The cold that descended upon the terrace of the Serene Wind Plateau did not belong to the mountain's altitude. It was an absolute cold, dense and perversely sharp, that did not freeze sweat but paralyzed the very soul.
Ten paces away from Yù Qíng, Yù Méi stopped breathing.
The hyper‑dense body of the Untouchable Petal, whose bones and muscles had been forged enduring the violent breaking of fire and ice herbs, locked completely. The millions of newly opened pores in her skin, which had eagerly drunk the world's Qi, now closed in a biological, primal panic. The Killing Intent leaking from the woman prostrate on the ground was so absurdly lethal and focused that Yù Méi tasted blood in her mouth before any blow was even struck.
She is going to kill me, Yù Méi's instinctive mind screamed, her almond eyes wide with horror as her sister's dark Qi condensed like an invisible guillotine around her neck. My own sister is going to tear my head off.
Yù Qíng's pale fingers gripped the fabric of Zhì Yuǎn's trousers so hard her knuckles were white. The sick jealousy, the distorted possessiveness that had inhabited her since childhood, had taken full control. The logic of feeding his universe had been drowned by a sea of pure, irrational yandere fury. Her Primordial Qi vibrated, ready to invoke a Law that would erase her younger sister's existence in the blink of an eye.
But the invisible blade never fell.
A large, pale hand gently landed on the top of Yù Qíng's head.
The touch was light, but it carried the weight of an entire cosmos. Zhì Yuǎn's Inner Universe pulsed—not with fury, but with an unfathomable, absolute authority that swallowed his wife's storm of dark Yin in a fraction of a second.
Zhì Yuǎn's black eyes descended to the trembling woman at his feet. The indifferent Dao receded, giving way to the firmness of a husband.
"You cannot kill your little sister, Qíng," his voice reverberated on the terrace and echoed directly into her chaotic mind. It was not a request. Not a suggestion. It was an absolute command, deep and unshakable. "Calm your sea."
The effect was instantaneous. His voice was the only moral compass Yù Qíng possessed. The killing instinct that threatened to tear the night evaporated like smoke under sunlight. The priestess's breath caught, her black eyes refocusing on reality as her devoted mind processed her god's order and forced itself to recalibrate its own chaos.
When the lethal pressure vanished, Yù Méi's knees buckled slightly, but she refused to fall. The Brutal Blade pulled air into her lungs violently, primitive terror quickly incinerated and replaced by pure, incandescent indignation.
"You were going to kill me?!" Yù Méi shrieked, her voice shrill, fury tearing through the Untouchable Petal's mask. She took two heavy, furious steps toward her sister. "For heaven's sake, have you gone mad?! I am your own blood! And you were going to cut my throat just because I was breathing near him?!"
Yù Qíng did not answer immediately. She remained kneeling, her pale, tear‑stained face pressed against Zhì Yuǎn's leg, her chest rising and falling as she swallowed down her own poisoned jealousy.
"You act as if I were a thief!" Yù Méi continued, her clenched fists trembling at her sides, tears of rage and hurt finally spilling from her eyes. "As if I were a parasite trying to steal your garden or a pot of fertilizer to be used and discarded!"
Yù Méi lifted her face, her almond irises gleaming under the moonlight, fixing her gaze directly on Zhì Yuǎn. Rage gave way to raw, painful vulnerability, held in for years.
"I don't want to steal anything," Yù Méi's voice broke, stripping away all aggression. "I love him."
The cold mountain wind seemed to stop to listen. Yù Qíng froze on the ground.
"I have always admired him," Yù Méi confessed, the words coming out like a desperate outpouring. "Since I was a useless child running through the village and he taught me to count coal stones. In adolescence, that silly crush turned into real love the day he healed me with those red herbs. When the whole world thought I was broken, he gave me a future."
She wiped her red eyes with the back of her hand, her full chest heaving beneath the golden silk, her voice gaining immense strength and dignity.
"And that love turned into absolute adoration the day he opened my pores. He ripped me from that pathetic mortal shell, opened the doors of the world to me, and did not leave me behind…" Yù Méi looked at her own trembling hands, remembering the ghost heat of the massage days ago. "And since that day, I have craved that touch. I obsessively desire his presence. But I am not a cultivation tool. I do not want to be your reserve furnace, sister. I just want a place in his heart, just as you already have."
