Chapter Sixty

The man's body was enormous. The long arm encircling his waist had muscles that were powerful and solid — an iron chain he could not break free from.

The strong, heavy male scent was all that filled Chú Róng's senses. He felt instinctive discomfort, yet wanted to move and could not.

Hearing the man's words, Chú Róng's long lashes trembled faintly. A trace of irony flashed through his eyes. What was this — smacking him first, then handing him a sweet?

He had no cultivation talent to speak of. Far more than learning to cultivate, what he wanted was for Ning Yuan to let him leave. But the man clearly was not going to let him go.

Especially with the faint residual sting still threading through the instep of his foot — Chú Róng didn't dare easily provoke Ning Yuan, terrified that the man might go back on his word and continue what had been left unfinished.

Chú Róng pressed his pale lips together and forced himself not to show any resistance. Against every inclination, he said: "…Alright."

He couldn't get away anyway. As long as Ning Yuan didn't touch him, the man could do whatever else he liked.

And yet — their bodies were pressed closely together. How could Ning Yuan not feel anything? The slender frame in his arms was obviously rigid and tense, its guard written all but explicitly across its face.

Still, Ning Yuan didn't call him out on it. His dark, fathomless gaze settled on the exquisitely beautiful, blanched face of the person in his arms. The churning undercurrent in his eyes surged wildly, as though it might at any moment become real and pour right out of him.

His wide, well-defined hand turned over. A blinding white light flew from his palm straight up into the sky.

The next moment, above Wusong Lodge, a colossal spirit ship materialised out of thin air and floated in the sky. The entire ship was white, faintly gleaming with a luminous sheen — like a polished piece of jade, or the skeleton of some vast and terrible creature. Powerful spiritual energy undulations circulated around the hull of the ship, awe-inspiring in their scale, and full of a crushing sense of pressure.

The Spirit Canal — one of Ning Yuan's exclusive flying magical artefacts. The only spiritual ship of its kind in the entire world of cultivation. Its speed was no slower than sword-flight, and its movement was exceptionally stable. The ship's hull was equipped throughout with mechanisms, making its defensive and offensive capabilities alike first-rate.

More importantly — even a mortal could board the spiritual ship without being struck by the torrential spirit-energy that flight stirred up.

Ning Yuan lifted Chú Róng into his arms and walked outside.

Chú Róng's taut nerves gave a jump. He instinctively opened his mouth to refuse: "Put me down. I can walk on my own."

He wasn't missing a hand or a foot. What sort of man needed to be carried just to take a walk? What dignity would that leave him?

Ning Yuan's long arms pulled tighter, closing the gap even more completely, and explained in a slightly hoarse voice: "The Spirit Canal is suffused throughout with spiritual energy. As a mortal, boarding the ship alone — the turbulent spirit-force could injure you and tear you apart."

The original text had described Ning Yuan in such sparse detail that Chú Róng had never once encountered any mention of an artefact called the Spirit Canal, let alone any record of what it contained. He had no way to judge whether what Ning Yuan was saying was true or false.

But "torn to pieces" was a deeply frightening set of words.

Chú Róng's most prized possession was his own life. After a moment's deliberation, he had no choice but to bite his lip, swallow the rest of his objections, lean against Ning Yuan's chest, and say nothing more.

Feeling the person in his arms soften, the faintest, barely perceptible curve touched the corner of Ning Yuan's lips. He held Chú Róng and stepped onto the Spirit Canal as easily as walking on flat ground.

—

The great ship appearing above Qingyang Heavenly Sect quickly attracted the attention of the assembled sects gathered at the main hall.

"What on earth is that?" The people of the Hundred Immortal Sects cried out in alarm one after another. Despite their centuries of cultivation, none of them had ever seen anything like it.

Ning Yuan's strength was beyond comparison. When it came to slaying demons and vanquishing evil, he simply had no need of magical artefacts. Even Tiānjī Sect, which gathered all the intelligence in the world, knew very little about this massive object.

"The Spirit Canal." In the midst of the general silence, Nán Xíngyě spoke quietly. The shock on his handsome face was no less than that of any of the assembled sects: "One of the Immortal Venerable's artefacts."

He had only been in the sect for thirty-odd years, and had only heard the sect's elders mention the Spirit Canal — he had never actually seen it.

So the Spirit Canal was this enormous. It could probably fit an entire sect inside and still have room to spare.

Nán Xíngyě had barely begun to introduce the Spirit Canal's purpose to the assembled sects when he noticed something. He lurched two steps forward: "That's—"

Everyone looked in the direction he was looking, and saw a tall figure walking steadily toward the Spirit Canal, holding someone in his arms. From them trailed the hem of deep crimson robes, swaying like rippling water, stirring something inexplicable in the heart.

Hè Tíng's complexion changed abruptly. That was Chú Róng!

Péi Zhàn's golden pupils narrowed. His face suddenly darkened. His instinct was to charge toward Wusong Lodge, but then he looked at the half-dead Lian Ci he was propping up, and stopped in reluctant frustration.

Jīng Héng pressed his pale lips together. The shadows in his cold, hollow eyes deepened heavily. The Immortal Venerable was taking Chú Róng away this quickly!

Yún Tán's long fingers, twisting the prayer beads, paused. He stared at the flicker of that purple hem drifting in the high air, and abruptly clasped one of the beads tight in his fist.

Someone among the assembled sects came back to their senses and turned to Nán Xíngyě: "The matter of the evil energy is still unresolved. With the Immortal Venerable gone, who will oversee things?"

Many of the sects that had answered the call for aid had done so only because they heard that Immortal Venerable Ning Yuan would be present. They had never intended to actually do anything.

