V3C72: Honeyed Poison, Poisoned Honey, Part 2

Several hours passed, during which Wei Yi decided to indulge the man and try a few things to confirm some of her hypotheses.

Had she been in the possession of her sense of taste, she would have most certainly tried even more things, just to get it all out of her system, but unfortunately it did not seem to have any intention of returning, nor was there any trace of possibility that it would be something that she could experience properly if her taste did return, although she would be more than happy enough to be proven wrong.

At the very beginning of her encounter with him, she might not have been opposed to working with him, at least for a short while, but the way that he had treated his servants, being open to selling any of them for his own gains, and the fact that every single piece of food and drop of drink contained some kind of substance that he had likely prepared an antidote for, that he had either consumed already or intended to do so later, convinced her that it was not a good idea. When it came to resources, she could obtain them easily enough, especially if she was willing to go as low as the man would make her go.

His offers of beautiful women to sleep with were also highly ineffective, not just because she already had quite a few people in the prison realm who matched her sense of beauty and were rather keen to find some physical companionship, but also due to the circumstances involved.

Had there been a few individuals genuinely looking to accompany her, without any pressure exerted upon them to force them to do so, she could accept one or two offers of the sort, but she was not interested in supporting someone who would treat people as if they were disposable property to be used for their own gains. Even when there was no other party involved – such as in the case of Min Lian – she would still avoid taking advantage of others, especially when there was no reason to do so.

Instead, she ate enough to be full, drank enough to be even more so, then once she was clearly displaying the intention of departing, whether to the room provided to her or elsewhere, Ping Gangze suggested it himself, as to allow her to get away easily.

By that point in the evening, all but the maid that stood behind her, Shun Liu Min, had left, even including the two maids that had stood by the man’s sides, and it was that maid that had been asked to bring her back to her room. Before they left, Ping Gangze even hinted that there would be no problems at all if Wei Yi decided to occupy her for the rest of the day, his intentions being obvious.

She had no reason to stir things up then, so she quietly accepted the offer of guidance and left the dining room.

All the way back, she monitored as much of the house as possible with her spiritual perception, finding a number of interesting things in certain rooms, but the owner of the house himself maintained a miraculously calm attitude and did nothing odd, remaining in the dining room while he finished off some of the things that had remained on his plate. He did take a few of the things from her plate, but he did not appear to be doing so out of some perversion or malicious intent, but just to finish off the meal while leaving as few things uneaten as possible.

If that was his regular approach to any meal, then it only made sense that he had managed to build up some weight despite being a Linked Channels cultivator that apparently engaged in occasional conflict with the main Ping family.

At this point, her spiritual perception had not yet expanded to its regular range, but it was able to stick around at its usual range so long as she had placed it there beforehand, which meant that she was able to maintain her observation of Ping Gangze all the way until she arrived in her own room, giving her the opportunity to confirm with certainty that his spiritual perception wasn’t merely absent from the room she was in, but that it wasn’t able to reach all the way up to the bed.

This alone meant that she would likely be able to escape so long as no-one found out about her attempt to escape, which immediately brought her attention to Shun Liu Min.

However, the woman had a really strange expression on her face, which became even more obvious the moment that she crossed the same gap that Wei Yi had perceived, meaning that she must have also known how far the spiritual perception of her master would be able to reach.

“Shun Liu Min, do you have something to say to me?” she decided to ask after a while.

That question prompted the maid to look around nervously, with both spiritual perception and her regular sight, before she came closer looked at her with worried eyes.

“You are in great danger. All of the food that you have consumed so far had contained a high-grade drug which will significantly weaken your muscles and contained a powerful aphrodisiac that will send you into an uncontrollable lust until-”

“First of all, take a deep breath.”

“But-”

“Second of all, I have the tendency of being immune to the vast majority of poisons and substances, and I cannot currently feel anything of the sort functioning within my system. Even if I get affected, it will be quite some time until it takes hold fully, so you don’t have to get all panicked just over me,” Wei Yi said, putting her mask away while the maid wasn’t looking.

“O-Oh… That’s great… Finally…” the maid nearly began to sob there and then, but she managed to control herself before she continued, “You don’t know what kinds of things that man does!”

“I can guess.”

