Chapter Seventy-Nine

"It's me." Ning Yuan lowered his gaze, leaned in slightly, and pressed a soft kiss to Chú Róng's lips.

Chú Róng did not pull away. Countless images tangled together in his mind, leaving his thoughts somewhat hazy.

Feeling warmth radiating over his body, he instinctively looked down. What he saw was an expanse of clear, hot-spring water burbling with rising steam. More than half of his body was submerged.

"Where is this?"

Chú Róng raised his jade-white fingers and pressed them against the man's broad chest. He freed himself from Ning Yuan's embrace, swam a few strokes forward with the current, turned his head, and looked around.

The open-air hot spring pool was flanked by flowering plants and trees growing in abundance. He was clearly not inside the palace.

"The spring pool behind Wangxian Peak." Ning Yuan made no move to stop him, his deep gaze fixed on Chú Róng without straying.

Wangxian Peak had a spring pool?

During the past two months, Chú Róng had been clearing his toxins and had rarely left the palace. Even his baths had been prepared by Ning Yuan personally. He had never known there was a hot spring behind the peak.

The spring pool was large — much larger than the one he used to soak in behind Wusong Lodge. But wait — hadn't he been drawing qi into his body?

Memories from before he lost consciousness flooded back into his mind. Chú Róng raised his head and looked toward the man in the pool. Ning Yuan was standing not far away, staring at him intently. His deep, still-pool eyes, veiled by the steam rising from the spring, appeared even more opaque and unreadable.

The spring water lapped at the man's firm, taut waist. His always immaculate, snow-white robe was soaked through, clinging wetly to his tall, upright frame. The collar hung loose and open, revealing a broad expanse of the solidly muscled chest beneath.

Sensual.

Radiating raw, overwhelming presence.

The aggressive intensity emanating from him was even stronger than usual — difficult to ignore no matter how hard one tried.

It was the first time Chú Róng had seen the man looking like this. His butterfly-wing lashes trembled faintly. He pressed his lips together with a slightly uncomfortable feeling, the vivid rose of his mouth parting and closing. The quiet orchid fragrance on his person, mingling with the warm mist of the spring, grew richer still: "Why am I here?"

Ning Yuan's eyes darkened. He fixed his gaze on Chú Róng's swollen lips, his voice rough as sandpaper: "To wash."

Chú Róng paused briefly, then recalled what Yunzhi had once told him — this would be to cleanse the impurities expelled from his body during the process of drawing qi.

"Thank you." Chú Róng offered quiet thanks, then thought of something, tilted his head slightly to look at the man, one damp strand of hair curling against his jade-pale cheek. He radiated an unself-conscious, captivating charm: "So — did I succeed in drawing qi?"

Chú Róng diverted his attention briefly to take stock of himself. His whole body was indeed lighter than it had ever been before — his limbs felt buoyant and nimble, as though treading on clouds.

So this was cultivation?

How extraordinary.

Back when he was reading the original novel, Chú Róng had tried to imagine what cultivation might feel like from the words on the page. But every conjured image was nothing compared to experiencing it in his own body. Within his elixir field something seemed to circulate — an intangible force flowing ceaselessly through every part of him, sweeping away every last trace of exhaustion.

"More than that." Ning Yuan's Adam's apple moved. His eyes darkened further, and he told Chú Róng everything that had happened over the three days and nights.

Chú Róng's eyes shifted with a welter of complex, hard-to-name feelings. He had had no idea how much had happened in those three days while he was drawing qi.

He was genuinely surprised — he and Jìn Tuò's party had barely met twice, yet they had gone to such lengths for him without reservation.

Wait!

"Great Completion of the Golden Core? Me?" Chú Róng belatedly registered what he had heard. His glistening eyes flew wide open. His already flushed cheeks, softened by the warm spring mist, deepened to a faint, delicate rose — like fine jade porcelain tinted with crimson rouge, dazzlingly vivid.

Ning Yuan's breathing hitched. His Adam's apple moved again, his voice dropping rougher by a few degrees: "That's correct."

Chú Róng did not notice. His entire attention was on his cultivation stage.

Chú Róng had read the original novel thoroughly, and understood clearly just how difficult cultivation advancement was in a world where spiritual energy was depleted and resources scarce. Individual talent, circumstances, and spiritual energy were all equally critical. In the original storyline, the protagonist Cen Yan advancing in a single session from drawing qi all the way to the Great Completion of Qi Refinement — one step from Foundation Establishment — had already been considered an extraordinary, once-in-a-generation talent.

And he had directly reached the Great Completion of the Golden Core?

His aptitude was even greater than the protagonist's?

For a modern person raised in a world of science and technology, it was simply too fantastical, too difficult to believe. Chú Róng felt as though he were dreaming.

Before he started cultivating, he had thought he would be doing well just to succeed at drawing qi into his body. He had never imagined the result would exceed his expectations so thoroughly.

Chú Róng raised a hand in a daze. The long sleeve of his gauze robe slid back along his wrist, revealing his luminously translucent white arm. His pale fingertips felt along his neck and then trailed slowly down, exploring the changes in his body.

The spring water rose over his chest. The thin shark-silk robe clung closely to his slender frame. The lines of muscle beneath the fabric were faint and supple. Through the rising mist, the petal-pink at his chest flickered in and out of sight.

Ning Yuan felt his throat tighten. The spring mist drifted across his divine-like face. Two veins stood out at his marble-cold temples. His composure finally gave way.

"Róng'er." Ning Yuan's breathing turned heavy and deep, his voice so rough it was barely above a sound.

