Wu Jian awoke to a weight on his right shoulder. He didn’t open his eyes, instead choosing to lie there.

Last night’s events played out in his mind, causing him to feel an odd mixture of emotions. He had never intended what happened last night to happen. He hadn’t meant to reveal himself to Hou Jingshu, and he especially had not intended to sleep with her.

Did I screw up?

Purity was important to cultivators, but especially women who cultivated. There were a lot of cultivation methods that required women to keep their purity in order to attain the greatest possible benefits. What if Hou Jingshu possessed one such cultivation method? The last thing Wu Jian wanted was to stymie her cultivation because he couldn’t keep it in his pants.

But I’m not sure what else I was supposed to do in that situation. How could I possibly resist her when she acted like that?

The way Hou Jingshu acted last night had been far more arousing than he thought her capable of. It had been very different from her personality back then. When they were younger, she had gotten easily embarrassed and was constantly on the receiving end of Wu Meiying’s teasing. He never expected her to become so bold.

She thought it was just a dream… could that be why she acted so boldly? If she really believed this was a dream, she’s gonna be in for a surprise when she wakes up.

The bed suddenly seemed to sink. He and the girl resting against him shifted.

Wu Jian’s wandering thoughts were cut short when something long, warm, and wet ran over his face. He grimaced and opened his eyes just in time to see Yōuměi licking his cheek.

“… Have you gotten bigger?” asked Wu Jian.

“Prrrrr.”

Yōuměi responded by rubbing her face against him. No wonder the bed felt like it was sinking. Yōuměi looked about to have grown quite a bit. She had also increased her cultivation. She had somehow reached the Fifth Subrealm of the Asura Realm. The amount of chi she possessed was so vast that just being near her made the hairs on his scalp prickle.

“Oh? My cultivation also increased? How?”

Wu Jian felt a moment of shock when he realized his own cultivation had increased. He was now at the Sixth Subrealm of the Asura Realm. How had his cultivation increased when he hadn’t done any cultivating since he began journeying back to the Shang Kingdom?

He stroked Hou Jingshu’s arm as he contemplated this strange new phenomena. He had obviously not been at the sixth subrealm last night, which meant something he had done last night caused him to break through.

Can it be that my cultivation increased because I had sex? No, no, no. But… I do remember Huǒ Shuchang telling me about cultivation furnaces. There are people who enslave female cultivators and drain their cultivation through sexual intercourse. What if I did that to Hou Jingshu?! What if her cultivation has weakened?!

Panic raced through Wu Jian as this thought occurred to him. He would never forgive himself if Hou Jingshu’s cultivation became at risk because of him.

He calmed down seconds later when he checked her cultivation and discovered that, much to his surprise, her own cultivation had risen as well. She was also at the Sixth Subrealm of the Asura Realm.

It was too much of a coincidence that both of their cultivation had risen within the same night. He could only conclude that it happened because they had slept together. Did this mean having sex increased one’s cultivation? He shook his head. There had to be something else involved here. If sleeping with someone else increased a person’s cultivation, then everyone would be doing this.

That means this increase has something to do with either me or Hou Jingshu… or both of us, I guess? I don’t know. My cultivation method does not have anything about this, and I’m pretty sure hers doesn’t either.

Wu Jian couldn’t think of anything. His mind was drawing a blank. He simply didn’t have enough information to make an informed conclusion. That being the case, he decided not to think about this for now.

“Nnnn. Mmmm.”

Wu Jian looked down as Hou Jingshu stirred. She had fallen asleep within the crook of his arm, but now she was moving around, stretching out her legs, arching her back, and rubbing her hands against his chest as though trying to grab at something. She scrunched up her face as she raised her head, blinking several times.

“Jingshu, morning,” he said softly so as not to startle her. He glanced at Yōuměi, who seemed to get the hint and disappeared into his shadow.

“Jian…?” She turned her head to stare at him. Her lips trembled a little. “Is that… really you?”

He smiled softly. “It’s me.”

Tears pricked at her eyes. “I’m not… dreaming, am I?”

“If this is a dream, then it must be a very good dream.” He stroked her head when she bit her lower lip. “You’re not dreaming. This is real.”

“I can’t believe… I’m not dreaming. You’re really here. I’ve missed you so much! Wu Jian, I… I have… have…”

Wu Jian frowned when Hou Jingshu trailed off. Was something wrong? It looked like she’d turned into a block of ice. He was about to pinch her cheek and see if that would wake her, but then her entire face turned bright red, and he realized she must have remembered last night.

She looked down at their naked bodies.

She tilted her head to look back at his face.

Roughly five seconds passed.

“AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!”

Wu Jian winced as Hou Jingshu’s scream pierced his eardrums. Then he groaned when the young woman jumped to her feet. Pain erupted in his groin as one of her feet landed directly on the object he’d used to please Hou Jingshu last night. While he felt pain and went to cup his injured nuts, Hou Jingshu lost her balance and tumbled off the bed. The sound of her crashing head first to the floor echoed around the room.

“Ooooooowwwwww,” she said.

“I… I should be the one saying that,” Wu Jian choked. He could hardly breathe! “Was that reaction… really called for?”

“I… I’m sorry, but I can’t… what we did last night… I…”

Hou Jingshu was struggling with what to say, and Wu Jian felt bad for her. He did what he could to soothe the pain, then climbed out of bed.

“What are you doing?! You’re still naked!” Hou Jingshu shrieked in shock when she got an eyeful.

“I’m aware. This will only take a second.”

Before the girl had time to compose herself, Wu Jian grabbed the blanket, lifted Hou Jingshu into his arms, went back into bed, and wrapped them both within the blanket’s warm embrace. Hou Jingshu blinked several times as he hugged her tight. She squirmed a little, which caused him to wince. He could feel himself responding, but she had just stepped on him, and so all that blood flow caused it to sting.

