Gradually, Shen Yuying buried her face into Chu Fan’s motionless chest and began to listen to his strong, steady heartbeat.
It was her lullaby, unique to her.
She needed to listen to this drumbeat every night to fall asleep, to avoid being startled awake by nightmares.
Listening to Chu Fan’s heartbeat, Shen Yuying slowly raised her head to look at him, a wild, crazed look gradually appearing in her eyes.
“Master’s heartbeat has gotten faster. Is it like your disciple’s? Are you anticipating something too? Is that it, Master?”
“Yuying, what are you talking about? What’s wrong with you!?”
Chu Fan shouted, trying to snap Shen Yuying out of it.
Although he could, unless absolutely necessary, he still didn’t want to resort to force.
“What are you saying, Master? Your disciple… is just your disciple.”
Shen Yuying released his neck from her tail and instead buried her face into his neck, kissing his Adam’s apple.
“Your disciple has always been your disciple. Nothing has changed.”
Shen Yuying opened her mouth and bit down gently.
“The one in the wrong… is actually Master. If Master hadn’t said those things, how could your disciple have…”
Hearing this, Chu Fan suddenly realized what she meant.
He remembered a scene from the past.
A few years ago, something similar had happened.
Shen Yuying had hit a bottleneck in breaking through to the Nascent Soul stage.
No matter what she did, she couldn’t break through on her own.
Even though Chen Qianchi had sought out rare immortal herbs for her, and Su Xiaotang had spent a fortune at an auction to buy an extraordinary immortal pill, neither had helped her advance even a step.
It was only when Chu Fan decided to personally take action, venturing into a dark, snowy plain called the Eternal Night Tundra, that he killed a Frigid Abyss Lion King for Shen Yuying.
It was a ferocious beast possessing the same extreme cold attribute as the Tushan fox clan.
He brought its corpse back and used all the high-quality materials from it to refine a divine pill for Shen Yuying.
This pill not only allowed her to cross the Nascent Soul threshold but also propelled her halfway into the mid-stage.
But the cost was that Chu Fan had been half-dead when he first returned from the snowy plains.
He was covered in frostbite injuries, not to mention the wounds from his battle with the Lion King.
One had to know that even a cultivator in the Spirit Severing realm needed to be extremely cautious when facing such a creature.
At that time, Chu Fan had just entered the Spirit Severing stage himself.
If it weren’t for his unparalleled talent in artifact refining and alchemy, he would have likely become the Lion King’s next meal.
Originally, Shen Yuying had been perfectly normal.
It was only after she took that pill and her cultivation soared.
One night, on the first day Chu Fan, severely injured and with his cultivation greatly reduced, decided to circulate his spiritual energy to recover every night.
After Chu Fan finished his energy circulation, he discovered Shen Yuying inexplicably appearing in his room.
When he asked what was wrong, she wouldn’t say anything, behaving exactly as she was now.
She also spoke a bunch of incomprehensible things, bound him with her tails, and even did things a disciple should never do to their master.
But that night, thankfully, Chen Qianchi had happened to pass by.
Otherwise, in his severely weakened state, he didn’t know how Shen Yuying would have treated him that night.
“Yuying, wake up. What exactly did I do to upset you?”
Hearing this, Shen Yuying soothed him by rubbing her index finger’s pad against Chu Fan’s Adam’s apple, watching her own movements as she did so.
“It’s alright, Master. It’s alright. It’s fine if you don’t understand. Just leave everything to your disciple. Your disciple won’t disappoint you.”
“Wh- What?”
Suddenly, Shen Yuying’s hand on Chu Fan’s Adam’s apple moved sharply downwards, instantly ripping apart his outer robe to reveal the pure white sleeping garments beneath.
“Unfilial disciple! What are you doing!”
Shen Yuying didn’t respond, continuing to pounce on him with an enraptured expression.
At this moment, Chu Fan finally understood that continuing like this was just waiting for defeat.
So he formed a sword mudra with his right hand.
A golden rope slithered out from under his bed like a snake.
Then, the rope swiftly bound Shen Yuying’s body, rendering her immobile.
Chu Fan brushed the dust off his clothes.
He thought Shen Yuying would give up at this point, but he hadn’t expected her to still be able to smile.