Large ripples spread across the water's surface. Chú Róng instinctively raised his head, just as a deep, encompassing shadow fell over him.

Ning Yuan had reached him at some unknown moment. He extended his powerful, long arms — one sliding beneath the water to catch Chú Róng's waist, the other steadying his head, pressing the back of his neck, and leaned down with overwhelming force.

A scorching, intense wave of presence swept over Chú Róng's face, making his heart tremble.

Chú Róng's head fell back. His damp hair floated on the water's surface. His breath came short. His wet, pale fingertips pressed against the man's solid chest, trying to push him away — but his fingertips met a stretch of skin that was firm and elastic to the touch.

The mist of the spring pool clung to it, leaving it damp and slick beneath his fingertips.

Chú Róng's jade-white fingers trembled faintly, and instinctively curled inward as though scorched. He tried to pull his hand back — but the strong arm locked at his waist abruptly tightened, lifting him bodily upward a fraction and pressing him firmly against a broad chest.

Chú Róng stood on tiptoe, his balance lost. A surge of unease rose within him. His chest tightened, and a fine, faint shudder crept up his back — making him shiver, inexplicably, amidst the warm water.

"Ni— Ning Yuan." Chú Róng's crow-feather lashes trembled erratically. His jade-like fingers, in a mild panic, grabbed a small fistful of the man's robe and tugged at it two times without any particular method.

He was trying to get the man to let go. But when he opened his mouth to speak, his jaw went slack, and only made things easier for the man.

Ning Yuan plundered the scent that belonged to the person in his arms with hungry, fierce intensity, expending every effort to advance through the warm, orchid-fragrant mouth, until every word Chú Róng had meant to say disintegrated before it could be spoken.

The mist in Chú Róng's eyes thickened. The fingers clutching the man's robe fell gradually slack, his entire body yielding against Ning Yuan's embrace.

Ning Yuan tightened his arms, pulling him closer still — as though he wanted to press Chú Róng into his own flesh and blood — and drew back from his mouth very slowly.

Chú Róng's long lashes were lowered. The corners of his mouth were flushed. His lips, slightly swollen, hung half-open as he panted. Yet this time, unlike the times before, he did not lose consciousness.

Cultivation encompassed everything — inner nature and physical constitution alike. With each successive breakthrough, Chú Róng's constitution had been improving as well. He was no longer the fragile mortal body he had once been.

Though the Great Completion of the Golden Core and the Mahayana stage were still separated by an abyss, Ning Yuan no longer needed to be quite so careful, no longer needed to live in fear that a fraction too much force might snap Chú Róng's bones.

It also meant that he no longer needed to exercise the same restraint as before — and could let Chú Róng bear more.

At this thought, another vein stood out at Ning Yuan's temple. His eyes sank into complete darkness. He bent forward, lifted Chú Róng into a horizontal carry, leapt out of the spring pool, and upon landing, cast the Dust-Clearing technique, removing every trace of water from himself and the person in his arms.

Chú Róng's body dried completely. His black hair dried out, falling smoothly around him. The shark-silk robe was clean and fresh as new, not a single trace of impurity. Its layered hems cascaded from the crook of Ning Yuan's arm, swaying like water as he walked.

The palace was no different from three days before — except that in the air, alongside the smell of medicine, there was now an additional scent that was difficult to describe. Chú Róng guessed it was the smell of the impurities his body had expelled.

It really did smell awful.

Chú Róng had never smelled anything like it.

Chú Róng's red lips parted slightly. The next instant, the world spun around him. Ning Yuan leaned down, laid him on the jade couch, and lowered his tall frame, pressing it over him.

Black hair spread out across the jade couch. The faint orchid fragrance drifted and filled the couch in quiet waves. Chú Róng looked up — before he could open his mouth, Ning Yuan suddenly opened his broad palm, seized both his wrists, and pinned them above his head. He lowered his head and sealed Chú Róng's lips — fine, dense kisses, fierce and urgent, carrying a faint quality of punishment.

"Why did you force a breakthrough?" He had nearly — so nearly — watched the person before him come to harm right under his nose.

The fingers at Chú Róng's waist gave an imperceptible tremor. The intense residue of fear still lingered in him, leaping across his nerves.

After three hundred years of cultivation, Ning Yuan had never once felt an emotion like this — one that made him want to forge a chain and lock Chú Róng in place, bind him to himself, and not let him go anywhere.

"I didn't— didn't." Chú Róng's body was tense. He arched his pale, slender neck back, wanting to explain, but found he could not get the words out.

Chú Róng had never intended to force a breakthrough.

He had kept Ning Yuan's instructions firmly in mind the entire time. He had endured through clenched teeth, not allowing himself to let down his guard for even a moment no matter how great the pain. On the second day, when he vaguely sensed that he had touched some kind of barrier, he had intended to stop.

But his body had simply not obeyed his will. Spiritual energy poured into him ceaselessly, churning his blood and flesh like a grinding machine. Only by continuing to absorb spiritual energy could he feel any relief at all.

And so what followed had spiraled beyond any controlling. If Ning Yuan had not entered the hall and called him back, he did not know what else might have happened.

But based on what he knew from the original novel's contents — the consequences would have been severe.

A rush of relief at having narrowly survived rose from the depths of Chú Róng's heart. Ning Yuan had saved him again. It seemed that since the moment he had transmigrated into this novel, every kindness he had received had come from this man.

Something in a corner of Chú Róng's heart softened without his knowing. The tension that had held his body rigid let go on its own. He slowly closed his eyes and, without resistance, accepted the man's kisses.

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Sorry for the long wait~