When did it actually begin?
Yù Qíng kept her eyes closed against the damp pillow. Her body still throbbed, frail and spent. Her mind, however, refused to rest.
Ah... it was when he almost killed me.
The irony almost made her laugh. The man she loved had boiled her meridians trying to take her with him. What of it? Did she feel fear? Was she afraid? No. She had only looked at him after it was all over, her skin still stained with blood, and understood.
He was no longer just her everything.
He was Everything.
The thought buried itself deeper every time she tried to ignore it. He had taught her, since she was young, to reflect. To look inward without mercy. And she looked. She thought until it hurt. She thought until she realized that what she felt was not merely possessiveness. It was something else. Something older. More sickly. More pure.
She had always wanted to break the legs of any woman who looked at him the wrong way. That never changed. But after the volcano... after that void was born in his chest and began to swallow the very laws of the world... she could no longer pretend he was human. He was more. Much more.
Then, her body began to fail during dual cultivation. He was growing much stronger, much faster. She was no longer able to provide what was necessary.
Before, she had planned to kill her own sister for daring to desire what was hers. Now... her mind began to whisper worse things. Necessary things.
"If you don't wake up, I'll end up bedding him myself..."
The shrill voice severed her train of thought. Yù Qíng slowly opened her eyes.
"About time."
Yù Méi hovered by the bed, arms crossed, inches above the floorboards. Her golden dress shone pristine, as if nothing of what had happened on that mattress moments prior had touched her.
"I called you a dozen times." The younger sister clicked her tongue. "You couldn't even last the time it takes three incense sticks to burn, and you've been passed out for four. You hardly look like the strongest woman to ever walk this world, sister."
Yù Qíng turned her face against the mattress. Her spine popped as she forced her exhausted body to sit up. The sheet slipped, exposing skin marred with vivid purple and red marks.
She looked at her sister's mocking face and thought, If you knew how good it is... I'm sure you wouldn't care about my threats to kill you anymore. You would crawl for more, all the same.
She rubbed her eyes and looked around the room.
"Where is my Heaven?"
"He went down to the stream." Yù Méi shrugged. "Told me not to follow him until he finished cleansing the energy from his body. Speaking of which... 'My Heaven'?"
The younger sister tilted her head, curious.
"You've been talking weird ever since we returned. I think it's been almost a year since I heard you call him by his real name. I know you have a strange Law in your head, but it shouldn't be that serious, right?"
Yù Qíng slipped on her shoes. She stood slowly, resting a hand on the bedframe. Her black eyes met her sister's almond irises.
"If you saw him the way I see him," the elder sister's voice came out flat and irrefutable, "you would never dare call him by his name again."
The younger sister did not back down. Instead, Yù Méi offered a wide, brazen smile.
"I would love to see him the way you do," the young woman replied, letting out a provocative, dreamy giggle.
Yù Qíng rolled her eyes. Her patience for her sister's subtle jabs had dried up months ago. She let go of the bedframe and turned to face the younger woman, resolved to cut the weed at its root. Pride no longer mattered; the hunger of her husband's Inner Realm was all that mattered.
"You know what, Méi? I've been thinking. You..."
Yù Qíng stopped mid-sentence.
The latch of the cabin turned.
The heavy bamboo door was pushed open, and Zhì Yuǎn stepped onto the floorboards. His gray tunic was clean, his dark hair still damp from the stream. The air in the room shifted the instant he entered, overwhelmed by the sheer physical weight of his presence.
Her sister vanished from her mind. The conversation evaporated. The Priestess's eyes anchored onto his face, and the legs that had trembled from exhaustion mere moments ago moved on their own. She crossed the space in three strides and embraced Zhì Yuǎn's waist, burying her face into his broad chest as if the rest of the world had ceased to exist.
Zhì Yuǎn's large hand descended slowly, beginning to stroke his wife's black hair. Pressed against his chest, Yù Qíng let out a low, contented purr, her eyes closed.
