He spread the cool spiritual medicine over Consort Dan's buttocks. The ticklish, itching sensation of the medicinal power made her entire body go limp, as though all her strength had drained away. That prickling feeling seemed to creep from the surface of her skin all the way down to her heart. Something inside her chest seemed to be scratching at her, stirring up an indescribable, peculiar feeling.
For a moment, she wished
However, in the end, shame won out. She let out a soft whimper and was about to speak.
But Jiang Chen had already finished applying the medicine. He pulled her animal-skin trousers back up. "Done."
Though it was merely the application of some medicine, it was a real test for Jiang Chen. In his previous life, he had seen countless beauties, but this body—his body in this life—was still that of a young man brimming with vigor and fire.
Fortunately, there was only one wound in that area, so Jiang Chen's awkwardness didn't last long.
Consort Dan, too, felt her face flush. She stood up and refused to meet Jiang Chen's gaze, saying in a low voice, "Thank you."
Jiang Chen smiled with easy nonchalance and walked twenty or thirty meters away, settling cross-legged against a large tree.
"Dawn is still a ways off. Get some rest."
That night, Consort Dan found herself utterly unable to sleep. Throughout the entire night, all manner of thoughts swirled through her mind, refusing to leave. One moment she was blaming herself for her willfulness; the next she was thrilled at having captured four Spirit Beast cubs. One moment she was still shaken by the poison; the next she was grateful to have survived.
But above all, what lingered most was the instant when Jiang Chen's spiritual medicine had touched her wound down there—that feeling had frozen in place, locked in like a shackle branded into her sea of consciousness. No matter how hard she tried not to think about it, it simply wouldn't go away.
Before today, never mind such an embarrassing place—even back in the outside world, when Consort Dan interacted with men, she would never so much as roll up her sleeves, and she rarely let anyone touch even her arms.
And now, without any warning, a man had made contact with her at such close range—in one of the most sensitive areas, no less.
Consort Dan, who had always been scrupulous about maintaining her purity, found her heart pounding like a startled deer. She felt a twinge of wistful loss, yet couldn't help savoring the memory.
Now and then, under cover of the darkness, she would cast a guilty glance toward Jiang Chen. Seeing him sitting cross-legged, motionless as a mountain, only made her thoughts more turbulent.
"What's wrong with me? This kid Jiang Chen hasn't done anything to me, and he can remain perfectly calm about it. Why am I the one getting all flustered?" Watching Jiang Chen sit so still and composed, Consort Dan felt a small measure of admiration, but also a touch of frustration.
In her view, Jiang Chen should have been just as restless as she was.
Tossing and turning through wild thoughts all night, it wasn't until the first glimmer of dawn filtered down that Consort Dan finally snapped back to awareness. The madcap notions that had plagued her through the night were chased away by the morning light, and her mind returned to clarity.
When she checked her wound, she found that it had healed—and most remarkably, there was almost no trace left on the surface. Not a single mark, as though she had never been injured at all.
"What kind of miraculous medicine did Jiang Chen use? An external wound healed this fast, and there's not a single scar left on the skin—as if nothing had ever happened!"
Consort Dan realized that the longer she spent around Jiang Chen, the more she discovered that this young man harbored countless secrets she simply couldn't see through.
The old man's eye for talent was truly sharp—he had spotted Jiang Chen's extraordinary nature long ago.
Consort Dan hadn't spent much time alone with Jiang Chen before, but now that they had been thrown together more, looking back carefully, he seemed harmless—even a bit lazy and roguish.
But somehow, there always seemed to be a miraculous aura hidden around him.
It started at that banquet, when a bottle of wine so ugly it couldn't even be presented had transformed into the grand finale treasure.
The Fengjiao Five-Winged Beast had been half-dead, and every expert called in to examine it had been unable to reach a diagnosis. Yet one casual remark from Jiang Chen had cracked the mystery wide open.
Elder Ning was over forty, yet a single Evergreen Pill had made her twenty years younger. And after Consort Dan's private investigation, she confirmed that the pill was indeed connected to Jiang Chen.
Then, looking at what happened after Jiang Chen arrived at the Royal Capital—though he had barely made any big moves, the entire political landscape had been turned upside down by him without anyone noticing. Even the First Prince
Meanwhile, the Fourth Prince
The Tian Gui Knight Order hadn't been granted to anyone in thirty years. And yet, the old man had suddenly given it to this young man, Jiang Chen.
Then came the Labyrinth, where strange things piled up one after another.
Along the way, the mortal-grade fierce beasts they encountered would detour around them, as if Jiang Chen carried some kind of miraculous halo—even the mortal beasts gave him the right of way.
And during the battle with that giant ape, Jiang Chen's abilities had truly shocked her. Especially that flying knife technique at the end—even Consort Dan, who frequently watched the old man train, felt a sense of standing at the foot of a towering peak, unable to see its summit.
Later, when he treated her wound, his knowledge of spiritual medicines and poisons, his handling and application of them—none of it resembled the expertise that a young man should possess.
And while he was applying the medicine, Consort Dan had already steeled herself to let that foul, roguish Jiang Chen take a few cheap liberties. But Jiang Chen had been nothing but courteous and proper, as if the insufferable, lazy Jiang Chen from before simply wasn't him at all.
One moment lazy like a vagrant, the next fierce like a demon. One moment deep and contemplative like a sage, the next proper and refined like a gentleman.
Such utterly contradictory traits coexisting in a single person—Consort Dan had to admit she truly couldn't figure Jiang Chen out.
After rising, Consort Dan prepared some breakfast. Then she found a water source, soaked a cloth in it, and wrung it out.
She walked up to Jiang Chen. "Quit pretending to be asleep and wash your face."