Chapter 177: Holding Firm to the Green Mountain

March 23rd.

A private room on the second floor of the Chamber of Embracing Simplicity teahouse.

Xu Jiuxi held the teapot with her slender hand, pouring a clear stream of water into the white porcelain cup. The fragrance of tea wafted out with the swirling steam. She glanced at Ding Suian, who was sitting opposite her, her peach-blossom eyes flushed with crimson at the corners, and she said with a playful, resentful pout: “Head Ding has become so hard to invite these days. This Seat had to send three invitations just to get you to grace me with your presence. It was all in vain that I disregarded my own reputation for chastity to protect that girl’s name for you~”

Reputation for chastity?

You?

Ding Suian looked at the luscious and juicy Old Xu and cupped his hands, saying, “Sect Master, please do not take offense. It is precisely because of the Wanan Gate incident that I took on this hot potato of a job as the Commander of the Main Army Division, and I have been tied up in knots. See, I had a little free time today, so I came to see you immediately.”

“Heh, Commander Ding has become a man of the moment in Central Heaven. Do you think you are about to rise to the clouds?” Xu Jiuxi pushed the teacup toward Ding Suian and answered her own question, “As long as Prince Anping does not fall, a blade will forever hang over your head. If he ascends the throne in the future, tsk tsk tsk, I fear there will be no place for you in Great Wu.”

Ding Suian said in a low voice, “I have performed meritorious service and put in effort for you, Sect Master. You won’t abandon me, will you?”

It was he who eliminated Sect Master Hao in Lanyang last year, which gave Xu Jiuxi the opportunity to obtain this position of Sect Master of Central Heaven.

Xu Jiuxi held the teacup, glanced at Ding Suian sideways for a few moments, and suddenly giggled.

She set down the teacup, her body leaning forward like a boneless snake. She stretched her arm across the tea table in the middle, her cold fingertips gently stroking Ding Suian’s cheek. “From now on, you should get closer to the Prince of Linping. Furthermore, This Seat has said long ago that you are my person. I do not permit you to die, and no one can touch you.”

Get closer to the Prince of Linping?

Before Ding Suian could ask, Xu Jiuxi pulled her body back abruptly, sitting upright in the blink of an eye, the ambiguous expression on her face already vanished. “Speak, what news did you gather in Southern Zhao?”

“Yes.”

Without an opening to ask about the Prince of Linping, Ding Suian had to put the matter aside for the time being and spoke about his trip to Southern Zhao, mainly regarding the Confucian Sect, which was also the part Xu Jiuxi was most interested in.

He mentioned that the Confucian Sect had already spread in Southern Zhao, and also mentioned that the State Preceptor was suspected to be a member of the Confucian Sect. The existence of the Confucian Sect in Southern Zhao had now become public, and it could not be hidden at all; the State Religion would know sooner or later.

Finally, Ding Suian added with concern, “Seeing the confucian renegades growing in power, does the State Religion have a countermeasure?”

Xu Jiuxi leaned against the wall, winding a strand of dark hair hanging by her temple, her posture lazy. “Regarding this matter, Your Majesty is more anxious than the Sacred Sect. Let’s wait and see.”

Hmm, the revival of the Confucian Sect would not only compete with the State Religion for the right to interpret secular rituals and laws, but also fight for the right to speak on historical records.

Emperor Wu and the Confucian Sect were already at odds. If the latter rose to power, they would inevitably rewrite the history of Emperor Wu killing his foster father to usurp the country. Ding Suian suddenly thought that after Great Wu was founded, it used ‘legitimacy’ as the era name, which had not been changed for nearly fifty years.

If legitimacy is not legitimate, the more you lack something, the more you emphasize it.

While thinking, his gaze accidentally fell on Xu Jiuxi’s feet.

She was barefoot. Because of her sitting posture leaning against the wall, her fair, tender right foot poked out from under her crimson skirt. Her five toes were rounded, and the crystalline nails were dyed crimson with henna.

Xu Jiuxi noticed his gaze. Far from being annoyed, she lifted her foot high, her instep taut and her toes slightly curled. It looked exactly like a special reaction at a certain moment.

“Does it look good?”

Xu Jiuxi asked with a giggle, her trailing voice sticky and sweet.

Ding Suian smiled and said, “It looks good.”

“Do you want to play with them~”

“.”

Because of the movement of her lifting her leg, a beautiful scene appeared under the skirt that was lifted, with red undergarments faintly visible in the depths.

Ding Suian withdrew his gaze and took a sip of tea to suppress the dryness in his chest and abdomen. “Let’s do it another day.”

“Hehehe~”

Xu Jiuxi gave a low laugh, withdrew her long legs, and changed from sitting to kneeling. Her body leaned forward again, and she slowly stretched out her swan-like neck, bringing her head close to Ding Suian’s neck, sniffing incessantly.

He heard her whisper in his ear, “It is said that you injured an Astral Fusion Realm expert in Southern Zhao~” While speaking, her delicate, high-bridged nose twitched, sniffing incessantly. “You only just advanced to Astral last summer. Why did you defeat a Fusion expert in just half a year? What secret do you have?”

The breath from her speaking and the airflow from her nose sniffing kept blowing on his neck, itchy and numb. This feeling was both seductive and extremely dangerous.

Like a lover flirting, it was also like a snake confirming whether its prey was delicious.

It seemed that she might open her mouth and take a bite at his throat at any moment.

Ding Suian tensed his nerves, guarding against her possible surprise attack, while silently reciting a few lines of the calming scripture he learned from AZhi. “I don’t know either. Perhaps I have a unique talent?”

“Unique talent?”

Xu Jiuxi finally pulled her head out of his neck, but did not move away, continuing to maintain her forward-leaning posture. The distance between the two was less than a span, their eyes meeting.

