Miss Fairy, Please Hear Me Out

After a brief moment of thought, Xu Yuan instantly understood what Su Jinxuan was trying to do. This woman was still thinking about running. He realized he might have overestimated her resolve a little. That warning of hers had truly been nothing more than a warning. She had never intended to fight him to the death.

If Su Jinxuan alerted Ying’er, who was waiting outside, then she would be as good as dead. So she chose to hold back, using those spores to pull away his soul and make him lose consciousness instead. Only then would she have a chance to leave alive.

Unfortunately, this woman was too arrogant. No, not arrogant exactly. At most, it was a misjudgment caused by a difference in information. After all, in this entire world, aside from Ran Qingmo, there was no second person who knew just how many times he had already brushed against death.

At that thought, Xu Yuan relaxed slightly. If Su Jinxuan had gone all out from the very beginning, then if Ying’er failed to arrive in time, his life really might have been in danger.

But now... Heh.

That said, the spores were clearly draining Xu Yuan’s soul faster than he could absorb them. After all, once he swallowed them, he still had to refine them. Those tiny spore particles, on the other hand, only needed to suck greedily and then self-destruct.

Time passed, second by second.

Inside the curtained bed, the man and woman lay wrapped in each other’s arms like a newlywed couple sleeping together.

Su Jinxuan braced herself over the man beneath her, one hand pressed to his chest. Her beautiful eyes were half narrowed, and the pallor and weakness on her face were becoming impossible to hide. In less than ten minutes, what she had expended already surpassed the total of the past several days combined.

She looked at the sleeping face of the man beneath her, his eyes shut, and lightly bit her red lip. Still, the good news was that this Xu Changtian was finally about to black out. She could clearly sense that his devouring speed had become extremely sluggish.

Just a little more. Just a tiny bit more...

As long as this man completely lost consciousness, she would have a chance to escape.

Wave after wave of spore particles shattered, only for fresh waves to surge forward again. But what drove Su Jinxuan to despair was that even after nearly half of the soul within his sea of consciousness had been stripped away, the man beneath her still had not passed out, and his devouring had yet to stop.

Fifteen minutes passed. Then another. At last, the man beneath her came to a complete halt.

A glimmer of delight flashed through Su Jinxuan’s beautiful eyes. She immediately stopped controlling the spores, preparing to confirm whether he had truly fallen unconscious. But then she saw the man beneath her open his eyes.

Su Jinxuan froze.

They were very close.

His eyes were long and narrow, and the way he looked at her carried a cold, biting gleam.

Su Jinxuan’s breathing hitched. A ripple of panic spread through her like a drop of water falling into a still lake, the disturbance widening and widening.

Why... how is he still conscious even now?

The question surfaced, but no one was going to answer it for her.

The woman before him had already grown visibly weak, and Xu Yuan no longer bothered to keep pretending he was drifting in and out of consciousness. The secret art inside him began operating at full force once more.

“No... don’t...” The seductive, sultry voice that had once sounded so enchanting now carried a trace of frightened pleading as Su Jinxuan instinctively tried to get up and flee.

Xu Yuan grabbed her wrist at once.

“L-let go of me...”

He really did let go, but not of his own volition. The mayfly-like spore particles clinging to the surface of his soul began pulsing again, seizing control of his body once more.

But the moment he released her, Su Jinxuan, who had just sat up, stopped moving altogether. She merely sat there blankly on top of him. Where could she even run now?

Xu Changtian had not lost consciousness. A powerful protector stood guard outside. How was she supposed to escape? Where could she possibly go? There was no road to heaven and no gate into the earth. Only despair.

Time passed, second by second.

Since his body had once again been taken over, Xu Yuan stopped paying attention to what was happening outside and focused fully on devouring and refining. And as he continued refining, he noticed that the spore particles clinging all around his soul were gradually beginning to fall away.

First hundreds, then thousands, and finally they dropped in batches of tens of thousands, until all of them had fallen away.

