The bamboo thicket seemed endless. Jun cursed under his breath as he pushed aside another green stalk with the back of his hand, sweat running down his forehead and staining his worn silk tunic.
"We've been walking north for weeks, brother," he complained. "The old man's map was shit. Keep going like this and we'll end up on the border of some mortal village. They'll greet us with stones."
The taller man walking ahead did not answer at once. His breathing stayed heavy, boots crushing dry leaves along the path. Only after several more steps did he speak, voice rough.
"The map was wrong, but I can feel the Qi coming from this direction," he said. "There's something here the peasants in this region shouldn't know about."
Jun snorted and adjusted the sword at his waist.
"Probably just a hole full of stinking mortals. Let's turn back before we get ourselves in trouble."
The older brother stopped, planting his boots in the ground before turning his scarred face over his shoulder.
"I need one more catalyst," he cut in. "My bones are already tempered. All that's missing is something pure so my foundation can overflow. With that, the One Path Sect will have to swallow its pride. I'm not going back empty-handed."
Knowing there was no point arguing when his brother spoke in that tone, Jun shut his mouth and kept marching just behind him. The smell of mold in the dense forest and the fatigue left both of them on edge, until the bamboo stalks finally gave way to a clearing cut by a stream of smooth stones and a small cabin on the bank.
Jun was already opening his mouth to curse the find when he saw the woman.
She stood with her back to them, bent over a bucket as she wrung out a wet sheet. Her long black hair fell over a light-blue tunic that the dampness had stuck to her body. The moment she turned at the sound of steps in the woods, Jun felt the air leave his chest. Beside him, the older brother's breathing suddenly grew slow and heavy, eyes traveling down the woman's neck to the curves marked beneath the wet cloth.
Swallowing hard, the older man drew a breath, straightened his shoulders to hide the tension, and took a step out of the tree line.
"Madam," he called, voice rough, trying to sound polite. "Forgive the intrusion. We've been lost for weeks and only want a little water and rest."
Yù Qíng looked at the stranger, then at his dirty boots standing near the veranda she had just washed. Her stomach churned in disgust.
"The stream is to the left," she said dryly. "Wash your mouths and go back to the forest."
The man broke into a slow smile and took two more steps forward until he stopped at the edge of the veranda, letting his gaze run openly over her body without disguise.
"You're hard on tired outsiders, madam," he said, voice thicker. "The bamboo thicket is dangerous. We can wait here a while. Is your husband in the cabin?"
Yù Qíng tightened the wet sheet between her fingers, but the invader took her silence for fear and stretched a hand toward her face with a crooked smirk.
Yù Qíng's hand cut the air. No technique at all, only the pure weight of bones hardened by purification.
Crack.
The cold palm struck full against the man's face.
The impact shattered the structure of his features. His broad body was lifted off its feet and flew backward, landing seated on the earth and raising dust.
Jun froze where he stood.
On the ground, the older brother slowly took his hands from his face, revealing a jaw completely crooked and hanging loose, the lower bone torn from its socket and tearing the skin from within as dark blood ran down his chin and dripped onto his tunic.
Yù Qíng made a face of revulsion and plunged her hand into the bucket, scrubbing her palm hard to clean the contact.
"Filthy animals," she murmured, face still twisted.
Humiliated, the large man growled in pain and rage. His eyes became bloodshot and he let out a hoarse shout, hand going to the hilt of the sword at his waist.
Suddenly, the air in the clearing grew heavy.
The dry leaves on the ground stopped moving, as if something were sucking the wind itself, and a chill ran up Jun's spine.
He did not even have time to blink.
Zhì Yuǎn appeared from the tree line with abnormal speed. The man with the broken jaw was still trying to close his fingers on the sword's hilt when Zhì Yuǎn's fist struck the center of his face.
The bone of the forehead gave way with a dry crack.
Zhì Yuǎn's hand sank to the knuckles in the invader's skull, scattering dark blood and bone fragments to the sides before the broad body toppled backward, lifeless, striking the earth with a dull thud.
Jun choked and fell back onto his rear, dragging himself away with trembling hands while he felt the air around him grow thinner and thinner, pulled without pause by the open pores in Zhì Yuǎn's skin to feed the movement of that musculature.
"What kind of aberration…" the thin one murmured, voice failing.
Zhì Yuǎn turned his face toward him with an empty gaze, almost bored.
Jun tried to stand, but the man was already on top of him. Zhì Yuǎn's left hand came down in a straight line and drove into the middle of his abdomen, tearing the old silk and sinking into the flesh with ease until it seized something warm and soft inside.
Jun opened his mouth, but only a wet gurgle came out as Zhì Yuǎn twisted his wrist once with force. The invader's body convulsed violently, kicking the earth before going limp and toppling onto its side over the dead leaves.
