Xi Chuan winced from the pain, and the hand clamping her wrist suddenly tightened its grip.
Fu Jinyue was not afraid. Catching him off guard, she pressed her lips against the youth’s.
The system had not lied; the orthodox Hehuan Sect’s method truly emphasized Yin-Yang harmony and mutual symbiosis.
Following the memories that had been stuffed into her mind, she circulated the cultivation technique within her body. She felt something instantly link the two of them together as spiritual energy began to flow, creating a sort of resonance between them that sent a warm sensation vibrating through her dantian.
However, this brief resonance scattered after only a moment. Fu Jinyue felt a tinge of regret; she instinctively believed that if the resonance reached its peak, it should form a sturdier bond between their spiritual energies, making the inner cosmic cycle rotate like the sun and the moon, endlessly generating life.
She pulled away.
The kiss ended like a dragonfly skimming the water—exceptionally brief.
Yet the feeling was wonderful. At the exact instant of resonance, a shiver seemed to climb up her spine, vertebra by vertebra, leaving her trembling yet delighted.
It felt like a collision of souls.
Fu Jinyue knew the other party felt it too.
The youth stared at her blankly. After a moment of daze, his entire face suddenly flushed red—so red it looked ready to drip blood. He then began to struggle, panicked yet desperately trying to maintain his composure.
Out of the corner of her eye, Fu Jinyue caught sight of his lower half and noticed the youth’s unspeakable embarrassment. Curving her lips, she chose not to point it out.
However, her shifting gaze and her smile were far too conspicuous. Xi Chuan noticed this and felt so deeply ashamed he wished he could sink through the floor.
He leaned his body back, wanting to flee, but Fu Jinyue caught his wrist with a reverse grip, holding on firmly and refusing to let go.
The offense and defense had flipped. The youth pursed his lips tightly, an involuntary look of pleading entering his eyes as he looked at her.
Fu Jinyue, however, wanted to test her previous hypothesis and leaned in to kiss him once more.
Her long hair billowed out with her movements, brushing against the youth’s firm, tight chest, his neck, and his face—strand after strand, enveloping him like a net.
Xi Chuan also felt himself captured by this net.
He heard his own heart beating incredibly fast, entirely different from how it beat during his earlier pain and fever.
Inexplicably, his gaze wanted to chase after her, but he unexpectedly locked eyes with the girl.
Her knowing relaxation and effortless ease left him somewhat bewildered.
Xi Chuan instinctively wanted to say something, but Fu Jinyue raised a hand and pressed it against his lips.
“Shh.”
Her laughing tone carried a hint of coquettishness.
“Don’t think too much.” Fu Jinyue’s hand caressed Xi Chuan’s face. “Just this once. Enjoy it, alright?”
The youth’s passion carried a distinct rawness.
He possessed no experience, and his injuries restricted his movements, but youth was enough to overshadow everything. From beginning to end, his gaze remained exceptionally focused, staring at Fu Jinyue as if determined to permanently engrave the sight of her above him into his memory.
Fu Jinyue did not care much. She casually caressed his cheek to soothe him, but the youth suddenly grew fierce.
This reckless passion truly turned one’s head.
Patting his shoulder, she quickly found herself a bit unable to hold him off.
“Wait a moment…”
Yet, unsure if her message had been misconstrued, he suddenly pulled her hands, drawing her close.
The clumsy kiss was so pure it was endearing.
Rather than a kiss, it felt more like a lick.
She recalled the German Shepherd comparison once more.
The youth’s eyes were tightly shut, his eyelashes trembling. Looking at his unpracticed manner, Fu Jinyue suddenly felt a surge of interest.
She pinched his chin punitively, forcing him to stop, and then leaned down once more to bestow a kiss amidst the youth’s bewildered gaze.
This was a lesson.
She took his hand, teaching him how to use his fingers to please someone.
The slight teasing of her fingertips and the seemingly nonexistent touches could still stir up waves of sensation.
The youth learned very quickly. Sensing her needs, he actually stopped rushing, beginning to restrain himself and patiently slow down his rhythm.
He did not blink.
Meanwhile, Fu Jinyue, who was above him, held back from making a sound, biting her lower lip tightly as her tilted neck trembled.
