Chapter Forty-Six

In the depths of the rear mountain, branches spread in every direction.

Hot spring water flowed down from the mountain, gurgling as it gathered in the pool, wisps of steam curling and rising above the surface.

In the hot spring, the man soaked through from head to toe was gathered into a pair of firm, long arms, his own slender arms falling limp at his sides. The mask hooked by his jade-pale fingertips slipped free and floated on the surface of the pool.

His blanched face rested against a broad, solid chest. Wet ink-black hair spilled across his shoulders and back, and the water-soaked long purple sleeve hung down — drops of water dripping from the fabric into the hot spring below, spreading ring after ring of ripples across the pool's surface.

The tall man holding him had his snow-white robe stained with water, soaked through in a large patch that bloomed dark — yet he seemed entirely unaware of it, his warm but expressionless large palm pressed close against the supple waist of the person in his arms, holding him tightly.

The force was strong enough that even the barely-conscious Chu Rong could feel the discomfort.

Under the influence of the drug, what little reason Chu Rong had left was already pitifully scarce. Struck by Ning Yuan's oppressive force, it had dissipated by more than half — only the thinnest thread of consciousness remained, fighting desperately against the drug's hold.

In his half-conscious daze, he felt someone take hold of him. Chu Rong's crow-feather-like lashes trembled, and his beautiful brow furrowed unconsciously. Every nerve in his body was strung to its absolute limit.

But his body had no strength left at all. He couldn't even move if he wanted to. The violent pain in his lower abdomen was like sharp steel needles being driven mercilessly into his flesh and blood — he broke out in cold sweat all over, his body unable to stop shaking.

With their bodies so close, Ning Yuan sensed his abnormality almost instantly. The force of his grip eased somewhat, and he lowered his head to look at the person in his arms.

Chu Rong's face rested sideways against his chest, his brow covered with beads of sweat the size of soybeans, his complexion a deathly white — but the temperature of his entire body was burning high.

His wounded lips were slightly parted, his chest rising and falling violently, his breathing rapid and unsteady. The breath spilling from between his lips carried a damp, scorching heat that made one's head swim.

Ning Yuan's tall frame stiffened, almost imperceptibly. His breathing sank slightly, and his gaze — deep as a still pool — fell to the lips of the person in his arms. These wounds looked like the kind Chu Rong produced during his attacks, but he had just had an attack shortly before Ning Yuan had left — and only a few days had passed since then. He should not have had another so soon.

It was obvious that something was wrong with Chu Rong, and these symptoms very much resembled those of someone who had been given a drug.

Three hundred years of cultivation and wide experience gave Ning Yuan a quick guess: the Spring Entanglement.

The Harmonious Union Sect's aphrodisiac — it was said no one could endure it for more than a day and a night. Looking at Chu Rong's state, he had clearly been under its effects for quite some time.

The people of the various immortal sects had only just arrived at Qingyang Heavenly Sect and were unlikely to have already made enemies of Chu Rong. That meant the person who had acted against Chu Rong was, with very high probability, someone from within the sect.

Ning Yuan's finely-knuckled large hand trembled faintly. The hand cradling the back of Chu Rong's neck shifted upward, carefully cupping the face of the person in his arms, as his thumb slowly traced once across Chu Rong's wet cheek.

"I'm sorry." He had come too late. He had known full well that Chu Rong's situation within Qingyang Heavenly Sect was precarious — he should have gotten here faster.

In three hundred years of life in which he had never once felt remorse over anything, Ning Yuan felt it for the first time now. His long fingers tightened inch by inch, turning faintly pale.

Cen Yan's group caught their breath in time to hear those words, and all of them startled. They looked instinctively toward the pool.

Since when had the Immortal Venerate and this person…? Their gazes shifted to the person in Ning Yuan's arms, and their eyes unfocused again — a soul-shaking, devastating beauty sweeping over every one of their senses.

Ning Yuan paid them no attention. The most pressing matter was to help Chu Rong dispel the Spring Entanglement as quickly as possible.

He tightened his hold on Chu Rong again, lifting him to carry him out of the hot spring — when from against his chest, the faintest, barely-there friction came.

Ning Yuan lowered his gaze. Chu Rong was weakly and slowly shaking his head. His lips opened and closed as though trying to say something, yet not a sound came out. In the strikingly beautiful arch of his brows and eyes, there was nothing but a vertiginous, panicked fear.

Get away!

Don't touch him!

He had hidden all the way to the rear mountain — and still he couldn't escape?

The Sealed-Voice Incantation!

