The problem wasn’t unsolvable.

It was merely unique. So, the solution would have to be unique too.

Or crazy, but Yung leaned more towards keeping his ethics.

Right now, trying to get to know his existing cultivation base one atom at a time was merely brute-forcing the issue. Of course, depending on whom you asked, it could possibly be the most orthodox method of all, unique in its own boring way.

Such slow grind would create the most intimate knowledge of oneself, perhaps creating a foundation that was so stable it would make many of the future bottlenecks merely an afterthought.

Yung didn’t have time.

There were too many things he wanted to do. He needed to do.

The void cult, his parents and grandparents. This strange itch he had to overturn the archaic morality of this world with the superior morality—and Yung truly believed this—of the 21st-century Earth.

But he needed strength to do it.

With the strength of economics which was Nyanya’s golden thigh, he could scratch part of that itch.

However ultimately, this world was ruled by the power of the fist.

So he needed to be stronger.

Unfolding Heavens for sure, gradually maybe even reach for the Harmonious Heavens.

But as things stood now, he had royally screwed up his foundation, and such dreams were merely dead rodents in a pipe.

This exactly was what Nanya was talking about when she forced him to enter the cave with her.

Yung was effing weak.

He was the stereotypical ‘higher levelled cultivator’ that would serve as a foil for the lower levelled protagonist. He’d be defeated with their mighty sword essence this and demonic fist that, which the protagonists had gained after going through ‘unimaginable pain’, whilst Yung grew fat from good food and good woman.

This cruel world, the suitors that wanted Su Nanya’s hand, her own Su Fox clan, and immortality itself.

Everything was skewed towards strength.

And Yung had none of it.

So what should he do?

“Shortcuts all the way!” Yung took out a towel and tied it across his forehead. The meditation room was not too cold despite the spring, and not too warm despite the blanket. His ring was full of food and drinks, each rich with the natural qi, more suited for spirit qi cultivation but which could also aide his heart qi base ever so slightly.

He would first go through all the books and scrolls he already had, prepared from the Youjin Clan’s book stores and archives after he had returned to the city.

There were nearly five dozen.

And Yung believed he had ample experience cramming, lying in the hospital bed all day while he was Jung and going through media after media.

In the meantime, he would slowly cultivate the orthodox way too, or rather ‘review’ the cultivation base he already had according to the Foxfire Creek Heart Sutra. He was going to practice until his control in channelling true qi, and by extension his faith qi, reached perfection!

…or at least until it was good enough, up to a standard mentioned in the heart sutra slip.

Working hard while reading books to come up with a way to work smart, that was Yung’s way!

And the uncontrollable lust he felt for his girlfriend every second he was away from her would not stop him!

***

“And then, you tried to seduce him to bed?” The matriarch asked.

She sipped her tea with one hand while the other lightly massaged her temple.

Her long eye-lashes fluttered, eyes closed and the corner of her lips turned downward.

She sat with her foolish daughter on top of a floating artefact, a flying pavilion that perched atop the astral plane. It was one of her clan’s harmonious heaven epic class treasures.

The Celestial Winds Pavilion of the Third Foxen Sage.

It was the place where the nine presiding elders of the main line of the clan held their meetings.

But more commonly, it was known as the Gossiping Gazebo.

She, her cousin sisters of the clan, and her in-law sisters too would often hold grand meetings here to set future rules for the household.

Meetings concerning important matters such as, but not limited to,

What foolishness their husbands have been up to.

What new wonders their sons would find in a forgotten lost plane.

And how many hearts their daughters would have broken by the time the meeting would end.

The gazebo would usually be perched in the astral winds above the mortal plane near the Revival Sword Tower, their home base.

But two of her sister-cousins were in closed-door cultivation. One was trying to sire a vixen, all her three children being tods until now and at this rate, she would have no heiress to pamper. The other three were adventuring in the various continents and recovered lost planes, searching for this one fish that would prolong the life of one of the main line’s grand elders.

Her generation only had two in-law sisters; there weren’t many tods of her generation unlike Su Nanya’s. They each had important household duties, administering the Su Fox Clan and the Revival Sword Tower’s various logistics in her stead.

The Matriarch had zero duties other than being the strongest on the plane.

So she temporarily moved the Gossiping Gazebo into the astral plane near Dim Gold City.

Otherwise, her foolish daughter would ruin everything!

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Like how she used some loopholes to show her little lover kid the Su Clan’s deepest darkest most deplorable secret.