"Our time in seclusion is over," he said, his rustic voice filling the room. "It is time to take the road South. Our targets now are the hegemonies of this world. To open the true portals, the four great sects require a concentration of Qi that we—"
"Hey, hey, hold on a moment."
Yù Méi's hurried voice severed his explanation. The younger woman took two steps forward, uncrossing her arms.
"What were you going to say before he walked in, elder sister?"
Zhì Yuǎn stopped speaking. His hand hovered in the air. He raised an eyebrow, looking at his sister-in-law with genuine surprise.
I have allowed this girl far too much freedom, he mused. She now believes she holds the right to cut my words short.
Against his chest, Yù Qíng swallowed hard. She pulled her face away from her husband's tunic. Her black eyes darted between her sister's brazen posture and Zhì Yuǎn's questioning gaze.
"Ah... about that..." she murmured. Her once-sharp voice now sounded frail. "My Heaven, I cannot endure it anymore..."
The room sank into silence.
Zhì Yuǎn gripped his wife's shoulders and pushed her back slightly, carving his dark eyes into hers.
"What can't you endure?"
Yù Qíng pressed her lips together. Her eyes welled with frustration.
"I can no longer hold you back," she replied, her voice slipping out in a forced breath. "I am preventing you from reaching higher realms because of my poor endurance. Your Yang is far too heavy for me to bear. Which is excellent for me... my cultivation is advancing at a speed that shouldn't even be possible. But you? You force yourself to sweat just to please me, pretending our sessions are enough when they don't even last a blink of an eye compared to before. I need you, my Heaven... to take my sister as..."
The sentence died in the air.
Zhì Yuǎn's right hand shot up in a blur, seizing Yù Qíng's jaw. His long fingers squeezed her pale cheeks with iron firmness, puckering the woman's lips and crushing the rest of her offer into a muffled, senseless mumble.
"I have already promised you," his voice cut through the room, deep and non-negotiable. "Forever, only you. Your sister will find someone eventually. The path of cultivation is long. But I am solely yours, just as you are solely mine."
Yù Qíng's pupils dilated. The sickly logic and the sacrifice she had orchestrated in her own mind were utterly pulverized by the sheer possession in those words. She pulled her face from his grip, buried her head back into her husband's chest, and began to rub her cheek against the fabric of his tunic.
"You are right, my Heaven," she whispered, her voice thick, docile, and entirely submissive once more. "I am being far too childish. How could I even think of demanding something from you..."
"You can always demand anything of me. I will give you everything, always." He smiled faintly, his hand sliding down to massage the back of his wife's neck.
A few steps away, the blood drained from Yù Méi's face.
Her milky jade skin turned as pale as wax. The young woman's stomach dropped so violently she tasted bile in her throat. Her dream had been a single heartbeat away. She had heard her sister offer it. She had felt the heat of the moment. And in just a few sentences, it all evaporated.
He hadn't rejected her with anger.
He had simply treated her as an afterthought.
Something that would "eventually find someone."
"I-I..." Yù Méi stammered, her lips trembling.
The metallic taste of bile rose bitter in her throat, while an involuntary tremor seized her fingers, crawling up her arms until it ignited her chest with an acidic burn.
"WHY DON'T YOU CARE ABOUT WHAT I WANT TOO?!" the scream erupted, shredding the silence of the cabin.
She squeezed her wet eyes shut, her shoulders hunching as a sob finally tore from her throat. The entire mask of the cold, seductive woman she had worn for the past months melted away.
Zhì Yuǎn frowned. He released his wife from his arms, walked slowly over to the younger woman, and stopped in front of her.
Yù Méi's legs gave out completely. She fell to her knees on the bamboo floorboards, the dull thud echoing through the wood. Her body sank, reduced to absolute vulnerability before him.
The man's broad shadow enveloped Yù Méi's trembling frame.
He knelt, resting one knee on the wood, and raised his hand.
His large fingers gripped her chin, tilting her tear-streaked face up to the light.
"Look at me," he said. His deep voice came out calm.
She raised her gaze to his—those almond eyes, always demanding more, now brimming with tears. He weighed his words, for he knew what was to come.
