The forms of Divine Souls within the Soul Abode are not fixed. At this moment, Liao Tingyan resembled a soft, fluffy white cloud, so she could only float about.
Sima Jiao's Divine Soul was withering away. Watching his soul-flower petals nearly all fallen, Liao Tingyan moved closer to try gathering the scattered 'petals'. She stretched her soul slightly to catch one falling fragment. As it landed on her cloud-like form, her mind went momentarily blank—it felt like an electric shock, a strange tingling sensation spreading through her.
Along with that petal came a wave of negative, world-weary emotions. Liao Tingyan suddenly felt as miserable as if she'd just watched a depressing movie.
She continued gathering the fragments. With each one she caught, that peculiar tingling sensation grew clearer. Though her Divine Soul was in another's Soul Abode, she could still perceive her physical body—she realized her limbs had gone weak, her legs shaky, with a slight headache coming on.
Probably side effects. Entering someone else's domain wasn't supposed to be easy.
But since she was already here...
She diligently collected most of the fragments. The remaining ones weren't left by choice—they had curled up like withered petals and dissipated. So she carried what she'd gathered upward, floating toward the center of the Soul Abode where a dimly glowing sphere pulsed. This luminous core was the essence of the Divine Soul—if it dissipated completely, even the soul itself would scatter beyond recovery.
Unsure how to reattach these soul fragments, Liao Tingyan decided to act like adhesive tape—wrapping the pieces around the core, hoping they might naturally reintegrate.
The moment she made contact, excruciating pain exploded in her mind.
Followed by terrifying tremors.
To be precise—it was both agonizing and exhilarating. The pain came from Sima Jiao's razor-sharp Divine Soul. Even without malicious intent, the unconscious hostility radiating from him affected Liao Tingyan's soul upon contact. This pain defied description—not the clean hurt of a stab wound, but more like the stinging aftermath of an overly vigorous scrub-down.
As for the exhilaration... that was even harder to explain.
In this state, realization suddenly struck Liao Tingyan.
As an ordinary mortal in this world, she'd never fully grasped certain concepts. When entering another's Soul Abode and seeing Divine Souls, she hadn't thought much of it. But now her body's reactions clearly indicated that her current actions could reasonably be called "Divine Soul Intertwining." A simpler term would be "Soul Communion." Or in even plainer terms—a cultivation-exclusive version of... Dual Cultivation.
...So immortal cultivators played at this advanced level? This actually exists?!
Liao Tingyan's emotions surged wildly. This turbulence lasted only until she barely managed to curse "Fuck—" before being utterly overwhelmed by intensely inappropriate pleasure, her memories dissolving into sensation.
As a formerly single office worker, Liao Tingyan had certainly read her share of erotic literature and watched adult videos—she'd just never encountered anyone she wanted to experiment with. While such materials made it seem incredibly pleasurable, friends and coworkers often complained reality fell short. As one older sister had put it: "Not even as good as using my own fingers."But now, she finally understood what it meant to have one's Divine Soul overturned. For a long time, she couldn’t remember who she was, where she was, or what she was supposed to do. She only felt entangled with another person, inseparable, sharing their emotions, sensations, and fragmented moods and memories—like a few grains of sand slipping through an hourglass.
It was as if she had been enveloped by something, possessing another body within that space, every inch of her skin imbued with the other’s presence...
In Divine Soul Intertwining, the one with lower cultivation would reach their limit more easily. Once that threshold was crossed, the Divine Soul would return to their own body.
Liao Tingyan slumped in the chair, her body still trembling with lingering aftershocks. Her face was flushed—not just her face, but her entire body was red. She gasped for breath, eyes wide open. Her legs were too weak to stand, her hands limp, unable to move even a finger. After barely recovering for a while, the slightest movement sent another wave of trembling through her.
She weakly raised a hand to cover her face, looking like a middle-aged person who had made a grave mistake, her expression filled with exhaustion and self-isolation.
"Damn! I freaking..."
"You freaking—"
"Ah—"
She didn’t even know how to describe this idiotic situation. She had delivered herself to his doorstep and then slept with Sima Jiao? Could this be considered sleeping together?
If he woke up, would he immediately obliterate her soul?
Scared out of her wits, Liao Tingyan didn’t hesitate to kick Sima Jiao in retaliation. He wasn’t awake anyway—he wouldn’t know. Might as well vent her anger first.
At this critical moment, the flame appeared with terrible timing, its tone excited: "See, I told you you could do it! His condition is much more stable now. Just a few more tries, and you’ll fix him!"
"A few more tries?" Liao Tingyan glared at the bratty flame with the most furious expression she had ever mustered. Just once had already felt like life and death—and now several more?
The flame, completely oblivious, continued, "Ah, he hasn’t recovered yet and can’t wake up, so of course you’ll need to go back in and help him. But I really didn’t expect you to be so capable. I thought barging in like that would damage your Divine Soul, but it seems not only are you unharmed, you’ve even benefited!"
Liao Tingyan: Which brat was it who swore up and down that this would absolutely work and be completely safe? Knew this guy couldn’t be trusted.
"Shut up, you brat!" Liao Tingyan snapped.
The flame wailed, "Wow, does Dual Cultivation with humans also transfer their bad temper?!"
A grumpy salted fish, online fire extinguisher. Liao Tingyan threw a soundproof barrier over it, then leaned on the chair to stand up before hobbling out while supporting herself against the wall, not sparing a single glance at the unconscious Sima Jiao. Couldn’t look—one look and she’d spiral into self-isolation again.