If the other equivalent powers got wind of what they were doing, they would gang up on them like ugly bandits on a fair maiden.

The Su Matriarch sighed.

“There there,” She hugged and patted the small golden fox on her lap. The little vixen cried so pitifully, “It’s all that Ziyou Yung’s fault. Shall mommy send him away?”

“Mother dearest, do not jest. We try to consummate our love, but we fear that our servant merely wishes to consummate his philosophy of love through us!” Nanya whined. “We need solutions, not heartbreaks. We shan’t be his foil without equal satisfaction in return.”

“Is there anything wrong with that, daughter of mine?” The matriarch said. “To take events at a slow pace is to be thoughtful, to be careful. Let your little lover brood until the time is ripe.”

“Mother… it irks us that you refer to him as our little lover.”

“… are you still going with denial?”

“He is quite big!” Nanya said proudly. “Perhaps one point three eight times the average length of most mainland boys, according to the books. Slightly curved like a tropical fruit but such is his uniqueness.”

“What books?” The matriarch’s eyes darkened.

Nanya froze. The Matriarch increased the pressure of her pat on Nyanya’s forehead. “B-Books that w-we have lost whilst Su Xiya was struck down, okay? What matters now is our wish to bed him. Now, please, give me ideas, won’t you?”

That was the most pathetic attempt at changing the topic the matriarch had seen in her life. The tiles of the gazebo rattled in mock laughter. There was a suspicion that this artefact had a habit of gossiping about whatever was discussed here with other artefacts, but after thousands of years, no one had definite proof.

No good artefact was a bad snitch.

The matriarch looked up and glared. The tiles stopped rattling.

“My daughter, I know you don’t want to hear this from me, but have you really thought your choice of a mate through? Truly?” She said, “No matter how talented you are in other areas, losing your cardinal physique for such rash lust… is it worth it? Your mother had one such love too you know? Long before we had met your father. Such handsome a being he was, such playful our walks. Yet it was but a teenage dream, a momentary spike of alchemical liquids in our physique. We had enough restrain to protect our maidenhood from his insistent advances, and later when I had learnt that he was a married man, enough restrain not to purge his clan of grass-eating mud-stomping bastards! Never trust horse yao you hear me!?”

Nanya hopped off from the matriarch’s lap and landed on the small table. Her tail thumped angrily on the surface, “Mother! You promised to approve of him!”

“And I shall. That does not change the point that it is such a heaven-angering waste.” The matriarch lamented.

“… are you saying that for we are insistent on plucking our Yung’s boyhood, that makes us a grass eating mud stomping horse yao?” Nanya glared cutely at her mother.

The matriarch rolled her eyes without decorum. She had indeed promised that she would approve of the boy, and Ziyou Yung’s choices, despite his awesome lack of ambition and selfish justification of cowardice, were admirable.

She would not force him to go through the gauntlet of foxfire for her daughter’s hand.

But only hand!

As scandalous as it might be, loving physical contact such a palm on palm could be permitted. Even whatever it was that Nanya had done under the blankets, as long as the final yin was protected from penetration, the matriarch would only sigh at their scandalous lack of self-control and nothing more. But to actually ruin parts of her daughter’s infinite future with his weak-willed mindset and nigh-impotent yang?

The matriarch could not say yes to that.

Su Nanya was the main will of her daughter now. The others had long since retreated after the fall of Su Xiya.

This dumb vixen was the manifestation of the Su Yinzhen’s Yin Essence, of her vixen ability to shapeshift and love.

When Su Yinzhen had fractured willingly, her Cardinal physique, the Jade Empress Nine by Nine Yin Meridians had also split apart.

Su Nanya’s Ordinal physique, her Nine Heavens Immaculate Lady was the most important split of that Cardinal physique.

Anything that transpired with this Ordinal physique would feed back upstream to the Cardinal.

And therein lay the problem.

Among the Extreme Yin Physiques, the Jade Empress Nine by Nine Yin Meridians Physique was unquestionably the most supreme to appear in the history of this mortal plane and even the few divine planes recorded on clan scrolls, and it was of a type that was called a ‘Pure Yin Physique.’

In other words, she had to keep her yin ‘pure’ to get the full benefits of such essence qi body cultivation.

Remain a maiden, be the ultimate virgin!

There were exceptions of course. The Pure Yin type Physiques could still dual cultivate, as long as the dao companion was of an Extreme Yang type Physique.

The matriarch and her clan had searched far and wide for a man of Pure Yang, who would give the most benefit to her daughter.

It seems in this generation and even the previous, there were none.

