I gave the man at the door a polite nod. He turned without a word and disappeared into the gloom of the tunnel, his footsteps fading like a dying echo.
I closed the door and lingered, eyes fixed on the rough wooden surface, thoughts swirling in the silence.
A scale teetered in my mind: risk on one side, curiosity and purpose on the other. The question flickered like a flame in the wind: was this worth it?
But the truth was, I didn't give a shit about that scale.
I did whatever the hell I wanted.
Risky? So what? Walking out your front door was risky. But people did it without blinking because the world was interesting. Worth exploring.
In my case, back on Earth, I stepped outside for far more mundane reasons.
I had work. A soul-crushing job that shaved me down, piece by piece, day by day.
I turned. My eyes found my fiancée standing in silence. The cavern light spilled softly over her face, casting delicate shadows. I stared at the burn scar just above her collarbone, a pale crescent curling like a brand along her skin.
She looked kinda cute in this lighting.
Shame her personality didn't follow suit.
"Alright, I need you to brainstorm a few things," I said. "First, we'll go through normal planning. Then, in part two, you get to poke holes in all of it."
Fu Yating tilted her head, already smirking. "So the usual, huh? I give my ideas and you shoot them down?"
She loved drama. Every chance she got, she stirred up a storm like she was paid to.
Not that I minded. I'd grown better at controlling my anger with her around. She kept me sharp.
"Well, maybe if your ideas weren't absolute garbage, I wouldn't have to shoot them down," I said. "Also, none of that reckless bullshit. You know I don't play with that."
"Wow. So you're a coward now? Super unattractive. Totally lame," she muttered, just loud enough for any cultivator nearby, which was only myself, to hear.
Fu Yating was the kind of woman who made you reconsider your entire stance on women... sometimes twice in the same conversation.
Thankfully, Wu Yan was around as my daughter figure, my anchor, and the only reason I hadn't sworn off women altogether. She reminded me Fu Yating wasn't the standard. Just the exception with teeth.
"Well," I said, holding her gaze, "plain looks never did it for me either. Brown eyes. Short hair. Kinda dull."
I let my eyes drift to her shoulder-length black hair, letting the insult land where it would.
"Of course," I added, "I'd never say that out loud."
Her expression twitched just enough.
Though she was usually bulletproof, some bullets still got through.
"Well, no woman's going to like you after that," she huffed. "Insulting another woman? Really?"
The way she said it, you'd think all women were part of some shared hive mind. Just one collective organism with a singular judgment system.
"If you dish it out, you better be able to take it," I said. "Anyway, enough of the silliness. We've got bigger fish to fry."
"Bigger fish to fry?" She raised an eyebrow. "You grew up as some elite cultivation brat. Where the hell did you even learn commoner slang?"
"Can you not nitpick every damn thing and just focus?" I sighed. "Please."
Was this why some people were so happy being single?
I genuinely pitied anyone who ended up marrying someone like Fu Yating, man or woman. She had a way of draining the energy right out of a room. A conversation with her was like walking uphill in wet sand.
Still, I wasn't going to let her ruin a perfectly good day.
"Anyway," I said, rolling my shoulders, "I plan to intervene and retrieve a few things, one from the Serpent Bone Hall, another from a group under the Azure Frost Sect. Also, as you should know already, I'm hiding a ton of the details about the situation."
She narrowed her eyes. "Didn't you say you weren't going to get involved in anything above your level?"
"I doubt either side will send their Core Formation elders," I said. "That kind of escalation could spark a war between the major sects. And when that happens, border groups like the Serpent Bone Hall will be the first to get flattened."
Core Formation cultivators were rare. But the Azure Frost Sect and the Blazing Sun Sect didn't do half-measures. Even a 'minor skirmish' would look like a natural disaster if things heated up, and the small fish would be the first to boil.
"You could always play along," Fu Yating said. "Act like you're helping one side, then slip away with what you want."
I cast a noise-canceling array mid-sentence. A soft pulse expanded through the room, sealing us in silence. I'd already set one earlier, but I wasn't taking chances, not with what we were about to discuss.
"Do you really think they'd just hand it over if I asked nicely?" I raised a brow.
Starting a war over some treasure wasn't ideal. If there was a cleaner way to get it, I'd take it. I wasn't interested in blood for the sake of blood.
But from what I'd seen, those two factions were already on the edge. I wasn't the spark. I was just here to collect on the fire.
Fu Yating gave a silent nod. She agreed.
I glanced her way, a grin tugging at the corner of my mouth, just subtle enough to be irritating.
Perfect. She was annoyed.
Mission accomplished.
Was I being childish?
But she earned it, and honestly, she acted twice as childish on a good day.
We spent the next half hour planning, and this time, we didn't mess around.
By the end of it, we had a solid strategy complete with countermeasures in case things went sideways. Most worst-case scenarios involved a Core Formation Cultivator showing up out of nowhere, so we memorized what the Serpent Bone Hall members wore and prepared a few tailored lies, just in case I ran into that level of danger.