“That Lin Hansu… she entered the tutelage of Supervisor Yuan, and in just four months went from Vitality to Enlightenment. Is it because of Dual Cultivation with you?”

Her fragrant, soft breath brushed directly across Ding Suian’s face. Her peach-blossom eyes, so close at hand, had pupils as eerie as deep pools. Ding Suian did not know if she had used some kind of enchanting Spell again, or if it was because the overly ambiguous distance made him react.

In short, he couldn’t concentrate.

He lowered his eyes, cutting off eye contact with Xu Jiuxi, but… his gaze moved downward and happened to fall into the slightly open neckline when Xu Jiuxi leaned forward.

Two plump snowballs squeezed out a deep gully.

Great, he couldn’t concentrate even more.

Ding Suian struggled to pull his eyes away and simply turned his head to look at the street scene outside the window.

“Sect Master. You cannot just say anything! I respect the Princess Consort of Lanyang and treat her as a sister. Our relationship is pure and clean. Where does this talk of Dual Cultivation come from?”

“Oh? Treating her as a sister? That’s not bad. Calling each other sister and brother during Dual Cultivation adds to the fun.”

Xu Jiuxi was not easily fooled. Seeing Ding Suian’s head turned to the side, she very domineeringly raised her hand to pinch his chin, forcefully turning Ding Suian’s head back. She puffed out her chest slightly, giving Ding Suian the best viewing angle. “If you want to look, look openly. Your sister is not a stingy person.”

“.”

“You’ve had your look, now it’s time to tell the truth, right?”

“What truth?”

“Do you have a special cultivation method? Is Lin Hansu’s rapid progress due to Dual Cultivation?”

“.”

Ding Suian raised his eyes, the two of them still maintaining a face-to-face posture at an extremely close distance. This demoness was too overbearing. Since they met, she had always held the initiative. To break the current atmosphere, he could only turn passive into active!

“Speak~”

Xu Jiuxi stuck out her tongue to lick her lips, smiling brightly, looking at him as if he were prey, her gaze firmly locked onto him.

Ding Suian stared at her silently for two breaths, then suddenly reached out, grabbed the back of Xu Jiuxi’s head, and leaned in.

Because it was too sudden, when the two collided, their mouths were bruised by each other’s teeth.

It hurt~

At first, Xu Jiuxi instinctively retracted her head, but the back of her head was tightly held by Ding Suian’s large hand. Seeing that she couldn’t pull back, she reached around behind her, grabbing Ding Suian’s hair bun to pull him away.

Ding Suian felt the pain and instinctively leaned back in the direction of her force, but the hand clamped on the back of Xu Jiuxi’s head pressed back even harder.

This forced her body to lean forward as well, following Ding Suian’s backward-leaning posture.

“Clang~”

The small tea table placed between the two was finally knocked over.

The two fell onto the couch together.

Even so, Ding Suian still didn’t let go. Holding firm to the green mountain!

In the current situation, either kiss her until she’s dizzy, or let go and wait for her revenge.

Seeing that Xu Jiuxi was still unwilling to submit, Ding Suian, in a fit of anger, bit her lip with his teeth, not too lightly and not too heavily.

He clearly felt that Xu Jiuxi stiffened for a moment, and then, a strange, almost inhuman flexibility flowed through her waist, as if some dormant instinct had been quietly awakened.

She actually became docile just like that.

The hand that had been pulling his hair bun gradually relaxed, and then her snake-like arms wrapped around from behind his neck.

It was wrapped very heavily, very forcefully.

Outside, Xu Jiuxi’s personal maid, Shu Yao, heard the commotion, pushed open the door of the private room, and took a look. She was startled and couldn’t help but freeze in place.

At this moment, she saw Old Xu’s hand, which was wrapped around the back of Ding Suian’s neck, wave from bottom to top. It looked like she was shooing Shu Yao away.

Shu Yao understood, lowered her head with a smile, and quietly retreated, closing the door behind her.

It is unknown how much time passed, maybe thirty or fifty breaths, maybe over a hundred breaths.

Anyway, when both of them were a little out of breath, Ding Suian suddenly felt a piercing pain in his lower lip and quickly pulled his head back.

But this time, the roles were reversed.

Xu Jiuxi seemed to have had her predatory instinct triggered, with a sense of punishment, she pursued relentlessly, unyielding.

Her eyes, which had never closed from beginning to end, were not filled with tender affection like other women, but were cold and focused instead.

Ding Suian raised his hand and pinched her nose tightly for more than ten breaths, until Xu Jiuxi, who could no longer breathe at all, finally let go.

“Hiss~ Huff.”

Ding Suian first gasped in pain, then took a deep breath to relieve the oxygen deprivation.

Between his lips and teeth, there was a metallic, sweet taste. He wiped his hand. His palm was covered in pale red blood diluted by saliva.

His lower lip had been bitten by Xu Jiuxi into a row of bleeding little pits.

“Old Xu, it was just a sparring session. Why did you bite so hard?”

Ding Suian shouted in his mouth, but his body was in a state that looked relaxed but could actually erupt at any moment.

Xu Jiuxi sat sideways with her legs crossed. She wiped the faint crimson from the corner of her lips with her slender index finger, slowly put it into her mouth to suck on it, and smiled: “You were the one who moved your mouth first, and you were the one who bit first.”

“I didn’t have the heart to use force!”

“You didn’t have the heart?”

Xu Jiuxi covered her mouth and let out a series of coquettish low laughs. With her peach-blossom eyes containing a bit of evil spirit, she looked at Ding Suian and said: “So it was Little An who couldn’t bear to? If you are not convinced, let’s do it again, and I will be gentler.”