Liu Yiyi walked out of Chen Yang's quarters, her heart still tangled with the doubts stirred by what she had just seen and heard.
Chen Yang's pained and humiliated gaze, the wreckage inside the room, and that unmistakable scent of carnal desire.
None of it looked like the aftermath of a willing, mutual encounter.
Just as she walked with her head bowed in thought, a slight figure came rushing over from the direction of the medicine garden — it was Xiaodouzi, who often worked next door to Chen Yang.
"Sister Liu!" Xiaodouzi skidded to a breathless stop in front of Liu Yiyi, his face etched with anxiety. "Did — did you just come from Senior Brother Chen's place? How is he?"
Liu Yiyi blinked in mild surprise. "What do you mean, how is he? Did something happen last night?"
Xiaodouzi stamped his foot and lowered his voice. "This morning, before dawn even broke, I was woken up by a commotion. I snuck a peek, and — you wouldn't believe it! Senior Brother Yang was carrying Senior Sister Zhao out of Senior Brother Chen's room, the two of them all over each other... and Senior Sister Zhao's clothes were a complete mess!"
Liu Yiyi understood at once, and her heart sank. "You mean... the ones in Senior Brother Chen's room last night were..."
"Senior Sister Zhao and Senior Brother Yang, of course!" Xiaodouzi said indignantly. "The whole laborer quarters are talking about it! Senior Brother Yang always uses his status as an inner disciple to make trouble for Senior Brother Chen. But this time he went too far — he actually, actually went and did that with Senior Sister Zhao right there in Senior Brother Chen's own bed..."
Xiaodouzi couldn't bring himself to finish, but Liu Yiyi already understood everything.
She thought back to Chen Yang's anguished expression just now, the collapsed wooden bed, and that thick, mingled scent of a man and woman's desire.
It had been no willing encounter at all — it was a naked act of humiliation.
"Senior Brother Chen is so pitiful," Xiaodouzi sighed. "Senior Sister Zhao used to be his wife, and now she's someone else's cultivation partner — and they brought it right into his own bed. Anyone would break under that."
Liu Yiyi stood rooted to the spot as a wave of bitterness welled up inside her.
She suddenly thought of her days at Spring Crimson House — the patrons she had once cared for with genuine warmth, the men she had naively believed would rescue her from that life. Without exception, every last one of them had grown tired of her and cast her aside, turning to embrace someone new without a second thought.
The feeling of being treated as a plaything, of being looked down upon and trampled — she knew it all too well.
"I understand," Liu Yiyi said softly to Xiaodouzi. "Thank you for telling me."
She turned and walked back toward Chen Yang's quarters, her steps heavier than before.
This time she did not knock. She simply pushed the door open and went in.
Chen Yang was still sitting where she had left him, his face buried between his knees, like a statue frozen in time.
At the sound of the door, he slowly raised his head. His eyes were bloodshot, his expression blank and lost.
"Miss Liu?" His voice was so hoarse it was barely audible. "Is there something else?"
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Liu Yiyi did not answer. She walked up to him and crouched down until they were eye to eye.
Her gaze held no pity, no curiosity — only a deep and quiet understanding.
"Senior Brother Chen," she began softly, her voice gentle yet steady. "I... I know everything now."
Chen Yang's body visibly stiffened. Shame and pain flickered through his eyes. "Know what?"
"About what Senior Sister Zhao and Senior Brother Yang did here last night." Liu Yiyi held his gaze. "About how they humiliated you."
Chen Yang wrenched his face away, his voice tight with suppressed fury. "That's none of your concern."
"I know what that feeling is like." Liu Yiyi's voice remained calm. "When I was at Spring Crimson House, I once truly cared for a patron. He promised he would buy out my contract and take me as his wife. I believed him — I even gave him all the savings I had scraped together over the years."
Chen Yang gave a slight start and turned to look at her.
Liu Yiyi smiled bitterly and continued. "And what happened? He took my money and vanished for three months. When he reappeared, there was another girl on his arm. That very night he still came to request my company, and he even praised his new favorite to my face, listing her every virtue."
Her voice trembled faintly. "In that moment I finally understood — in his eyes, I would always be nothing more than a lowly courtesan, to be tossed away the moment he grew bored. All those vows and promises were nothing but idle words he had spoken on a whim."
A brief silence fell over the room.
Chen Yang looked at Liu Yiyi, and the wariness in his eyes slowly dissolved, replaced by a shared, sorrowful understanding.
"We are the same kind of people," Liu Yiyi said quietly. "Abandoned, looked down upon, treated as something that can be trampled at will."
She reached out and gently draped her arm around Chen Yang's shoulders.
There was nothing ambiguous in the gesture — it was pure comfort, pure understanding.
Chen Yang's body was rigid as stone at first, but within Liu Yiyi's gentle embrace he gradually relaxed.
The humiliation and pain that had been pressing down on him for so many days and nights seemed, in this moment, to find an outlet at last.
He said nothing, but his shoulders trembled ever so slightly.
Liu Yiyi held him quietly, just as she had once so desperately wished someone would hold and comfort her when she herself had been cast aside.
After about thirty minutes, Chen Yang slowly raised his head. Though pain still lingered in his eyes, a measure of calm had returned to them.
"Thank you, Miss Liu," he said softly, his voice no longer quite so rough.
Liu Yiyi released him and offered a small smile. "If Senior Brother Chen doesn't mind, you're welcome to come talk with me anytime from now on. I know what it's like to have no one to confide in."
She paused, as though steeling herself for something, and her voice dropped a little. "And if... if Senior Brother Chen ever wants something more from me, that would be all right too. I may no longer be a woman of the pleasure quarters, but... I do know how to help someone forget their pain for a while."
Chen Yang shook his head firmly. "No. I would never treat Miss Liu that way."
A flicker of sadness passed through Liu Yiyi's eyes. "Does Senior Brother Chen look down on me because of where I came from? Does he think me dirty and lowly?"
"Absolutely not!" Chen Yang denied it at once, his expression earnest. "In my eyes, what makes a person worthy is the goodness and character of their heart — not their origins or their past. Miss Liu, you are hardworking and kind. I have seen that clearly these past days. You are far purer than many of the so-called 'noble' people I have ever met."
Liu Yiyi stared at him, and her eyes slowly grew bright with unshed tears.
In all her days at the Verdant Wood Sect, though she had left the life of the pleasure quarters behind, her status as a laborer had still earned her nothing but cold looks and scorn.
No one had ever said such words to her. No one had ever truly seen the worth within her.
"Senior Brother Chen..." Her voice caught in her throat, and for a moment she could find no words.
The two of them looked at each other in silence, and a wordless understanding seemed to drift between them in the air.
Liu Yiyi wiped the corner of her eye and said suddenly, "If Senior Brother Chen doesn't mind, I would like to take you as my sworn elder brother. I have been alone since I was small — I have never had any siblings."
Chen Yang was briefly taken aback, then warmth rose in his eyes. "I have no siblings either. To have a sworn younger sister like Miss Liu would be my great fortune."
"Then from this day forward, I'll call you Senior Brother Chen," Liu Yiyi said, her tears giving way to a smile — a smile that shone especially bright in the morning light.
"Yiyi, little sister." Chen Yang, too, allowed himself a rare, genuine smile.
Sunlight streamed in through the doorway, stretching their shadows long across the floor, intertwining them together.
In this cold and indifferent cultivation sect, two souls who had been scorned and wounded had at last found a small, warm place to lean on.