Mu Qiuhan pulled Su Hongyu close. As the woman leaned in, Mu Qiuhan precisely grabbed her neck.
“Su Hongyu,” she stared at the woman’s shimmering, watery eyes and warned word by word, “Don’t try to use your seduction arts on me again. If there’s a next time, you can scram back to your yao realm!”
After speaking, she released the woman, gave a gentle push forward, and turned to walk into Shang Ningye’s room.
Su Hongyu watched the door in front of her slam shut right before her eyes. She quickly stepped back to avoid being met with a face full of dust.
Her gaze fell on the tightly closed door. Her crimson nails dug into her flesh.
Mu Qiuhan entered the room and immediately saw the brocade box left on the table, still open.
Inside the box, the pair of crystal bracelets lay sparkling brightly, emitting a dazzling light, very eye-catching.
Seeing the bracelets made Mu Qiuhan feel extremely annoyed.
She went forward and slammed the lid of the box shut with a snap.
She activated a mechanism on the wall and stuffed the bracelets, along with the entire box, back into a hidden compartment in the wall.
Mu Qiuhan’s fingers fumbled around inside the hidden compartment.
A moment later, she took out a highly polished bronze mirror from a corner.
Mu Qiuhan formed a hand seal and simply set up a small magic formation at the four cardinal directions on the mirror’s surface.
Afterward, a somewhat blurry figure appeared on the bronze mirror.
The figure in the mirror was currently reaching out an arm towards a branch laden with fruit and bent low by their weight.
Shang Ningye stared blankly for a while at Mu Qiuhan’s retreating back as it gradually disappeared from sight.
After standing dumbfounded in place for some time, she remembered she was still holding a communication talisman. So, she directly tucked the jade talisman, which had become quite warm in her grip, into her robe.
Shang Ningye turned and walked towards her right front.
She was going to the oleaster forest.
With no one by her side, Shang Ningye seemed quite silent. She no longer looked at the surrounding scenery, only focusing on hurrying on her way.
The setting sun cast her shadow on the ground, stretching it long.
The oleaster forest Xuan Kong mentioned was indeed quite large.
Shang Ningye walked for about half an hour before she saw the first oleaster tree in that area.
The fruits were small and exquisite, only about the size of a fingertip, and were smooth yellow or reddish-brown.
Shang Ningye plucked one and put it in her mouth.
It tasted sweet, but the texture was mealy and sandy. Fitting, given that ‘sand’ was part of its original name.
It was the peak of the fruit harvest season. Shang Ningye didn’t take long to gather a large bagful in this area, enough fruit for several people to eat for several days.
She rested for a short while under the trees. Just as she was about to turn and head back, she saw Mu Qiuhan appear on the path she had come from.
Mu Qiuhan walked towards her.
A trace of pleasant surprise flashed through Shang Ningye’s heart. She calmly took two steps forward to meet her.
Mu Qiuhan quickly arrived in front of her.
Shang Ningye was just about to ask her why she had come back.
But she saw Mu Qiuhan looking at her intently and say, “You hate me for killing the people from the Taiqing Immortal Sect, don’t you?”
Shang Ningye was stunned upon hearing this.
This was the first time Mu Qiuhan had directly confronted her with this question.
For a moment, it was as if a silencing spell had been cast on her; she opened her mouth but couldn’t speak.
Mu Qiuhan’s brow was furrowed. She lightly bit her lower lip and took another step towards Shang Ningye.
Mu Qiuhan stared at her insistently, as if determined to get an answer from her.
Under that almost coercive gaze, Shang Ningye turned her head away, no longer looking at those eyes that were now shimmering with unshed tears.
A warm hand suddenly caressed her cheek.
The hand gently traced the contours of her face, then slid towards her jawline.
Shang Ningye heard Mu Qiuhan’s voice, like a sigh.
“You hate me, yet you can’t help but love me, can you?”
“I don’t…”
Shang Ningye wanted to deny it, but found that Mu Qiuhan had already cupped her entire face with both hands.
She forcibly turned her head to face her directly.
“You don’t? Does that mean you don’t hate me, or you don’t love me?”
Mu Qiuhan stared into her eyes, not allowing her to turn her head away again.
Shang Ningye could only close her eyes.
Mu Qiuhan suddenly kissed her, just like that.
“Do you not hate me, or not love me?”
She asked softly as she kissed her.
