Faced with such behaviour, attacking sensitive areas without a word, Mu Nanzhi’s muddled mind was overridden by her body’s instincts. She resisted automatically, clamping her legs shut, dropping her hips, and pressing her hands over her silk trousers.
Next, her beautiful eyes snapped open, round as saucers. When she saw it was Xu Qi’an, she frowned and huffed:
“What are you doing?”
There was no real aversion or anger in her tone, it was more like she was chiding him for lacking martial ethics and ambushing her in the middle of the night.
“I’m advancing to second rank.” Xu Qi’an grinned cheekily.
Mu Nanzhi was momentarily stunned, then realising what he meant, her delicate face flushing with a tinge of red.
She recovered quickly, assuming Xu Qi’an was toying with her. She turned away with a spit:
“Why don’t you remove the demon-sealing nail first.”
After speaking, she remembered what he had done before leaving and hurriedly added:
“No, you mustn’t become a licking-dog.”
Though she’d accidentally let her feelings slip just now, that wave of emotion had passed. To make the Flower God herself admit she liked him and was willing to consummate the relationship, such a thing was impossible in the short term.
I knew it would turn out like this. I should’ve struck while the iron was hot and been a licking dog for a bit, that way she wouldn’t be able to act so proud. All al-Asura’s fault… Xu Qi’an breathed a warm puff into her ear and whispered:
“I’ve pulled out the last demon-sealing nail.”
He was telling Mu Nanzhi that it was time to consummate their relationship, to finally give up her maidenhood, their relationship was about to take a real step forward.
Mu Nanzhi spun around, eyes wide, staring at him in a daze.
At that moment, she realised Xu Qi’an was not wearing a thread, his sturdy body pressed tightly against hers.
Mu Nanzhi’s heart pounded furiously as she shoved at his chest:
“You, you move back a bit… Men and women shouldn’t be so close, don’t touch me, who do you think I am…”
She spoke as she shrank further into the quilt, moving inch by inch towards the inside edge. For every inch she moved, Xu Qi’an pressed closer, until finally, she was driven into the corner.
“And what are you to me? You tell me!” Xu Qi’an asked with a wicked grin.
She glared at him in frustration: “I’m your elder.”
By strict age, Xu Qi’an actually ought to call her Auntie.
Xu Qi’an almost broke character. After a moment, he complained:
“I worked so hard to create the mood, now you’ve ruined it.”
He flopped onto the bed, gazing silently up at the rafters.
For no reason, he thought of Luo Yuheng, and mused how the two women, no wonder they were both virgins, were just the same with their tsundere ways, wanting a romance but also being afraid of crossing the line.
Back then, Luo Yuheng had sought him out for dual cultivation, and after some back and forth, they had finally made their way to bed, only for her to regret it at the last moment. When Xu Qi’an tried to undress her, she even slapped him a few times.
In fact, what he had told al-Asura earlier was only half true: Luo Yuheng had dual cultivated with him just twice (over two months), but as previously mentioned, it would take three months at the least, or half a year at most, for her to fully subdue her karmic fire and be free to overcome her tribulation.
In other words, the Luo Yuheng ‘card’ couldn’t be used for at least another month.
At present, she was unable to go all out in a fight. If she tried to, her inner karmic fire would lose its suppression, immediately invite heavenly tribulation, and lead to her death and the dissolution of her Dao.
Aside from Luo Yuheng, the others were all third rank. To participate in the Jianzheng’s battle would be too much of a stretch, even a single first rank could kill a third rank opponent within ten blows.
Zhao Shou’s attitude is ambiguous, pulling him in won’t be easy. That’s another hurdle. In short, I need to become second rank as soon as possible.
While his thoughts churned, he felt Mu Nanzhi quietly sidle over. Her soft little hand roamed his chest, then she exclaimed in surprise:
“The demon-sealing nails really are gone!”
“Would I lie to you?”
Xu Qi’an replied grumpily.
Mu Nanzhi, curled in the quilt, glanced at him and uttered “Oh,” before silently retreating to the wall again.
In the silence, time flashed by. The candle burned serenely, wax dripping down its side.
Xu Qi’an once more moved closer to Mu Nanzhi, his lower belly pressing against her peach-like hips, solid arm wrapped around her slender waist.
