The interior of the Black-Iron Wood carriage was a cage of silk and shadows.
It was lined with crimson velvet and smelled of expensive sandalwood incense, but to Shen Yu, those scents were powerless against the reality sitting across from him.
Meng Yan.
In the confined space, the air didn't just smell of her; it tasted of her. Her Yin Qi was suffocatingly thick. To the Primordial Yin-Yang Scripture, she wasn't just a woman; she was a blazing bonfire in the dead of winter. The spiritual vacuum inside Shen Yu's broken meridians screamed to be filled, the hunger clawing at his rationality like a starving beast.
He clenched his hands inside his sleeves, digging his nails into his palms until the sharp pain forced clarity back into his amber eyes.
"You seem tense, Young Master Tang," Meng Yan observed.
She was reclining against the cushions, but the pose was a lie. It wasn't the relaxation of a senior; it was the restless writhing of an addict fighting withdrawal. She shifted constantly, the high slit of her robe falling open to reveal a scandalous expanse of creamy, milky thigh that glowed in the dim light.
The faint blush on her cheeks had deepened into a feverish, unhealthy crimson.
'Stop moving,' Meng Yan scolded herself, her internal voice sounding shrill and panicked. 'He is a boy. A mortal without a shred of Qi. Why does the air in here feel so thin? Why is my skin crawling like I'm standing in a fire?'
"The night air is cold, Senior Meng," Shen Yu replied, lowering his head to hide the predatory glint in his gaze.
"Cold?" Meng Yan let out a laugh that sounded jagged, almost hysterical. She leaned forward, the motion jerky and uncoordinated. "I don't feel cold. I feel... stifled."
She reached out.
Her hand moved as if it obeyed a different master, sliding up his knee and gripping his thigh with bruising force. The heat of her palm seared through his damp robes.
Shen Yu stiffened, his muscles coiling beneath the fabric.
'This is wrong,' he thought, his analytical mind cutting through the haze of his own arousal. 'She is a Golden Core cultivator. She has the mental fortitude of a master. For her to lose control so easily... her Qi isn't just agitated. It's vibrating. She isn't just horny; she is sick.'
He wanted to take her then and there, but the instinct of self-preservation held him back. She was a delirious tiger; one wrong move and she might snap his neck by accident. He needed her willing, or at least lucid.
"Senior, you are unwell," Shen Yu said softly, his voice a bucket of cold water in the heated silence.
He covered her hand with his own. His touch was light, clinical, and respectful—the touch of a doctor, not a lover. Gently, but firmly, he peeled her fingers from his thigh.
Meng Yan froze.
She stared at her own hand, now resting in his, as if it belonged to a stranger. The realization of what she had just done, groping a junior, a mortal, inside her own carriage, crashed down on her with the weight of a mountain.
'What am I doing? I am the Matriarch of the Jin Clan. Why am I clawing at him like a common harlot?'
She snatched her hand back as if burned, pressing it against her heaving chest. Her breathing was ragged, her pupils dilating and contracting rapidly as shame warred with desire.
"What do you mean by that, Young Master Tang?" she asked, her voice trembling as she tried to reconstruct her shattered dignity. "Do not speak nonsense."
Shen Yu remained calm. The inheritance in his mind, the Primordial Yin-Yang Inheritance, didn't just give him a cultivation technique; it also imparted the knowledge of the biology of women for pleasure; it taught him the intricate flows of Yin essence for domination.
He could see the symptoms written on her body as clearly as ink on paper. The Primordial Yin-Yang Scripture confirmed it, sensing the clogged, boiling energy within her.
He didn't need to check her pulse. He could feel her aura rotting.
"Senior Meng," he asked, his voice dropping to a whisper that seemed to bypass her ears and vibrate directly in her chest. "Forgive my boldness, but... are you feeling restless now? A fire in the blood that even the strongest Spirit Wine cannot drown?"
Meng Yan fidgeted, her fingers clutching the velvet cushion. She wanted to deny it, but the truth was burning her from the inside out.
"Yes," she breathed, almost inaudibly.
"And do you feel a sharp, freezing pain in your lower abdomen whenever you attempt to cycle your Qi?" Shen Yu pressed, his eyes locking onto hers. "Specifically, three inches below the navel, at the Gateway of Origin?"
Meng Yan's eyes widened, the haze of alcohol clearing for a split second under the shock.
"How... how do you know that?"
"I know more than I appear to, Lady Meng," Shen Yu said, leaning in slightly, his presence suddenly looming larger than his mortal frame should allow. "And I would wager that for the last six months, your cultivation has not advanced a single step. In fact... it has begun to regress."
This time, Meng Yan didn't speak. She couldn't.
She stared at him, her mouth slightly agape, the color draining from her face to leave only the unnatural fever-flush. He had spoken her deepest, most terrifying secret, the secret that could destroy the Jin Clan if her enemies found out.
"Who..." she whispered, her voice shaking with a mix of fear and hope. "Who told you?"
Shen Yu leaned back into the shadows of the seat. A faint, imperceptible smile played on his lips. The timid junior was gone, replaced by something far more ancient. He looked at her not with the awe of a mortal, but with the calm assessment of a merchant inspecting goods.
He had her.
"No one told me," Shen Yu lied, his voice smooth as silk. "You know of my reputation, Senior. I have spent my life in the library. I read of a condition exactly like yours in a fragmented medical scroll from the Ancient Era."
He deliberately omitted the Inheritance. A genius scholar was admirable; a boy with a Demonic Fox God in his head was a target.
"What... what did the scroll say?" Meng Yan asked, leaning forward, her dignity forgotten in the face of salvation. "Is there... is there a cure?"
"There is," Shen Yu said slowly, savouring the desperation in her hazel eyes. "The condition is called 'Lunar Fire Stagnation.' And the cure..."
He paused, letting the silence stretch, letting her heart rate spike.
"We are here, Mistress!"
The driver's voice rang out from outside, shattering the moment. "The Silver Creek."
The carriage jolted to a stop.
Meng Yan looked as if she had been slapped. She turned to Shen Yu, her eyes wide and pleading, silently begging him to finish the sentence.
Shen Yu smiled, a polite, closed-lip expression that gave nothing away. He could have finished the sentence. He could have told her right then. But a starving man eats whatever is given to him; a desperate woman will do anything for the one who holds the key to her life.
'Let her simmer,' Shen Yu thought coldly. 'Agitation breeds obsession. If I tell her now, I am just a helper. If I tell her later, I am her savior.'
"Senior, I should go bathe," Shen Yu said, rising gracefully. "I am still covered in filth. We can discuss your... condition... after I return."
He didn't wait for her permission. He opened the door and stepped out into the night air.
Inside the carriage, Meng Yan sat frozen, her hand reaching out toward the empty space he had left, her chest heaving with a mix of frustration and unbearable need.
"Sure," she whispered to the empty air, her voice trembling. "Go ahead."