“Don’t move, please. That hurts.”

“O-oh. I-I’m so sorry—wait. How are you still alive? Wu Jian, what’s going on? Why didn’t you tell me you were still alive? Where is Wu Meiying?”

The girl was talking so rapidly that Wu Jian struggled to keep up with all of her questions.

“C-calm down. I’ll answer your questions in due time, but just calm down for now.” Hou Jingshu went silent, but she stared at his face with an expectant look. He sighed. “This is going to be a long story, so bear with me.” He paused to gather his thoughts. “You already know that my clan was destroyed, but you don’t really know what happened, so I guess I’ll start there.”

It took the better part of an hour to explain what happened from his perspective. There was just so much to tell. Fortunately, he had no trouble recalling what happened. The memory of that night was seared into his mind. He would never be able to forget it no matter how much he wanted to.

Hou Jingshu remained quiet, her eyes never leaving his face as she listened. She did display a wide range of emotions during his telling. Sometimes she would shed silent tears and others she would open her mouth in shock. A few gasps escaped during the more harrowing parts of his story. When he was done, their positions had almost reversed, and now she was hugging his head to her chest.

“I’m so sorry, Jian. I had no idea all of that happened.”

He held her close and breathed in her scent. “It’s not like you could have known. The attack on my clan was sudden. It came without even a hint of warning. It would have been impossible for you to know about what was happening when you were all the way in the capital.”

Hou Jingshu said nothing, but she hugged him tighter. They remained like that for a long time. Wu Jian did not mind. It was nice. How long had it been since he’d felt the arms of another around him? It couldn’t have been more than seven or eight months… give or take, but it felt like so much longer. And Hou Jingshu was so warm and soft.

They eventually broke apart, though they still remained in the same position, with Hou Jingshu on his lap.

“Who is Wu Meiying?” she asked at last. “Those people who attacked you had come for her, right? That’s what she said?”

“Yes, and I don’t know who Wu Meiying really is.” Wu Jian shook his head. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

“You really don’t know?” She furrowed her brow.

“I don’t.” Wu Jian leaned back and looked at the ceiling. He traced the lines in the floorboard for a moment as he pondered what to say. “Wu Meiying was just a girl my mother found floating in a basket downstream. There was no note. No message. Nothing to tell us who she was or why she had been abandoned. Even her name is one that Mother gave her.”

“But it’s clear that she’s not just some ordinary girl. Surely, you and your family realized that after her powers manifested,” Hou Jingshu said.

He nodded. “I always knew Wu Meiying was special. Even before everyone else believed her, I knew. She learned to talk before I did, learned to walk before me, and always seemed so mature. Even before her powers manifested, I knew she was special. Really, the only thing about her that constantly puzzled me was her need to stay by my side.”

“What does that mean?” asked Hou Jingshu.

Wu Jian smiled a little as he recalled what he knew. “This doesn’t come from me. I don’t remember it, but Mother always told me that Wu Meiying became inconsolable whenever I wasn’t near her. She would cry and cry and cry, and no matter what anyone did, they could never get her to stop. She only ceased crying when we were together.”

“That is very odd,” Hou Jingshu admitted.

“Right? I have no idea what to make of it,” he said with a chuckle.

Wu Meiying had always been a mystery. He knew nothing about her origins. Back then, who she was didn’t matter. It wasn’t like he cared at the time. She was just the girl he had grown up with.

It mattered now, though, because there were apparently people after her, and he had no idea why.

“Are you sure it was a good idea to tell me all this? Wu Meiying said you should keep your survival a secret. Why did you tell me?”

Hou Jingshu’s question interrupted his thoughts. He looked down at her, stared into her big blue eyes, then sighed, smiled, and reached up to cup her face.

“Because I couldn’t bear to see you in pain for a second longer,” he admitted. Watching her struggle with the pain of his death had forced his hand. He was revealing himself to her before conscious thought could take hold, before logic could tell him this was a bad idea.

“And you think this will be okay?” asked Hou Jingshu.

“Well… Wu Meiying said the necklace should keep me safe, so I figured I should be okay so long as I keep wearing it,” Wu Jian said.

“Right. The necklace.”

Hou Jingshu fumbled over his bare chest. She blushed but eventually found the necklace and began caressing it, only to frown after several seconds.

“Jian… there’s a crack in your necklace.”

“What?”

Wu Jian grabbed the necklace and lifted it to his face. There was indeed a long crack running down the front. He was shocked. This necklace had survived countless battles that would have destroyed most pieces of jewelry, and it had even somehow survived getting acid dripped onto it, so how had it broken now? Was it because he had revealed his survival to Hou Jingshu? Would the necklace gain more cracks as more people learned that he was alive?

“I can still sense Wu Meiying’s chi in it, so it should be okay… I think,” he said at last.

“You don’t sound very sure,” Hou Jingshu murmured.

“That’s because I’m not sure. Honestly? All of this is beyond me. I don’t know how this is supposed to protect me, or even what it’s protecting me from. And Mei wasn’t able to tell me much of anything when we parted ways.”

The only thing he could tell was that this entire incident had something to do with the Dao of Time. Wu Meiying’s cultivation method manipulated time just like his manipulated space. He could only assume that Wu Meiying’s enemies were somehow tracking her through time, but he didn’t understand enough about the Dao of Time to figure out how exactly they did it.

Before another word could be spoken, someone knocked on the door.

“Your Highness, is everything all right? Someone passing by said they heard some screaming coming from your bedroom,” Zheng Yawen said from the other side.

Wu Jian and Hou Jingshu looked at each other, then at the clothes strewn haphazardly across the room.

Well… this was not good.