With the barrel of a gun pressed to her back, Mu Nanzhi’s tender body instantly tensed up.
Xu Qi’an tried to remove her clothes, but failed; she clutched her collar tightly, curling up as if… she would die before submitting.
Xu Qi’an hesitated, raised his head, and looked at her face.
She was red-eyed, biting her lip. There was no shyness or nervousness, just an unmistakable sorrow and grievance.
At that moment, he felt as if all his strength left him. His arm, which had been around her slender waist, relaxed.
“Sorry…”
Mu Nanzhi paused, silent, giving no reply.
Xu Qi’an spoke softly:
“I actually learnt your identity long ago, not long after bringing you back from the north to the capital.
“At the time, my feelings for you were very complicated. I wanted to seize your spiritual essence, and after seeing your true face, also felt uncontrollable pity and admiration. So I kept you in house outside, thinking to let things develop naturally.
“Later, when you followed me in my travels, as we spent more time together, I don’t know when it happened, but I suddenly stopped wanting to seize your spiritual essence.
“I thought, since Kou Yangzhou could use lotus root to advance to second rank, I could do it too.”
In the late stages of gathering Dragon Qi, he truly gave up on the idea of seizing the princess consort’s spiritual essence.
Mu Nanzhi’s nose prickled, but she forced herself to remain calm, her tone chilly:
“Why apologise, why tell me all this, why give up the idea of taking my spiritual essence?”
Xu Qi’an was silent for a while, then answered honestly:
“Sorry, because my initial motivation for approaching you was selfish, no better than Zhende. If I can’t face that truth, then I don’t deserve to have you.
“As for why I’m telling you this, we’ve gone through so much together, and there are too many things weighing on our hearts, too many feelings we’ve never spoken out loud. I want to take this chance to tell you what’s in my heart.”
He paused, then answered the final question:
“The more time I spent with you, the more obsessed with you I became, even if I’ve never really shown it. I don’t know what sort of harm taking your spiritual essence would do to you.
“And I especially don’t want, once we are truly together, for you to look back one day with regret, with sorrow, and think I only wanted you because of the Flower God’s spiritual essence.”
These words had been bottled up in his heart for some time. Previously, he’d felt no need to voice them. When their relationship gradually warmed up, sleeping together would happen naturally.
That way, it wouldn’t seem as if he was only after the Flower God’s spiritual essence.
But circumstances were unpredictable, people are always pushed along by greater events. Now, he desperately needed Mu Nanzhi’s spiritual essence to become second rank.
And Mu Nanzhi, because of her past experiences, was particularly sensitive about it.
Sitting at the bedside earlier and pouring out her heart had actually been a confession, the first time in her life she’d truly opened her heart to a man.
But what she got in return was a man’s ill-timed urgency. Her refusal to submit wasn’t really unwillingness, but came from a surge of grievance she couldn’t control.
Xu Qi’an understood her feelings.
“I think these things needed to be said clearly. I did not want you to have regrets in the future, and I did not want this to become a knot in our hearts.”
He pressed against her neck, breathing in the intoxicating fragrance, his voice low and magnetic.
Mu Nanzhi’s face was streaming with tears.
“It’s not a big deal anyway, I, I’m not short of any spiritual essence,” she sniffed and said with a haughty air.
Her feelings of grievance slowly melted away, and it felt as if honey had spread through her heart, the sweetness making her feel intoxicated.
As soon as she finished speaking, her right hand was caught by him, and the prayer beads on her wrist were gently removed.
Then, Mu Nanzhi saw his dazed, captivated gaze.
She felt a bit shy, her cheeks turning red as she turned her head aside.
In the dim candlelight, the beauty on the bed looked bashful and hesitant, there for him to pick, biting her lip, her long eyelashes quivering incessantly due to nervousness.
There was no more enchanting style in the world. Xu Qi’an pinched her delicate chin, turned her devastatingly beautiful face to him, lowered his head, and kissed her plump red lips.
Mu Nanzhi closed her eyes tightly, her small hands pressed against his chest, her breathing growing heavier and her cheeks redder.
When Xu Qi’an lifted his head, she was gasping for air as if oxygen-starved, her red lips slightly swollen from his vigorous kisses.
