“Ah, so that’s how it is.” Wei Liang’s voice was lazy and seductive, but to Lin Jiu’s ears, it was no less than the sound of a guillotine. Her cheeks tingled, her teeth ached with a dull pain, and her shoulders tensed instinctively. The cool hand Wei Liang had placed on her back suddenly felt like a sharp blade or a venomous snake. Lin Jiu had no doubt that this beautiful hand could pierce through her chest any moment.
Wei Liang leaned in close, his thin lips hovering near her earlobe, barely touching it. “So you’ve practiced the Wang family’s Jade Heart Sutra,” he whispered.
Lin Jiu froze for a moment, then hurriedly sifted through Lin Qiu’s memories to find the relevant details.
Ah, yes. Before Lin Qiu’s father passed away, her biological mother, Zheng Ziyu, had arranged to sell her to the prestigious Wang family. As the sole cultivation clan in Tianyuan Continent, the Wang family’s influence extended across the entire land, with powerful branches throughout. The Wang family branch in Dongting was closely connected to the main lineage and shared the control of the three-thousand-mile region with the Qianyejian Sect, an ancient sword cultivation sect.
Zheng Ziyu had used several means to secure a position for Lin Qiu as a concubine to a di-born1 grandson of the Wang family. Once the agreement was secured, the Wang family had given Lin Qiu the Jade Heart Sutra to practice and required her to master it before entering the family.
This Jade Heart Sutra was not an orthodox technique, but essentially an art of seduction. After a woman practices it, once she becomes intimate with a man, her body will become soft and pliable, completely at his mercy. Moreover, if she loses her virginity before forming her golden core, her foundation will be utterly destroyed, leaving her cultivation vulnerable to exploitation and reducing her to a miserable human furnace.2
All concubines taken in by the Wang family were trained in the Jade Heart Sutra. Zheng Ziyu sold her daughter in exchange for an advancement pill which helped her precious son, Lin Dong, successfully advance to the Foundation Establishment stage.
Wei Liang’s low voice interrupted Lin Jiu’s thoughts. “So that’s why you refuse to share a bed with me, huh?”
Seeing an opportunity in this situation, Lin Jiu hurriedly composed herself, “You are the honorable and revered Sword Monarch. Surely, you wouldn’t exploit someone as weak and vulnerable as me, who is only in the Foundation Establishment stage of cultivation, would you?”
Wei Liang burst into another bout of chuckle.
Lin Jiu was a little surprised. When she looked in his direction, she caught sight of Wei Liang’s smile, which he couldn’t conceal in time.
‘How… very beautiful.’ She was mesmerized. It was truly a bewitching smile, capable of toppling an entire country.
With a lazy sigh, the man sank back into the bed, squinting his eyes as he took a moment to think before uttering again, “Your aptitude is too poor. If you want to form a golden core, you need external assistance. The Stalactites Spiritual Essence that Wang Tianpo guards could work. Once you form your core, you’ll have no further worries, right?”
“…” Lin Jiu was momentarily speechless. If she understood correctly, Wei Liang was determined to bed her, going as far as aiding her cultivation so she could reach the Golden Core stage as soon as possible. But why did the name Wang Tianpo sound so familiar?
Wei Liang propped himself up on the bed and began to undo his clothes. As he unbuttoned, he slightly tilted his head, gesturing for her to do the same.
“…” Lin Jiu was baffled. ‘Is this lunatic changing his mind again?! He wants to bed me no matter what!’
Feeling mentally exhausted, Lin Jiu resigned to her fate. She flipped back to the bed and spread her limbs open in a starfish pose. Further struggle would only wear her down even more, so it’s better to just get it over in one go rather than risking a nervous breakdown!
“Come on!” She shouted, tightly shutting her eyes.
Suddenly, the room became quiet as the sound of Wei Liang’s undressing disappeared. After a moment, his cool, slightly baffled voice came from above her: “What are you doing? I’m asking you to get changed.”
Lin Jiu: “Emmm…”
She scrambled to sit up, awkwardly crawled off the bed, and walked past Wei Liang to the large wooden wardrobe standing against the wall. Pretending to browse through the clothes for a bit, she turned back and weakly asked the man, who seemed to enjoy her embarrassment, “What should I wear?”
“Anything,” Wei Liang replied, his gaze lingering on the tips of her ears, which had turned bright red. He had already changed into a dark green robe, and his pale face looked like fresh snow resting on the branches of evergreen pines—cool and refreshing.
Lin Jiu slowly regained her composure. “It’s in the middle of the night. Are you going out? And you’re taking me with you?”
“Mm.”
‘Going out is definitely better than sleeping with him!’ Lin Jiu thought. With that, she randomly picked a simple black dress and disappeared behind the screen to get changed.
Just as she finished adjusting her sash, she sensed Wei Liang’s tall figure approach from behind. His arms circled around her, helping her put on a veil.
She turned her head and saw that the man’s stunningly handsome face was also hidden behind a black veil, leaving only his long, beautiful eyes visible. “Your eyes are incredibly distinctive. I think people will easily recognize your identity,” she commented.
“It won’t be a problem,” Wei Liang held her wrist and led her to the edge of the mountain. The full moon brightened their surrounding, and the night wind, no longer as harsh as it had been earlier, now swept past their robes with a touch of gentleness.
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- Di-born (嫡, di) is a status afforded to children born to the legal wife. In the Chinese polygamy system, men can only marry one wife at a time, with the others being concubines. As a consequence, children born in such families have different status depending on the status of their mothers. Di-born grandchild means the child’s mother and grandmother are both legal wives.
- Furnace (炉鼎): A term used to refer to the practice of increasing one’s cultivation through intimate action. However, unlike the orthodox dual cultivation, only one person will have their cultivation advancing, while the other one (the ‘furnace’) receding. That’s why, in many novels with Xianxia settings, human furnaces are often synonymous with se**ual slavery.