But before we could even begin the plan, I had to endure a humiliating but undeniably effective strategy Fu Yating came up with.
"So," I asked, face serious and composed, "are you ready?"
She blushed and glanced away, shyly.
This bitch. She was enjoying this way too much.
I took a deep breath, buried the frustration clawing at my throat, and walked to the door. I deactivated the silencing arrays and stepped outside.
A quick glance confirmed we were alone. I approached the neighboring door, the one with the familiar Qi, and knocked once.
Before I could knock again, it swung open.
Sha Gua greeted me with a smile. "Hello, neighbor. What can I help you with?"
I forced a smile, trying to play it cool.
"Well… the girl with the short, shoulder-length hair? She's my fiancée. We were wondering if there are any empty rooms nearby. You know… for privacy."
He frowned, head tilting slightly, confused.
Goddamn, this wasn't rocket science.
But I couldn't even blame him. Liu Feng's memories made one thing very clear, sex-ed didn't exist here. No internet, no magazines, no awkward health class. Just vague whispers and the wedding bed.
Most cultivators could turn boulders to dust with a flick of their wrist, but innuendos? Those flew straight over their heads.
Maybe the Azure Frost Sect taught that stuff properly, considering how many of their techniques involved… intimacy.
Sha Gua's eyes lit up. "Oh!" He laughed awkwardly, then cleared his throat. "Sure, we've got some extra rooms next to us."
"Uhh, I'd prefer something a little farther," I said, chuckling awkwardly and this time, it wasn't even an act. "Don't exactly want my friends overhearing… you know."
"Oh, right. Yeah," he said quickly. "Follow me."
He closed his door and led me down a level, then another, through a corridor carved into the stone. Plenty of empty rooms were tucked away on this stretch of the wall.
We eventually found one that worked, and he gave me permission to use it. No one around here used keys, just fancy-looking locking arrays that looked more impressive than they actually were.
Sha Gua and I made the walk back in silence. It felt like the walk of shame, even though he wasn't judging me. I was judging me.
When I returned, I opened the door with a long, exhausted sigh.
Fu Yating, lounging like the smug little tactician she was. The demon queen of ridiculous, face-meltingly awkward plans that somehow worked.
I'd been thoroughly outplayed.
She even gave me a whole philosophical rant earlier about not letting "embarrassment limit my potential," as if she were some sage on a mountain peak and not the agent of my suffering.
"You know this is embarrassing for you too, right?" I asked.
"I'm willing to fall on the sword if I can take you down with me!" she declared.
"Okay, no need to be so dramatic. This isn't that serious," I muttered before turning toward Speedy and Wu Yan. "You two stay put. Wu Yan, use the storage ring I gave you if you need food; it's stocked with about six months of rations. If we're not back within two weeks, make a plan to escape. Actually, have one ready either way."
Speedy yawned, clearly ignoring me. But Wu Yan nodded, ever the perfect student.
Fu Yating and I stepped outside and shut the door behind us. She practically beamed as she held out her hand.
"C'mon," she said. "At least hold hands with your fiancée."
I stared at her palm, sighed, and linked arms with her. She leaned on my shoulder, humming softly like we were on a lovers' stroll and not about to run a high-risk infiltration mission.
We said nothing as we descended to the floor below. I opened the door to the room and, unsurprisingly, we were greeted by a king-sized slab of stone dressed up with futons and blankets.
"Good enough," I said.
"Wow, solid stone. Don't think we've done it on something before," Fu Yating said with a grin.
The moment the door shut behind us, leaving only the dim glow of the wall crystal, I activated a sound-suppressing array.
"You know the plan, right?" I asked.
"Of course," she said, smirking. "I'll moan loudly and dramatically every now and then just in case someone is eavesdropping."
Since Fu Yating couldn't sense Qi signatures, she'd have to commit to the act until I returned. And honestly, no cultivator in their right mind would risk peeking into a room where those kinds of noises were happening.
Only real risk was someone using Qi sensing.
I created a jade soldier and laid it on the bed. Then, placing my palm on its chest, I channeled nearly all of my Qi into it.
The process was slow and precise since any spillage could blow the disguise. By the end, I'd transferred ninety-eight percent of my Qi into the puppet. I sealed it inside with a barrier array, then dropped all the sound suppression around the room.
Fu Yating was already playing her role, sprawled on the bed next to the lifeless puppet, making just enough obscene noise to raise eyebrows without attracting attention.
Mid-groan, she looked at me and winked.
How the hell did she talk me into this?
I wiped the sweat from my forehead and focused on stabilizing the sliver of Qi I had left. Right now, I was practically invisible to most cultivators and weak as hell but undetectable.
I slipped out, closing the door behind me as quietly as I could. Fu Yating didn't know what I was after, but she trusted me enough to believe it was worth the trouble.
I moved fast, blending into the background, masking my presence to give off the impression of a peak Body Tempering cultivator at best.
Time to make all this ridiculousness worth it.
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