at having been forcibly fed the pill. “You’re so poor you can’t even afford Fasting Pills, yet you can afford a love gu? Why don’t you just say you fed me a Nine-Turn Golden Pill!”
In the sea of consciousness, she let out a snort of laughter.
This straightforward Little Junior Brother wasn’t completely stupid after all.
She could not be bothered to waste her breath trying to patch up the lie. The more one tried to explain that sort of lie, the worse it became.
Reasoning was useless against a pure-hearted young man whose mind held nothing but swords. She had to defeat him directly through his senses.
The supreme ice spirit root in her dantian began circulating at tremendous speed.
She deliberately stimulated her naturally seductive constitution.
The faint fragrance that had already entered Ji Mingyu’s nostrils suddenly grew overwhelmingly intense. Interwoven with the moisture of the Cold Spring, wisps of fragrance coiled around his limbs and every bone in his body.
Ji Mingyu had intended to turn around and pick up the sword on the ground.
He had only bent halfway when that faint fragrance assaulted him again. He swallowed, and his throat inexplicably felt a little dry.
He glanced at Shen Weilan from the corner of his eye.
Her black hair was still dripping with water. Her gauze robe was torn, and the bite marks on her collarbone stood out starkly against her cold, pale skin.
Ji Mingyu’s heartbeat began to race beyond his control.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Each beat was heavier than the last.
His body temperature seemed to be rising, and a fine layer of sweat seeped across his palms.
“Is it really… a love gu?”
He questioned himself inwardly, and his already unsteady resolve began to waver.
If it were poison, he should be bleeding from all seven orifices by now, with his meridians torn apart.
But he wasn’t. He only felt hot. It was the kind of heat that seeped into even the gaps between his bones, filling him with unbearable restlessness.
If it wasn’t a love gu, why did Shen Weilan look so beautiful today?
It was clearly the same familiar face, yet at this moment, every inch of her skin seemed to radiate a deadly, decadent allure.
If it wasn’t a love gu, why did he feel so hot?
Why couldn’t he stop his eyes from drifting toward her collarbone?
The sweet, cloying scent of milk in his stomach had long since dispersed, replaced by waves of maddening heat. In his ears rang only Shen Weilan’s words from earlier: “The Acacia Sect’s lost secret medicine.”
Eighteen years old. In the prime of his youth. He knew nothing but how to swing a sword and circulate qi.
At this moment, the contents of all those forbidden black-market books he had once dug out from beneath his Senior Brothers’ beds came surging into his mind.
The books said that the love gu of the Southern Border was colorless and odorless. Those afflicted would experience surging qi and blood, their minds thrown into confusion and infatuation.
Ji Mingyu’s hands and feet went weak.
Everything matched.
If she had truly acquired that filthy thing somehow, why had she used it on him?
She was jealous of Yao’er and hated her by association, so she intended to use such a despicable method to ruin his chastity?
No. If she wanted to ruin him, she could have simply found some poisonous herbs that would drive a person mad, made him disgrace himself in the sect’s main hall, and destroyed his reputation.
When the love gu flared up, the two people had to consummate their relationship. By doing this, she was sacrificing herself as well.
Could it be…
Ji Mingyu’s breathing grew harsh as a thought flashed through his mind.
Had she always harbored feelings for him?
Back when she had still been the senior sister whom everyone adored, he had spent all day trailing after her, calling her “Senior Sister” this and “Senior Sister” that. Later, when Junior Sister Yao’er arrived, Shen Weilan repeatedly framed her, and he gradually distanced himself from Shen Weilan. He had even drawn his sword against her several times for Yao’er’s sake.
Had she turned love into hatred? Had she seen that Yao’er could obtain his protection and, driven to desperation, resorted to this most extreme method to forcibly bind the two of them together?
The young man’s thoughts grew wild under the stimulation of his surging blood and qi.
The more he thought about it, the more reasonable it seemed. The more he thought about it, the more fiercely that pure-yang demonic fire burned through his meridians.
