It's her fault, all her fault!
She had forgotten that the Hehuan forbidden area's Formation Spirit released Hehuan power that did nothing to her, but affected everyone else terribly.
Shi Shuchen was immensely powerful, but he had no idea how formidable this Formation Spirit truly was.
The moment the Formation Spirit was captured, the surging Hehuan power it burst forth had no effect on Yuan Shu, but Shi Shuchen absorbed it completely, completely unprepared.
Right now, that man was almost certainly having his senses clouded by the Hehuan power!
"Slurp slurp... More delicious Hehuan power is coming soon, it tastes so wonderful!"
The rose-pink Formation Spirit hopped around in the corner of the great hall, sniffling greedily in the direction of Yuan Shu and Shi Shuchen.
Yuan Shu moved her fingers with great difficulty, little by little reaching out to grab Shi Shuchen's shoulder, trying to push him away.
But her movement alerted Shi Shuchen, who had just been biting her shoulder.
Shi Shuchen lifted his eyes, and rose-pink filaments condensed from Hehuan power swirled in his dazed gaze.
The next second, he leaned down and kissed Yuan Shu.
It was a wild, feverish kiss, fierce and forceful from the very start.
Yuan Shu couldn't push him away, as the back of her head was held firmly in his grasp, and she could only submit to it.
"The second I stepped in here I thought these two were a handsome man and a beautiful woman, their pairing would definitely be a sight to behold, and now that I see it, I was right! Don't you dare disappoint me!"
The Formation Spirit conjured two tiny little hands to prop up its chin, its eyes shining brightly as it watched the two of them kissing, its round face crinkled into a grin like a puffed-up steamed bun.
Yuan Shu cursed the Formation Spirit in her mind for being completely underhanded, taking control of Shi Shuchen without any warning.
At the same time, she was berating herself: if she had been just a little more alert, none of this would have happened.
She was straining to expel the Formation Spirit's primal power, fighting to regain full control of her body.
But in the middle of this struggle, Shi Shuchen, completely lost to the Hehuan power, could no longer hold back his urges and began to unfasten her robes.
Yuan Shu was lifted onto a nearby stone platform, his kisses trailing down from her neck, lower and lower.
The act of luring the Formation Spirit on that they had faked earlier was now turning into something completely real.
Her dress slipped to the ground, leaving them both bare to each other.
Yuan Shu let out a soft, ragged gasp, and just before the rose-pink haze swallowed Shi Shuchen's eyes entirely, she finally seized full control of her own body.
She pressed her palms hard against Shi Shuchen's chest to push him away. Shi Shuchen paused for a moment, but then wrapped one hand around her wrists, easily pinning her resisting hands down.
And then...
Yuan Shu went completely speechless.
She had tried so hard, tried her very best to preserve Shi Shuchen's innocence.
But in the end, she had still underestimated how much control the Hehuan power could exert over an ordinary male cultivator.
All her efforts had turned to nothing.
Her lips were sealed again.
This time, Yuan Shu had no strength left to fight back.
"Shi... Shi Shuchen, if you wake up later... don't... don't you dare regret this!" Yuan Shu managed to get out in broken, breathless huffs.
The only response she got was an even more overwhelming wave of passion from Shi Shuchen.
Yuan Shu gritted her teeth, and in that instant, her body went slack, and she wrapped her arms around Shi Shuchen's neck.
She decided to give herself over to him completely.
......
Once a cultivator reached the Nascent Soul realm, advancing to the next level became notoriously difficult.
Even the pure, unspoiled primordial yang of a high-level male cultivator could only add a little foundation to her cultivation, not push her straight through a full realm breakthrough.
Yuan Shu could feel her power rising, but there was no sign of an imminent breakthrough.
Even so, this gain was incredibly rare and precious.
It was only when the last traces of rose-pink haze in the man's eyes faded away and his gaze cleared that half a full day had passed.
The second Shi Shuchen realized what he had been doing, his face paled for a split second, and he looked at Yuan Shu with obvious nervousness and unease.
"Yuan... Miss Yuan, we..."
Yuan Shu curled her arms around his neck and sighed softly by his ear, "Now that things have come to this, are you still calling me Miss Yuan?"
She was the kind of person who owned up to her actions. Even though Shi Shuchen had been out of his wits, she had gone along with it, because this man was good, and she truly liked him.