"I will." Nán Xíngyě raised his eyes and swept them across the crowd, the pressure in his gaze heavy and deliberate: "The Immortal Venerable has ordered it. All remaining matters are fully entrusted to me."

Ning Yuan had spoken. Who would dare object?

The assembled sects exchanged glances and fell silent.

—

Wusong Lodge was far from the main hall, and Chú Róng's mortal eyes could not make out any expressions from that distance.

Over his twenty-some years in the modern era, he had ridden in most forms of transport available to him — but a ship that flew through the sky was something he had never seen.

The interior of the Spirit Canal was far larger than its exterior suggested, like a series of vast mansions placed inside one another — magnificent, luxurious, and breathtaking.

Ning Yuan used spiritual energy to push open the doors of the main hall, and carefully set Chú Róng down on the warm jade soft-couch inside, his iron-and-steel arms still wrapped around his shoulders and back. His voice came out in a dry rasp: "It's another six or seven days to Qīngxū Sect. Would you like to rest a little longer?"

Two days ago, the aphrodisiac had taken hold of Chú Róng and he hadn't dared close his eyes at all. He had rested once yesterday, but it was probably not enough.

There were only the two of them on the ship. Before, when Chú Róng hadn't known the man's intentions and had treated him as a senior figure, he had slept peacefully and without worry right under his nose for all of four months.

Now that he knew what the man wanted, how could he let himself be like before? Especially after the incident with the drug — he had grown somewhat gunshy, his nerves always strung taut.

"No need, Eld—" The word "Elder," which had come so easily before, now stuck in his throat. Chú Róng dropped his gaze. His lashes trembled involuntarily. The crimson at his eye corners grew more vivid: "Could you let go of me?"

Ning Yuan's aura was overwhelming. Chú Róng tried his best to appear calm, but his accelerated breathing betrayed him — uneven and trembling, with a maddening, involuntary allure.

Ning Yuan's eyes darkened. His gaze shifted, inch by inch, onto Chú Róng's face. In the suffocating silence, his Adam's apple bobbed once, and his low, hoarse voice shaped an answer: "Call me A-Yuan and I'll let you go."

Ning Yuan disliked the word "Elder." It made him sound ancient.

Shameless.

A cultivator of the Mahayana stage, reduced to bargaining with a mortal.

But Chú Róng genuinely disliked the feeling of losing control over his own body. After weighing it carefully, his lips parted a fraction, revealing the tiniest glimpse of pink tongue, and a soft, orchid-scented breath drifted out: "A—"

The word was not yet finished when the fathomless pupils of Ning Yuan's eyes contracted suddenly, as if some emotion had burst inside him, and the thick, dark tide within them spilled over in waves.

Ning Yuan could contain himself no longer. His powerful hand came up to support the back of Chú Róng's neck, and his cold, god-like face plunged down toward Chú Róng without any ceremony.

Chú Róng's pupils shook. He hadn't yet reacted when something large and wide pushed through his parted lips, prying open his teeth in a near-forceful invasion of his mouth, pillaging and conquering inside.

The man's strength was terrifying — as though he intended to simply consume him whole. Chú Róng could not move. The pale skin of his face was quickly forced into a faint, rosy flush, and even breathing became difficult.

His luminous eyes swirled with mist, the wet flush at his eye corners spreading thin and damp, and the liquid that couldn't be swallowed fast enough trailed from the corner of his reddened lips, gliding down his snow-white neck and into the folds of his collar.

It felt terrible.

Chú Róng's brows creased with discomfort, unwilled. His lashes flickered chaotically. In his twenty-some years in the modern era, he had been fighting alone without pause, and had never once been in a relationship, never had any intimate contact with anyone.

Chú Róng's consciousness began to blur at the edges, as if sinking into a swamp — the harder he tried to stay clear-headed, the deeper he sank.

The moment before he lost consciousness, the man finally showed some mercy and released him, withdrawing from his mouth.

Chú Róng seemed to have had every bit of his strength drained away. His entire person collapsed, boneless, against the man's broad chest. His ink-black hair scattered all around him. The corners of his eyes were damp with red. A few glistening threads hung from his swollen lips, and his chest rose and fell rapidly as he broke into a fit of choking coughs.

Like a camellia bloomed to its most blazing peak — even his very breath carried a beguilingly seductive undertone, enough to make the man inches away lose himself, his cold, superhuman mind going dizzy and heavy, the veins at his neck standing out sharply.

Ning Yuan flicked his fingers to dissolve the thread of pressure he had laid over Chú Róng. He bent his imposing frame and set the person in his arms down on the couch.

"Róng." The man bowed his head. His forehead came to rest against the clean, smooth brow of the person on the couch. His husky voice filled the hall, carrying with it an unmissable, dense yearning.

The depths of Chú Róng's throat ached. His thoughts were scattered and broken. Both eyes swam with mist, his vision all blurred — yet he could still make out the dark, heart-stoppingly intense gaze of the man above him.

An irrepressible wave of terror crashed through his heart, too frightened to speak. His jade-pale fingertips clenched tight. His soft, powerless hands instinctively pressed against the man's broad chest, trying to push him away — but Ning Yuan's long, powerful hand easily caught one of his wrists and pressed it over his head.

Ning Yuan extended two long fingers, pinched Chú Róng's chin, and bent down again, unable to restrain himself.

Chú Róng's face flushed red as wine. His hands, grasping wildly at a corner of the man's robe, clutched and pulled and pushed — trying to push the man off — yet the body pressing down from above was as immovable as cast iron.

Outside the hall.

Countless visible strands of spiritual energy rotated around the hull of the Spirit Canal. The enormous ship let out a great rumbling crack. With no one at the helm, it turned direction on its own, and swept like the wind out of Qingyang Heavenly Sect's territory, sailing toward the far-distant Qīngxū Sect.

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