In the span of half a minute, beneath those rhythmic, crashing waves of sound - thump, thump, thump - Zhihan heard three distinct vocal registers, all of them pouring from the same woman’s throat.

Gulp.

"Sincerity of heart keeps the sword path steady."

Zhihan swallowed and murmured a passage from the Sword Sutra under her breath, steadying her resolve.

She suppressed the curiosity clawing at her chest and slowly pressed the door open a little further.

Her field of view widened. The quarters the Immortal Alliance had assigned to Yuyan were not large to begin with - pushing the door halfway was enough to take in the entire bedroom in a single sweep.

The first thing Zhihan’s eyes landed on was the Ranmo folding screen. The material was as thin and translucent as gauze, divided into four panels, each painted with motifs sacred to the Wuji Sect - formation totems and black-and-white ink illustrations of a celestial maiden dancing with a sword, the imagery representative of Ranmo Peak. The screen was also laced with the same sword-sealing Barrier she had encountered in the outer courtyard, its spiritual presence sharp enough to prickle the skin.

But right now, Zhihan had no interest whatsoever in admiring the celestial maiden’s sword dance.

Because behind that screen, on the bed, two figures were moving - one in front, one behind. The broad-shouldered young man with a straight, powerful back was positioned to the right side of the screen, and there, cast in shadow on the lower left, was a strikingly beautiful silhouette - kneeling face-down on the bed, one arm pulled back, her head forced up and her back arched down.

At this proximity, the soft, lovely sounds she had heard from outside the room finally made complete sense. They resolved themselves before Zhihan’s eyes into a vivid, living shadow-play.

The cold wind from the doorway stirred the hem of Zhihan’s black dress. Her beautiful eyes were locked, completely unable to look away.

"Husband - slower〜♡ Wait, wait a moment Ahhhh-n〜♡!"

At some point, the beauty kneeling behind the screen shuddered violently.

But with their cultivation so close to its absolute peak - just one final step away - Yuyan’s plea hadn’t even finished leaving her lips before the dark silhouette of the young man behind her raised his palm, preparing to drive home that last, decisive thrust.

This time, though, he didn’t bring it down immediately. Beneath the candlelight and behind the gauze screen, his cold eyes narrowed slightly as his peripheral vision caught the reflection of the candlelight flickering from the doorway.

Then, as though he had anticipated this all along, the young man’s lips curved into a knowing smile. He straightened his back and stopped holding anything back - driving forward with full force, hard and fast, no longer pacing himself.

Smack!

The crisp crack of a palm connecting with skin rang out from behind the screen.

What followed was a wave of trembling from the beauty behind it - and then another husky, breathless moan that Zhihan recognized all too well.

This time, standing at the door crack, Zhihan finally understood everything completely. She finally knew what those three different vocal registers she’d heard outside corresponded to - each one matched a different intensity of his rhythm.

"Husband... no, you can’t keep pushing more energy in! Let me re... rest for a moment... let me process what’s already inside first..."

"Yuyan’s dantian is already full. There really isn’t room for any more..."

Yuyan bit her lower lip, her voice trembling on the edge of a sob as she begged.

Even so, a thin thread of saliva slipped from the corner of her red lips, trailing down despite herself.

"Don’t worry - I know Senior’s dantian better than anyone."

"Right now, I’m quite sure Senior still has just a little space left that hasn’t been pushed to its absolute limit."

Behind the screen, the young man leaned down and gently stroked the faint, soft swell of Yuyan’s belly, his voice low and tender.

"You - don’t use your Spiritual Energy to massage my navel... ah〜... it feels like an electric shock..."

Yuyan was still trembling, still resisting in that soft, shaky voice.

Yino’s fingertips kept moving, teasing her without pause. "Didn’t Senior say she was too full? I’m just helping her digest a little."

Before Yuyan could open her mouth again - face flushed crimson with humiliation and protest - the relentless assault resumed, heavier and fiercer than before.

At the same time, the young man’s silhouette leaned down over her back, his voice dropping to something gentle. "After all we’ve been through tonight, you can stop pretending to resist."

"After all, we’ve already played out ’die before surrendering’ and ’reluctant service’ several times this evening."

"We’ve cycled through every script imaginable - but every single time, at the very end, what I love most is hearing Sister whisper that she loves me."

Yino’s voice was soft. He bent as low as he could, bringing his lips to the shell of Yuyan’s ear.

When he finished speaking, he let his tongue flick out and closed his mouth around her entire flushed earlobe, rolling it gently.

"Come on then. Why don’t I go first this time?"

"I love you."

The words left his lips in a murmur, and Yuyan instantly felt them cut straight through her like a spell she had no defense against.

A slick, shining thread pulled taut and snapped between them - and the sound of it only made her already crumbling resistance dissolve further.

If Yino’s soft confession whispered at her ear was a warm rush of pure yang honey melting through the ice encasing Yuyan’s heart.

Then the brutal, relentless force working against it was divine punishment made physical - rolling thunder crashing down from the sky, boring straight through Yuyan’s body and mind from root to crown, punching straight up into her skull.

"Yuyan loves you too♡"

Bathed in that total, all-encompassing assault from every direction, Yuyan knew she had lost - body and mind both - and surrendered what remained of her composure without a fight. She arched her chest, pulled in her belly, and poured every last bit of herself into those final moments of cultivation, driving herself over the absolute peak.

Wooosh!!!!

Another Yin Yang sword intent detonated through the courtyard and tore straight up into the sky.

But this time the surge was unlike anything before it - so ferocious it blew open every door and window in the room and sent all six panels of the folding screen crashing to the floor.

And in the very instant the screen fell, Yuyan’s beautiful eyes were already glassy and unfocused, her expression lost in a daze of sensation - but in that split second, through the haze, her wandering gaze locked directly with the eyes of the black-robed figure standing in the doorway.

One breath. Yuyan’s eyes went wide - wide as if that single moment lasted a thousand years.

Before she could cry out, Yino’s hand closed around her wrist from behind, and he snapped his hips forward with full force - wrenching Yuyan’s upper body into a deep, helpless arch.

With no screen left to hide anything, Yuyan’s waist and body were fully exposed in the candlelight, curving into the most beautiful line imaginable.

Looking at the absolute shock on the black-robed woman’s face, Yuyan shook from head to toe. An unprecedented surge of shame and arousal hit her like hard liquor poured straight onto a fire - scorching up through her brain.

At this most critical, irreversible moment - where their bodies were locked together in perfect Yin Yang opposition - Yuyan’s body instinctively clenched, desperate to close herself off again.

But after months of suppressed lust, the two of them had already built it to a crescendo together. She was on the back of a tiger now. At the very instant of reaching the summit, how could Yuyan simply stop - even if she wanted to?

And as Yuyan’s already clenched body tightened further beyond what it had ever reached before, Yino felt pressure he had never experienced - every last hidden reserve of energy he’d been holding back was stripped from him in an instant and unleashed all at once.

Pffft〜!

He came with force, hot and unapologetic, shooting across and soaking straight into the ink-painted celestial maiden sword-dance illustration on the screen that had already been knocked to the floor by the sword intent.

Every single moment of this - every shocking, explicit detail - was taken in completely by the black-robed woman watching through the gap in the doorway.