“He doesn’t just target people from outside, but also us, and regularly! All of our thought, preferences and opinions are ignored, and we’re all just treated as objects for him to use! He forced us to practise a technique that will ensure that our bodies don’t change from the regular… well…”

“As I said, I can guess. You don’t need to say a single thing,” Wei Yi said, although she had naturally confirmed that at least parts of this were true with a spiritual will thread, finding that there were indeed some incredibly authentic memories within her head that confirmed both this and a number of other matters that she didn’t intend to bring up with the maid, “That you’re bringing this tells me that you’re intending to, at the very least, not let me experience the same fate.”

“Yes, that’s right. I know that you are very capable, and I… well, I would like to escape as well.”

“You’d like to tag along while I get out, essentially. I wouldn’t object, so long as you’re being truthful. Are you?”

She nodded furiously, “Of course I am! In fact, I can show you exactly how much my body had experienced and give you a few things to prove my honesty. For the first, just use your spiritual perception to look at my neck, or wrist, or some other part, if you prefer.”

Although Wei Yi was already doing this, mostly as a precaution to avoid overlooking a weapon or a technique being prepared to target her while her guard was down, she focused a greater amount of spiritual perception on the maid’s neck, as instructed. The moment that she conveyed this to the maid, she suddenly witnessed all of the pristine skin upon her skin blacken and bruise, causing her to let out a subdued cry of pain before it suddenly reverted to its previous fresh and prefect state.

“You managed to reverse that technique?”

“I have some skill when it comes to them. It’s not much, but it lets you see all the times that man felt like choking me for his own entertainment. The physical traces go away, but the wounds themselves… They don’t fully heal.”

With this understanding in mind, Wei Yi was able to observe significantly more such subdued injuries all over the woman’s body, and when she checked out the bodies of a few maids walking around in nearby rooms, she was able to find incredibly similar marks upon their bodies, and even witnessed a few quietly trying out various methods to soothe aches and pains in those areas when they were outside of the master of the house’s spiritual perception. It seemed that all of them knew how far it could go, although most had likely learnt the range itself and weren’t able to actively sense it.

Due to just how many layers of previous injuries were present on Shun Liu Min’s body, it was made almost certain that she hadn’t been lying so far.

“Does Ping Gangze prefer injuring you over more conventional activity?”

“Prefer? That man has lived in this kind of environment for at least a hundred years, with all the women he ever wanted at his disposal and everything else that he could ever wished for within his reach. He expects to be able to get to the seventh realm without much trouble, too. I’ve heard that he had normal tastes at first, but after you’ve had it all, no amount of unique beauty or technique would please that thing,” the maid’s expression twisted in undisguised disgust, “If there’s any vaguely sexual act out there that can possibly be thought of, he has probably done it. At first, getting his way with someone who had no attraction to men pleased him enough, but after a few years…”

“I see. The same goes for most other maids, correct?”

“All of the other maids, yes. Those two by his side are simply his favourite for the week. He can switch them out at any time, and only a few have ever proved to be able to please him for long. I have managed to survive ten years, while some endured as many as forty. The luckiest will be beaten lightly, as to let out some minor stress, but the others… me… not so lucky.”

“Right… I get the feeling that discussing this is neither advisable, nor particularly safe for the moment. What exactly are your offerings towards our escape, then?”

“Simple. Some techniques, some simple pills and resources, and knowledge of the way out.”

“The last one seems most important. Judging by what I can sense about the other side of the back wall, this leads into some kind of garden, right? If I was to break out there, where would we need to go from there?”

“The house itself is protected by a number of inscriptions and arrays, and some of the decorative pieces are even artefacts, but luckily the only alarm arrays are for intruders, not escapees. You were able to harm a sixth realm cultivator, from what I heard, so a five-star barrier should be feasible, right?” when Wei Yi confirmed that the possibility did exist, albeit slim, Shun Liu Min continued, “From there, guards are present in certain positions, but their regular patrol should begin two minutes from now. Then, there will be a brief period of time when a certain path through the fifteen hedge mazes – don’t bother questioning it, he certainly didn’t – is entirely unobserved, so we can use it to our advantage. From there is a route towards a low point in the wall, which we should be able to leap over.”

“How long have you spent on this plan, exactly?”

“Since the very first day. I had learned of his nature, of what I would be made to do, and I wanted to run, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t strong enough. Instead, I trained in gardening, cooking, landscaping and whatever else I needed to do to be able to see as much of the premises as possible. My memory isn’t always the best, but I have seen all of these things enough to know exactly where to go.”

