She did not finish the sentence.
She did not need to finish the sentence.
The daughter understood the architecture.
She looked at him.
At the flat, present, standing-in-the-courtyard, not-managing-the-expression quality of soone who had made an arrangent and was letting the arrangent land without assistance.
She had always believed, the flat, Foundation-Establishnt, sect-raised, old-master-who-had-been-celibate quality of a girl who had been taught the cultivation path was celibacy. Her old master had been celibate. The sect had cultivated through abstinence and purification. She had cultivated through abstinence and purification.
She had never—
She was looking at him.
He was not looking at her.
He had turned.
The flat, present, turning-toward-the-sect’s-main-structure quality of soone who had assessed the compound and had noticed sothing.
He walked.
The flat, forward, unhurried, I-know-where-I-am-going walk of soone who had run the Eye of Truth’s architectural assessnt of the ruined sect and had filed a specific, relevant reading from the basent of the main hall.
The mother and daughter watched him walk.
He arrived at the main hall’s entry.
He did not stop at the entry.
He stepped inside, his hand extending — the flat, present, arm-going-forward, reaching-into-the-wall quality of soone reaching for sothing that was not visible.
His fingers found the hidden chanism.
The flat, present, been-here-since-before-the-sect-was-a-sect, previous-master’s-personal-architecture, sealed-with-Foundation-Establishnt-grade-spiritual-lock chanism in the basent beneath the main hall’s stone floor.
The seal.
He ran one finger along it.
The flat, present, qi-carving, single-finger, barely-trying quality of a Nascent Soul Mid Stage cultivator addressing a Foundation Establishnt grade lock — the seal dissolved the way paper dissolved in a fire, the flat, imdiate, complete, nothing-left quality of it going.
The floor shifted.
Stone sections moving in the specific, chanism-responding, slide-and-drop quality of architecture that had been designed to move — the hidden geotry of the sect master’s personal installation beneath the main hall revealing itself in the flat, present, this-is-what-was-here-all-along quality of concealed infrastructure.
The daughter was in the doorway.
She was looking.
At the floor moving.
At what was beneath.
The flat, present, hand-going-to-her-mouth quality of a girl looking at the specific, tiled, carved, formal, this-was-built-with-intention architecture of a space that had been hidden under her sect’s main hall her entire life.
A chamber.
Large.
The flat, cool, underground, stone-tiled, properly-drained, previously-sealed quality of a chamber that had been built with care and sealed with care and had been waiting with the flat, patient, sealed-chamber quality of sothing that had been unused for a long ti.
A pool.
The flat, present, carved-stone, empty-but-designed, this-was-always-a-pool architecture of a pool carved into the chamber’s center — the specific, wide, enough-for-several-people, proper-depth, smooth-edged pool of sothing that had been built for a specific category of use.
"The sect master’s harem," the daughter said.
The flat, present, I-have-said-it-out-loud-and-I-cannot-believe-it quality of her voice.
He looked at it.
"Yes," he said.
The flat, uncaring, matter-of-fact delivery of soone who had filed this under ’confird’ and was moving to the next step.
He raised his hand.
The qi carving — the flat, present, full-finger, precision-technique quality of a cultivator addressing the chamber’s water system — his finger drawing a specific, fluid, spiraling line in the air that corresponded to the chamber’s hidden water channels, and the channels responding, the flat, present, chanism-receiving-the-input quality of infrastructure doing what it was designed to do.
The water.
The flat, present, beginning-to-flow, filling-from-the-channels quality of the pool receiving water — and then his other hand, the flat, present, reaching-into-the-water-table quality of soone addressing groundwater directly with qi telekinesis, pulling the water from below with the flat, pulling-upward, this-is-trivial quality of soone for whom this was trivial.
The pool filled.
Fast.
The flat, present, rapid-fill, water-level-rising quality of a pool being filled by soone who was not using the normal chanism — the water ca in from the sides and from below in the specific, multi-source, all-at-once quality of qi-directed water managent at Nascent Soul scale.