So she had engaged Su Nanya to the son of her departed sworn sister, a man of Extreme Yang, the Sun Daochild.

...that had not gone well. The matriarch had to admit; she had been negligent.

Right now, if Su Nanya were to bed Ziyou Yung, her primordial yin would no longer be 'Pure'.

That wasn't a problem for the Nine Heavens Immaculate Lady physique. It was a physique that was often called the best physique a concubine could have, alongside the Nine Heavens Dark Lady physique which was the best physique for a courtesan.

The more they did the deed, the more their cultivation would grow.

For the Dark Lady, they would drain the yang of the men, leaving them broken and crippled while gaining a speed of cultivation that was astounding.

For the Immaculate Lady, she could 'cultivate' with both her 'husband master' and 'concubine sisters' to create a virtuous loop within the harem. Everyone would benefit.

Indeed the best physique a lady in a harem could have! That's why so many supreme emperors and male powerhouses from all over the plane, even those older than the matriarch herself and heirs of clans that had secluded themselves for millenniums, had plotted and schemed and murdered and manipulated, begged bribed threatened and warred to force Su Nanya and the Su Fox Clan itself to bend at the hips.

It was the same reason why even though the Sun Daochild had erred, the Su Clan Elders and the Matriarch herself didn't mind too much. After all, what could matter more than strength? The harem would be Su Nanya's as much as it was the Daochild's. And since she would only cultivate with the 'yin' of her sisters, and the Extreme Yang of her 'husband master', the Pure Yin of Su Yinzhen upstream (who could not take part in such cultivation for the time being), the sanctity of the Jade Empress Nine by Nine Yin Meridians Physique would remain untainted.

If Su Nanya bedded Ziyou Yung, while the Nine Heavens Immaculate Lady Physique would not suffer much, at most the efficiency of cultivation would not be as good as against an Extreme Yang's, the Jade Empress Nine by Nine Yin Meridians Physique would be completely tarnished.

Stained.

Ruined.

Cast aside like a dirty sock.

The Su Matriarch could not accept that.

“Foolish daughter, the reason why you wish to bed him so impatiently is to bind him with a debt of obligation. 'Look, my love, how much we have sacrificed for you!' Ziyou Yung would feel guilty when you explain to him your physiques and how your love had ruined them. Knowing his strange obsession with mortal ethics, he would not dare to stray.” The matriarch mercilessly revealed Nanya’s innermost thoughts.

The small vixen flinched with an adorable eung.

“You are afraid. You messed up fantastically with your little ploy, and now your one point three eight times the average length lover refuses to even kiss your lips.”

The vixen flinched even more cutely.

“Have you not anything to say?” The matriarch asked with kind eyes.

“… we felt so bad.” Nanya confessed. “We thought we shan't care if our servant is distressed. After all, our devious plans are an ends to further our loving means. But when the peasants had died, he had anguished. It… hurt. So bad. We wish not to repeat that, but we don’t know how.”

“Daughter, forcing your servant in a debt of affection is not the way.” The matriarch said. “Tell me honestly, you don’t really care about the lives of the peasants, do you? Your Yung’s friends and comrades.”

“They are a bother!” Nanya said, “Especially that waitmaiden.” The hatred in her voice was honestly refreshing.

“But you can't let them die because you don’t want your Yung to anguish.” The matriarch continued with a nod. “You are babysitting your Yung. He is a teenager nearing adulthood. Yes, to you, he is but a babe in age. But his mind is mature. You smother him with love and protection, letting not even a mosquito land on his cheeks despite claiming that you wish for him to open his eyes to the true maxim of the dog eat dog world of cultivation. Is that not hypocritical?”

Su Nanya flinched again.

The Su matriarch decided to be honest. After thinking it through, she admitted she had not been very motherly in the past, neglecting Su Yinzhen too much during her most important formative years.

So what if her daughter lost her Pure Yin? The clan had enough foundations to raise her to the pinnacle even with a handicap. And it's not like the Jade Empress Nine by Nine Yin Meridians Physique could not be evolved laterally into an equally strong but less purity-focused Extreme Yin Physique.

What mattered now, was her daughter’s happiness. So she could not let Ziyou Yung die, nor be weak, either in power or in will. So she said with a conspiratorial glint in her eyes, “Fine, bed him. But let us test him too.”

“Mother…”

The Su Matriarch cut her daughter off, “You shall need an honest, objective auditor. We shall act as the heavens, and guarantee his life.” She said with a grin, “Leave everything to mommy!”