Chapter Eighty One

The lamplight on both sides of the main street carved the saintly monk's silhouette into a tall, dark shadow. Wisps and tendrils of orchid fragrance wound themselves around his kasaya, stripping reason away and making it impossible to resist sinking into that heady, intoxicating scent.

"Master Chú." The saintly monk's thin lips parted slightly, and three syllables fell from between his teeth — slow and heavy, as though in restraint, as though in surrender.

He loosened his fingers. The sandalwood beads he had turned in his palm for thirty years slipped from the calloused hollow of his hand and fell to the ground. His throat worked in a slow roll. Gradually, he bowed his head lower, his high, straight nose coming to rest against the fragrant crown of the person in his arms, the temperature of his entire body blazing and scorching.

BOOM——!!

Just as the monk's lips were about to graze the man's black hair, a violent shudder swept through the earth, accompanied by a shattering crack that split the heavens — as though something enormous was collapsing and crumbling apart.

And the massive sound kept driving closer and closer toward the main street.

Yún Tán's figure jolted to a halt. He gathered the person in his arms and moved to dodge — when, above the pitch-black sky, a terrifying, overwhelming pressure descended and blanketed the entire street.

Yún Tán felt as though a mountain had been placed on top of him. His entire body shook beyond his control. His straight, upright legs began to bend, inch by inch by inch.

Thud——!

Both of Yún Tán's knees crashed heavily into the ground. The agony of bones cracking shot through his nerves, and his features, usually as serene as an immortal's, contorted despite himself.

The person in his arms jolted with the impact. The hems of his robes, petal-like, swayed and billowed, sending wisp after wisp of orchid fragrance drifting outward.

Yún Tán jolted back to his senses as if waking from a dream. Ignoring the pain in his legs, he pulled his arms in to shield the person in his arms — but in the next instant, the arms were empty. A powerful force lifted Chú Róng up into the air, and he floated aloft before settling steadily into a pair of long, muscular arms.

Yún Tán looked up sharply and only then noticed that beneath the vault of the sky, standing as though on level ground, was a tall man. The man's large, knuckle-defined hands held Chú Róng — one locked around his waist, one pressed to the back of his head — drawing the whole of him in, as though closing Chú Róng off within his own personal domain.

The light up high was dim, but a cultivator's five senses were keen. Yún Tán could still make out the sharp, severe planes of the man's features — like a god descended upon the mortal world, his prominent brow bone radiating an intensely aggressive force.

Yún Tán's hand clenched abruptly into a fist. As though unwilling, he called out the man's name and title: "Immortal Venerable Ning Yuan."

The monk's voice was not loud, yet even amid the clamor of the main street, it rang out with complete clarity. Ning Yuan seemed to hear nothing at all. He held the lithe body in his arms tightly, and the arms that enfolded him trembled, almost imperceptibly.

A second time.

He had given Chú Róng so many spiritual tools, each and every one connected to his own spiritual sense — it should have been impossible to fail. And yet Chú Róng had vanished right before his eyes, leaving him without even the faintest trace to follow.

"Róng Róng." The man's voice was deep and cold, rough and ragged. Beneath his long black hair, his high nose bridge moved, nuzzling here and there along the snowy, slender neck of the person in his arms: "If it happens a third time, I will lock you up."

Nowhere to go. Only to stay at his side.

The words fell. The person in his arms lay still, without the slightest reaction.

Only then did Ning Yuan sense something was wrong. He forcibly pressed down the panic and lingering fear in his chest and raised his head — and found Chú Róng lying with his eyes closed, unknowing and unaware, clearly unconscious.

Ning Yuan quickly released the back of Chú Róng's head and seized his slender, pale wrist, channeling a thread of spiritual energy inward to examine him.

For some unknown reason, there was not a shred of spiritual energy anywhere inside Chú Róng's body. The golden core in his cinnabar field was still there, but it had been sealed by some invisible force and had ceased to revolve.

Apart from that, Chú Róng appeared unharmed — not a trace of internal or external injury anywhere on him.

A dim light slid through the depths of Ning Yuan's dark eyes. The heart he had held suspended for several days finally eased back into his chest. He gathered a thread of spiritual energy at his fingertip and tapped it lightly to the center of Chú Róng's brow.

In the next instant, Chú Róng's dense lashes fluttered. Slowly, his eyes opened.