“Heh. If Master prefers it this way, your disciple is certainly willing. But for Master to think he can restrain me with just the Immortal-Binding Rope… you’re underestimating your disciple.”
The next moment, Shen Yuying braced her arms and easily snapped the Immortal-Binding Rope.
Her nine tails once again coiled around Chu Fan, starting to pull off his other clothes.
“Unfilial disciple! I am your master! Do you know what you’re doing!?”
“Your disciple understands perfectly. Master is the best master in the world, and the most important person in your disciple’s life. But precisely because of that… it causes your disciple so much pain…”
As Shen Yuying spoke, she didn’t stop her hands.
It was as if her own words spurred her on, the madness in her eyes intensifying.
“Because we are master and disciple, I can’t get close to you. So if that’s the case… I’d rather we weren’t master and disciple…”
“As long as I can possess Master, or be possessed by Master… I wouldn’t even bat an eye, no matter what you asked of me!”
Shen Yuying’s voice became utterly frenzied.
Chu Fan knew that if he didn’t resort to force now, it would be too late.
He formed a sword mudra, and a cyan flying sword materialized above Shen Yuying’s head, spinning rapidly like a drill.
Just a moment before he planned to make Shen Yuying suffer a minor injury, a familiar, earth-shattering roar sounded from the sky outside the house.
“You f***ing fox! Get your ass out here!”
“Tch.”
A look of extreme disgust flashed across Shen Yuying’s perfect face, but it vanished as quickly as it appeared.
Her expression changed back to a gentle smile as she looked at Chu Fan:
“Master, please wait a moment. Allow your disciple to deal with the lizard outside first, and then I’ll come back to keep Master entertained.”
Shen Yuying turned and left.
The moment she left the room, the sound of clashing weapons began incessantly outside.
Chu Fan quickly ran to the door and opened it, looking up at the sky.
Two women were fiercely locked in combat.
Chen Qianchi was pressing her black long spear against the white-red sword in Shen Yuying’s hand.
“You f***ing fox! You tricked me again!” Chen Qianchi roared furiously.
“What does Junior Sister mean? Surely this is a misunderstanding?”
“Misunderstanding my a**! One of us is dying today! Don’t think I’m afraid of you just because you joined Master a couple of years before me!”
“Junior Sister’s mouth is so foul. If outsiders saw this, they might think Master has failed to discipline his disciples properly.”
“What I say is my business! What does it have to do with my master! Whoever dares to badmouth him, I’ll kill them first to make an example!”
“Junior Sister speaks boldly. But if you can’t even get past me, your senior sister, how can you talk about making an example of anyone?”
“Are you trying to provoke me? You’ve been using the same trick for years. Even if I have a terrible temper, I should be used to it by now, right?”
Chen Qianchi replied with a grin until her peripheral vision caught sight of Chu Fan below the door, disheveled and with his clothes in disarray.
“M-Master!? You bastard! What did you do to Master!?”
Upon hearing this, Shen Yuying licked her lips with a look of lingering satisfaction.
“Why doesn’t Junior Sister guess?”
“You!”
“But Junior Sister, I really must thank you. If you hadn’t snapped out of it just now, I couldn’t have succeeded so quickly.”
Shen Yuying leaned close to Chen Qianchi’s ear, whose pupils were dilated in shock, and whispered softly: “Master’s body… is truly…”
“Even sturdier than I imagined~”
“!! ! ! !”
Chen Qianchi’s fury was fully ignited.
Her aura exploded outward.
“Fine… Today, I’ll show you… whether or not I can get past you!!!”
Chen Qianchi’s fiery red short hair began to lengthen, the color itself seeming to dance as if ignited by flames.
Next, from amidst that fiery red long hair, two antlers slowly grew from the top of her head.
A lizard tail followed, appearing behind her.
Chen Qianchi’s nails began to grow wildly, becoming long and slender.
Her pupils transformed into golden, crocodile-like vertical slits.
The next moment, Chen Qianchi’s skin ignited with flames.
When the flames extinguished, every inch of her skin had turned into impenetrable scales.
“You unfilial disciple. Today, I’ll uphold justice for Master.”
“Then I suppose I should be sorry, Junior Sister, for living as the very thing you long to become.”
Shen Yuying continued to smile with composure.
Chen Qianchi tightened her grip on her long spear and flew toward Shen Yuying with murderous intent in her eyes.
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