The chamber slled like old stone and fresh water and the flat, cool, underground quality of a space that had not been opened in years and had just been opened.
He looked at the pool.
He looked at the mother.
He raised his hand.
The telekinesis was not subtle.
The flat, present, full-application, she-is-in-the-field-now quality of qi telekinesis wrapping around the mother and moving her — not violently, the flat, present, this-is-happening-and-you-cannot-manage-it quality of sothing that had the force behind it to do what it was doing — and she moved.
She moved fast.
The flat, forward, then-upward, flipping, trajectory-of-a-woman-being-moved-by-qi quality of it — and she arrived in front of him, not standing, the specific, inverted, hanging-upside-down-by-the-telekinesis-field quality of a woman whose hair was hanging down because the rest of her was not.
Upside down.
Her amber eyes were at the pool below.
Her hair was hanging straight down in the flat, gravity-following, long, dark, full quality of hair with nothing but air beneath it.
Her chest was at his face.
The flat, upside-down, everything-present, warm-brown quality of her chest directly at his face with the gravity-assisted, forward-hanging, dense-and-warm quality of everything that had been forward-hanging for the entirety of the morning now doing so at the specific angle that inverted physics produced.
She yelled.
"—AAAHN~!!!—" The flat, height-frightened, inverted, what-is-happening quality of a sound produced by soone who was upside down in the air for the first ti in her life and was filing every piece of information about this at maximum volu.
He gripped.
Both hands.
The flat, full-palm, inverted, upside-down-body, both-hands-at-the-wide-hips-from-above quality of a grip on a woman who was hanging in front of him — and he pulled her, the flat, present, pulling-her-lower-body-toward-his-face quality of soone adjusting the architecture.
Her lower region.
Directly at his face.
The flat, warm, dark-haired, near-manifestation-yin-physique, present quality of it arriving at his face with the flat, present, this-is-the-position quality of a position that had been established.
He closed the distance.
His mouth.
The flat, full-lip, direct, warm-contact, no-building-up quality of his mouth arriving at the specific, warm, present location with the flat, I-know-where-I-am-going quality of soone going there directly.
She ca apart.
"—KYAAANGHHH~!!!—"
Her legs — the flat, upside-down, both-legs-flailing, where-is-the-ground quality of legs with nothing to push against — kicked, the flat, involuntary, both-feet, this-is-a-response quality of legs reporting to the brain that the brain was occupied elsewhere.
He pulled her closer.
PAH — not the thrust sound, the flat, present, open-hand, wide-palm, full-contact sound of a single, deliberate smack to the inverted rear — and she cried.
"—HAANN~!!!—"
Her inverted face was at his lower robe now.
The flat, upside-down, face-at-the-fabric, hair-hanging, present quality of her face at the level of the front of his robe.
He applied his mouth.
The flat, warm, present, thorough, direct-application quality of his mouth at the location he had brought her to — the specific, warm, yin-heavy, near-manifestation-physique location that the Eye of Truth had been reading all morning and that his mouth was now reading at the flat, present, different-thod, primary-source quality.
She made sounds into his robe.
"—MMNH~!!! HAANN~!!!—" The flat, fabric-muffled, present, both-muffled-and-full-volu quality of sounds produced by a woman whose face was against fabric and whose lower body was not.
The daughter was at the chamber’s entry.
Looking.
At the flat, present, everything-happening, where-to-look quality of a scene that had multiple locations of activity and was receiving the brown-eyed, wide, Foundation-Establishnt, never-seen-anything-like-this look of a girl who had been in a sect that cultivated through celibacy and was currently standing in the doorway of her sect master’s secret harem pool watching a man she had called master apply his face to her inverted mother’s anatomy.
He spoke.
The flat, present, between-applications, completely-matter-of-fact delivery of soone who had the architecture to speak while doing what he was doing:
"Remove it."
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