He retreated, his back once again pressing against the rough stone wall. The Pure-Yang Sword that had slipped from his hand lay by his feet. He reached toward it, but his five fingers trembled so badly that he could not even grip the hilt.
That urge to draw close, coupled with an overwhelming resistance, forced him into a dead end.
Shen Weilan raised her hand.
Her slightly cool fingertips reached toward him.
Every hair on Ji Mingyu’s body stood on end.
He wanted to dodge. He wanted to push her away. But his legs felt so heavy that he could not move them. Both hands were pressed tightly against the wall, unable to budge.
Those slightly cool fingertips pressed directly against his burning cheek.
Ji Mingyu flinched. Then his cheek involuntarily rubbed against that touch of coolness.
Hot. Far too hot.
“Little Junior Brother.” Shen Weilan moved closer, her fingertip sliding down along his cheek before pressing against his red, blood-hot earlobe. She gave it a pinch.
Ji Mingyu’s breathing fell completely out of rhythm.
“You can’t even hold your sword anymore.” Shen Weilan turned her face, her breath brushing against his neck. “Are you still going to avenge your Junior Sister Yao’er?”
“The mother gu is with me. If you dare show even the slightest murderous intent toward me, or reveal even a single word about what you saw in this cave dwelling today, I’ll immediately activate the child gu.”
She paused, enunciating each word slowly.
“When that happens, your qi and blood will reverse course. You’ll be consumed by lust. Every inch of your meridians will be gnawed by millions of ants, and in the end, you’ll explode and die while still unsatisfied.”
“You…”
Ji Mingyu opened his mouth and discovered that his voice had gone hoarse. His vocal cords trembled uncontrollably.
The brazen, spirited young man had been forced into a flush of physiological redness around the corners of his eyes. It was the aggrieved panic of a proud, pure sword heart utterly collapsing and being dragged forcibly into the mire.
“You drugged me with this kind of demonic medicine—what are you plotting?”
“Could it be…” Ji Mingyu sucked in a breath, his entire body almost plastered against the stone wall. “Do you want me to have an affair with you?”
The words had barely left his mouth when Ji Mingyu himself shuddered.
He cultivated the most forceful Pure-Yang Sword of the Yunxiao Sect. Its sword techniques emphasized uprightness and openness, impervious to evil.
Since childhood, he had been taught to preserve his righteous character and untainted blood and bones. An affair… He had never imagined that those words could come out of his own mouth.
Ji Mingyu thought he would feel disgusted.
Yet, perversely, he did not.
He looked at the bluish-purple marks on that expanse of cold, pale skin, at the rises and falls faintly visible beneath the torn gauze. The secretive sensation of carrying out some sordid deed behind other people’s backs was like a poisoned thorn piercing into his flesh, sending a tingling, numbing thrill through him.
He even felt that if he pounced on her now and bit apart and covered every mark others had left behind, it would be an incomparably satisfying thing to do.
The instant that thought surfaced, Ji Mingyu braced himself hard against the wall and desperately suppressed the impulse that should never have arisen.
“In your dreams!” he roared, his neck rigid. “I, Ji Mingyu, am an upright man. I absolutely will not do such filthy, immoral things! You already have someone else, yet you still want to use a love gu to force me to submit—what kind of person do you take me for?”
Those words rang through the heavens.
Yet his body was horrifyingly honest. That urge to draw close, coupled with an overwhelming resistance, forced him into a dead end.
Aggrieved. Panicked.
The brazen, spirited young man had been forcibly driven into a flush of red around the corners of his eyes.
After listening to his impassioned declaration, Shen Weilan almost failed to keep from laughing.
This fellow could do nothing but swing his sword in his daily life. His mind was filled entirely with straightforward thoughts, yet his ability to imagine things was truly peerless.
Shen Weilan did not bother explaining. She simply went along with his assumptions.
She was barefoot. She stepped forward.
Her soles landed on the damp bluestone tiles without making a sound.
“So what if it is an affair?”