“W-What?” Ling paled, standing up and looking around in a panic, “H-Hey you can’t say that! What if the scary fox maid is eavesdropping!”

“Don’t worry. I locked the door. And I’m whispering.” Xiu Jiujiu enthusiastically fist pumped.

“…that won’t do much against cultivators.”

“You don’t want to gossip?” The waitmaiden asked with a cute tilt of her head.

Ling’s eyes went wide. She sat down beside the girl and pressed up against her, “E-Explain yourself.”

“I mean, look at her breasts. So humongous, they must be heavy right? Always bouncing around when she climbs the stairs.” Xiu Jiujiu continued her blasphemous words, “Since she walks everywhere with nothing but thin ribbons covering her nipples and lower ladybits, I can sometimes see tiny belly folds on her sides when she leans forward. And her butt is even larger than a cow’s. She looks like a gourd, right? I wouldn’t want that.”

Ling gasped. Truly speechless. But she did not want Xiu Jiujiu to stop.

“Fairy Su is so fat. And all men desire her because she likes being naked. Any woman can do that, right? I think no one really likes her, and only wants to bed her or use her because she is rich and insecure. I only want one man to like me. To love me. And being fat isn’t good for your health. My father told me that fat restaurant owners die faster.” Xiu Jiujiu said with the most innocent smile in the world.

Ling laughed. She just made her new best friend.

***

The first thing Yung saw after walking past a disgruntled Su Yafeng was Su Nanya, biting the pink heart ring with her canine fangs. It was strange, since she was still in her yao form. But her ballooned-up cheeks looked sexy.

"What are you doing?" Yung asked.

"Kii!" Silky explained. What a helpful child.

"Nanya, please don't break my best method of self-defense."

"Then get stronger, oh weak, cowardly, wretched little boy!" She spat the ring out. It was all slimy, and some of the pink colour had been replaced by gold. But somehow it looked even more garish now. "What an ugly artefact. What a corrupt method of love." The vixen said, wiping the saliva from her lips.

I really need to have a good talk with Nyanya about the science of sexuality… But one thing at a time. Need to soften her up to be more receptive to radical ideas. ….hehehe, soften her up. Yung you giant pervert.

As Yung stared at her with evil thoughts in his mind, Nyanya averted her gaze with a nervous blush.

"C-Certainly nothing one such ethical as we would ever condone. Tut, men laying with men. What utter evil! Such demonic writings!"

Huh? Why did she specify that?

Yung covered his mouth with his hand and pretended to yawn. He didn't want the vixen to think that he was making fun of her.

Su Nanya glared at Yung, "Speak."

Yung sat down on the bed next to her and scooted closer, "You said you figured out how I could... castrate three thugs with one spear throw. Even though I've never practised with a spear before."

Su Nanya nodded, "We certainly have, oh illiterate… b-o-y-f-r-i-e-n-d."

Yung was taken aback.

"What?" Su Nanya asked.

"No. I love it that you're finally acknowledge me as your boyfriend!" He gave her a tight hug.

"It is but us granting you our generosity as your girlfriend." Su Nanya said, "Essence qi cultivation partner is a mouthful to utter each time we define our sublime relation."

Yung grinned, “I’ll give you a mouthful!” And so he did as a wise man once said, French kisses in the morning were better than French toast!

"I-It was a 'miracle,' or so we think." Su Nanya said, leaning against Yung’s chest, steaming warmly like a freshly baked pudding, "When the heartfelt prayers of a divine cultivator align with that of his worshippers, when this confluence of life-and-death emotions call to the sublime Heart qi, it will miraculously change the world to make the divine cultivator's wishes come true. A numinous art that most divine and devil cultivators learn to grasp. Although for the devils, it’s a blasphemous art: they call it a ‘malediction’."

"So you're saying, I used my Heart qi to grant Wang Gangbao's strong wish to save his family?"

"Perhaps. Or you granted your own wish to not see a tragedy. You must master this, for we shall not court with a weak man for too long. Are we understood?"

"Loud and clear," Yung said, reaching his hands down Su Nanya's fluffy waist. The vixen had the perfect hourglass body. She was the amalgamation of all the best parts of all Instagram models and Playboy bunnies. It was as though her body was hand crafted by a Tantric goddess to be the most sexually desirable being around.