Liao Tingyan wallowed in isolation for an hour, took a bath, ate some food, drank tea, and set up a spot by the lake to gaze at the mountains and water. It was hard to stay depressed when one was too comfortable—human emotions struggled to stay gloomy under such conditions.
Honestly, it wasn’t that hard to accept. It had felt pretty damn good, after all. There was nothing wrong with adults having a little sex life. Right now, she even felt a transcendent clarity, the kind that came after a good time.
Alright, the only problem now was worrying whether Sima Jiao would be unhappy and unleash world-ending fury upon waking. But recalling the emotions she had sensed during the process, Liao Tingyan wasn’t as afraid anymore. She even felt a little inflated, wondering if Sima Jiao might actually like her.No, no, this is too presumptuous. One of life's three great illusions is "They must like me," and nine times out of ten, it's just wishful thinking.
The silly Black Snake was splashing around in the lake, completely unaware that its colleague was about to be promoted to the boss's wife. Liao Tingyan didn’t notice either.
After resting for a day, she was once again yelled at by the flame and drifted into Sima Jiao's Soul Abode. What else could she do? Could she really abandon him halfway after starting to save him? As the saying goes, in for a penny, in for a pound—it would be even more wasteful to give up now.
They say the first time is unfamiliar, the second time is familiar. Liao Tingyan floated to the edge of Sima Jiao's Soul Abode and entered as easily as before, as if she had a ticket. His Soul Abode looked slightly better than yesterday—the cracked, parched earth remained the same, and the flames were still there, though smaller. The scent of blood in the air had faded considerably, and the oppressive atmosphere had mostly dissipated. Most importantly, his Divine Soul was no longer withering.
Dual Cultivation really works wonders.
The state of one's Soul Abode reflects their mental and physical condition. A desolate, terrifying place like this was a direct representation of Sima Jiao's dire state. The pain Liao Tingyan felt was merely a fraction—one ten-thousandth—of what Sima Jiao endured, like filtered sand trickling down to her.
Before her second visit, Liao Tingyan had done her homework and learned a lot about this. She pressed herself against the glowing Divine Soul again, feeling the familiar sting, and couldn’t help but think: if someone had to endure pain a thousand times worse than this constantly, anyone would go mad. Yet Sima Jiao mostly just seemed gloomy and irritable, rarely showing any sign of suffering.
Was he used to it, or was he just good at hiding the pain?
Liao Tingyan: Oh no, I’m actually starting to feel a little pity for him. Snap out of it! This guy is at least five hundred years old, a literal ancestor who kills people as easily as drinking water!
But entwined with his Divine Soul like this, so intimately, as if they were one, she couldn’t muster any fear or other negative emotions—only a sense of peace and happiness.
When she woke up again, her whole body weak, Liao Tingyan tidied herself up and sat by the bed, staring at Sima Jiao for a long while.
She had never really looked closely at his face before; her impression of him had stayed frozen at their first meeting. Back then, watching the corpse of the girl beside her collapse, blood staining her dress and hands, she had broken out in a cold sweat. Later, seeing him kill more and more people, her fear of him had paradoxically lessened. And now, it seemed she wasn’t afraid of him at all.
Even if she thought he might fly into a rage upon waking, honestly, she couldn’t bring herself to feel nervous.
His hair was very black, soft to the touch—fine and silky, which didn’t quite match his personality. His features were actually quite handsome; calling him a pretty boy wasn’t wrong. But he was always in a bad mood, his aura so intimidating that people rarely noticed his face. His nose was high-bridged, his lips thin, their usual bright red now pale from blood loss—probably the only vivid color about him.
The flame had said it would take at least three sessions of fusion and recovery for him to wake up, so Liao Tingyan felt bold enough to study him closely—even touching his face.
His earlobes were unexpectedly plump and quite fun to pinch.
Liao Tingyan kept pinching them until she met Sima Jiao’s pitch-black, open eyes.She withdrew her hand and, with an utterly natural motion, pulled up the thin quilt she had just changed to cover his neck, wearing an expression that seemed to say, "This is hard to explain because I'm just a salted fish, okay?"
But in her heart, she was cursing the little troublemaker Flame by name—this guy was truly unreliable! And to think she had gone easy on him earlier, sparing him from too much watering just because his little milky voice was cute!
Sima Jiao sat up, the thin quilt slipping off to reveal his pale chest. The moment this man opened his eyes, no matter how weak his body was, he never seemed like an invalid—as if he could rise at any moment and go on another killing spree. He reached out toward Liao Tingyan, his expression betraying no anger.
Liao Tingyan silently placed her hand in his. At this moment, she sincerely wished she were still an otter, spared from facing such a battlefield of emotions.
Sima Jiao grasped her hand and pulled her to the bedside. Then, he wrapped his arms around her and lay down, one hand stroking her hair while the other held her waist. They lay quietly for a long while without any movement, his usual air of perpetual displeasure gone, replaced by a tranquility she had never seen before.
Liao Tingyan: I have this weird illusion that we might be about to start dating.
After holding her for a while, Sima Jiao pressed his forehead against hers. His dark eyes were unusually close, and when they met hers, they seemed to form a whirlpool. Liao Tingyan’s consciousness grew hazy, and before she knew it, her Soul Abode had been breached.
Their auras had mingled before, their Divine Souls familiar with each other, so her Soul Abode offered little resistance, opening like two attracted spheres pressing together and merging.
The sensation, far more intense than the previous two times, nearly robbed Liao Tingyan of all awareness in an instant.
Before she lost consciousness, she felt icy fingers lightly pinch the back of her neck, sending shivers through her entire body. Sima Jiao’s voice murmured in her ear, "What you were doing earlier— this is Soul Communion."
Liao Tingyan: Damn it!
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