The dust of solid wood still hung in the stale air of the bookshop. The sound of the shelf turning to sawdust under Yù Méi's hand was the only physical warning of the violence about to explode.
The Brutal Blade stepped forward, her almond eyes gleaming with purely carnivorous instinct. "You dare demand our altar for your granddaughter, old man?" Yù Méi growled, her voice vibrating with lethal threat. "My husband's heaven is not an asylum for you to shelter your lineage. I will crush your arrogance no—"
A low, velvety, incredibly crystalline laugh cut through the tension.
Yù Qíng was not furious. The blue priestess remained languidly suspended in the air in her invisible seiza above Zhì Yuǎn's shoulders. Her laughter echoed off the walls of paper and dry ink, disarming the atmosphere with a sweetness laced with venom.
"Calm your fists, little flower," Yù Qíng murmured, her black eyes gleaming as she appraised the figure of Mò Yán, who still held her breath on the dusty floor. "Rage is for those who feel threatened. And we are not being threatened. We are being gifted."
Yù Méi frowned, martial fury stalling in confusion. "Gifted? He just sent his granddaughter to our bed, Qíng!"
Gliding from the air with the grace of a feather, Yù Qíng landed her bare feet on the floorboards. She floated until she stopped inches from the white‑haired young woman. Mò Yán trembled subtly beneath her silver‑gray tunic, the full curves of her breasts rising and falling in panting rhythm, her gaze fixed on the floor.
The blue goddess leaned in, dissecting the stagnant purity of that Yin. The immaculate flesh, the rigorous modesty, the voluptuous beauty that merely begged to be corrupted.
"Her grandfather has the sharp intuition of a good farmer," Yù Qíng hissed, turning her face majestically to Zhì Yuǎn, her eyes overflowing with fanatical, utilitarian adoration. "My ocean already overflows with joy, my heaven, but I know the size of your universe's hunger. Why would we refuse such fertile, untouched soil? The seed of this mountain is pure. Properly pruned, she will be a splendid third wife to share your burden."
The priestess's words struck Mò Yán. She was not being accepted out of political compassion; she was being appraised as a living sacrifice for the furnace of flesh. The involuntary, damp heat that rose in her lower belly terrified her.
Zhì Yuǎn watched the scene in silence. The lethargy of his gaze receded slightly, absorbing his wife's distorted possessiveness. He knew that the Hunger of his Singularity would demand more and more primary energy, and Mò Yán's untouched Yin resonated with the Dao.
He fixed his darkened irises directly on the kneeling girl's scarlet eyes. The gravity of his presence made the air around Mò Yán solidify.
"Your grandfather made his demand, Mò Yán," Zhì Yuǎn's deep, unshakable voice descended upon her, devoid of arrogance, yet laden with an authority that demanded the soul. "But I do not collect political furniture, nor do I forge my universe with women who lie down out of obligation. If you cross the line of my altar, your blood and your mortal rules will be left behind. You will do so only if your own Yin begs to belong to my world. What is your choice?"
Mò Yán swallowed hard. His gaze penetrated her Refined Body, stripping away all the diplomatic armor and sterile dogmas that Shattered Heaven had taught her. The aversion to lust she had cultivated her entire life shattered upon colliding with that man's crushing Yang. She felt no disgust. She felt a febrile, blind, desperate hunger.
The restrained flower lifted her face. Warm, passionate heat flooded her neck and pale ears.
"The dogmas of my sect are empty dust, my Lord," Mò Yán whispered, her voice losing its cold polish and overflowing with visceral surrender. Tears of devotion gleamed in her red eyes. "My body, my mind, and my soul beg to be your soil. I will be your woman."
Zhì Yuǎn did not merely nod. Dense, possessive affection shone in the darkness of his eyes.
He rose from his chair, his black silk cloak fluttering, and walked to the kneeling young woman. The god's large, calloused hand extended, grabbing Mò Yán by her slender waist and pulling her from the floor in one fluid motion.
The diplomat gasped, her feet losing contact with the ground for a second as her voluptuous body collided against his rigid chest. Before she could process the touch, his free hand encircled the girl's nape, tangling in her long white hair, and his mouth crushed hers.
The kiss was not chaste. It was a carnivorous, absolute invasion that claimed every millimeter of her existence. His fervent tongue invaded Mò Yán's mouth, and the taste of sandalwood, ozone, and pure domination melted the diplomat's spine.
