“Come to my room.” Jiang Nuan stood up and crooked a finger at him.
Shen Wu raised an eyebrow. “...The way you said that—and that gesture—are a little strange.”
“Shut up.” Heat flashed across Jiang Nuan’s face. “We’re conducting a perfectly respectable experiment.”
“Fine.” He rose and leisurely shrugged off his suit jacket, tossing it over the arm of the sofa.
The black shirt beneath clung to his lean frame, making him look almost excessively restrained and untouchable.
She pushed open the door to her bedroom.
Jiang Ce had fixed the heating, and the room was warm and cozy. Winter snow reflected the sunlight, sending clear, pristine light streaming inside.
Shen Wu followed her in and closed the door behind him.
Jiang Nuan instinctively glanced at the shut door.
“Are you nervous?” His tone held the kind of knowing amusement that made her want to punch him.
“Please. Who’s nervous?” Jiang Nuan curled her lip.
She was the one using Shen Wu for an experiment today. What did she have to be nervous about?
All right. She was a little nervous, actually.
What if it failed again...?
Don’t think about it. Just start.
She closed her eyes, sinking her consciousness into the river of supernatural energy within her.
Silver-white energy flowed slowly through it, fuller and more abundant than ever before, almost spilling over its banks.
She extended her mental power into the river and gently drew out a thread of purification energy, gathering it in the palm of her right hand.
When she opened her eyes, she saw a soft silver ribbon floating above her palm.
The ribbon moved of its own accord, like a translucent strip of silk suspended in the air.
Shen Wu glanced at the ribbon in her hand but did not move. He merely lifted his chin, signaling for her to continue.
That expression—Fine, do whatever you want—was irritating enough to max out his smugness rating.
Jiang Nuan drew a deep breath and controlled the ribbon as it slowly unfurled, circling Shen Wu’s body in one complete loop.
Throughout the process, she held her breath and focused every bit of her awareness on the ribbon.
The salty, acrid scent unique to mutated energy—the scent that always appeared during purification—was nowhere to be found.
The ribbon had merely made one beautiful circuit around him.
Jiang Nuan pressed her lips together and looked at Shen Wu.
Shen Wu shook his head.
But his shoulders relaxed almost imperceptibly.
“What a shame.” There was even a hint of lightness in his voice. “Looks like your little acrobatics routine failed again.”
Jiang Nuan ignored him and sank back into her consciousness.
Failing once didn’t mean this path was impossible. She had failed last time too, but back then, the supernatural energy inside her had been nowhere near as abundant as it was now.
She extended her mental power into the river of energy again.
This time, she did not draw it out and condense it into a form. Instead, she dispersed a thread of purification energy, transforming it into an invisible, colorless gas that spread across her palm.
Nothing could be seen with the naked eye, but the warm, pure energy clung to her skin, breathing against it.
Shen Wu’s hand hung at his side, his long, pale fingers half-curled.
Jiang Nuan’s fingers brushed the back of his hand.
Then she clasped his hand.
Shen Wu’s gaze dropped to their joined hands. It lingered for a moment before he simply let her hold on.
Jiang Nuan could feel the faint coolness of his palm.
She slowly sent the invisible purification energy out from her palm. Like a stream of water, it flowed along their touching skin and probed, little by little, into Shen Wu’s body.
Shen Wu’s fingers suddenly tightened, gripping her hand in return.
Jiang Nuan focused all her attention on the energy, controlling it as it explored every inch of him.
She concentrated on detecting that familiar salty, acrid aura.
There it was.
It wasn’t very strong, but it definitely existed.
Jiang Nuan guided the purification energy around that small cluster of saltiness and gently dissolved it.
What she did not know was what Shen Wu was going through beside her while she remained focused with her eyes closed.
That force seeped into every opening. As it passed through his chest, his heartbeat abruptly lost its rhythm. When it moved along his spine, his entire back felt as though gentle fingers were slowly stroking it.
Shen Wu’s breathing grew unsteady.
He had already tasted that pleasure and knew he wanted more.
The sensation of their fusion within the mental realm was still etched into his bones. Now, the way this energy traveled through him—warm, slow, penetrating every defense—was practically teasing the most vulnerable nerves in his body over and over.
His grip tightened further.