“Well then, no matter what happens, I will just congratulate you on the effort. Good to know that you have not lost your drive after ten years, did you say?”

“Yes… Actually, I, and everyone else… we’re hardly unscathed, no matter how you look at us. We all strive to avoid his ire as much as possible, so most of us will do whatever necessary to direct any punishments at others, and I… I am not exactly innocent of that myself…”

“You did what you had to, so that one day, it would no longer be necessary. I understand that, and while others may have a problem with this, I certainly don’t intend to judge you for it. Since everyone has been participating in this system, I suspect that most of you are aware that it isn’t done out of malice,” Wei Yi said, paying attention to the matters outside of the room with her spiritual perception, “Now, it seems that the guard are chatting with one another about a change in shift. Is this what you meant?”

“Exactly! We must hurry!”

By that point, Wei Yi had quite a bit of time to look at the defensive measures in the wall, as well as those in the vicinity, and confirmed that there appeared to be no arrays dedicated to alerting the owner of the house about escapees or those that were leaving the building without permission, and also gave her plenty of time to confirm the location of the weakest point in the wall.

Furthermore, the techniques that she harnessed were specifically capable of targeting the weak points of arrays, like in the case of her Elysian techniques, so that meant that the difficulty of breaching the five-star defences dropped to that of four-star, at most. Perhaps for some that would still be too great of an obstacle, but when something as powerful as star metal was thrown into the equation, even a normal third realm cultivator may be capable of breaking out of the house on their own.

Before doing that, however, she glanced to the maid and asked, “Any valuables outside?”

“Nothing significant. If you want to take something, I can use my shrinking bag to take it with me,” Shun Liu Min managed to reply quickly.

“No need for that,” Wei Yi said, drawing back her hand, “Get behind me.”

Once again, the maid did not ask a single thing, nor did she question the exact course of action that Wei Yi intended to follow, instead getting right behind her and, perhaps understanding that she would be covered in dust if she did not go further, she also made herself as small as possible.

She did so just in time, as well, as the very moment that she fully cowered behind Wei Yi’s tall figure – which did make the task somewhat easier – the latter plunged her hand into the wall at an immense speed, with boundless force behind the strike. The tips of the metal claws pierced right through the wall, as if it was made from something as weak as paper, and then the immense energy she had contained within her hand erupted, piercing into the arrays nodes and inscription paths that were embedded within the wall.

The protective measures trembled and shook, a powerful shock spreading out throughout the wall until it covered nearly the entirety of the wall of this room. It was there that it ceased, for going any further would doubtlessly alert someone else and risk ruining this plan of escape before it could even properly begin. For a short while, everything quaked, then, with surprisingly little sound, it fell apart.

‘I don’t seem to have made any significant advancements in cultivation as a result of my bit of sleep this time, so I’m not certain how the wall broke so easily,’ she thought as the chunks of the wall fell apart, revealing a landscape bathed in moonlight, ‘This also doesn’t seem to be a trick or scheme, since nothing about this situation seems outright false… Did this man just have absolutely terrible walls, or have I accidentally comprehended the Great Dao itself?’

A quick look at the Truth of the Universe showcased a few things that could explain the situation.

She noticed that her Soul of Cinder physique had advanced to the state of True Soul of Cinder, which seemed to suggest both that acquiring further embers would advance it, and that its improvement, alongside all of the embers that she had absorbed, might have been sufficient to display a significantly greater improvement in her strength than she would have anticipated.

As for the Dao in her possession, and with her comprehension, she found that the Sword Dao had risen to the Minor Achievement stage while she hadn’t been paying attention, which she guessed to have originated from the killing will sword that she had used to finish the battle in the Ping District. Apart from that, she could see no great changes to herself or any part of the items listed within the Truth of the Universe. Either the wall was truly as poor as it seemed, or just those two changes were somehow sufficient to elevate her power far beyond what it should be.

The wall itself, so far as she could tell, wasn’t greatly flawed, especially not in the eyes of someone who couldn’t even create arrays of that many stars, but there were some minor hints of decay.

‘Since that shouldn’t be enough… could the Sword Dao, due to my rather unconventional uses of sword techniques in the past, be innately applying to some of my other attacks? If so… the fact that I don’t realise this is rather concerning. Then again, such a thing as spontaneous and unexpected enlightenment does exist and has occurred in the past, so it isn’t too unreasonable. I’ll need to pay a lot of attention to this kind of thing in the future.’