Su Nanya had blushed at the strange praise and confessed that her extreme yin-type Essence qi physique moulded her body to be carnally attractive to the most number of yang men under the heavens. Just the right amount of muscle, and just the right amount of fat at just the right places. According to her, the women of this world dreaded even a small bit of extra plumpness and did their very best to be 'thin.' Using tight bandages to tie their breasts, ropes to shape their waist, and corset-like wearings to artificially accentuate their figure. So panicked in their quest to appear 'slim' and 'fine' to others, so afraid of the toxic criticism of poison-tongued women peers, that they were blind to what really excited men in erotic ways.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Su Nanya had a marshmallow body of all perfections. Soft, supple, sporty, and sexy. And only Yung could enjoy it.

"Stay your hand!" The vixen slapped Yung's slimy hand away.

Not today then, Yung sighed. But he would not wait passively. He planted another long, deep kiss on those blood-red lips as Su Nanya pretended to fume.

The vixen moaned, her body squirming in Yung's embrace. Yung brought her lips down, kissing her lovely nape, then her shoulder. If it was a normal day of ‘cuddlivation’, he would lick and suck his way down to her cleavage, and Su Nanya would blush and giggle like a tickled kitty, before they would both undress and she’d return the favour.

Not today!

Yung stood up and stretched. Su Nanya gazed up in confusion.

"I have to meet the Flareful Empress about Xiu Jiujiu. She offered ten storage rings full of Unfolding Heaven 1st grade Essence qi treasures and I think I can dupe her into signing a document."

"W-What?"

"Bye! Love you." Yung walked out of the room with a smile.

The definition of insanity was to attempt a failed approach over and over, and expecting the results to change. He didn't like to play games, but perhaps in this case, Su Nanya needed to make the first move to get to the next base.

***

Nanya was left with a deeply confused heart. The silk wrap embracing her lotus gate was wet, and her face was flushed with shame and embarrassment as saliva trickled down her lips and moistened her heaving breasts mad with fury.

"What..."

He left! He up and left, that insolent, ugly commoner! And we were going to—

"Uwaaa!" Su Nanya cried. Actually cried, her eyes squinting with big pearls of tears gushing out like waterfalls. Her body turned translucent, and her soul left the mortal flesh of her ordinal body.

She flew up into the astral passage in the firmament, wailing like a wronged toddler who had her toys snatched away, "Mother!"

Nanya did not understand what was going on. And she just knew that unless someone calmed her down, she would commit treachery tonight.

***

Jiujiu sat on the silken mat, patting the fluffy cushion under her bottom. On her left was her new bestie, Ziyou Ling. The madlander girl was also all dressed up. She did not wear her usual tribal garments but a flowery qipao they had bought from the largest boutique in the city.

"Your eldest son is married to your three female disciples, it seems." Ziyou Yung said, sipping his strange black tea from a peculiar cup with an odd posture.

The teacup had a handle as though people would have trouble holding it, and Ziyou Yung’s thumb and index finger formed a weird arch as they met there, the thumb on top and the index finger underneath. His middle finger provided support from beneath, a careful counterbalance judging by his squinted brows. The remaining two fingers were lightly curled, neither rigid nor completely relaxed, holding the strange cup a few inches from his chest.

The madlander boy was sitting at the front beside the elder from the Twilight Blood Palace. On the opposite side, the regal Flareful Empress held court with her retinue from the Dawn Dragon Throne. Said retinue had flushed faces, glaring at the boy as he no doubt made a mockery of the art that was tea ceremony. An art every disciple of the Dawn Dragon Throne were obliged to master to the highest perfection.

Jiujiu adored Ziyou Yung, so she wanted to giggle. But Jiujiu also wanted to be like the Flareful Empress, so she held in the giggle.

"The decision was solely within the dominion of the young ladies themselves. And such, they made their choice." Pronounced the Flareful Empress, her words echoing with authority.

"I don't believe you," Ziyou Yung replied.

