Zhao Yanran stood at the doorway, moonlight spilling over her, casting a faint silver glow across her figure.
She glanced back at Chen Yang, her eyes swirling with emotions too tangled to read. She seemed to want to say something, but in the end only let out a soft sigh and turned to leave.
The moment she lifted her foot to step away, her body suddenly shuddered violently, and she stumbled, nearly falling.
Chen Yang instinctively reached out to steady her — and froze the instant his hand touched her arm.
Zhao Yanran's skin was burning with an alarming heat, and beneath the surface, faint crimson lines writhed and crawled like living things.
"What's wrong?" Chen Yang quickly caught her, noticing her ragged breathing and the fine beads of sweat seeping across her brow.
Zhao Yanran steadied herself with effort, her voice weak. "It's... it's nothing. The residual Passion Gu poison hasn't fully cleared — it flares up sometimes..."
Before she could finish, a small silver bell hanging at her waist began to ring on its own, without any wind, releasing a rapid, clear chime.
In the stillness of the night, that ringing was jarringly sharp.
As if urgently summoning something.
In no more than a short while, a figure came streaking from the distance at breathtaking speed, leaving only a trail of afterimages.
It was Senior Brother Yang — Yang Tianming.
His expression was cold and severe. One glance told him everything about Zhao Yanran's condition.
"The Passion Gu is acting up again?" He pulled Zhao Yanran away from Chen Yang's arms in one swift motion, his tone sharp. "Didn't I tell you to keep your mind calm during this period and avoid any emotional turbulence?"
Zhao Yanran slumped limply against his shoulder, her face flushed, her breathing growing more ragged by the second, unable to speak.
Yang Tianming cast Chen Yang a cold, blade-like glare. "What did you say to her this time?"
Without waiting for an answer, he scooped Zhao Yanran up in his arms and strode toward Chen Yang's modest sleeping quarters.
He kicked the door open and laid Zhao Yanran down on the plain wooden bed, then turned to bark at Chen Yang: "Get out! I need to purge the poison from Yanran."
Chen Yang stood his ground, fists clenched tight. "She is my wife. Why can't I—"
"Your wife?" Yang Tianming let out a contemptuous laugh and swept his sleeve, sending a surge of powerful spiritual energy crashing outward. "A mere laborer dares to say such a thing?"
Chen Yang felt a tremendous force slam into his chest. He was hurled backward without any control over his own body and crashed hard into the muddy ground of the courtyard.
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The door slammed shut before him with a resounding bang, and a soundproofing restriction was immediately placed upon it — crude as it was, it was more than enough to block the prying senses of a cultivator at the first level of the Qi Refinement Realm.
Chen Yang struggled to his feet, a dull ache throbbing through his chest.
The gap between the seventh level of the Qi Refinement Realm and the first level of the Qi Refinement Realm was laid bare in that single moment.
One casual flick of the other man's sleeve, and Chen Yang had been utterly powerless to resist.
He stood in the courtyard, staring at the tightly shut door. Though he could hear nothing from within, he could see silhouettes shifting and swaying against the paper window.
That helpless, humiliating feeling surged up inside him again — more overwhelming than it had ever been.
Suddenly, a loud crash came from inside the room, like the sound of a wooden bed collapsing.
Chen Yang's heart lurched. He couldn't stop himself from pressing close to the window and peering through the gap.
The wooden bed he had slept on for months had been shattered to pieces. Zhao Yanran was pinned beneath Yang Tianming on the remaining planks, both of them disheveled, his hands roaming across her body.
Zhao Yanran's face was flushed, her eyes glazed and unfocused — an expression caught somewhere between agony and pleasure — and soft, broken murmurs escaped her lips.
Chen Yang stumbled back a step, his heart twisting as if cut by a blade.
He crouched down and pressed both hands hard over his ears, refusing to hear another sound.
But the soundproofing restriction was imperfect. Fragments of noise still seeped through, burrowing into his ears — each tiny sound like a slow, agonizing cut into his heart.
Time crawled by. Every moment was torment.
Chen Yang crouched in the courtyard with his head buried between his knees, his body trembling uncontrollably.
He hated his own powerlessness. He hated this cruel world. And he hated, most of all, the woman who had once sworn undying vows to him — and was now tangled with another man on his bed.
He did not know how much time had passed before the door finally creaked open.
Chen Yang raised his head. Yang Tianming walked out first, his clothes slightly rumpled, his expression one of unmistakable satisfaction.
Zhao Yanran followed behind him, her cheeks still tinged with red, her long hair somewhat disheveled. Though she had straightened her clothes, the disarray of moments before was still plain to see.
Most striking of all was the slightly awkward way she walked, and the several vivid red marks visible on her neck.
Yang Tianming glanced at Chen Yang, a mocking smile playing at the corner of his mouth — the look of a man regarding an insignificant insect.
He reached out and wrapped his arm around Zhao Yanran's waist, then deliberately pressed a kiss to her forehead right in front of Chen Yang. "The Passion Gu has been suppressed for now, but it will need a few more treatments to stabilize. I'll come to your quarters tonight."
Zhao Yanran gave a small nod. When her gaze swept past Chen Yang, she quickly looked away, as though she couldn't bring herself to meet his eyes.
Chen Yang opened his mouth, wanting to say something — but found his throat dry and hollow, incapable of producing a single sound.
He watched Zhao Yanran nestle against Yang Tianming as the two walked away side by side, not sparing him so much as another glance.
The moonlight stretched their shadows long across the ground, and they gradually vanished at the far end of the path through the medicine garden.
Chen Yang stood alone in the courtyard, staring at the door that still hung open. The room inside was a wreck — the wooden bed he had slept on for months was now nothing but splinters scattered across the floor.
A strange scent still lingered in the air, a mingling of the sachet fragrance Zhao Yanran always wore and an unfamiliar musk.
He walked slowly into the room. His foot caught on something; he looked down — it was the sachet Zhao Yanran always kept at her waist, apparently dropped in the chaos of earlier.
Chen Yang bent down and picked up the sachet, his fingertips trembling faintly.
It still held her warmth and her scent — but it was tainted now with someone else's presence.
From outside the window, the distant toll of a bell drifted in — the bell calling Verdant Wood Sect disciples to their evening lesson, long and solemn, as if reminding him of the distance between himself and that world.