When he saw the man before him clearly, his luminous eyes contracted slightly. "Ning……hss."

The words weren't even out before a sharp pain shot from the back of his neck. Chú Róng furrowed his brow, his crimson lips parting and closing as a sharp hiss of pain escaped, and he instinctively reached a hand back toward the nape of his neck.

Ning Yuan opened his large hand and pressed it over the back of Chú Róng's neck. The black eyes that looked out from beneath his lashes carried a bone-chilling coldness. "Who did this?"

The skin beneath his fingertips was fine and silken, almost clinging to his palm — but when he pressed more carefully, he could feel a small patch of swelling. It was unmistakably man-made.

Chú Róng had been unconscious for too long. His mind was still somewhat muddled. Dense, prickling pain radiated from the back of his neck. On instinct, he raised his pale hand and pressed it against Ning Yuan's broad chest, blocking the man's touch.

"I think it was……" Chú Róng pressed his lips together slightly, lowered his gaze, and tried to recall what had happened before he lost consciousness. A name was rising to his lips — when a shout bursting with fury came from below: "Let go of him!"

Chú Róng turned to the side and looked down. The young man with the refined, elegant bearing was charging toward them from the far end of the street, his usually impeccable appearance in complete disarray.

His long hair was half-wet, trailing in loose strands over his shoulders. His collar was undone, his robes spattered here and there with water stains, as though he had just been plunged into cold water — and a chill emanated from his entire person.

Chú Róng's gaze turned faintly cold. He tilted his fine jaw upward and looked down at the young man from above: "Him."

Cen Yan, again.

It seemed that the last lesson — the stripping of his cultivation — had not been enough, and yet he dared to harm Chú Róng once more.

Ning Yuan's gaze went as cold as permafrost. He raised one hand partway. A sky-swallowing pressure wrapped in immense spiritual energy drove straight toward Cen Yan.

Cen Yan had found an opportunity inside the secret realm and recovered his cultivation to the late Golden Core stage — yet before a Mahayana cultivator, he was still a mayfly trying to shake a great tree, utterly without any power to resist.

In an instant, Cen Yan was sent flying like a kite with a snapped string, flung far, far away, and crashed brutally into the ground.

Pfft——

Cen Yan coughed up a mouthful of blood. His five organs and six viscera screamed as though being torn apart. And yet he seemed to feel nothing at all. He bit down on his teeth, swayed upright, and locked his gaze on the tall figure in Ning Yuan's arms.

"Let go of him." He repeated the words one by one: "Let go of my fiancé."

A filth like Ning Yuan had no right to touch Chú Róng.

Ning Yuan's brows and eyes sank. The pressure radiating from his entire body intensified abruptly and mercilessly forced Cen Yan's knees to bend inch by inch, driving him ignominiously to the ground.

"Your fiancé?" The man pronounced each word with deliberate weight. The look he directed at Cen Yan was the look one gives the dead.

The Heavenly Dao marriage contract had long since been dissolved. What fiancé?

If the title of Róng Róng's fiancé was to land on anyone's head, it should be his. What did Cen Yan amount to?

Cen Yan opened his mouth and spat out another mouthful of blood. Pinned by the pressure and unable to move, he still ground his teeth and spoke: "Yes. Chú Róng is my fiancé. In a few days, when we return to the sect, I will marry him properly. Immortal Venerable, you are a figure of great renown and standing — are you not afraid that the Hundred Immortal Sects will laugh at you, resorting to such means to force another man's fiancé?"

Marriage?

Force?

Chú Róng tilted his head slightly. His cascade of hair swept around him. He looked as though he hadn't quite understood what the young man was saying. He and Cen Yan had settled the last of their entanglement back at the marquis's residence. After two months apart, what was Cen Yan trying to pull now?

Back at Qingyang, all the male leads among the protagonists had already made their appearances. Why was Cen Yan not busy getting close with those male leads instead of coming to pester him? And he'd even taken it upon himself to knock him out and try to drag him away.

Blood trickled from the corner of Cen Yan's mouth. The temples at both sides of his head throbbed and pulsed. His usually refined and distinguished face was contorting beyond his control into something frightening.

He closed his eyes briefly. The hand bracing against the ground gripped, then released, again and again, as though holding down the tide of emotion churning inside him. He straightened himself unsteadily and, ignoring Ning Yuan entirely, reached one hand toward Chú Róng high above, his fingertips trembling: "I know he forced everything upon you — that it was never your wish, that you had no choice. Before, I was blind in both eyes and heart, and let you suffer so much grievance. Come back to the sect with me. This time, I will listen to everything you say. Whatever you want, I will give you — won't you, please?"