The cultivation technique within her dantian operated on its own, and that resonance climbing up her spine vertebra by vertebra returned. An sensation that was a blur between an itch and pure pleasure hit her, making Fu Jinyue’s waist go soft, nearly causing her to collapse.
Yet he held her, still watching her earnestly.
Fu Jinyue truly could not take any more, pinching his arms tightly in an attempt to force a stop.
The youth seemed entirely oblivious to the pain, his gaze sincere and burning, his face flushed. This intense stare of his made Fu Jinyue instinctively remember that their surroundings were a wild, deserted mountain, with their tattered clothes still piled nearby. A wave of either shame or excitement swept through her.
She closed her eyes, her brows tightly knit.
Wave after wave of increasingly urgent sensations burst forth in rapid succession.
Boom.
It was the sound of thunder.
Outside the cave, the wind roared fiercely. The nighttime rainstorm arrived suddenly, thunder echoing continuously, making the world feel in that dazed instant as if it were about to be torn apart. The clamor of nature masked everything inside the cave, and the fire pile near the entrance had long been dampened by the rain blowing inward.
Neither of them felt cold, kept warm by each other’s body heat. They snuggled together like two small animals huddling for warmth.
By the time the sky turned a dim grey, Fu Jinyue was already fully dressed, rummaging through the extinguished fire pile to find the remaining edible sweet potatoes to satisfy her hunger.
As she ate, she observed the youth who was still fast asleep with his eyes closed.
The system had not lied. During the first session, Fu Jinyue had discovered that the wound on his lower abdomen had healed. By the second session, the youth had already attempted to roll over and sit up. By the third session…
Fu Jinyue had never tried it so frequently before; after all, in the past, no one had truly been naturally gifted to this extent.
Furthermore, she had indeed broken through drawing qi into the body. According to the system, she had already reached the second layer of Qi Refining.
In the cultivation world, it took an ordinary person with average aptitude several months to reach this realm. The favored children of heaven took less time, at most a week. And what about her?
It happened in a single night.
With her current reserve of spiritual energy, she could already begin learning some minor spells.
It was quite sudden; should she say that this was indeed to be expected of the metaphysical cultivation world?
However, the system did not know those spells; Fu Jinyue would have to find someone to learn them from in the future.
“Why hasn’t he woken up yet?”
Knowing she hadn’t forced him, and that even if something happened it wouldn’t be her fault, Fu Jinyue still asked the system with a bit of a guilty conscience, “Nothing bad happened to him, right?”
The system spoke with absolute certainty: “Impossible! The orthodox Hehuan path does not practice excessive plundering. It can only be that he benefited too much and is finding it difficult to digest all at once. It’s impossible for anything to go wrong.”
It opened its interface, where the data distribution resembled a game status bar, with the mission displayed at the very top.
[Sole Mission: Carry Forward and Glorify the Hehuan Sect]
[Mission Target: Reverse the reputation of the Hehuan Sect, making the orthodox Hehuan Sect a household name in the cultivation world, revered by all.]
[Mission Completion: -100%]
[Current Commentary: All sorts of crooked paths dare to call themselves the Hehuan Sect to swindle and bluff in the cultivation world. The reputation has been completely ruined by these fools, leaving the progress in a worrying state. If you wish to revive it, I fear the road ahead is still long. Why not first delve into the cultivation manual to seek enlightenment? Only after raising your cultivation can you achieve great things.]
This negative completion rate was clearly related to the Hehuan Sect’s current reputation. Because the reputation was simply too foul, it was directly beaten down into a negative number.
Fu Jinyue: It’s disheartening just looking at it. Skip, skip, skip!
Below the mission was the character section, containing some of Fu Jinyue’s relevant information, such as her cultivation, mastered spells, and possessed items. Having started the game entirely penniless, Fu Jinyue had no interest in looking and skipped it directly as well.
The final section was Dao Companions. The system opened it, and the name “Xi Chuan” remarkably appeared inside, with brief annotations in small text below.
[Xi Chuan]
[Cultivation: Sixth Layer of Qi Refining]
[Comprehensive Aptitude Assessment: Medium-Low]
[Brief Description: Firm mind, upright character, decent bone structure. Classified as possessing a promising future. It is recommended that the host conduct periodic follow-up visits.]