In the time it took to drink a cup of tea, not a single foreign thing remained on the surface of Xu Yuan’s soul.

Control of his body returned, and Xu Yuan slowly opened his eyes.

The woman on top of him had her eyes closed. Her cheeks were flushed with a sickly red, blood stained the corner of her lips, and she looked bewitching as a succubus.

Su Jinxuan had fainted.

Xu Yuan calmly sat up and shoved her body aside.

“Ying’er, come out.”

No one answered him.

Xu Yuan drew in a deep breath and barked, “Get out here! Didn’t you see this woman keep me under control for five whole days?!”

The window opened without a sound, and Ying’er appeared noiselessly inside Su Jinxuan’s room.

She was still dressed in that same black, skin-tight outfit. Standing by the bed, she glanced at Su Jinxuan lying beside Xu Yuan. After a brief silence, she spoke in her indifferent, hoarse voice. “Third Young Master, she has no cultivation.”

Xu Yuan took a deep breath, ready to use this chance to properly give Ying’er a piece of his mind.

“It was her soul.” A soft, feminine male voice suddenly rang out from Xu Yuan’s side.

Xu Yuan turned his eyes toward the speaker, only to see that at some point an effeminate-looking man had appeared less than a meter away from him. At that moment, the man had his eyes closed, as though quietly sensing something.

He frowned instinctively. In the fragment from his memory, this man had entered the room together with Ying’er. And yet, before he spoke, Xu Yuan had not noticed his presence at all. It was as though it was only natural for this man to be here.

Rewriting other people’s perception... Xu Yuan’s gaze sharpened slightly as he stared at the man.

Si Ziyu slowly opened his eyes, bowed to Xu Yuan, and said, “Si Ziyu greets Third Young Master.”

Xu Yuan gave a small nod.

Si Ziyu turned to Ying’er across from him. “The Third Young Master was indeed attacked. There is still a trace of soul aura lingering here.”

Hearing that, Ying’er’s eyes flickered for a moment. Somewhat hesitant, she said, “I already examined this woman. She is not a soul cultivator either.”

Si Ziyu nodded. “That is correct. This woman is merely an ordinary person.”

Their exchange made Xu Yuan’s frown deepen. An ordinary person?If not for his Innate Soul Physique, he would already have been brainwashed into becoming Su Jinxuan’s dog by now. And that counted as ordinary?

After those words, the room fell into a brief silence.

Knock, knock, knock... In the stillness, someone lightly tapped on the door, and Zhou Chen’s lazy voice drifted in from outside.

“Well now, if she has neither soul power nor source qi, then it has to be a physique talent. What is there to guess about?”

As he spoke, Zhou Chen pushed open the door. He stood there holding an unconscious woman in one hand. He walked into the room and casually tossed her onto the floor.

Xu Yuan swept his eyes over her and recognized her at once. It was Madam Moon of the Drunken Immortal Tower.

Noticing Xu Yuan’s gaze, Zhou Chen smiled, cupped his hands in salute, and said, “Third Young Master, I figured that after this was over, you would surely have me capture this woman, so I brought her in advance. I arrived a little late, so please forgive me.”

Hearing that, Xu Yuan thought for a moment and then realized Zhou Chen was already preparing to move against Mister Qin. He gave a slight nod. “You’ve done well.”

“It is Third Young Master who is wise.”

Xu Yuan cleared his throat softly. “Enough. What exactly did you mean just now by physique talent?”

Zhou Chen pondered briefly, his expression growing serious. “Third Young Master, do you still remember the Seven Life Python that Ran Qingmo killed?”

Xu Yuan’s eyelid twitched. “Yes, I remember.”

“The Seven Life Python’s ability to molt and be reborn seven times was its physique talent.” He paused, then glanced at the unconscious woman on the bed and lowered his voice. “The same principle applies when such a talent appears in humans. It has nothing to do with cultivation level. Take your Innate Dao Physique for example. Even before entering any formal rank, your soul could already leave your body.”