Chapter 10: Meeting grandmaster Shen.
A hush fell over Shen’s Pill Pavilion, like the stillness before a thunderstorm.
The clerk with a pale face and trembling hands, rushed into the back without another word, nearly tripping over a stunned junior disciple holding a tray of jade bottles. He disappeared behind a curtain carved with talismanic patterns of dragons and phoenixes.
Moments later, footsteps echoed, graceful yet commanding.
Then, she stepped out; Grandmaster Shen.
Bai Long’s eyes narrowed slightly, his smile hidden behind the opened fan. Even he, a worshipper of arrogance and beauty alike, paused a moment to appreciate the woman in the vision. Truly a beauty, hair falling like the moonlight silk.
She was a vision carved from the forbidden thoughts of celibate monks and written in poetry by lewd scholars. Her violet robes clung to her curvaceous figure, tight enough to show the elegant swell of her hips and the valley of her waist, while still fluttering just enough to make a man wonder what was hidden beneath.
How can one not think of sin watching her? I’d rather smash and stay in hell for eternity than merely watch and go to heaven.
A golden phoenix insignia, half-curled and blooming into flame, glowed faintly near her chest, but no man would look at that for long.
Her legs were long and bare from the knee down, smooth as polished jade, and her lotus feet looked tender and kissable.
Her eyes, violet as twilight and colder than immortal glaciers, studied Bai Long like a beast studies prey or perhaps a rival, or perhaps, merely watching was he telling the truth or not.
"You..." she said, voice like silk laced with thunder.
"You ...claim this to be a ten-thousand-year evolved Black Yang Cicada Shell?"