“Jiang Nuan.”
The name was forced through clenched teeth, thick with restraint.
Jiang Nuan patted the back of his hand with her other hand, soothing him and signaling that he needed to wait a little longer.
A few more minutes passed before Jiang Nuan withdrew the purification energy and opened her eyes excitedly. “What about this time? Did it—”
Before she could finish, Shen Wu closed his eyes. His tall body suddenly seemed to lose its support, and his forehead silently came to rest against her shoulder.
His weight pressed down on her.
“Shen Wu?” Jiang Nuan hurriedly braced his shoulders. “Did my energy hurt you?”
This was her first time trying it this way. What if she had actually done something terrible to him?
“It didn’t hurt.”
Shen Wu’s voice came from the hollow of her neck, his warm breath brushing over the area above her collarbone with every exhale.
Every hair on Jiang Nuan’s body stood on end.
“Then why are you collapsing on top of me?” She tried to push him away, planting her palm against his chest and shoving with all her strength.
He did not move an inch.
Good grief. He looked like a slender scholar—how was he this heavy?
“It’s just...” He took a shallow breath, his voice hoarse to the point of sounding unfamiliar. “The mutated energy you purified was nowhere near enough to offset the side effects caused by your energy moving through my body.”
Jiang Nuan stiffened, nervous again. “Side effects? What side effects?”
“I’m in a lot of discomfort right now.” Shen Wu turned his head and exhaled again, the tip of his nose brushing her cheek. “How are you planning to take responsibility?”
She understood.
This shameless bastard was hitting on her!
“Get up first.” She pushed him again. “Why are you so heavy?”
At the same time, something was rising inside her.
A light, buoyant bubble filled with warm delight floated up from the depths of her heart, all the way to the top of her chest.
What had he just said?
The mutated energy had been purified.
She had succeeded.
She had really done it?
She could purify it without using that method—just by doing this?
She had finally taken control of her own power.
The realization made Jiang Nuan’s whole heart swell until it nearly leaped out of her throat.
Shen Wu remained against her shoulder for a few more seconds before slowly straightening.
Only after he stood upright could Jiang Nuan see what he looked like now.
His hair was slightly mussed, strands falling over his forehead. The loosened collar of his shirt revealed a small section of collarbone and the prominent line of his throat.
His breathing had not yet fully calmed, and his chest rose and fell faintly.
He looked at her.
Then he smiled.
It was a clean smile, free of any impurity.
The sunlight reflected from the winter snow outside shone in his amber eyes, bright and dazzling enough to make her squint.
Yet beneath that brightness, the undercurrents still churned, mingling with complicated emotions he could not conceal.
Radiance and darkness intertwined across his exquisitely beautiful face, creating an almost bewitching allure that made it impossible to look away.
“You did very well.” His voice was soft. “From now on... you won’t have to force yourself anymore.”
Jiang Nuan’s heart jolted.
The weight of those words struck her completely off guard.
She had always regarded this as a transaction—an exchange she had to make in order to survive.
But the word “force” in his voice seemed to drain all the strength from her in an instant.
Her eyes burned with a painful ache, and the urge to cry surged straight up into her nose. She bit down hard on her lower lip, swallowing the sob caught in her throat.
Seeing the redness at the corners of her eyes, Shen Wu raised a hand, wanting to wipe away the tears that had yet to fall.
Jiang Nuan instinctively took half a step back and avoided him.
Shen Wu’s hand froze in midair. He didn’t move, but a hazy layer of disappointment clouded his amber eyes.
A sudden, indescribable ache welled up in Jiang Nuan’s heart.
She had been the one to reject him, yet seeing the light vanish from those eyes so quickly felt as if something had seized her heart and twisted it hard.
No. She couldn’t let herself soften.
Shen Wu’s fingers curled slightly before he slowly lowered his hand.
The entire motion was utterly silent, like a wordless surrender.
Shen Wu let out a self-mocking laugh. “So eager to draw the line between us, Jiang Nuan.”
His amber eyes were still beautiful, yet they seemed to have been chilled by the snow outside the window.
“What, you think that from now on, without having to use this method”—he leaned forward slightly, and the sudden proximity made Jiang Nuan instinctively hold her breath—“you can finally shake me off for good?”
