Even though Yunyang was clearly the more experienced one, she was still the first to surrender.
She pressed both hands against Cang Zhuonian’s chest, gulping down lungfuls of fresh air.
Cang Zhuonian was hardly any better. His body temperature had long since risen, and every muscle was drawn taut.
After catching his breath, he lowered his head and brushed the tip of his nose against Yunyang’s. The look in his eyes was one she knew all too well.
Her other beast husbands wore the same expression whenever desire took hold of them.
At times like this, they were usually already struggling to hold themselves back.
Yunyang gave him a quick once-over. When she saw what she saw, she couldn’t help drawing in a sharp breath.
In this regard, Cang Zhuonian was even more gifted than she had imagined.
Thinking she had been frightened, Cang Zhuonian lowered his head and pressed several light kisses to her lips. When he spoke again, his voice was already thick with desire.
“Mistress, I’ll be very careful.”
“Now… may I?”
Yunyang nodded lightly.
The spirit-form clothing was removed, and the pale pink dress hung loosely from the cloud, ready to slip off at any moment.
One kiss mark after another bloomed across her snow-white skin.
Just as he had promised, Cang Zhuonian was cautious in every way, giving Yunyang plenty of time to prepare.
At some point, the clouds surrounding them dispersed, leaving only the one beneath Yunyang.
Once again, Yunyang found herself thinking at the most inappropriate moment: Would this cloud be able to hold up, or would it scatter later?
“Mistress, don’t be afraid. These clouds are very sturdy.”
As though he had sensed what she was thinking, Cang Zhuonian took hold of her hand and pressed it down against the cloud beside them.
The cloud sank a little beneath the pressure, but it did not disperse at all.
Yunyang relaxed.
Only after realizing that the person in his arms had completely let go did Cang Zhuonian pull her tightly against him.
And then…
Yunyang discovered that every time she thought her limits had already been pushed as far as they could go, a new beast husband would raise them yet another level.
Cang Zhuonian truly was exceptionally gifted.
And not only that. It seemed that he was also…
Yunyang carefully sensed the difference. Before long, she narrowed her eyes.
“Cang Zhuonian, you didn’t have a Mistress before. Why did you have this done?”
Among her eight beast husbands, only Xuan Yu had undergone the same procedure—and that had only happened after Yunyang marked him.
But Cang Zhuonian had never had a Mistress before. Otherwise, he would not have repeatedly lost control.
Yunyang couldn’t quite understand it.
Cang Zhuonian was happy to talk about something else and help distract her. He took a deep breath before answering honestly.
“My mother taught my brothers and me from a young age that females all liked this.”
“So after I reached adulthood, I went and had it done…”
“But Mistress, you can rest assured. Before you, I had never been intimate with another female.”
Before meeting his Mistress, he had never fallen for any female.
He was not the sort of person who would force himself into something he did not want. So even though he had suffered terribly from his contamination levels, he had refused to become another female’s beast husband on a whim.
Only now had he been completely drawn to someone, both body and soul.
Cang Zhuonian felt that his genetic compatibility with his Mistress must be extraordinarily high. That was the only explanation for why he had been so irresistibly attracted to her.
If their genetic compatibility exceeded ninety percent, it meant that he had been born to become his Mistress’s beast husband.
He would ask the Genetic Marriage Matching Center about it later.
Cang Zhuonian very much wanted to know exactly how high his genetic compatibility with Yunyang was, but this was not the time to think about it.
Once he realized that Yunyang had more or less adjusted, Cang Zhuonian did not say another unnecessary word.
The cotton-white cloud drifted lazily through the air, occasionally shedding a small puff.
Cang Zhuonian had been telling the truth. The cloud really was very sturdy…
Yunyang still remembered that her other beast husbands were waiting outside, so when Cang Zhuonian wanted to continue, she decisively stopped him.
“No more.”
Although those words sounded very much like a coquettish plea, Cang Zhuonian still took several deep breaths before helping her get dressed.
In truth, it made little difference whether a spirit form wore clothes or not. He simply enjoyed the feeling of taking care of Yunyang.
Yunyang felt that her calves were still trembling.
She withdrew her mental power, only to find several resentful pairs of eyes fixed on her.
Yunyang instinctively glanced at the time.
Good grief. More than two hours had passed.
Usually, when she rested in the Purification Tower, she gave each of her beast husbands only an hour. If that was not enough, she simply ignored their complaints.
No wonder they were feeling so put out.
Yunyang coughed lightly and looked up at Cang Zhuonian, whose eyes had already returned to normal.
When she thought about how she and Cang Zhuonian had just been intimate in his mental landscape… while her eight beast husbands had been waiting outside, her face grew hot.
To distract herself, Yunyang turned to Fu Shiyi.
“What’s his contamination level now?”
“Seventy-eight.”
As expected, intimacy through a spirit form was not as effective as the real thing.
Yunyang was not disappointed in the slightest. She turned her attention to Fuyuan, who had already expended some of his energy.
“Fuyuan, how has your ability recovered?”
Fuyuan had worked hard, continually using his ability to help restore her mental strength.
“Mistress.”
By now, Cang Zhuonian had already returned to his human form. However, he was still bound by restraint straps, leaving him able only to stare at Yunyang imploringly.
Why wasn’t Mistress looking at him at all? Did she not intend to give him a place by her side?
If that was the case, he could do without a title. As long as he could stay with Mistress, that was enough.
Fuyuan had originally intended to say that his ability had already fully recovered. But when he heard Cang Zhuonian call her “Mistress,” he immediately put on a weak and exhausted expression.
“Mistress, I haven’t recovered yet.”
“But it’s all right. If Mistress needs me, I can still continue.”
Yunyang’s gaze, which had just been about to return to Cang Zhuonian, fell back on Fuyuan instead.
“I don’t need you to. Hurry up and recover your ability.”
She had only been worried that Fuyuan would use his ability again.
But after saying that, Yunyang realized that her mental strength seemed to have recovered completely.
She stared at the reading in disbelief, then turned around and looked slightly upward at Fu Shiyi.
“Fu Shiyi, what’s my mental strength level now?”
Fu Shiyi lowered his eyes to that face, a face nearly etched into his memory. After a long silence, he finally said slowly,
“One hundred percent.”
Yunyang: “!”
She and Cang Zhuonian had only… been intimate once.
Among her other eight beast husbands, except for Pei Wenye, each of them could restore her mental strength only to a little over ninety percent in a single session. It was impossible for them to bring it all the way back to one hundred percent.
It was already known that the higher the genetic compatibility, the better the effect of dual cultivation through their spirit forms.
In other words, Cang Zhuonian’s genetic compatibility with her should be the same as Pei Wenye’s.
Fu Shiyi had come to the same conclusion, which was why he had fallen silent just now.
Mistress’s beast husbands were growing more numerous by the day. Compared with his other rivals, he seemed to be losing his advantage more and more—not only in ability level, but also in genetic compatibility with Mistress.
As for age… aside from Fuyuan, whose age was unknown, Fu Shiyi was the oldest of them all.
For the first time, the normally rational Designer Fu felt a trace of panic.
He carefully took Yunyang’s hand.
“Mistress, will you start to dislike me?”
Those words seemed to open the floodgates. In an instant, the other seven beast husbands gathered around as well.
“Mistress, I’ll work hard to improve my ability. Please don’t dislike me, all right?”
“You can take as many beast husbands as you want, Mistress, but could you please not neglect me?”
“Mistress…”