The raw, sincere words hung in the air.
On the cold stone floor, Yù Qíng's analytical, sick, utilitarian mind absorbed the confession. The gears turned violently.
She does not want to steal. She adores him. Méi's love is not a carnal transaction for power, the priestess deduced, her black eyes blinking slowly as distorted logic rebuilt her worldview. If she truly loves him, and if my ocean is drying against the hunger of his universe… why should I kill her? My sister is an extension of my own devotion.
The priestess rose slowly from the ground. Her face was still stained with tears, but her black eyes no longer held the chaos of killing instinct. They gleamed with a resolution dark, possessive, and absolutely unyielding.
Yù Qíng turned to Zhì Yuǎn. She lunged forward and grabbed her husband's bare arms and chest with both hands. Her pale fingers squeezed and pulled at his warm, sweaty skin with desperate force, her nails digging into his flesh in a futile attempt to shake him. The god's hyper‑dense, transcendent body did not suffer a single scratch; his skin did not even yield to the physical aggression, but the gesture exposed the absolute panic and manic intensity consuming her as she fixed her eyes on his.
"You heard, my heaven," Yù Qíng whispered, her voice firm, hoarse, and demanding, her knuckles white with the force she exerted against her husband's stone‑hard muscles. "She is not just any vessel. Her soul already burns in the same fire as ours. Give her the place she asks for. Accept her heart."
Zhì Yuǎn opened his mouth to speak, human hesitation clear in his features, but the devoted wife did not let him retreat.
"If you refuse what she offers… if you treat her as a burden or leave her out because of me…" Yù Qíng's face twisted into a mortal threat, the obsessive woman using her own madness as an ultimatum, pulling at his skin again. "I swear by the ancestors that I will cut my own sister's throat right here for daring to have thoughts about you. Accept her, Zhì Yuǎn. Because I cannot bear to fail your hunger. And she is the only soil pure enough to share this altar with me."
Zhì Yuǎn looked at his wife, whose trembling hands gripped his bare skin, willing to murder her own family if he did not accept her sacrifice. Then he looked at Yù Méi, who stood a few steps away, weeping silently, refusing to be a tool, but offering her life for a space in his existence.
The man who dissected the foundations of the Transcendent Age with cosmic indifference felt the colossal weight of that mortal love. The distorted possessiveness of one, and the proud adoration of the other. Both were unbreakable anchors binding him to his own humanity.
The impassivity of the Dao finally yielded.
Zhì Yuǎn closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh. It was a low, prolonged, incredibly human sound—the sigh of a god declaring himself absolutely defeated by the weight of those two women's hearts.
He opened his eyes, the unfathomable darkness of his gaze softening into dense, resigned affection. He gently unwound Yù Qíng's trembling hands from his chest, kissed his wife's forehead to calm the last spasms of her chaotic mind, and then walked toward Yù Méi.
The Untouchable Petal held her breath as his imposing shadow covered her.
Zhì Yuǎn stopped before her and raised his pale hand. He did not touch her back in a utilitarian massage, nor did he use Qi to assess her. He used his large, warm fingers to gently wipe away the tear running down the golden‑dressed young woman's cheek.
"My universe is too heavy a burden to carry in the shadows, Méi," Zhì Yuǎn's deep, unshakably affectionate voice vibrated in the silence of the terrace, filling the air with a gravity that had nothing to do with cultivation. "If your desire is to be by my side, I will not accept you as a hidden vessel or a furnace to sate my hunger. If you cross these doors today, it will be with the honor your devotion demands."
He extended his free hand, palm up, offering the world to her.
"I take you as my second wife, Yù Méi," the god promised, sealing the fate of the mountain and his own soul. "And I swear to place your heart on the same altar where I keep your sister's."
Yù Méi looked at the outstretched hand. Tears overflowed, falling thick and hot down her face, but the smile that opened on her full lips was the most dazzling and radiant of her entire life. Jealousy and pain evaporated, replaced by overwhelming fullness.
The Brutal Blade did not hesitate. She raised her hand, interlaced her trembling fingers with the warm fingers of the man she loved, and let herself be pulled into the embrace that united, once and for all, the thread and the root under the same heaven.
---