"How dare you?!" Yelled a young sectsman sitting behind the empress. "You have the gall to utter such—"

"Silence." The empress's phoenix voice quelled all noise. She looked at Ziyou Yung with evaluating eyes. "And what does such marriages have to do with becoming my disciple?" She then gestured at Jiujiu, making her feel flattered. "Only I, this empress, can bring her up to her truest potential."

"Everything," Ziyou Yung said. "We here at the Su Fox Clan are a big believer in the freedom of choice. And evidently, your other three disciples never had that. Everything can be sacrificed in the name of cultivation, but never freedom."

The Flareful Empress nodded. "Then what price must I pay to have her?" She sipped her tea in the prim perfect manner tea ceremonies were supposed be conducted, saying, “Do be aware that there is always a price, on all sides.”

Ziyou Yung raised a finger. "First, you will NOT 'have' her. She isn't a commodity."

Jiujiu swooned. She touched the braided cloth charm tied to her wrist. It was knitted from the fibres of a robe Ziyou Yung had discarded a few days prior, and her lucky charm number five hundred and sixty.

Ziyou Yung raised another finger. "Second, the price is for Xiu Jiujiu to decide."

Now all eyes were on her. She panicked, fumbling her words and shaking her palms.

"Calm down," Ziyou Ling said. "We practised, right?"

Jiujiu nodded. She gave a bow to the Flareful Empress. "I-I... My father, I can't leave him alone. I'm the only one he has, after mother passed away. I-I want to stay here."

The Flareful Empress frowned. "Such flimsy ties must be cut on the path to immortality."

"That is not for you to decide," Ziyou Yang interjected again. He looked at Jiujiu with a kind smile and said, "Don't let her bully you. Freely speak your mind."

Jiujiu nodded. "I-I talked with Mister Elder from the Twilight Blood Forest. He said they will open an... an..."

"An offshoot hall here," the mentioned Twilight Blood Palace elder said with a bored voice, "of our Bloodsanguine Hall."

"Such accommodation is for Fairy Su, no doubt prompted by you, Ziyou Yung. Xiu Jiujiu is not the beneficiary here." the Flareful Empress said, unperturbed.

"The reason is irrelevant, as long as she can be a partial beneficiary." Ziyou Yung said.

"According to the covenant between the Su Fox Clan and the northern hegemon, the Azure Deep Island, you cannot establish such a sect offshoot within the Dim Gold City, the native Youjin Clan's dominion."

"We'll make it outside. The Warring Twilight Forest is large."

The back and forth went on. Jiujiu didn't understand most of it. She only spoke up when asked and otherwise stayed still, peeking at Ziyou Yung's face from time to time.

"I can't trust someone who forgets her roots. Your history isn't a secret. Half of the smoke-mongers were wiped out because you were too ashamed to relate to them. And the other half are kept in some place only you know about."

"Dare you distort history?" the Flareful Empress scoffed gently. "Not that you Madlanders have much. I am an Empress first, and all rebellions must be put down. All savagery must be corrected. This ‘other half’ did not suffer any undesirable fate as you allude to, but have been given a new life under my tutelage that is civilisation. You are striving to do the same, are you not?"

"Ah yes, the savaged and the civilised. And to civilise your people, you broke your promise to your blood brothers. This does not give us much confidence to trust you and the Dawn Dragon Throne, does it?" Ziyou Yung said. "If you could ruthlessly break your word back then, when protecting your brothers became unprofitable, how do we know that you won’t do the same with Xiu Jiujiu? In fact, aren’t you breaking your word right now?"

Jiujiu guessed they were talking about the Flareful Empress's declaration not to take any disciples from the Westmoon Kingdom.

The Empress in question scoffed. There was a certain kind of certainty to her violet hair and eyes. "I am imperial, and we live and die by our reputation. And if the truth conflicts with our reputation, then we shall simply change the truth. With force, if not, with spirit stones." she said with a twinkle in her eyes. She looked so young, but her gaze told of untold decades of experience. Maybe even centuries. "We have already offered both the Twilight Blood Palace, Fairy Su, you, and Xiu Jiujiu enough reparations to establish a kingdom upon this twilight lands. But to ask us to sully our face on top of that, have you no education?"

"My grandfather educated me to be honest." Ziyou Yung replied. And they would devolve into another round of arguments.