The young woman's body was soft and warm, truly comfortable to hold, especially now that her clothes were loosened.
More alluring than her beauty was the cozy warmth radiating from her body. Xue Chenjing placed his hand on her soft abdomen, feeling her soothing warmth. It was like being given a perfectly-sized hand warmer after being numbed by freezing cold for too long.
His fingertips felt as if they were burning.
Xue Chenjing contentedly narrowed his eyes, unconsciously tightening his arms around her, wishing he could press her completely against himself. He had completely forgotten how disgusted he had acted at first.
The system was speechless: "..." It had never seen a male lead use the female lead as a hot water bottle before!
He might be comfortable, but the female lead clearly wasn't.
The system said sympathetically: "Master, don't use your ice-cold hands to chill the female lead's stomach. A girl's lower abdomen getting cold can cause stomachaches."
Xue Chenjing, only concerned with his own pleasure and completely disregarding others' wellbeing, said carelessly: "If she's in pain, that's her problem. What does it have to do with me?"
After all, Yu Yi couldn't actually feel what he was doing.
The system: "..." Despicable scoundrel!
Having been with Xue Chenjing for five years, the system knew well that its host wouldn't listen to advice unless he suffered some hardship himself.
As the female lead's support system, it had already made a huge mistake by initially binding to the wrong person, leaving the female lead to wander alone in a strange world for five years. Now, of course, it couldn't stand to see the female lead bullied carelessly.
[System: Ding - Warning! The system has determined that the host's current behavior is detrimental to the target's physical and mental health and unfavorable for the smooth completion of the conquest mission. Please cease this behavior immediately and maintain a distance of at least half a foot from the conquest target. Otherwise, the system will activate an automatic defense mechanism for the female lead.]
Xue Chenjing: "???"
As if to challenge the system, he hugged his warm cushion even tighter. Transparent, sticky tentacles filled the space around the bed, wrapping around Yu Yi's back in circles, physically expressing his refusal. He said irritably: "Are you seeking death?"
[System: Warning ineffective. Automatic defense mechanism activated. Duration: six hours.]
As soon as the system's voice faded, Xue Chenjing felt a sudden sharp pain in his palm, as if thousands of steel needles were piercing through Yu Yi's stomach into his hand. Not just his palm, but anywhere his skin touched Yu Yi's, he felt the stabbing pain of needles.
This acute, piercing pain was unbearable to him.
The tentacles crowding the bed quickly retracted, causing the bed curtains to flutter. The oil lamp's flame wavered in the wind, casting flickering shadows in the room. Xue Chenjing abruptly released her and moved back, looking down at his palm.
There was no visible wound on his hand, and as soon as he let go of Yu Yi, the pain in his palm immediately disappeared. Xue Chenjing cautiously reached out to touch Yu Yi's face, but as soon as his fingertip made contact, he quickly withdrew it, stung.
Though there was nothing visible on Yu Yi's body, it was as if she was covered in invisible thorns that stung at the slightest touch.
Xue Chenjing said irritably: "What did you do?"
Although the system had acted tough, it was actually quite cowardly. It explained weakly: "I-I used points to exchange for a Five-colored Cloud Robe for the female lead. As long as she wears it, anyone who touches her will feel pain."
Xue Chenjing: "..."
He fell silent for a moment, truly laughing from anger, and said through gritted teeth: "You used the points I earned from completing tasks to exchange for some ghostly thing to guard against me?"
The system remained silent.
Xue Chenjing sat alone at the edge of the bed, seething. Faced with this intangible and biased system, he truly had no recourse at the moment.
But it didn't matter. Once he got what he wanted, he would personally send this broken system and its so-called female lead to their doom.
Xue Chenjing sat on the floor by the bed, glaring darkly at the sleeping figure on the bed.
The human body has three fires: the sovereign fire of the heart, the ministerial fire of the kidneys, and the people's fire of the dantian. Xue Chenjing had lost all three fires, making him as cold as an ice cave, frigid from the inside out. The little warmth he had felt in his arms earlier quickly cooled after leaving Yu Yi, making him even colder than before.
Xue Chenjing turned back, pulled the quilt from the bed, and wrapped himself in it, savoring Yu Yi's lingering body heat.
To ensure absolute certainty, Xue Chenjing sat up in the middle of the night and, from a distance, sent tendrils from his pupils flying out to penetrate Yu Yi's spiritual platform, deepening the impression that "your husband is truly impressive."
As dawn approached, he reinforced this notion once more.
Xue Chenjing only needed to plant this idea in her mind; her brain would automatically fill in the rest.