[…Expand to view remaining information.]
“It’s a pity his cultivation is too low, pulling down his score; otherwise, he could be classified as an excellent prospect,” the system sighed.
These bold words were shocking and unconventional. Fu Jinyue suddenly felt that, by comparison, she was actually quite upright. She did not click to expand the detailed data, silently closing it.
In any case, it was fine as long as he was okay.
Placing the leftover sweet potatoes that were too small beside the youth, Fu Jinyue patted the dust off her skirt and walked out of the cave entrance with an easy spirit.
“Are you leaving just like that?” the system asked in surprise.
Fu Jinyue was actually more astonished than it was. “Didn’t you say I need to raise my strength to glorify the sect? His cultivation hasn’t even reached Foundation Establishment. Since I delayed time to save him, I naturally must hurry up now to find a suitable dual cultivation partner. Handsome partners who are wealthy, powerful, and easy to fool are hard to come by.”
A single night of pleasure didn’t amount to much. Not to mention, she had stated in advance that this act was to save him, and it was only for this once.
Although she wasn’t entirely without her own agenda, Fu Jinyue believed she was logically in the right and didn’t feel guilty at all.
As for the youth’s thoughts, she did not care.
Fu Jinyue sometimes felt that she was far too cold and indifferent, and that she might suffer divine retribution for it.
Fortunately, her luck had always been decent, and she had never suffered any major losses.
The sky after the rainstorm was exceptionally clear, with bright sunshine. Before she had walked very far down the mountain path, Fu Jinyue was ready to take back her previous thoughts.
Her luck was still a bit poor.
The soil, soaked by rain for an entire night, was incredibly soft. With each step down, her shoes and socks became entirely drenched, not to mention her hemline, which had long been stained with mud, leaving her in a wretched state.
Furthermore, the wet mountain path was slippery. When a person feels themselves falling, they instinctively grab onto anything nearby. In her panic, Fu Jinyue had grabbed the bushes on both sides an unknown number of times, leaving her palms already covered in cuts and scratches.
Finding a gentle slope, she sat down to rest, completely disregarding the dirt.
Fu Jinyue tilted her head back, looking enviously at the black silhouettes that occasionally streaked rapidly across the sky. Perhaps the clear weather after the rain was exceptionally suited for flying, as there were remarkably many people in the sky today.
It must be nice to be able to ride a sword.
She had asked the system; the spiritual energy during the Qi Refining stage was too scarce and lacked endurance. Only after reaching the Foundation Establishment stage could one formally learn the spell for riding a sword to fly.
As she watched, Fu Jinyue suddenly felt something was amiss. Those cultivators riding swords high up were very far from the ground, appearing from afar as merely blurred black dots translating rapidly across the sky. But right now, one black dot seemed to be expanding at a rapid pace.
Its outline grew clearer with every blink of an eye. It was too close.
So close it looked as if it were… falling down.
Fu Jinyue: ?
No, who did the pedestrians on the ground offend? Even if you’re going to cause an accident while flying a sword, you should aim for the sky, right?
Not wanting to take a direct hit to the head, Fu Jinyue immediately stood up.
Lamentably, the speed of two legs was far inferior to that of a falling object from high altitude. Before she could take more than a few steps, a powerful gust of wind slammed down from behind her. Fu Jinyue made a split-second decision and lunged forward. Although she couldn’t see it, she could perceive some heavy weapon scraping past her by a hair’s breadth.
The rushing wind that scraped past was as sharp as a knife.
Mud splattered wildly everywhere.
Her heart pounded with terror.
This was the first time since her transmigration that Fu Jinyue had encountered a crisis involving her life.
She did not possess a second life, and was therefore exceptionally terrified.
Her breathing was hurried. Before she could check if she had any other injuries, Fu Jinyue blindly snatched a stone out of the mud. The rock had sharp edges, and she hid it inside her palm.
Fu Jinyue looked over warily, only to see that the object fallen from the sky had already disintegrated upon impacting the ground. It had shattered to pieces, bursting a field of equipment—all of it metal, which might have originally been some sort of device driven by spiritual energy.
A person lay inside, his life or death unknown.
