When Xu Fu's consciousness reawakened, something was very wrong.
Not just a little wrong, ten thousand times wrong!
She wasn't standing upright, but lying flat. Beneath her was something soft, a bed. And atop her... was heavy, hot, living weight.
She raised her hand and felt warmth, firm muscle beneath her palm, the taut rise and fall of another person's breathing, the heat of skin pressed against her own.
The young man atop her was covered in sweat, his ragged breathing fanning against her neck. The humid heat made her body tremble involuntarily.
Then she felt that change in his body,
Outrage!
This man was actually in the middle of... that!
Xu Fu's eyes blazed with fury and embarrassment. For the first time in her life, she felt panic creep into her chest.
Her voice trembled with suppressed indignation as she pushed feebly against his chest, her powerless limbs betraying her:
"Gu Fangchen! Get up, get off of me!"
Gu Fangchen, meanwhile, was completely startled.
He hadn't expected that his sudden teleportation back would have him landing squarely atop the little maid who had somehow appeared in his bed.
He had no idea how or why, but this was absolutely the worst timing imaginable.
He had just barely survived a blow from that terrifying ancestral matriarch. Even grazing him had shattered nearly all his organs.
If not for his Demon-Suppressing Nails, his very soul might have been struck out of his body.
Now, golden threads ran through his flesh like veins, forming the faint pattern of a lotus. Beneath his abdomen, his damaged organs were visibly knitting themselves together, guided by those luminous strands.
Lotus Concealed in the Womb, it not only strengthened the body's resilience but accelerated healing.
A true lotus, unbroken even when torn.
Right now, he could hardly move. Falling from the air, he had only barely braced himself enough not to crush the poor girl beneath him.
He lay there gasping, utterly spent.
The small maid beneath him wriggled in panic, which only made things worse.
And then... a certain very physical reaction made itself known.
"..."
Gu Fangchen's face twisted.
Even in mortal peril, the vitality of nineteen years refused to yield.
This was mortifying.
He heard the "maid" shout angrily at him, but before he could explain, a wave of nausea rose in his throat.
He rolled aside, falling off the bed, and spat a mouthful of blood.
Xu Fu froze mid-curse, suddenly realizing the truth.
His body was slick with sweat and blood, his face deathly pale.
She blinked, comprehension dawning.
It seemed she had misunderstood.
Hastily, she sat up and caught him as he swayed, asking urgently,
"My lord... what happened to you?"
Gu Fangchen didn't have the strength to speak. He merely pointed weakly toward the bedside cabinet.
Xu Fu opened it. Inside were rows of precious life-preserving pills.
Of course, his frail body had always required them close at hand.
With quick discernment, Xu Fu picked the one he needed most and fed it to him.
As the medicine took effect, Gu Fangchen steadied his breath and sat cross-legged to meditate.
When he looked inward, his eyes widened, then lit with joy.
Within his chest, the power of blood and qi converged into a blazing Sun Wheel, while in his mind, a Moon Wheel hung bright and pure.
Sun in the chest, moon in the mind, mutually reflecting to forge a heart of crystal clarity.
He had stepped into the Fifth Grade, Refined-Heart Realm.
From this day forth, he could be called Master.
...
He had already been at the peak of the Sixth Grade, only half a step away from the Fifth. But after descending into the "Nine Nether Yellow Springs," he had unconsciously achieved internal respiration.
Under such extreme tension and pressure, the rapid consolidation of that inner breathing, the concentration of spirit, and the fusion of qi, blood, and soul into one complete inner circulation had been established in a very short span of time.
Although he had nearly been killed by the ancestral matron, to advance into the Fifth Grade, well, that wasn't exactly a loss.
The Fifth Grade was the threshold between the mortal and the immortal paths of martial cultivation.
To cross it was no small feat.
Gu Fangchen himself had thought he would need much longer to reach this point, but he hadn't expected fate to push him across so soon.
An unexpected joy indeed.
Gu Fangchen was delighted, busy stabilizing his cultivation.
Meanwhile, Xu Fu, having recovered from her initial fright, looked again upon the naked young man before her.
His posture in meditation, five hearts facing the heavens, made the most prominent part of him impossible not to see.
Her gaze shifted there for only a heartbeat before it felt scalded; she averted her eyes instantly.
The National Preceptor's lips pressed into a tight line. Her cheeks were still faintly flushed as her mind unwillingly recalled the moment when he had pressed her beneath him, the heat of his skin, his ragged breath upon her neck.
Her heart was filled with a mixture of anger and shame. Yet, thinking on it further, she realized it was her own misunderstanding. He had clearly been gravely wounded, and still he had obeyed her command to "roll off" immediately.
It was her error, not his.
"Besides," she thought bitterly, "he is a man after all, young, vigorous, pressed so close to his own maidservant. How could he possibly restrain himself completely?"
Her eyes flicked toward him again, and she froze.
That man was clearly sitting upright in serious meditation, his eyes closed, but... why was there still a reaction?
Gu Fangchen opened his eyes, his expression just as conflicted and embarrassed.
He had circulated his energy properly; his inner flow was running smoothly. Yet his qi and blood were trapped below the lower dantian, refusing to disperse.
It wasn't full deviation, but the feeling was similar, just a lesser variant. The remedy was simple enough, though it typically required... manual intervention.
And since the little maid was conveniently here, why should he trouble himself? Wouldn't it be wasteful to ignore his privilege as a "young lord"?
Gu Fangchen coughed twice, pretending to be in great pain. He looked gently at his "maid" and coaxed,
"Little Xuexiang, your lord has suffered a slight mishap in cultivation. Come here and lend me a hand..."
Scoundrel!
Xu Fu almost shouted aloud. Of course she understood what he was implying. Her cold face darkened, and she was just about to reprimand him when her mind went rigid.
If she revealed herself now, wouldn't that be the same as admitting that the one he had just pressed beneath him, unable to resist, was her?
Wouldn't her lofty image as the National Preceptor be ruined completely?
No. Absolutely not.
After a long pause, Xu Fu forced herself to calm down. She silently walked forward, knelt beside the bed, and lowered her eyes.
Let's just pretend this never happened...
Her voice was low and faintly trembling.
"H-how... how should I help?"
Gu Fangchen smiled faintly, lifting his hand to smooth along Xuexiang's disheveled hair until his fingertips brushed her cheek.
A cool, delicate fragrance rose from her dark hair, a scent that was unmistakably unique.
Gu Fangchen froze.
"Wait a moment," he thought. "Why does this Xuexiang smell just like the National Preceptor...?"
And in that instant, realization dawned on him,
This isn't the maid.
It's her!