In her hazy state, Yu Yi had many indescribable dreams. In her entire life, before and after transmigrating into the book, she had lived for twenty-four years – over eight thousand days and nights – and had never had so many erotic dreams combined.
When she finally woke from her deep slumber, she felt as if she were still floating on clouds, her entire body light and airy, her limbs weak and sore. Both her body and soul felt completely drained.
Yu Yi lay on her back, not wanting to move at all, staring blankly at the dark canopy above. The first thought that popped into her still-foggy mind was "my husband is very impressive," though heaven knows her mind hadn't fully awakened yet.
After a long while, she turned her head slightly and was surprised to see the person sleeping on the side of the bed.
Xue Qiu was facing her, lying on his side at the edge of the bed, still asleep. A pillow lay between them like a dividing line, separating them, with most of the quilt wrapped around him.
Yu Yi's hands and feet were ice-cold; no wonder she had felt cold while sleeping. Knowing Xue Qiu's aversion to cold, she didn't hold it against him for hogging the blanket.
Outside, daylight had long since broken, sunlight filtering through the thin gauze and falling on his face. A few strands of hair lay across his forehead, his long eyebrows pressed beneath his black hair.
His eyelashes were long and thick, as if drawn with an ink brush. Yu Yi noticed a tiny red mole in the middle of his right eyelid, which would be hidden in the crease of his eyelid when his eyes were open.
She couldn't resist reaching out to touch that little mole, her fingertip sliding down the bridge of his straight nose.
Xue Chenjing's skin was very fair, making his lips appear somewhat rosy red in contrast. She traced his face, mesmerized, wondering if they had really done it last night.
Yu Yi wriggled closer to him, pressing her fingertip against his lips, carefully feeling the contours and texture of his mouth.
Then she pulled his hand out from under the quilt, first measuring the size of his palm against her chest, then gently kneading his knuckles, carefully examining the shape of each finger.
Xue Chenjing couldn't keep up the act any longer and finally opened his eyes, unable to bear it anymore.
To make everything seem authentic, he had stayed in the room all night, listening to Yu Yi's moans in her sleep, and this morning he had deliberately lain here, waiting to wake up with her.
He hadn't expected her to start fondling him as soon as she woke up, like a starving color demon. He had been awakened by the stinging sensation as soon as she touched him.
"What are you touching?" Xue Chenjing separated her hand under the quilt.
Yu Yi grabbed his hand back, continuing to knead his knuckles. Her delicate brows furrowed in confusion as she said, "I just feel like my husband's touch is different from last night?"
Hearing this, Xue Chenjing immediately averted his eyes, his thick lashes hiding his flickering gaze. He pulled his hand away from hers, turned over, and threw off the quilt, getting up to dress with his back to her.
As the stinging sensation disappeared, he silently let out a breath. "What do you mean by that? Are you suggesting there's someone else here besides you and me?"
"Of course I'm not suspecting there's someone else," Yu Yi said, stretching out her arm to firmly grab his buttocks, feeling the texture beneath her palm.
Xue Chenjing felt as if his backside had been hit with a spiked club. The pain made his whole body shudder, and he jumped forward two steps, half-dressed, moving away from the bed. He turned back to glare at her, at a loss for words.
Yu Yi was startled by his extreme reaction. "What's wrong?"
Xue Chenjing couldn't explain his predicament. He said hoarsely, "Don't touch me casually." Realizing his tone was too rigid and fearing Yu Yi might become suspicious, he added, "I'm afraid I won't be able to control myself."
Fortunately, he had read some erotic novels from the mortal realm.
Yu Yi let out a small laugh. She obediently withdrew her hand and stared at it, opening and closing her fist as she pondered the sensation she had just felt. Thoughtfully, she said, "I just feel that touching you now seems much more real than last night."
Xue Chenjing: "..."
The system sighed, "See? I told you the female lead is very clever. You can't fool her!"
Hearing the system's voice, Yu Yi's eyebrows twitched slightly. It seemed Xue Qiu was indeed deceiving her.
Xue Chenjing didn't know how to smooth things over. He quickly wrapped his robe around himself and hastily said, "Don't overthink things," before turning and leaving the room, saying he would go make porridge for her breakfast.
Once he crouched down in the kitchen, the first thing he asked was, "Check the favorability rating."
The system happily replied, "It's at 9 percent, Master. We're about to succeed!"
Xue Chenjing's eyes widened slowly, joy blossoming on his face like a flower. The gloom of days spent compromising dissipated, and his whole demeanor became bright and cheerful. He asked incredulously, "Really?"
