Chapter 9
Edward Quan ·
My throat could take no more shouting.
“Stop… stop bringing things out. Let me breathe…”
She glanced at me.
“You can’t even handle this much.”
I glared.
“Why didn’t you eat them?”
She raised an eyebrow, then considered.
“I meant to eat them all at first.” Her gaze settled on me again. “But instinct told me you might need them.”
“I could do without that little bit, so I saved it.”
I opened my mouth.
No words came.
These were the finest herbs and precious stones. Their energy would make any cultivator mad with envy. People would slaughter one another for a single stalk.
And Yin Hai had kept a whole pile for me.
I didn’t believe she hadn’t wanted to eat them.
It wasn’t that she could “do without that little bit.”
Somewhere within her, she had decided I needed them more.
So she had restrained her hunger and saved them until now.
Holding those treasures felt like holding a bundle of hot coals.
Hot enough to sting my eyes.
“Thank you for leaving so much for me…”
I forced a smile that looked worse than tears.
She watched silently, then wiped the corner of my eye with her thumb.
“What are you crying for? So troublesome.”
Out of habit, she put her thumb into her mouth.
Her eyes widened.
The next instant, she pinned me to the ground.
The treasures scattered everywhere.
“What are you doing? Yin Hai, what’s got into you now?”
She kissed the corner of my eye, sucking at my lashes. When that wasn’t enough, she licked my eyes.
The irritation brought more tears.
But she cried out in disappointment.
“No. No. It tastes wrong.”
“What?”
“It doesn’t taste right anymore.”
“What are you talking about?”
“When you thanked me, your tears tasted wonderful.”
She gripped my face and growled.
“Cry again! Just like before! Hurry!”
I was speechless.
When I didn’t cry, she kept licking at the corners of my eyes.
But not another drop of the tears she craved came.
Breathing hard, she shut her eyes as though accepting defeat.
“I knew it. Something that delicious couldn’t always be available.”
She got up and rubbed her face hard.
I lay on the ground, staring blankly at the sky.
What was she doing?
No one had told me she would be this strange as well as this difficult to keep.
18
The Lingtai Secret Realm had been stripped bare.
An unidentified creature had eaten everything.
The news spread quickly throughout the realm.
Every cultivator who had entered to seek opportunities was furious.
What the hell? Everyone had come looking for treasures. How could someone leave nothing for anyone else?
Did they have a death wish?
The cultivators hunted angrily for the culprit, but found nothing.
Until a recording quietly circulated among them.
“Emperor’s Daughter Mulberry!”
“Undying Grass!”
“Purple-Thunder Jade Marrow!”
In the recording, a beautiful, slender hand kept producing treasures and casually giving them all to someone who was shouting.
They didn’t recognize the hand.
But they recognized the shouter.
Mo Jinghong, eldest disciple of the Beast-Taming Sect.
So she had taken everything.
The nerve!
Was she tired of living?
19
With the realm empty, there was no reason to run about.
I found a relatively quiet place and waited with Yin Hai for the exit to open.
By my calculations, it should happen within the next few days.
She continued eating without pause.
And she had acquired another bad habit.
In the middle of drinking my energy, she would suddenly lick my eye.
Apparently, whatever was available would do. She might as well try.
She made me so angry I laughed.
Our resting place was a branch of an enormous ancient tree. Its thick leaves hid us and gave me a little sense of safety.
Yin Hai didn’t care.
Danger or safety meant nothing to her. All she wanted was not to go hungry.
Whenever my energy ran out, she pushed another pill into my mouth.
These days, pills alone left me stuffed.
I ate so many I could distinguish subtle differences between them.
Some obviously came from the same batch, with almost identical flavors. Some were exceptionally pure and restored energy remarkably quickly. Some needed me to circulate their medicinal power before they worked.
At first, I checked what she fed me, its grade, its purity.
Eventually, I went numb. Whatever she offered, I swallowed.
Yin Hai was delighted.
She had never enjoyed such lovely days, with enough food every day.
Even if it depended on pills.
That hardly mattered. She wasn’t the one taking them.
“Hmm? Gone again?”
She lifted her head from my neck and frowned. “Your energy runs out so quickly.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Of course energy forced out by pills runs out quickly!”
“Does it?”
“Obviously! Everyone in the cultivation world knows that. These pills are for a brief burst of strength in an emergency. Who eats them like sweets?”
“It’s fine. We’re almost out anyway.”
She sighed and took another pill from the bottom of the pouch, popping it into my mouth.
“I knew it. Days with enough food could never last.”
I swallowed and circulated its power, just as I had countless times over the past few days, to restore my energy.
The moment I did, I knew something was wrong.
“Wait. What did you just give me?”
Her eyes widened innocently. “A pill.”
She shook the pouch. “You’ve been eating pills from this one for days.”
I snatched it and tipped out the last two.
After inspecting them carefully, I exclaimed, “Damn it!”
“What?”
“These don’t restore energy!”
“What?” She stared at the pills. “None of them?”
“No!”
“Damn. Useless things.”
She seized them and tossed them away.
Then she produced another pouch. “Never mind. There are plenty here. Some must restore energy…”
“That isn’t the problem!”
My whole body burned.
I grabbed her robe.
“Yin Hai, what you just fed me was an aphrodisiac!”
“So?”
She didn’t understand, still rummaging through the pouch.
“Look. Do these restore energy? What are you doing?”
I tore open her robe.
I tore off my own clothes too and pressed my skin against hers.
She frowned and pushed me away with one hand.
“I’m talking to you. Look at these pills.”
I was so angry I cried.
“I don’t know! I don’t know!”
“Just look!”
“You fed me an aphrodisiac, you bastard! A top-grade one made by a master alchemist! I feel awful! I can’t think about your damned pills!”
She blinked.
“Awful?”
She looked me over. “Where?”
All I could do was sob.
She leaned close and licked a tear.
“Oh? It tastes good again!”
Delighted, she hugged me and kept licking at the corners of my eyes.