Now that this had already happened, there was no point in dwelling on how it started.
Yuan Shu had a stubborn, almost obsessive attachment to the man who now bore her mark.
She lifted her hand and brushed her fingers gently over the bright, kiss-swollen corner of his lips. "Call me Shushu. From today on, you're mine."
As soon as she said that, she tilted her head up and kissed him again.
Shi Shuchen's whole body tensed up, and the fragmented, hazy images of what had just happened slowly came back to him, crystal clear.
His breathing grew hot, his body warmed, and his blood began to boil.
So he and Yuan Shu were together now?
They had done things that even Yao Qianci had never gotten to do with her?
Shi Shuchen's eyes went wide with shock, but under the eager, active kiss from Yuan Shu, he quickly set all his wandering thoughts aside and kissed her back.
The taste on her lips was just as sweet as the scattered memories had hinted, and it didn't take long for his body to stir with new, unignorable heat.
"Yuan... Shushu, I... mmph..."
Yuan Shu smiled teasingly at the flustered, flustered look on his face. "You what?"
Shi Shuchen was caught completely off guard, and by the time he processed what was happening, he was already wholly and truly Yuan Shu's.
His heart was thrumming with wild, surging emotion, and he said no more. He lowered his head and claimed her lips in a deep, fierce kiss.
And then, a tempest of passion swept over them, crashing down without restraint.
......
The warm yellow glowstones set into the hall walls had been burning for a very long time.
The soft sounds and movements in the room slowly died down.
Yuan Shu was held tight from behind, her eyes half-lidded as she was about to doze off, when she felt Shi Shuchen's teeth graze the shell of her ear, nipping and sucking gently.
Just as he was about to lean in to kiss her lips again, Yuan Shu quickly lifted a hand to stop him.
"Alright, it's good that you're back to your normal self. This is no time for us to lose ourselves in pleasure."
She opened her eyes, a bright, playful smile tugging at the corners of her pretty face, and reached out to pinch his cheek.
Shi Shuchen quickly caught her wrist and pressed a soft kiss to her skin.
"Alright, I understand."
After saying that, Shi Shuchen took the clean new dress Yuan Shu handed him, cast a Dust Cleansing spell over both of them, and carefully helped her get dressed.
Yuan Shu's body was still heavy and lazy, and she didn't refuse his gentle care.
Only after she was fully dressed did the two of them stand back near the corner of the great hall.
"Shushu, that Formation Spirit... it's gone?" A jolt of panic shot through Shi Shuchen.
Everything had happened so fast earlier, his mind clouded by the Hehuan power, his every thought fixed only on Yuan Shu, that he had no idea when the Formation Spirit had slipped away.
"Don't worry, I have a way to find it," Yuan Shu replied calmly, as she slowly lifted her right hand.
The Formation Spirit had been suppressed by her earlier, and it carried traces of her spiritual power inside it, so it could not have gone far at all.
Besides, while they had been cultivating together just now, she had already anticipated that the Formation Spirit would try to run away. She had secretly wove a wisp of her own soul mark into the scattered wisps of Hehuan power that had drifted through the air.
The Formation Spirit had absorbed those traces of Hehuan power, so tracking down its hiding place would be no trouble at all.
She closed her eyes for a moment to search with her senses, then suddenly opened them, her gaze locking onto the far corner of the great hall. Her raised hand curled into a claw, and she snatched hard through the air.
"Ah!"
A shriek rang out, and the Formation Spirit went tumbling head over heels, rolling right to Yuan Shu's feet.
The second it scrambled back to its feet, it stared up at Yuan Shu, its eyes wide with utter terror.
It couldn't believe that Yuan Shu had somehow found it.
Yuan Shu wasted no time on pleasantries. She squatted down right in front of it and pressed her palm to the top of the Formation Spirit's head.
"Originally, I was going to let you hand over the location map voluntarily, so you wouldn't have to suffer this pain. But it seems now, I'll have to take it myself."
She sighed softly, and her spiritual power surged out from her fingertips, wrapping around the Formation Spirit and trapping it completely.
"Ah!"
The Formation Spirit screamed in agony, its whole body shaking violently. And in the midst of the searing pain, it suddenly sensed a familiar, strange aura...