"Where is this outburst coming from, Méi? Is it merely envy of your sister's strength?"
The question came dry, piercing through the remnants of the armor she tried to maintain.
She raised her trembling hands and grabbed the wrist of the man holding her face.
"Envy of her strength?" her voice cracked, laced with sobs. "Do you think I care about her foundation? A-Yuǎn... you molded my entire life. You corrected me, taught me, filled every waking moment of my time. I am what your hands made of me! And after raising me like this... you locked me outside this door? Four years breathing in your scent and your energy, and you kept me at a distance as if I were a nobody?"
Her voice faltered amidst her sobs.
Yù Méi dug her fingers into his wrist. The ample chest beneath her dress heaved rapidly.
The silence in the cabin grew thick and oppressive.
The young woman carved her gaze into the face of the man before her, spilling her own pride onto the floorboards.
"I can't stand being on the outside anymore, A-Yuǎn," Yù Méi's voice dropped to a raw, desperate whisper. "I don't want to be just your disciple anymore. I don't want to be the sister-in-law you have to tolerate because of a promise to my father. I love you. I want my place in there. Forever yours."
Zhì Yuǎn kept his gaze on the young woman's tear-stained face. His hand still held her chin.
The sheer weight of those words filled the space between them, anchored in a lifetime of care that had now twisted into obsession.
The man opened his mouth to reply, but the violent, dry crack of wood severed his voice.
Yù Qíng stepped forward. Every stride of her bare feet landed with a weight that made the cabin's bamboo beams groan beneath the gravity of her killing intent.
She advanced like a silent storm. The air, once thick with pleas, froze instantly beneath the Priestess's glacial glare.
The elder sister stopped mere inches from her husband and sister. Her navy-blue silk swayed slowly. Her killing intent overflowed through the cabin, turning the sweat on Yù Méi's face to ice in a heartbeat.
Yù Qíng's pale hand lowered. Qi condensed at her fingertips, razor-sharp and ready to sever flesh.
"Do you think I will tolerate this?" Yù Qíng's voice rasped, low and venomous, ignoring the younger woman to carve her eyes into Zhì Yuǎn's. "I endured her stares for years because she is my sister and because you were the one who fixed her. But I refuse to spend the rest of my life watching this girl drool over you in the shadows. Either you take her right now, or I will slit her throat right here. I will not let her covet my Heaven any longer."
Silence seized the cabin.
Zhì Yuǎn remained with one knee resting on the floorboards. He did not reprimand his wife. He merely turned his head slowly and looked at Yù Méi.
The younger sister still clutched his wrist. Her face was stained with tears. The terror of dying at her sister's hands did not exist in her almond eyes. The only fear that remained was that of his rejection.
Yù Méi shook her head in denial, her lips trembling.
"I don't want to live anymore if I am not yours," her voice cracked, raw and desperate. She gripped the skin of his arm tighter. "Let her kill me, A-Yuǎn. I would rather die than continue to crave you without having you."
Zhì Yuǎn evaluated the despair on the young woman's face, then looked at the wife standing beside him. The possessiveness of one and the blind obsession of the other forged a flawless snare. They were tethered to him by blood, by time, and by a loyalty that had long since surpassed any sanity.
He closed his eyes for a instant and let out a long, resigned exhale.
The stiffness in his broad shoulders relaxed, and the glacial glint in his pupils yielded to compliance.
Zhì Yuǎn shifted his right hand, breaking free from the young woman's desperate grip, and extended his broad palm toward her.
"If you take my hand now, Méi," his deep voice resonated with calm, carrying an ancestral weight, "fate is sealed. There is no turning back. You become my second wife, for all eternity."
The shock of his words halted Yù Méi's tears.
She stared at the palm extended before her, then raised her head, meeting the unshakable stillness in his eyes. Her breath caught for a heartbeat. Without hesitation, she threw both hands forward and seized Zhì Yuǎn's palm with every ounce of strength she possessed, sealing her choice forever.