Chapter 25: Plot against Zhao Fan? Court death.
The next day,
After lots and lots of rounds, and some cultivation later...
The incense had long since burned down to twisted threads, the bed of phoenix silk soaked in heavenly ruin and the weight of fulfilled sin, and Zhao Fan now sat at the edge of the ruined mattress.
His posture was upright, his robes loosely draped across his shoulders, not bothering to hide the faint glow of yang qi still emanating from his skin like heat off divine metal.
And beside him, the Immortal Master knelt on the floor with her legs folded beneath her, her bare skin flush with lingering warmth, a silken sheet wrapped around her waist like a poorly tied sash, her cheeks still blushed with shame and strange serenity.
Her eyes lowered not in fear but in obedience, the kind of quiet that follows surrender, not defeat, her jade hairpins scattered across the tiles, her spiritual core faintly pulsing with yang resonance, and behind the translucent mirror wall of the jade palanquin...
Ye Chen remained unmoving, his body curled like a discarded scroll, his breath shallow, his cheeks tear-streaked and swollen, his broken yang meridians offering no resistance, no hope, only stillness, as he watched the two like a ghost at his own funeral.
Zhao finally moved, one hand flicking, and a glowing black robe, embroidered with dragons of red flame and phoenixes of blood-gold thread, unfolded midair and landed on his shoulders with an elegance that did not belong to mortals.
He rose, towering in silence, his bare feet stepping over a trail of fallen cultivation relics and torn inner robes, until he stood before the kneeling woman.
"It seems Senior managed to touch the threshold of the Ninth stage of the nascent soul realm," Zhao Fan said sensing she was already the at peak of the eighth stage and was about to reach the ninth stage.
"It’s all grace Young Master bestowed upon me, also, this one goes by the name Yi Xin Yue," She responded earnestly like a calm breeze.