Zhì Yuǎn stood with both hands stained with blood, breathing in the same calm rhythm as always while red drops fell from the tips of his fingers onto the clean stones of the yard.
On the veranda, Yù Qíng watched her husband in silence for a moment, hearing only the sound of the stream, before descending the steps slowly and walking until she stopped right in front of him. She raised her hand and touched the face speckled with red, sliding cold fingers along Zhì Yuǎn's jaw.
"A-Yuǎn," she whispered. "You got dirty."
Zhì Yuǎn lowered his gaze to his wife while the blood from his hands dripped onto the light-blue dress, but she did not pull back. Instead, she took half a step more and pressed her cheek to his chest, drawing in the smell of iron rising from his warm skin until she felt her husband's broad arm wrap around her waist and pull her firmly against him.
After staying like that for a few breaths amid the two corpses, Zhì Yuǎn crouched, seized the taller man by the wrists, and began dragging him toward the depths of the bamboo thicket, followed closely by Yù Qíng, who pulled the other body by the ankles without a word.
They walked until they reached a denser stretch of forest, far from the cabin, and dug a wide grave in the damp earth that smelled of rotting leaves.
Before pushing the corpses into the hole, Zhì Yuǎn crouched and searched the dirty robes of the two men. The sword at the taller one's waist had a blade full of old notches and was not worth the weight of the iron, and the leather pouch tied to the thin one's belt was turned inside out and empty of provisions, holding only a charcoal-scribbled map and a flower with bluish petals that was already crushed, wilted, and nearly without any Qi glow. The only intact thing was a short dagger of dark steel stuck in Jun's boot, the edge well tempered and without a sign of rust.
Zhì Yuǎn wiped the dagger's sheath on the dead man's sleeve, fastened the weapon to his own belt, and tossed the pouch with the spoiled flower and the old sword into the ditch along with the two bodies.
Then they began covering the hole with their own hands in a comfortable silence, hearing only the sound of handfuls of earth striking flesh and bone. From time to time, Yù Qíng raised her eyes to watch the calm with which her husband closed the grave, and when they finally finished and Zhì Yuǎn remained kneeling looking at the turned earth, she approached from behind and wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing her face to his back dirty with mud and dried blood.
Without exchanging a word, the two returned together to the bank of the stream.
Zhì Yuǎn sank his hands into the icy current to scrub his skin, while Yù Qíng knelt on the stones beside him and wet a piece of cotton, passing the cloth with firm movements over his face, neck, and arms until all the red filth was carried away by the dark water.
The sun was already low when they returned to the cabin.
As soon as he slid the wooden log across the door, Zhì Yuǎn turned to Yù Qíng under the smell of iron that still hung in the air, mixed with the sweet scent that was beginning to rise from the warm skin of both. He took a step forward, seized her waist with both hands, and lifted her from the floor at once, carrying her to the bed without a word.
The clothes were torn along the way and he climbed over her, entering deep in a single thrust.
"Ahh…!"
Yù Qíng arched her back on the mattress and let out a hoarse moan, digging her nails into his shoulders as she was filled to the limit. Zhì Yuǎn released a low grunt against her neck and set a heavy rhythm from the start, making the bamboo frame creak and her body rock with each deep strike of his hips, pressing their sweaty skin together in a wet and continuous sound.
Unable to hold back, Yù Qíng tightened her legs around his broad waist to pull him even deeper, letting out broken moans with every thrust.
"Ahh… more…" she whimpered, voice failing.
Zhì Yuǎn closed one hand in his wife's black hair, pulling her face close to his without lessening the force of the thrusts, until Yù Qíng bit her own lip and held his face with both hands, dark eyes shining in the dimness.
"You're mine…" she whispered, breathless. "No one else will touch you. Only me."
Zhì Yuǎn lowered his face until his lips brushed hers, answering in a grave and low voice:
"Only yours. And you have no way to escape this, Qíng, because your flesh is bound to mine and the only woman I will break open and empty for all eternity is you."
Yù Qíng let out a long moan and pulled him down by the nape into a violent kiss, raking her husband's back with her nails while her body, already accustomed to the shock, swallowed and ground the scalding heat he poured into her with every impact.
When her insides finally convulsed and released the thick torrent of icy Yin, Zhì Yuǎn drew it all into his channels and turned the Mill with force, crushing the cold in his chest until it became pure Primordial Qi without interrupting the movement of his hips.
"Nghh…!" she let out a muffled moan against his mouth, biting her lip as the pleasure ran through her again. "Don't stop…"
Zhì Yuǎn lowered his mouth to her neck and bit the skin lightly, quickening the rhythm on the mattress that creaked without rest. They did not stop for most of the night, letting the sweat run and mix the sweet and dense perfume of their two refined bodies in the darkness of the cabin.