The contrast was violent. Zhì Yuǎn's infinite Yang drowned her purest, untouched Yin in a thermal shock that made the girl's knees give way. Mò Yán let out a strangled, obscene moan against his lips, her pale hands desperately rising to clutch her husband's charcoal‑gray tunic. The mask of the perfect diplomat disintegrated; there, gasping, with her heavy breasts crushed against him and her intimacy throbbing painfully, she was merely a girl hopelessly in love and surrendered to her god.
When he finally pulled his face back, Mò Yán was panting frantically, her scarlet eyes glazed with pure torpor, her lips swollen and gleaming with saliva, unable to stand without his arms around her waist.
The old grandfather, watching the scene from his table, felt no outrage. Tears ran down the elder's wrinkled face in pure, genuine relief. His greatest jewel would not be a disposable servant; she had just been taken and elevated to glory.
The old man threw himself to his knees on the wooden floor, pressing his forehead into the dust.
"This servant thanks heaven for its mercy!" the elder's rough voice echoed, trembling with gratitude. "My blood and my life belong to your banner, Lord! I will be your shadow, your steward, your invisible blade!"
Zhì Yuǎn turned his face to the prostrated elder. He released Mò Yán's waist slowly, ensuring the young woman could stand, and his dark eyes fixed on the old man.
"A mortal oath does not sustain my universe, Elder," Zhì Yuǎn's voice reverberated in the bookshop, stripped of arrogance but bearing the responsibility of one who dictates the rules of his own existence. He would not be indulgent with a 9th‑Stage cultivator, even as the grandfather of his new wife.
Zhì Yuǎn raised his index finger. Wisdom in his mind dissected the rules of the universe in a fraction of a second.
"Repeat your oath."
The elder did not hesitate, his forehead still pressed to the floorboards. "I swear never to betray, never to harm, and never to raise my hand against my Lord, his wives, or his domain. I swear to follow his banner until my soul evaporates!"
As the words left the old man's mouth, Zhì Yuǎn's finger glowed with a black and silver light. Invisible threads of the Law of Karma materialized in the air, weaving the old man's words into a universal promise. But the god did not stop there.
With a surgical flick of his wrist, Zhì Yuǎn invoked the Law of Destruction. A millimeter fragment of pure cosmic annihilation traveled through the air and penetrated directly into the elder's chest. The black seed nestled itself exactly beside the old man's hyper‑compressed dantian, fusing with the threads of Karma.
The Great Elder choked. An absolute, terrifying cold spread through his organs. Death was not hovering over him; Death had just taken a seat within his very core. He knew, with undeniable biological certainty, that if a single intention of betrayal crossed his mind, that seed would detonate his cultivation and his existence from within, erasing him from reality before the thought could even form.
The old man's face, however, did not twist in humiliation. The loose smile that appeared on his wrinkled features was not despair, but solemn acceptance. Death now inhabited his center, but for a cultivator who had spent centuries drying up in a stagnant world, using his own life as collateral to follow a master who held the reins of the universe was a price he would gladly pay.
"The bond is sealed," Zhì Yuǎn declared, lowering his hand.
Yù Méi, leaning against the shattered shelf, let out a low whistle of approval. A servant with a cosmic explosive attached to his own mind was the kind of martial loyalty the youngest understood and admired.
"Now that the family has grown and the guard dog has a collar around his neck, can we get out of this dust?" Yù Méi asked, cracking her neck. "My Golden Sea is bubbling. I want to test my fists on some mountain in her sect."
Zhì Yuǎn nodded. He needed no carts or weeks of monotonous travel. The Mortal World no longer had borders for his space.
He raised his right hand. Without seals and without effort, Zhì Yuǎn pulled at the Law of Space and cut the air before him.
The dry sound of silk being violently torn echoed in the bookshop. Reality split in two, opening a black rift with shimmering silver edges. The smell of old paper from the cavern was instantly sucked away, replaced by a gust of icy, rarefied wind carrying the scent of ozone and clouds.
Mò Yán, still panting with her lips red from her god's possessive kiss, looked at the other side of the portal and felt her heart fail. She was not seeing the road. She was looking directly at the colossal iron chains and the black stone courtyard of her own home.
"To Shattered Heaven," Zhì Yuǎn commanded, his black silk cloak fluttering as he took the first step into the abyss.
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