He had tried so hard before, but the favorability had always hovered around 6 percent. He never expected it to suddenly jump to 9 percent overnight.
Xue Chenjing pondered for a moment, then understood.
To complete this damned system task as soon as possible, he didn't mind sacrificing a bit more of his dignity.
Xue Chenjing asked, "When will your Five-colored Cloud Robe lose its effect?"
System: "In about half an hour."
...
Inside the room, Yu Yi had also gotten up and was sitting at the dressing table, combing her hair in front of the mirror.
The snow-white nightgown wrapped around the young girl's slender frame, vaguely revealing the flesh-colored skin underneath. She gently pulled open the collar, letting the smooth silk slide off her shoulders, exposing a large expanse of fair skin.
Yu Yi examined herself in the mirror, turning from side to side, but found no traces of last night's passion on her body.
They clearly hadn't done anything. But in her mind, she remembered her husband being very skilled, and they had battled until dawn, until she finally passed out from exhaustion.
Yu Yi stared at her reflection in the mirror, slowly and methodically dressing herself. After a while, her eyes gradually grew calm as she figured it out.
She didn't mind that Xue Qiu had come to pursue her with a system task, but she did mind him arbitrarily altering her memories and perceptions.
The three years they had spent in seclusion here were probably just three years "in her perception." She had no idea how many days they had actually been together, or whether Xue Qiu was really Xue Qiu at all.
She couldn't distinguish which memories of him were real and which were fake. Since she couldn't tell them apart, she might as well treat them all as fake.
Yu Yi wasn't particularly worried about her safety. After all, as the target of his pursuit, she should be quite important to Xue Qiu.
She finished dressing and arranging her hair, then reached out to open the makeup drawer. Her fair fingers slid over the neatly arranged vermilion hairpins, selecting a pomegranate-shaped hairpin to insert into her bun. She smiled sweetly at herself in the mirror.
The hairpin was strung with bright red beads, which stood out vividly against her dark hair, complementing the sweet smile on her face beautifully.
Suddenly, there was a loud crash outside. Yu Yi's fingers paused as she was adjusting her hairpin. She lifted her skirts and hurried out, asking anxiously, "Xue Qiu, what happened? What's going on?"
The kitchen at the front of the wooden cabin was in disarray, half-collapsed. Sunlight pierced through the thin mist, illuminating the dust floating in the air.
"Don't come any closer," Xue Qiu said harshly, his back to her. The undisguised disgust in his tone made Yu Yi pause in surprise.
Xue Qiu's whole body was tense, his head lowered. His shoulders trembled in the golden dust, and it was clear he was desperately trying to suppress his emotions.
From behind, Yu Yi could see his hands gripping the stove tightly, his knuckles white with effort, veins bulging on the backs of his hands. The brick surface of the stove was cracking under his fingers.
The sand pot boiling over the fire had split in two, and scalding white porridge had spilled out, most of it pouring over the hands gripping the stove.
Yu Yi gasped, raising a hand to cover her mouth. Her gaze fell on the backs of his hands, reddened by the hot porridge, and she exclaimed in surprise, "Xue Qiu, what's wrong with you?"
Her voice was full of concern, but she didn't step forward at all. In fact, she even took a few steps back, towards the hot spring lake. Hearing the commotion, the crane master flapped its wings and flew from the lake to land behind her.
Yu Yi once again felt that chilling sensation, every cell in her body screaming warnings of danger. She heeded her body's instinctive warning and maintained a distance from him.
"M-Master..." the system called out tentatively to its host, at a loss for how to comfort him.
Just half an hour ago, it had happily reported to its host that the female lead's favorability towards him had risen to 9 percent, just a hair's breadth away from completing the main quest and unlocking the side storylines.
But in that half hour, the favorability had begun to slowly decline, finally settling back at 6 percent.
Anyone who had just received good news only to be knocked back to square one would be unhappy. Especially when its host was someone not particularly skilled at controlling his emotions.
The system looked at its female lead with great exasperation, truly unable to fathom why Yu Yi was so difficult to win over.
...
The white porridge, simmered to a soft consistency, was still bubbling even as it leaked out of the sand pot. The hot steam wafted into Xue Chenjing's nose, soft and sweet-smelling, but where it scalded the back of his hand, it was excruciatingly painful.
Due to gripping too tightly, the blisters on the back of Xue Chenjing's hand had burst open, and the blood seeping out quickly stained the white porridge red.