Had her mind not been capable of thinking at a significantly faster speed than the world around her progressed, she wouldn’t have even stopped to consider that much, since it would just waste far too much time.

The moment that the wall crumbled, she ran out, and the maid followed, barely managing to match her speed as they raw towards a distant hedge maze.

Ping Gangze’s residence was located in the middle of what looked like an enormous oasis in the desert of the northern part of the Planar Continents, for it was green and lush and filled with life and water, fountains and small pools littering the grounds. Even within what her eyes and spiritual perception could see, there were several major sections and areas that were decorated with various exotic trees and plants, most of which were some variety of planar flora, causing the entire domain to be filled with dense enough energy to allow for an Energy Condensation cultivator to ascend a stage in an hour.

She was quite tempted to connect the prison realm to this place and leech off the high energy concentration for her own gains, but it would take quite some time and give the man an unfortunate opportunity to sneak into the prison realm so long as he noticed the disturbance in energy, which would be rather hard to miss.

Tall walls surrounded certain parts of the domain, with enough space for a pair of guards to stand beside one another and pay attention to either side of the land, although the guards that she was able to see maintained their attention upon the outside, likely not expecting anyone to escape the domain any time soon. They would still occasionally look towards them, as she had been able to see during her return to her room a short while ago.

For the moment, they were looking away, so she and Shun Liu Min were able to make it without being noticed, at least so far as they were able to tell.

They ducked into the hedge maze itself as soon as possible, taking advantage of the planar nature of the hedges, as well as their height, in order to obscure their presence as much as possible, although Wei Yi did further hide them with stealth techniques.

“We don’t seem to have been noticed… If you wouldn’t mind, could you check your body?”

“Are you still concerned about the toxin? It doesn’t seem to be affecting me, and I don’t feel anything remaining within my body,” Wei Yi said.

“Hm… Be careful. If something does happen, I… well, I won’t be able to do much. I know of a way to resolve the toxin, but it would be inconvenient to use if we don’t have the space and time for it,” Shun Liu Min said, tapping the shrinking bag that she had brought with her, “I had brought some pills, but none of them would help with the mixture of substances he uses.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. For now, is there anything beyond here that requires our attention?”

“A few trapped areas, some that are just confusing for the sake of it. Most of them aren’t intended to catch those that flee, fortunately, and he should be expecting both of us to be fucking like rabbits, so he’d have no reason to send out any patrols. Things should be easy enough from here.”

Since the person that had been working here for ten years said so, and since Wei Yi was unable to discover anything of significant danger or risk within the nearest two hundred metres through her spiritual perception, she agreed with that assessment and contemplated the best way out. The maze itself wasn’t an issue, especially if they decided to break through it, but how to best progress from it to the outside was a little more challenging.

The further out they went, the more guards they would have looking in their direction. From what Shun Lia Min was able to tell her, there was a minimum of fifteen guarded walls or barriers that they would need to pass to get to the outside, with the weakest guards being in the third realm while the highest were in the fifth. Most only had thirty marks or less, and their actual combat ability was not that high, since they mostly acted to discourage invaders into the territory, but if the guards became alerted, then it should be easy for them to alert everyone else and overwhelm them with sheer numbers.

Although Wei Yi had been able to resolve one situation in which this tactic was used, she really didn’t want to repeat that experience.

Since most of the guards looked outward, going further out would bring more of their eyes on them, although it would also mean that they would also need to go through more challenges in order to get to them. In theory, the worst place would be in the middle of these sets of walls and would get easier and easier to deal with on either edge, since there would be fewer guards within a certain radius.

However, with a great degree of concentration and effort, they made it.

No great battle broke out, although they had gotten quite close to quite a few due to the sheer quantity of guards all over the place. There were no other visitors, so far as they were able to tell, and both of them were able to get away without much planar or other forms of energy being expended, which was a pleasant surprise.

Ultimately, they were able to find a weak point underneath the last wall, get out through it, bring a few treasures with them for use or sale later, and leave.

They didn’t stop being vigilant, nor did they stop running, since that would just be utterly foolish. Even if Ping Gangze was intending to actually give them the whole night before coming over to take advantage of his work, the closer they are to his domain the easier it would be for him to track them down again. In order to get away as far as possible and greatly reduce the chances of them being noticed, that was when they decided to make use of their energy, although Shun Liu Min required quite a bit of assistance the further on they went.