Ning Yuan's sharp eyes went cold as ten thousand years of glacial ice. His fingertip moved, and a thread of spiritual energy pressed gently to the side of Chu Rong's neck.

The sensation at his neck made Chu Rong's body shudder again. Unease, helpless fury, pain, and terror churned wildly through his clouded mind.

Just as the last tiny fragment of Chu Rong's consciousness was on the verge of a dangerous collapse, a slightly hoarse voice rang in his ear — cold and resonant as pearls of jade: "It's me."

This voice…

The storm of negative emotions raging in Chu Rong's mind snagged to a halt. He bit down on his lower lip, and in his dazed, foggy state, he lifted his head slightly.

His eyes were glimmering and unfocused, veiled in a watery mist. He could only make out the contours of half a profile — lines of elegant beauty, as though carefully sculpted, each angle sharply defined.

"Se… nior? Senior?"

Chu Rong's pupils trembled, and he blinked in a daze. After quite some time had passed, he released the lower lip he'd been biting, and his lips moved in a weak, hesitant murmur — the violent pain in his body momentarily fading from his awareness.

But in just a moment or two, the pain crashed back and dragged Chu Rong into the vortex of suffering once more. He squeezed his eyes shut against the agony, pressed his forehead to the man's broad, solid chest, and his body could not stop trembling.

Ning Yuan's firm arms drew inward, pulling Chu Rong even more tightly into his embrace. His voice was flat and even, yet it carried an extraordinary sense of reassurance: "I'm here. You don't need to be afraid. I'll take you away."

The nerves that Chu Rong had kept strung taut for nearly a full day and night finally snapped — with a crack — and he sank entirely into a hazy, trackless abyss.

Ning Yuan's ice-cold gaze swept once over his ashen face. He formed the Dust-Cleansing Technique, clearing the water from Chu Rong's clothing and hair, then lifted Chu Rong and leapt out of the hot spring. He moved through the air as easily as on solid ground, making his way out from the rear mountain.

As he passed above Cen Yan's head, Ning Yuan's footsteps paused almost imperceptibly — and in an instant, an enormously powerful oppressive force erupted from him as its center, crashing down upon the ground in all directions.

The group snapped back to themselves: He Ting, Nan Xingye, and Jing Heng immediately channeled their spiritual energy to resist — yet even so, the oppressive force drove them back a good several zhang.

Cen Yan, Pei Zhan, and Xu Ziyang had almost no spiritual energy left in their bodies and could put up no resistance whatsoever. Their bodies flew apart in all directions like kites with cut strings.

Pei Zhan and Xu Ziyang crashed hard onto the rocky ground. Cen Yan was thrown into a thicket some distance away, a branch scratching a line of blood across his refined face.

"Cough!" All three involuntarily spat out mouthfuls of blood, cutting disheveled figures.

This time, Ning Yuan had deliberately controlled the range of the oppressive force — the Chu Rong in his arms was unaffected in the slightest.

Ning Yuan's eyes lowered, and the gaze he swept over Cen Yan, Xu Ziyang, and Pei Zhan was utterly cold — as if from the peak of a snow-capped mountain. His voice carried not a trace of inflection, yet it was laced with a bone-chilling menace that made the very air grow cold and still: "This debt — I will absolutely recover it."

With that, Ning Yuan did not spare them another glance. He held tightly to the person in his arms and left the rear mountain. The oppressive force that had blanketed the rear mountain gradually dissipated along with his departure.

He Ting exhaled, released his spiritual energy, and bent his fingers to wipe away the blood that had spilled from the corner of his mouth. The light flickering in his eyes was shifting and unreadable.

Nan Xingye also said nothing, suppressing the churning blood in his throat. His sharp brows furrowed, and his gaze carried a trace of complicated emotion.

The man in the Immortal Venerate's arms had appeared no older than twenty-something years. The Immortal Venerate had entered seclusion a hundred years ago and had not taken a single step out of Qingxu Sect since — how could the two of them possibly know each other?

Jing Heng pressed a hand to his aching chest and swallowed down the metallic taste in his mouth. His gaze went to the empty space above him. The color of his already-pale lips faded even further.

Pei Zhan was more badly injured than He Ting's three. He coughed out the blood in his mouth, his tall frame unsteady as he climbed to his feet. As expected of the Great Vehicle stage — he could hurt people without even lifting a hand.

But Pei Zhan's gilded eyes looked around on all sides. Hadn't someone said Xu Ziyang had imprisoned Chu Rong? Where was Chu Rong?

Pei Zhan's eyes narrowed dangerously, his expression dark as he looked toward Xu Ziyang lying not far away: "Where did you hide him…"

Before he could finish, a startled cry came from within the thicket: "Yun Zhi?!"