Fu Jinyue did not dare to approach rashly. Seeing from afar that there was no blood on the ground, she suspected the person wasn’t dead. Therefore, she picked up a stone and threw it, accurately hitting him.
She immediately retreated after throwing it. When there was still no movement after a few breaths, she carefully poked her head out. Waiting for several more breaths, she finally dared to approach with slow steps.
The man had no injuries or blood on his body, and his clothing, though simple, was not torn. A head of black hair fell like a waterfall. Though his eyes were currently tightly shut and his body was covered in mud, he still maintained an air of romantic, handsome elegance.
Fu Jinyue: Fine then.
A handsome lad falling straight from the sky; she knew her luck was excellent.
Xi Chuan opened his eyes.
There was no one beside him.
He looked around somewhat blankly, discovering only a few sweet potatoes and a torn piece of fabric. The small strip of cloth was no longer recognizable in its original form, having been ripped by someone.
The memory of last night’s absurd matters was still fresh.
That soft texture seemed to still linger on his fingertips.
The youth’s first reaction was to turn his head away and not look, his expression cold and rigid, yet his gaze drifted. After hesitating for a moment, he ultimately picked it up, his actions contradicting his outward display.
The wound on his abdomen had long since healed, and his spiritual energy was abundant, even causing his long-stagnant cultivation to break through its bottleneck and leap up a layer.
The other party had not lied; she did not cultivate a method of forced plundering.
Xi Chuan felt astonished, yet attributed it to his own shallow knowledge, being unaware of many common facts in the cultivation world and knowing only a fraction about the Hehuan Sect. Therefore, he did not dwell too much on this point.
He folded the torn piece of fabric, put on his remaining clothes properly, built up the fire pile once more, and waited inside the cave.
The young lady was kind-hearted; perhaps she had gone out to gather food.
Possessing no other means of contact, Xi Chuan could only wait in place.
The firewood crackled, and amidst the silence, his thoughts involuntarily drifted back to last night.
A single night spent together was too short; to say their affection was deep would certainly be inaccurate, but having shared such an intimate relationship, to say he didn’t care would also be false.
He recalled last night. Those seductive, enticing scenes actually placed second; what he remembered first was her effortless attitude, as well as… those eyes that remained calm and collected throughout.
She…
Appeared accustomed to it.
Xi Chuan suddenly clenched the fabric in his hand.
Without anyone deliberately teasing him, the youth’s brows pressed low as usual, looking extremely steady and solemn. Xi Chuan was habitually taciturn, keeping a mind full of words inside his heart, with outsiders unable to discern a single bit of it.
Fu Jinyue had guessed correctly; the youth was not one accustomed to sharing his inner thoughts with others.
Inside the cave, he sat quietly on his knees, his thoughts fluttering. From how they should get along to how he should take responsibility, then to whether he could ask for her hand in marriage according to mortal customs, and then to whether she would be willing…
He thought of many things, and also waited for a long time.
The firewood burned to ashes, and the sound of the wind rose and faded. He waited from sunset until the moon rose.
“…”
The extinguished logs left behind only a patch of ashes, and a wisp of blue smoke drifted out, quickly dissipating.
No one returned.
Only then did the youth experience a sudden realization. An indescribable emotion crashed wildly within his chest, leaving him feeling suffocated.
He gripped his sword. When he stood up, he was still a bit unsteady. The hand propped against the mountain wall beside him clenched deeply, his fingers gripping the rough stone tightly. A sharp corner cut through his skin, and a small stream of blood wound its way out, flowing down and dripping.
He did not feel the pain. He merely felt suffocated, merely felt a bit aggrieved, and merely understood all of a sudden—
No one would ever return.
Author’s Note:
Little Puppy Xi experiences being abandoned for the first time, aggrieved.
A plot very suited for the guy running away with a secret baby later (not really).
Male Number 1 is just an appetizer; to raise strength and gain benefits, we still have to look at Male Guest Number 2. The official plot kicks off starting next chapter. Number 2 will have a relatively long push-and-pull dynamic (briefly called the descent of the ascetic), and the protagonist’s career line will also unfold. Praying that the lovely readers who see this far won’t run away.
Rolling around and acting cute to ask for bookmarks!