When they had begun their escape, the moon had just begun to shine down upon the world, and by the time they finally stopped, it had gone over their heads and was slowly beginning to descend, although it still remained near its peak. They had run north, for that was Wei Yi’s destination, and stopped as the savanna changed to sand and dunes.

At that point, while she couldn’t be certain exactly how far they had gone, it would be very unlikely for random exploration to lead him in their direction. Their trail should have been disguised by her ample usage of Aerial Footholds and general care, divination was hardly viable in any regard, and while it was possible to track down planar energy and aura, following her extensive use of physique energy would be significantly more difficult due to how few people in the Planar Continents were even aware of its existence.

Even then, Wei Yi took quite a few precautions to conceal them after they found a spot to hide, resulting in them settling down in a small sandstone cave that led to a small yet cool underground oasis, where a small pond of cold and crystal clear water was surrounded by a smooth, wide border of sand.

They sat down beside one another and faced the water, breathing hard.

“How far do you think he’ll chase us?” Wei Yi asked, since they weren’t capable of having this discussion once they began running.

“For a third realm and a second realm woman? Even if you are able to regularly perform the same feats that he had sought you out for, he can probably train someone up to the sixth realm just as quickly, if he believes it to be necessary. The primary reason he sought you out in the first place, getting rid of his opposition, has already been done,” Shun Liu Min offered her view on the matter, “As such, I think he will keep an eye on us, but not for too long.”

“I suspect that you might be right. Now may be a good time to see what you’ve brought.”

“Yes. First, a managed to sneak away some of his cultivation materials, hoping that you would be able to do what you did… I have some practise, sneaking things away and bringing them back, but you can check these if you believe this to be suspicious,” she said, taking out a few small pills, “I would’ve taken along some pure planar stones, but-”

“Sixth-star pills?”

“Yes. Is that alright?”

“That’s quite perfect, actually. A six-star pill containing the energy of the sixth realm is bound to be immensely helpful!” Wei Yi exclaimed, her excitement originating from her ability to empower pills by an enormous degree through her planar energy.

Usually, this method came with a decrease in duration, but it just so happened that from the Marked Core realm onwards, pills were not created to pull in the energy from the air outside, but instead contained some purified and concentrated energy from the alchemist that would often possess the bound element of the refiner, but that was not going to be an issue for her. So long as her cosmic energy could modify the stored energy in the same way as she influenced medicinal energy, that would provide her with an absolutely immense boost, potentially throwing her all the way to the fourth realm.

It could require as little as a single pill for that, and then she might be able to use the rest to rise to the half-way point of the fourth realm, attaining the perfected stage benefit for it.

“As I had mentioned, there are also a few healing pills, but if the substance still affects you, they won’t be of use… By the way, could you check your state yet again? If the substance still remains inside of you, then it is imperative that it is treated with the utmost speed!”

“You really are insistent…” Wei Yi muttered, but she did look into herself, since she was not very keen to experience whatever surprise Ping Gangze had prepared for her. She was rather confident in her own abilities, but the very second that she found a thin substance in various parts of her body, she realised that the maid had not been wrong to worry. “There’s something greenish-violet inside of me.”

“That’s the substance! We must purge it immediately!”

“How?”

“Ping Gangze had designed it for his own use, so it has one method of purifying it – I’ve even heard that it can be beneficial if cleansed promptly,” Shun Liu Min mentioned, before focusing, “An exchange of innate yin and yang is required-”

“In other words, dual cultivation. Judging by the fact we’re not running anywhere, you clearly don’t intend to get me to sleep with some man to resolve this, so, what’s your plan?”

“I mentioned my small degree of skill in techniques, right? I have seen quite a few of Ping Gangze’s techniques, and I have modified a few that I thought might be useful. Amongst them was an ancient method of dual cultivation that was intended specifically for two female partners, which he abandoned when he learned that it was both incomplete and useless for men,” she explained, removing a thin tome from her shrinking bag, “It is called Yin Soul Yang Root, and I think that I’ve been able to repair it correctly, although I have not had the opportunity to ever test it for obvious reasons.”

As she spoke, she opened the book and allowed Wei Yi to study it, quickly allowing the latter to learn it in full with some aid from spiritual perception, resulting in the addition of the Yin Soul Yang Root to the Truth of the Universe in the Uninitiated stage.

