On the third floor of the teahouse, the fragrance of tea curled through the air of the private room.
Shortly after watching Fang Henian depart, Ji Xuanyuan stood up and walked toward the soft couch. The couch was not large, covered with plain-colored bedding and matching cushions.
She turned around and looked at Chu Yuan with a smile. “Next, I must trouble the young master to serve as my cushion!”
‘This…’
Chu Yuan’s mouth twitched.
Looking at the couch and then back at Ji Xuanyuan, his gaze involuntarily drifted down from her seductive face. He saw the curves pushed against her martial arts attire, and below her slender waist, the full sweep that flared out suddenly…
Chu Yuan felt his throat tighten. “Highness, are you sure you want to…”
“I am sure.”
Ji Xuanyuan’s answer was concise and clear, leaving no room for negotiation.
Chu Yuan couldn’t help but swallow hard, lying down as if resigning himself to fate. He lay perfectly straight on the couch, his hands folded over his lower abdomen and his eyes fixed on the ceiling beams.
Sunlight streamed through the window, falling over him and illuminating his tightly pressed lips. The youth’s face wasn’t breathtakingly beautiful, but it was clean and delicate, with the slight greenness unique to the young in his eyes.
His ears were flushed red and his eyelashes trembled like a moth caught in a spiderweb — flapping its wings but unable to fly.
Seeing his expression, which looked as if he were facing death, Ji Xuanyuan frowned slightly and parted her red lips. “What is with that expression, young master? Are you so unwilling to be my cushion… is my appearance really that unbearable?”
Chu Yuan hurried to explain, “Please do not misunderstand, Your Highness. It is precisely because you are too beautiful that I must maintain my composure. Otherwise, I fear I might be… disrespectful…”
Hearing this, Ji Xuanyuan subconsciously glanced at his abdomen, then lower…
She suddenly understood something, and her jade-like face couldn’t help but flush. Remembering that she was the one who had initiated this situation, Ji Xuanyuan didn’t say anything more.
She lowered her eyes, reining in her stray thoughts, and removed her boots, leaving only her plain white silk socks. The socks were thin, faintly revealing the delicate and exquisite curve of her ankles. As she crossed her legs, her toes curled slightly, and her arches tensed into a smooth curve.
The familiar feeling of using a cushion suddenly brought back a memory of her past life.
Back then, her Junior Brother had just joined the Heavenly Sword Sect. His youthful spirit hadn’t been worn down yet, and he always loved to follow behind her, calling her ‘Senior Sister’ this and ‘Senior Sister’ that until she was thoroughly annoyed.
Once, not knowing the heights of the heavens or the depths of the earth, he made a bet with her. He bet that he could master the third level of the Heavenly Sword Art within one month.
She had sneered at the time and said, “Impossible. It took me three months back then.”
He stuck his neck out and asked, “And if I succeed?”
Li Shixue’s eyes narrowed. “What does Junior Brother want?”
His eyes darted around, and he suddenly gave a mischievous smile. “If I succeed, Senior Sister will sit on me while I do 100 pushups! If I fail, I’ll be sat on by Senior Sister while I do 100 pushups!”
She had almost cleaved him with her sword then, but in the end, she agreed. Perhaps she also felt it was impossible for him to succeed.
One month later, her Junior Brother approached her while scratching his head sheepishly. Seeing him like this, even though she had already begun practicing the Ruthless Path, she couldn’t help but tease him. “Junior Brother, looking at you, did you master the third level of the Heavenly Sword Art?”
Standing before her, her Junior Brother had already dropped to the ground. “Senior Sister, I admit defeat!”
She looked at him and remained silent for a long time. Finally, she sighed and sat cross-legged on his back. In response, her Junior Brother looked overjoyed. With her on his back, he moved up and down, performing pushups.
Glimpsing his face, which was slightly flushed from the effort, he looked like a dog that had managed to steal some meat.
At that time, she thought, ‘This person is truly as foolish as can be.’
Yet she hadn’t noticed that the corners of her own mouth were also curling up slightly.
—
In the present, the soft couch sank.
Chu Yuan’s body tensed instantly. He felt a heavy, dough-like weight land on his abdomen — soft and warm. He stared intently at the ceiling, his body as stiff as an iron plate, but his mind was already a mess.