Whoosh…
Xu Qi’an suddenly pulled the quilt aside forcefully and rolled over to sit on Mu Nanzhi’s lower abdomen, looking down at her from above.
He lifted her undershirt, revealing her fair, slender, and sexy waist and navel. Her skin was like congealed cream, like the most flawless jade.
Xu Qi’an leaned down, kissing her lower abdomen as if tasting the most delicious food, his expression wild and devout.
After some time, Mu Nanzhi felt herself being turned over. Immediately afterwards, her back felt a chill and she became a little more clear-headed, softly moaning:
“What are you doing…”
Her tone was content and lazy.
Xu Qi’an picked up a wine jug and poured its contents out. The clear wine splashed onto Mu Nanzhi’s jade-like back and then flowed down her graceful curves, pooling at the dip of her waist.
With a devout heart, Xu Qi’an leaned down and savoured this curve of “wine pond”.
He had never been so excited, treating dual cultivation with such a sense of ceremony. He considered hasty demands a desecration of the most beautiful woman in the Great Feng.
After tasting the pool formed by the autumn waters, he then tried the cascading waterfall over the twin peaks, quickly finishing the jug of wine.
Mu Nanzhi was so ashamed she wanted to crawl under the bed and finally realised what it meant to be a “licking-dog”.
After a while, the reincarnation of the Flower God saw that he still had not made a move and felt somewhat lost.
”…Don’t you know how to start…?”
Xu Qi’an held the empty wine jug a little helplessly.
Mu Nanzhi, both embarrassed and angry, thought, “At the critical moment you’re asking me this? Do you want me to teach you? When you and Luo Yuheng dual-cultivated, did she have to teach you hand in hand?!”
Xu Qi’an really did not know how, but not in the “ploughing the field” aspect, rather he was unsure how to absorb Mu Nanzhi’s spiritual essence.
The reason he believed consummation could absorb spiritual essence was because the Flower God had been a princess consort for twenty years, and the Zhenbei King had remained in the north and never touched her. From this, it could be concluded it was related to the Flower God’s first time.
Never mind, let’s try the dual cultivation technique of the ancient Daoist sects… Xu Qi’an picked up the Flower God’s slender white legs and thrust his waist forward.
“Ah~!!”
Mu Nanzhi tensed like a wounded doe, threw back her head, instinctively gripped the bedsheets with both hands, and cried out.
Xu Qi’an closed his eyes and used the secret technique of dual cultivation from the ancient Daoist sects to guide the circulation of Qi between their bodies.
When the concave and convex fit together perfectly, the two became like one entity, the Qi completing a circuit through both their eight extraordinary meridians, forming a great circuit.
Xu Qi’an focused on the technique, and amid the “creak creak” of the bed, completed a great circuit.
In that instant, he clearly felt a dormant power inside Mu Nanzhi awaken, stirred by the circulation of Qi to join the flow.
The vitality of that force was unimaginable. As it followed the Qi into Xu Qi’an, he felt an unprecedented comfort, as if his entire body’s channels had been opened up.
All his cells were nourished and flourished.
At that moment, Xu Qi’an’s physique rapidly advanced. His bones became stronger, his muscles tougher, and his cells brimmed with power.
He could not help but speed up, the shaking of the bed growing more intense.
Mu Nanzhi’s cheeks flushed crimson, her slender brows tightly knitted, her pearly teeth biting down on the back of her hand, sweet and sticky moans slipping intermittently from her lips.
Her entire body was like seaweed swaying in the waves.
Slap slap slap… In the cold winter, Xu Qi’an was meticulously helping the Flower God swat mosquitoes.
My qi is growing stronger, and my body is also rapidly strengthening. All attributes are skyrocketing. This is the sign of advancing, but something’s missing… Right, it’s the sublimation of ‘intent’.
A second-rank martial artist is called Hedao, Union with the Dao. It’s not just about the body strengthening, my Broken Jade should also reach a new level. Nanzhi really is… moist… No! Focus, focus
Mm, what is the sublimation of Broken Jade? The basic level is burst, the advanced is rebound, what about after Hedao? What about after Hedao…?
The candlelight cast their shadows on the wall, showing the man’s proud and straight upper body, and a slender, jade-like foot swaying atop his shoulder.
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