He evaluated her tense posture.
"—She doesn’t," he stated simply.
She processed the statent.
Her mind worked in that distinct, systematic way of a widow who had survived enough horrors to recognize when a man was giving a truthful answer versus a technically accurate one. She quickly translated his words to their actual aning: she is fine, relative to the extre, brutal nature of what was just done to her. Yuxi swallowed hard, letting the crude reality settle in her stomach.
She forced her spine straight.
She fell into a rigid bow—the ingrained, formal reflex of a woman bred in orthodox lineage culture, retreating to etiquette when surrounded by pure, overwhelming sexual dominance. She pressed her hands together, dipping her chin.
"—Thank you," she managed, keeping her voice steady. "—for saving from the snowy slope. A life debt was incurred. I intend to—"
"—You don’t need to repay anything," he interrupted, smooth and dismissive.
She peered up through her lashes.
He was casually wiping the slick residue from his hand onto the edge of his towel, dangerously close to the root of his groin. The indifferent gesture of a predator moving on from his previous al.
"—You can simply call Cang Wuhen," he offered.
She stared.
Her lips parted. It wasn’t quite a gasp—more an involuntary, minute tightening of her features, the sudden shock of encountering a na she intimately knew but never expected to find attached to this magnificent, half-naked behemoth. Recognition slamd into her chest before she could properly hide it.
He noticed the shift.
Naturally, he didn’t miss a thing.
"—Did you recall sothing?" he asked, amused.
"—No," she denied quickly. But her relationship with deception was rigid, and a flush crept up her neck as she corrected herself. "—There is another person with that na. I saw him once, at a grand sect gathering, before—" She bit the inside of her cheek. "—He was a re mortal. Young. Destitute of any cultivation base. An embarrassnt to the grand title he carried."
She stated it without malice. It was rely a catalogued fact pulled from her mory, delivered in her usual stoic tone.
A low, rumbling chuckle vibrated in his throat.
"—You must be referring to the son of the Heavenly Demon," he mused.
She froze.
Every muscle in her body locked up, the sudden, terrifying paralysis of a prey animal catching the scent of the apex predator that had slaughtered its herd.
"—You know him?" The question slipped out precariously thin. It carried the heavy, unspoken weight of her trauma: The Heavenly Demon slaughtered my husband, shattered my spiritual foundation, and ruined my life. That boy shares your na, and I need to know if you are my enemy before I draw a weapon I cannot hold.
He studied the tension bleeding into her delicate jawline.
"—In a manner of speaking," he replied lazily. "—I am his father."
Her brown eyes widened.
"—You—" The impossibility of the math scrambled her brain. "—You practice demonic arts?"
"—I do not."
"—Then how—"
"—I am a seed cultivator," he declared plainly. "—I bred that man’s mother. I filled her with my seed. The child she birthed inherited a physique forged entirely by the concentrated essence I pumped into her womb."
Lin Yuxi stood utterly dumbfounded in the dim corridor, the crass reality of his words washing over her.
"—Forgive ," she breathed out. "—What?"
He appeared mildly entertained by her flustered state.
"—Co," he commanded softly. "—Walk with ."
He turned on his bare heel and strolled down the hall. As he moved toward the moonlit garden passage, the towel slipped dangerously low on his hips. It clung to the twin dimples at the base of his spine, the fabric riding the very edge of decency, offering tantalizing flashes of the heavily muscled thighs working beneath it.
She followed him.
Her feet carried her forward on instinct, thoroughly ignoring the rational part of her brain screaming to run in the opposite direction from the dangerous, half-naked sovereign she had just t.
He continued speaking over his broad shoulder.
His tone held the relaxed confidence of a man who owned the very air he breathed. As they passed through the archway and out into the crisp, high-altitude night, a canopy of brilliant, unobstructed stars illuminated the plateau. Beneath that silver glow, he detailed the deeply intimate nature of his cultivation path.
"—You know the basic taxonomy," he began. "—Body refinent, core formation, soul severing. The elental and bloodline paths."
"—Yes."
"—There is an obscure category most orthodox texts fail to docunt, largely because prudish scholars refuse to study the chanics properly," he said, his deep voice carrying on the cool breeze. "—The seed cultivator. The core principle is simple: cultivation purifies qi. Every cultivator’s body naturally secretes this refined energy through physical biology. But for my path, the ultimate, most potent condensation of that power... is my sen."
She walked quietly beside him.
She kept a asured, defensive distance between them. It was the habitual gap maintained by a wary woman, though the night air seed to thrum with the primal, masculine heat radiating off his bare skin, making the space feel far too small.
"—When a seed cultivator reaches my realm," he continued, glancing at her flushed profile, "—the essence I inject carries enough terrifying power to violently mutate the receiver’s internal structure. A woman who takes my seed and bears my child isn’t just pregnant. Her womb becos a furnace, actively reshaped by my heavy yang energy for nine months. The offspring that tears its way out will possess a monstrous, flawless physique no pill could ever forge."
Lin Yuxi chewed on her lower lip, walking in stunned silence.
"—The Heavenly Demon’s heir," she finally whispered.
"—His mother possessed a sturdy foundation and a deeply accommodating, fertile physique. I deposited an investnt deep inside her. The resulting anomaly was my return."
"—That boy," she pushed the words out, the strain in her throat belying the agonizing mories threatening to drown her, "—has just been crowned the next Sovereign by the gathered demonic sects. He is only twelve, yet his power already eclipses late Foundation Establishnt."
"—I am aware," Cang replied, unfazed.
"—He will be wielded as a weapon to slaughter what little is left of the orthodox world."
"—A likely outco," he shrugged, the motion drawing her eyes to the thick cords of his neck. "—And entirely irrelevant to ."
She snapped her gaze up to his sharp jawline. "—You bred him into existence."
"—I built the vessel. Where he points his slaughter is a matter between him and the heavens." He slowed, locking his dark, fathomless eyes onto hers. "—Tell , little cultivator, do you execute the blacksmith when a soldier swings a blade?"
Her jaw clicked shut. She couldn’t find an argunt to counter the sheer, ruthless logic of it.
He smirked at her silence.
They breached the inner sanctuary of the plateau garden. Vast, sprawling pathways of smoothed stone wove between ancient, massive trees, their thick canopies heavy with exotic, high-altitude blossoms. The night air was intoxicating, thick with the musky, sweet scent of night-blooming jasmine and chilled rock.
He strode effortlessly into the shadows of the foliage. She trailed slightly behind, her mind still furiously chewing on the morality of his blacksmith taphor.
"—Your core," he noted smoothly, not bothering to look back or phrase it as a question. "—It was shattered during the siege that claid the Heavenly Demon’s life."
"—It was."
"—Your husband fought in that vanguard as well."
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