Shang Ningye didn’t pull away.
With her eyes closed, she could feel Mu Qiuhan kissing her meticulously, exactly like in the illusionary dream just now.
She gently traced her lips with the tip of her tongue, inch by inch.
Once she had thoroughly ‘painted’ those red lips from inside to out, stroke by stroke, she then began to trace her neck.
Shang Ningye soon became immersed in this long, lingering kiss.
Her hands, at some unknown point, had involuntarily wrapped around Mu Qiuhan’s body.
From Mu Qiuhan’s back to her waist, Shang Ningye’s hands roamed.
Mu Qiuhan seemed a little sensitive to such caresses and gently swayed her waist.
Shang Ningye felt Mu Qiuhan suddenly press down on her hand.
She grasped it, guiding it upwards, then forwards.
When her hand touched that exceptionally soft place, Shang Ningye’s hand trembled slightly.
She wanted to pull it back, but Mu Qiuhan pressed it down even more firmly.
“Haven’t you wanted this for a long time?”
She saw Mu Qiuhan’s collar slowly loosen.
At the same time, a magic artifact was flung out from her storage ring.
The moment the magic artifact landed, a courtyard appeared before them, identical to the one they lived in at the Demonic Palace.
It seemed to have been conjured by the magic artifact.
Mu Qiuhan continued to kiss her while leading her into the courtyard.
Their hair became entangled as they moved.
Mingled as one.
Shang Ningye’s breathing was unsteady.
In the vast space, it seemed as if only Mu Qiuhan’s and her voices remained.
She heard her own stumbling footsteps and their increasingly rapid breathing.
Then came the creaking sound of a door being pushed open.
When her body was thrown onto the bed, it made a soft thud. Then, she heard Mu Qiuhan’s soft moan from her throat as she leaned over her.
Mu Qiuhan’s breath sounded by her ear, bringing a wave of heat and moisture that washed over her face.
For a moment, Shang Ningye couldn’t tell whether the kiss was wetter, or if her own body was.
A certain spot in her dantian was burning fiercely.
A power that had been suppressed for many years was growing violently, as if about to break free from its cage.
Shang Ningye couldn’t help but let out a soft cry.
Mu Qiuhan took her ear between her lips, gently nibbling her ear cartilage and leaving a faint mark.
“Do you hate me?”
She asked in a breathy voice by her ear.
Shang Ningye wanted to answer “no,” but her throat and entire chest felt as if they were tightly gripped.
So, the words she wanted to say all turned into a soft moan.
The temperature in her dantian grew even hotter.
Shang Ningye felt something, along with her suppressed demonic power, overflowing from her body.
And then, her body began to move uncontrollably.
In Mu Qiuhan’s eyes, this scene was: Shang Ningye, ever since finishing picking those oleaster fruits, had been standing transfixed on the path back.
Nearly an hour had passed, and she hadn’t moved at all, as if she had entered a state of meditative trance.
Did she encounter a fortuitous opportunity?
What could her inner demon be?
Mu Qiuhan recalled the scene when they first entered the Tu Mi Mystic Realm.
Whatever the inner demon, it would create a corresponding illusionary realm.
The illusionary realm created by Shang Ningye’s inner demon… would it be related to her?
Mu Qiuhan quietly kept watch before the bronze mirror. Even though the mirror only reflected a figure standing like a puppet, she didn’t leave.
Just when she was starting to feel a little tired, the image in the bronze mirror suddenly changed.
Shang Ningye’s body began to blur.
For a moment, Mu Qiuhan thought the magic formation had loosened, so she quickly formed another hand seal and reinforced it.
In the blink of an eye, the figure in the mirror vanished.
In its place, a tall and straight tree appeared.
Its leaves were delicate; feathery compound leaves grew in opposite pairs.
The slender, graceful leaves quietly folded together amidst a tremor from the tree’s body, like a shy young maiden.
As the leaves folded, a profusion of flowers bloomed on the treetop.
Pink and white flowers intertwined. Slender filaments quivered gently like fine down, densely clustered into fluffy little balls that adorned the branches, a breathtakingly beautiful sight.
Mu Qiuhan had never seen Shang Ningye’s true form before.
While amazed by this beauty, her heart suddenly lurched.
What kind of illusionary realm could make her reveal her true form?
Mu Qiuhan practically flew out of the room.
She formed a hand seal and instantly vanished from the courtyard.