In contrast, the moment Ji Xuanyuan sat cross-legged on her new cushion, her sea of consciousness shuddered.
Ding!
The familiar, cold system prompt rang out once more:
[Congratulations, Majesty, on successfully binding the [Divine Treasure Cushion]! This [Divine Treasure Cushion] is extremely rare; it is recommended that Your Majesty uses it with care.]
Ji Xuanyuan opened her eyes in astonishment.
‘The Divine Treasure Cushion? It’s really him?’
Facing her doubt, the System explained:
[Please, Majesty, circulate your cultivation technique; all will be revealed then.]
Hearing this, Ji Xuanyuan had no choice but to attempt cultivation on her new cushion. Her back was as straight as a winter plum standing proud in the snow. Her hands formed a seal in front of her Dantian — her left hand on top, her right on the bottom, with her thumbs lightly touching to form a closed circle.
Before joining the Heavenly Sword Sect, Ji Xuanyuan’s primary cultivation was the Imperial World-Ordering Script. This book was said to have been realized by the ancient ancestors of the Immortal Dynasty while observing the movements of heaven and earth and the rotation of the sun and moon.
The unique aspect of this technique was that it did not cultivate arts or divine powers, but only luck.
Heaven and earth have Qi, circulating without end; all things have luck, with life and death following a natural order. The royal family of the Immortal Dynasty used their own bodies as cauldrons and the world as their Dantian, inhaling the Qi of heaven and earth and harmonizing the luck of all things to eventually achieve the “Imperial Ultimate” realm.
The body is the world, and the world is the body.
This technique was divided into nine levels. The first three were Star Gazing, Qi Discernment, and Luck Induction.
Because Ji Xuanyuan joined the Heavenly Sword Sect in her past life and switched to the Heavenly Sword Ruthless Art, her progress in this technique had stopped at the third level, Luck Induction.
Closing her eyes, Ji Xuanyuan operated the technique again after several hundred years, only to find that her sea of consciousness was a mass of chaos. Clearly, her mastery of the technique had returned to the starting point.
Ji Xuanyuan was not in a hurry. She breathed slowly — in and out, long and steady. With every breath, as her chest rose and fell, her clothes tensed and loosened, outlining the full contours constrained beneath.
After seven breaths, the mist began to dissipate.
A point of light appeared above her sea of consciousness. The light was pale gold, as faint as a solitary lantern seen across thousands of mountains and rivers in the dead of night.
Ji Xuanyuan knew what it was. It was the natal star of the Immortal Dynasty, the Ziwei Emperor Star.
The first level of the Imperial World-Ordering Script, Star Gazing, required finding this star within the sea of consciousness. In her past life, it had taken her an entire year to catch that single point of shimmering light within the vast mist.
Yet now, the moment she concentrated, the light brightened.
Ji Xuanyuan’s heart stirred. ‘Could the System be right? Can I really speed up my cultivation through this “cushion”?’
Ji Xuanyuan was incredibly shocked, but she had no time to overthink. The starlight had already fallen into her sea of consciousness, slowly descending along her meridians. As it flowed through her meridians, there was no obstruction.
Ji Xuanyuan’s brow furrowed slightly as she felt as if countless ants were crawling through her pathways. That tingling sensation started from the Baihui Point at the top of her head and traveled down her spine. It passed through the back of her neck, her shoulder blades, and her lower back before finally gathering at the Weilv Point.
Every time the “starlight” flowed through a meridian, she could feel the skin there becoming hot and tight. It was as if something was being awakened.
Ji Xuanyuan steadied her mind and continued the guidance. The starlight turned from the Weilv Point into her Dantian, spiraling there for three rotations before splitting into two streams.
One stream went upward, returning to the sea of consciousness to handle Qi Discernment. The other stream went downward, flowing toward the perineum to handle Luck Induction.
The upward stream of starlight was currently rotating slowly within her sea of consciousness. In the center of the vortex, a pale golden light rose from the deepest depths and fell straight into the center of the swirl.
It was so fast that it seemed as if it couldn’t wait to acknowledge its master.
Ji Xuanyuan’s breath hitched slightly.
‘Again???’