On the lowest floor of the Scripture Pavilion, the palace-robed woman who had earlier addressed Ji Yao as "Grand Aunt" looked up with a worried expression. She thought she had faintly heard the sound of an argument.
The Scripture Pavilion had been cleared out. Now, aside from her standing guard at the entrance, only Ji Yao and Yang Kai remained inside. The argument must have come from those two, but she couldn't quite figure out what could possibly make them quarrel so loudly that even she could hear it.
Nothing terrible would happen, right? This Palace Master Yang had done Ice Heart Valley an enormous favor, and she had heard that Grand Aunt Ji and Palace Master Yang were on good personal terms as well. Grand Aunt Ji had been missing for so many years, and it was Palace Master Yang who had brought her back safely. So how could a dispute break out between them?
She wanted to go investigate, but feared she might stumble upon something she wasn't supposed to see, and hesitated.
Fortunately, the quarreling came and went quickly — within moments, everything went quiet again, which put her considerably more at ease. She listened carefully but couldn't pick up anything else, so she could only shake her head with a sigh and continue standing guard at the entrance, silently praying that nothing bad had happened.
What she didn't know was that something really had happened on the eighth floor.
Ji Yao, an innocent young woman with no experience in such matters, was no match whatsoever for Yang Kai, a seasoned hand in the game of love.
He hadn't even done much yet — just wrapped one arm around her waist and kissed her crimson lips for a while — and Ji Yao had already gone boneless, every bit of strength draining from her body. If not for Yang Kai's arm supporting her waist, she would have collapsed right then and there.
Her breathing came in rapid gasps, her chest heaving violently, her cheeks burning as though a fire had been lit beneath her skin.
Yang Kai was no longer satisfied with mere sampling. He parted Ji Yao's teeth, captured her soft, fragrant tongue, and tasted it to his heart's content.
Ji Yao let out a soft moan, then startled herself — she had never known she could produce such a strange sound. The sound snapped her back to her senses from the daze she'd fallen into. Her eyes flew wide open, and strength surged from somewhere within her body. She shoved Yang Kai away with all her might, twisted free of his embrace, and stumbled back against the wall, gasping for air like a fish that had flopped onto dry land.
Yang Kai smacked his lips, savoring the lingering taste, then flashed her a grin. "See? I told you something would happen!"
Ji Yao pressed one hand to her chest, as though her heart might leap out if she didn't hold it in place. The flush on her cheeks hadn't faded, her beautiful eyes glistened with a hazy, waterlogged daze — yet she let out a cold laugh. "Now what do you have to say for yourself?"
"Say what?" Yang Kai blinked in confusion.
"A golden exterior with rot inside. You can't hold yourself together the moment a woman throws herself at you!" Ji Yao spat bitterly.
"My fault?" Yang Kai stared at her, utterly exasperated, thinking: Isn't this your doing? If you hadn't acted like that, would I have done what I did? I'm a man, after all.
Ji Yao said icily, "The facts speak for themselves, and you still want to deny it!"
Yang Kai lowered his gaze. A few strands of black hair fell across his forehead, obscuring his expression. He said lightly, "Junior Sister Yao, you threw yourself into the tiger's maw just to prove your point?"
"I did!" Ji Yao replied.
Yang Kai raised his head and bared his teeth in a fierce grin. "Junior Sister Yao, you're quite the brave one — aren't you afraid of being eaten until not even your bones are left?" With those words, he advanced toward her step by step. She was already weak-kneed and propped against the wall; with him closing in, she had nowhere to retreat. Her long lashes began trembling violently as she cried out, "What are you going to do?!"
Yang Kai braced one hand against the wall, hooked the other beneath her snow-white chin, and gazed down at her like a demon who had finally shed his restraints — his lips curving into something between a smile and a smirk. "What do you think I'm going to do?"
Before she could react, he had already leaned in and kissed her again.
This time, he showed no tenderness. He broke straight through every defense and took what he wanted without restraint.
Ji Yao found herself completely unable to catch her breath, nearly suffocating. Only then did she understand that men were not creatures one could recklessly provoke.
This was her second time experiencing this, and she performed somewhat better than before — she could actually feel something now. But precisely because of that, the humiliation cut even deeper. Something stirred restlessly inside her body, her blood surged several times faster than normal, and her entire being radiated an astonishing heat, as if her clothing might be incinerated at any moment.
When a large hand began its ascent from her waist toward her chest, Ji Yao seized Yang Kai's wrist. She opened her eyes and shook her head in a silent plea.
Yang Kai had been watching her reactions the whole time. Seeing this, he gave a faint smile and did not press further.
A long moment passed before their lips parted. A glistening thread of saliva connected them. Ji Yao stared at that thread in a daze, and the crimson of her cheeks deepened to the point where she wished the ground would swallow her whole.
She ducked low, slipped beneath his arm, and staggered toward the stairway on unsteady legs. Reaching the top of the stairs, she turned around and fixed Yang Kai with a fierce glare. "Absolutely! Absolutely! Do not tell Junior Sister!"
Then she fled downstairs as though her life depended on it.
"Still acting so fierce," Yang Kai muttered in the direction she had disappeared, letting out a soft scoff. His fingers still carried her fragrance. He raised them to his nose and inhaled, a look of sheer intoxication on his face.
But then again, he had come here today with the simple intention of getting some cultivation techniques from Ice Heart Valley. How had things with Ji Yao escalated to this? Recalling everything that had just happened, the whole thing felt almost dreamlike.
Well, what was done was done — dwelling on it now wouldn't change anything. The real question was whether things would be awkward the next time he ran into Ji Yao.
What puzzled Yang Kai was her insistence that he not tell Su Yan. He had assumed that Ji Yao, having thrown herself at him like that, would use it as leverage to hold over his head. Yet it turned out she was even more afraid of the matter being exposed than he was. Yang Kai rubbed his chin and pondered for a moment, then shook his head — he truly had no idea what Ji Yao had been up to today.
On the first floor of the Scripture Pavilion, the palace-robed woman heard footsteps and hurried over. "Grand Aunt Ji!"
Ji Yao walked past without a sideways glance, as though she hadn't heard a thing. Her mind was still reeling from what had just happened. The impact of those events was beyond imagination — she was far less composed than she appeared on the surface.