This time, Chú Róng heard every word perfectly clearly.

So Cen Yan knew he had wronged him, had finally come to his senses, and wanted to make it up to him?

The furrow between Chú Róng's brows drew into a small point. He almost wanted to laugh from sheer exasperation. He had no idea what Cen Yan had gone through in this time to have such a drastic change of attitude — but who needed Cen Yan to come to his rescue?

Chú Róng drew a slow breath. His chest rose and fell gently. A mocking scoff escaped him. The upward-tilted outer corners of his eyes were tinged with a faint, translucent red that was dazzlingly, soul-snatchingly beautiful: "Who said Ning Yuan was forcing me?"

Yes.

Chú Róng admitted it — when he had first returned to Qīngxū Sect with Ning Yuan, Ning Yuan had coerced him, and he had had no choice in the matter.

But everything that had happened since then could not be called coercion in the full sense of the word. At the very least, Ning Yuan's touch did not make him feel nauseated.

And was Qingyang really such a wonderful sect? He had only just managed to get out of there. Why would he go back and debase himself? Besides — the way Hè Tíng and the rest had treated him didn't come close to half the goodwill that Jìn Tuò and the others had shown him.

Wh— what?

Yún Tán stood frozen in place. His fingertips tightened on reflex.

Even Ning Yuan's breathing gave a sudden, sharp stall. He looked down at the person in his arms and forgot entirely to breathe.

"You don't have to be afraid." Cen Yan, however, did not believe a single word. Setting aside all his former prejudices, his image of Chú Róng had become entirely different.

Chú Róng was kind, resilient, unyielding, and clever — his character and nature were rare and precious, beautiful and pure. He should not be trapped inside a cage.

He wanted to protect Chú Róng.

Cen Yan coughed twice, blood still running from the corner of his mouth: "I know he's here and you don't dare speak the truth. I mean what I say. Even if it costs my life, I will save you."

Here we go again.

Wishful thinking. Talking to himself.

"Put away your false good intentions." Chú Róng's brow furrowed in a barely perceptible motion. He looked down at Cen Yan, his expression colder than it had ever been. He was about to say more — when the firm, long arm fixed around his waist tightened, and a scorching large hand covered the back of his neck, turning his face away.

The giant of a man pressed in above him, burying his face in Chú Róng's neck, his voice dropping low, the hot breath he exhaled searing — burning the pale skin along Chú Róng's throat: "So, Róng Róng is staying by my side of his own free will, is that right?"

Chú Róng's body gave a reflexive shiver. He raised his head. A pale flush bloomed across his strikingly beautiful face. His slender white fingers lifted slightly, bracing against the man's solid shoulder. He didn't deny it: "Yes. But now is not the time to be talking about this."

The Hundred Immortal Sects had already entered the secret realm. Countless people were competing for the dragon breath. Now that Ning Yuan had come and found him, finding the dragon breath was what mattered most.

Chú Róng pushed against the man's shoulder a couple of times to signal him to let go — and was only pulled in tighter instead.

A transparent ripple spread through the air around them like water. In the next instant, the world spun before Chú Róng's eyes, and he appeared in a dim, shadowed alleyway, his back pressed against a wall, the man's solid body before him.

"Ning……" His red lips had barely parted when a forceful, invasive breath surged up and covered him, claiming his mouth entirely.

Chú Róng's eyes flew wide open. In an instant, a flush swept rapidly across his cheeks and the outer corners of his eyes.

Since that very first time on the Spirit Canal, when the man had kissed him into unconsciousness, Chú Róng had not felt such an intense, suffocating breathlessness in a very long time.

Chú Róng had no idea what was happening. Tears slid from the reddened corners of his eyes, his lashes soaked through and through. His lips were kissed red and swollen, and the skin around them was suffused with a faint, rosy flush.

He trembled, his crimson lips murmuring a small plea, yet still not forgetting the important matter: "Ning Yuan, the— the dragon breath."

Ning Yuan's powerful hands cupped Chú Róng's face. He pecked away the tears from the corners of his eyes, then lowered his head and covered his mouth again, sealing off his breath: "Don't worry. I know where the dragon breath is."