Xu Ziyang's ashen face darkened slightly. He propped himself up with his elbows, sat up from the ground, and fixed his deep, cold eyes in the direction of Cen Yan.

Cen Yan was entirely unaware of this. He parted the trees before him, saw the motionless figure lying on the ground, and hurried forward, helping him up: "Yun Zhi, how did you end up in the rear mountain?"

Yun Zhi's dark, honest face was written all over with anxiety and distress. His mouth moved wide open and closed again, but not a single sound came out. His wet sleeve was covered in dirt.

What was going on?

Cen Yan could tell something was wrong. He placed a palm on Yun Zhi's shoulder, then extended two fingers to press at the side of his neck: "Yun Zhi, who cast the Body-Binding Technique on you?"

Yun Zhi seemed not to hear Cen Yan's question. He scrambled up from the ground in a panic, stumbled out of the thicket, and rushed toward the edge of the hot spring: "Young Master… Young Master Chu…"

Seeing the mask floating on the empty surface of the hot spring, Yun Zhi's expression changed drastically. With a resounding splash, he lunged into the pool water, snatched the mask up in one hand, and turned it frantically over in his hands, examining every surface with alarm.

This was the Young Master's mask!

Where was the Young Master?

The commotion Yun Zhi had made was difficult for He Ting's group to ignore. When they caught sight of the mask in Yun Zhi's hands, all of their expressions shifted.

Pei Zhan suppressed his pain and rushed to the pool's edge: "This is Chu Rong's mask — why is it here?"

So Chu Rong really had been in the rear mountain?

But he had been going through the rear mountain the whole time — how had he not seen anyone?

Chu Rong?

Fellow Daoist Cen's ordinary-mortal fiancé?

He Ting was a businessman with an excellent memory. His eyes darkened, and his tone came out unhurried but landed like a bombshell in everyone's ears: "But this mask — a moment ago, it was in the hands of the man the Immortal Venerate took away."

Involuntarily, everyone's minds flashed back to that heart-stopping glimpse from moments ago. This mask… was indeed being hooked by that man's jade-pale fingertips.

And Pei Zhan recalled in addition that the style of clothing the man was wearing was also unmistakably familiar.

In an instant, a wild yet inescapable answer surfaced in everyone's minds: the man in the hot spring was Chu Rong!

Ning Yuan had spent four months at Qingyang Heavenly Sect and knew the terrain surrounding Wusong Residence inside and out.

Holding Chu Rong in his arms, he found his way back to Wusong Residence with ease, blasted the door open with spiritual energy, crossed the room in a few steps, and laid Chu Rong on the bed.

The incense burner in the room was still faintly smoking. But much of the orchid fragrance that had filled the air had dispersed — the scent had grown somewhat faint.

Chu Rong lay face-up on the bed, his dried-out clothing light once more, wrapping his long, supple frame, with cloud-like ink-black hair spreading out beneath him.

His dense lashes hung low, half-concealing his glistening, water-bright eyes. The tails of his eyes curved faintly upward, stained deep crimson like rouged pigment. His red lips were slightly parted, exhaling rapid, damp, heated breaths.

When Ning Yuan's gaze dropped slightly, he could see the vivid red flesh exposed by the wounds all over those lips — bitten through.

The frozen cold in Ning Yuan's eyes gradually thawed, replaced by a hint of something heated. His large hand — with its long, powerful knuckles — opened and pressed against Chu Rong's pale cheek. His voice had gone somewhat hoarse: "Rong Rong, the longer the Spring Entanglement's effects linger, the greater the damage done to your body."

If the drug's effects were allowed to go on indefinitely without being resolved, the backlash could even kill a person outright — from the pain alone.

Chu Rong had been under the drug for quite some time already, and beyond that, Chu Rong's constitution was unusual — spiritual energy could not be channeled into his body to forcibly expel the drug.

That left only one method: allow Chu Rong to relieve the drug's effects entirely on his own.

Ning Yuan's thumb pad stroked across the lips of the person on the bed, his prominent throat bobbing. He paused for a breath or two, then continued: "Trust me. Let me help you — all right?"

Away from the hot spring, the drug's suppressed effects surged back in Chu Rong's body with even greater ferocity than before. The drug's potency had completely eroded his reason. His body was racked with pain and heat, and whatever Ning Yuan had said, he couldn't make it out clearly — couldn't understand it.

He only heard the single word "all right," and so without thinking, he parted his lips, and a warm breath suffused with the faint fragrance of orchids spilled out as he repeated it: "…All right."