The agitated Bone Demon rushed out from the forest but was forcibly held back by its master's command. It paced restlessly, pawing at the ground, drool pooling beneath it.
The sound of teeth chattering carried faintly from afar. Yu Yi heard this strange noise and looked curiously towards the forest.
Sensing danger, the crane master opened its beak and tugged at her sleeve, trying to pull her onto its back to leave this place, to get away from that unpredictable, strange fellow.
Just as Yu Yi was about to jump onto the crane's back and flee, something suddenly tightened around her waist. Like a snake, it quickly coiled around her waist and violently yanked her away from the crane's side.
The entire wooden cabin was crushed and collapsed by an invisible force. The crane master was blocked outside, unable to break through. It could only frantically peck at the invisible barrier in front of it with its sharp beak. Each peck caused its long beak to sink into something slippery and sticky, though it couldn't tell what it was.
It spread its wings wide, calling out anxiously.
Yu Yi's entire body was tightly bound by those snake-like things. The cold, slippery sensation pressed against her skin felt oddly familiar.
Flashes of memory flickered through her mind: a mountain path shrouded in thick fog, tentacles writhing and crowding the air, slipping into her mouth, their tips gradually turning pink.
Now, just like in those resurfacing memory fragments, she was being dragged before Xue Chenjing by tentacles.
Xue Chenjing turned around, enduring the thorns of the Five-colored Cloud Robe on her body, and reached out both hands to her. "Yu Yi, my hands are scalded and it hurts a lot. Can you help me apply some medicine?"
The young man's face was pale, his eyes red-rimmed. Tears pooled beneath his thick lashes, covering his dark pupils. The slightest blink would send teardrops rolling down his cheeks.
His lips were even redder now, almost bleeding, with teeth marks visible on his lower lip.
Yu Yi hung suspended in midair by the tentacles, looking down at him from above. His tear-filled image was deeply imprinted in her eyes. She swallowed hard twice, her voice hoarse as she said, "Y-you put me down first."
No sooner had she finished speaking than her feet touched solid ground. However, the tight grip around her waist didn't disappear; invisible tentacles still firmly held her waist.
Yu Yi's altered perceptions began to recover, and her mind was in chaos. One moment, she saw images of herself and Xue Qiu living in this mountain cabin, her smiling as she watched him fumble about cooking, or crouching on the roof to repair tiles.
The next moment, she saw a blood-soaked shallow shore, with him stabbing someone through the heart from behind.
Yu Yi's temples throbbed painfully as she struggled to sort through the memories in her mind. She took out a burn ointment from the pouch at her waist and began applying it to his scalded hands.
Every time her fingertips touched the back of his hand, needle-like pain shot into his bones. Xue Chenjing gritted his teeth and endured, asking in a hoarse voice, "Can you like me a little more?"
Yu Yi looked up in surprise. "What?"
Xue Chenjing stared intently at her, his eyes brimming with tumultuous emotions. Tears he couldn't control slid down his cheeks as he fixed her with an intense gaze.
"Your feelings for me are too weak, not enough, far from enough. I want you to like me, to like me even more. Please, please like me a little more."
The man before her looked utterly frantic. Yu Yi instinctively stepped back, but her gaze remained locked on him. For the first time, she realized she could be so captivated by a man's tearful face.
Xue Chenjing's repeated pleas reached her ears. Yu Yi found them oddly familiar, as if she had heard them countless times before - constantly saying it wasn't enough, begging her to like him more.
She took a step back, and he took one forward. His entire figure loomed over her, approaching with an overwhelming presence. Yu Yi even felt a few tears drop from his chin onto her cheeks.
She blinked, wiping away the tears that had fallen on her face, and stared at him blankly, saying, "Your tears are so big, like pearls."
If only they were real pearls.
Xue Chenjing was stunned for a moment, his emotions interrupted and caught in his throat.
He stared at her silently for a moment, then persistently reached to undo his belt. He tossed aside his waistband, shed his outer robe, and pulled open his collar.
He took her hand and pressed it against his body. The sensation made him tremble, his skin flushing pink. With a thick nasal tone, he said, "You like how I look, don't you? You like my body? You can look, you can touch, you can do whatever you want. Just like me a little more, just a tiny bit more, okay?"
Yu Yi was forced to lean back onto the fleshy bed formed by invisible tentacles behind her. She opened her eyes wide, her dark pupils reflecting his image - pitifully beseeching yet overwhelmingly dominant, begging for her mercy. She was completely dumbfounded.
Wait, brother, are all of you this dedicated when carrying out your seduction missions?
