Holding his chest, his blood and qi still roiling, Yang Kai's gaze drifted and his expression was awkward. After a long silence, he finally managed a sheepish grin: "You saw through it…"
Since Bei Limo had said as much, she had clearly already deduced that he'd been putting on an act. There was no point in continuing to play dumb. In that case, better to lay everything out in the open.
Bei Limo gave a cold snort, her icy eyes fixed on him.
If Yang Kai had truly been goaded into making unwanted advances on her because of the aphrodisiac, that would have been understandable. This was the entire reason she had orchestrated everything today — if she could get Yang Kai to lose control and do something with any of the female Demon Kings present, that would have been ideal.
Yang Kai was that harlot Yu Rumeng's man, and furthermore, they were bound together by the Heart Imprint Secret Art. Unless the secret art was broken, their bond could never be severed. If she could get these female Demon Kings to bed with Yang Kai, it would absolutely disgust Yu Rumeng to no end.
But in reality, Yang Kai had been putting on an act the entire time, and that was something Bei Limo could not accept. For no reason at all, she had been taken advantage of by this brat again, and the thought of it made her grit her teeth in fury. Were it not for her wariness toward Yu Rumeng, and the fact that Yang Kai still had value to exploit, she would have slapped him dead on the spot.
"How did you figure it out?" Yang Kai asked, thinking to himself that it didn't make sense — his performance had been completely convincing, and there shouldn't have been any flaws for her to detect.
"What's real can't be fake, and what's fake can't become real," Bei Limo said, glancing at him sideways. To be honest, at the beginning she hadn't noticed anything abnormal either. She was simply too confident in her methods, believing that Yang Kai's cultivation level was far too low to resist them. All of Yang Kai's reactions had seemed perfectly natural, until the moment he had paused — just for an instant — before reaching his hand beneath her skirt. That was when she had caught the faintest hint of a tell.
That subtle pause had lasted barely a heartbeat, but Bei Limo was a Demon Saint — how could she have missed it? A pause indicated hesitation, and if he had truly been affected by the aphrodisiac, there would have been no room for hesitation whatsoever!
That was why she had delivered that decisive kick.
"Ah!" Yang Kai sighed, walked over to the chair, and sat back down, his gaze earnest as he looked at Bei Limo. "Why must it be this way? You have your grudge with Rumeng — settle it between yourselves. Why drag me into it? I'm innocent here!"
Bei Limo stared at him, caught somewhere between exasperation and amusement. "You think you're innocent?"
Yang Kai wore an expression of deep woe. "Isn't that the case?" He knew full well she wouldn't actually do anything to him, but since he would be operating on her territory for the foreseeable future, he didn't want to make things too antagonistic between them.
Bei Limo sneered: "If you weren't that harlot's man, I might not have given you a second thought. But you just had to be her man, didn't you?"
Yang Kai's face darkened. "Your Holiness is one of the supreme existences of the Demon Realm — and you speak with such lack of decorum?"
Bei Limo raised a slender eyebrow. "What, I'm not allowed to call her that? You're quite the protective one."
Yang Kai said firmly: "Your Holiness is a woman herself. If someone were to hurl such insults at Your Holiness, how would that make you feel?"
Bei Limo scoffed: "You think that harlot hasn't badmouthed me behind my back?"
"I don't care whether Rumeng has spoken ill of you or not, but in my presence, I must ask Your Holiness to show some restraint!"
Bei Limo blinked, clearly not expecting Yang Kai to speak to her this way. But then again, the man had just tried to grope her moments ago — the sheer audacity of this human had already shattered the heavens, so what were a few sharp words in comparison? She let out a cold snort. "I will speak as I please. What of it?"
Yang Kai rose abruptly and brushed his sleeves. "Since we have nothing to say to each other, I'll have to decline the matter of the World Gate. Your Holiness will have to find someone else!"
With that, he turned and strode toward the door.
"Take one more step, and I'll break your legs. I mean it," Bei Limo said, her voice as cold as ice, watching his retreating back.
Yang Kai froze instantly, one foot still suspended in midair, not daring to move an inch. Inwardly, he cursed Bei Limo to every hell imaginable. He had been invited here to repair the World Gate — how had things escalated to this point the moment he arrived? This woman was utterly unreasonable.
But Yang Kai knew full well that reason didn't work on her. His fists simply weren't big enough.
Bei Limo lay back down again, a smile playing on her lips as she regarded his back. "Not bad, not bad. You're a smart young man."
"What exactly do you want? Lay it out for me. I concede," Yang Kai said, his head tilted to the side, his face a portrait of righteous indignation. Had he known it would come to this, he never would have set foot in this godforsaken Aoxue Continent. Getting to the Zhoutian Continent didn't require passing through Bei Limo's territory — he could have entered through any of the other Demon Saints' domains instead.
"It's not about what I want. You made a mess — did you really think you could just walk away?"
Yang Kai let out a heavy sigh, deflated. "I was out of line just now. I ask Your Holiness to be magnanimous. It won't happen again."
"It won't happen again?" Bei Limo snorted coldly. "Besides, I didn't hear a shred of sincerity in that apology."
"What kind of sincerity are you looking for?" Yang Kai turned around to face her.
Bei Limo studied him for a moment, then pouted her lips toward the area in front of her.