“Also, I’m feeling a little warm right now. This is due to the substance, right?”

“Exactly. It should be tame at first, so please ignore it. Now, either of us could use it to purify the substance in your body, but one of the conditions that I have been able to notice is that it requires a greater quantity of yang within the body than a regular woman would have. Considering your appearance, I hope I’m not wrong in assuming that it would be the case for you?”

“No, you are not mistaken. I have a perfect fifty-fifty balance of yin and yang within my body, if that’s enough.”

“Actually, that might be the perfect state,” Shun Liu Min said, “The introduction mentioned something about balance and the correct collection of yin and yang within the body, so it should be optimal. Now, I know that it might take a while to learn the technique, but it is essential for you to do it quickly.”

Wei Yi could do so at any time if she wanted to, whether through her own comprehension of yin and yang or with the aid of the Truth of the Universe, but the direction of the conversation raised a question that she promptly asked. “Seeing as you’re giving me this, asking me to cultivate it, and requiring me to do so quickly, are you intending to allow me to sleep with you in order to resolve this issue? After everything you’ve been through?”

“Two major differences between then and now, in my eyes. The first is that you are a woman. No matter what, it is better to be with you than with him. The second is that I am doing this out of my own free will, to help you, not at the bid of some greedy man who wants to earn another slave for himself.”

“I suppose that is a sensible line of thought…”

However, the maid suddenly looked away, and her body clearly became warmer, with her cheeks reddening.

“Also, I… I think I may have been fed that substance as well…” she said, gasping as her calm countenance broke in its entirety, her skin quickly becoming covered in sweat as she breathed deeply, “Don’t let me interrupt you… learn the… ah… the technique…”

As sudden as this was, Wei Yi was able to confirm that the woman did indeed have a significant amount of that same substance within her body, all over her muscles and bones, in vastly larger quantities than there were found within her own body, which she had previously overlooked due to whatever property allowed it to hide from her perception in the first place. It appeared that her physique energy had been able to nullify and disintegrate some of the substance, but the rest proved that she shouldn’t get complacent when it comes to high quality poisons and drugs just because of her physique energy.

The poison was likely six-stars in grade, concocted by a similar or even the same alchemist that had made the pills that had been passed along to her, and it was significantly more durable to her energy than everything that she had previously dealt with. Meanwhile, with some slight shifting around of yin and yang, she saw the substance move in response, but it was not sufficient to resolve the problem.

“No need to worry, I can learn techniques very quickly. Instantly, in fact.”

She had scanned over the description of the Yin Soul Yang Root, and went through all of the text for it within her mind, confirming that it was safe to practise, checking every single minor thing just to be absolutely certain that this technique had nothing wrong with it.

So far as she was able to tell, this Shun Liu Min wasn’t lying to her, and was genuinely afflicted with the drugs that she had also consumed, with the rest of her story also seeming absolutely legitimate, but even if everything that the former maid had told her was true, there was always the chance that Ping Gangze had set them up from the start, allowing an easy escape with several items that would be intended to disable them from fleeing further no matter where they stopped.

The moment that it had been confirmed to be safe, she decided not to skimp on anchor energy points and straight away raised the Yin Soul Yang Root technique to the Full Success stage.

It cost her only four points, but she suspected that this was due to her comprehension of the Yin Dao and Yang Dao, since that would mean that her understanding of the technique itself was naturally higher than it would have otherwise been. In combination with her thorough reading of the technique and the study of it within the Truth of the Universe, perhaps it was only natural that the technique cost had been lowered by such an extent – since her understanding of the Yin Soul Yang Root allowed her to tell that it was a very high grade method.

As soon as her body was affected by the technique, she felt her nether regions warm slightly, and a pleasant tingle pass through the entirety of her body alongside a small quantity of planar energy manifesting within her.

“I’ve finished comprehending the technique-”

That woman instantly leapt onto her, her whole body trembling, tightly grasping her arms as she panted. Shun Liu Min’s face was red and covered in sweat, while her eyes were unfocused and barely able to remain on Wei Yi as she said, “P-Please, I…  I can’t… hold on… u-use… the… the technique… and…”

Instead of replying, Wei Yi removed the maid’s hands from her arms and pushed her down, pinning her to the ground.

“Sorry, but I prefer to be on top.”