Only the soft cartilage of her shoulder had been twisted a full half circle—aside from the two parties involved, no one could tell. Tang Lici was completely indifferent to such an ambiguous posture. He leaned even closer, and as he opened his mouth to speak, his red lips moved, touching Xifang Tao’s left ear. “The hair is your hair, but the person… where are you hiding Chi Yun?”

Xifang Tao only felt her left ear tingle and go numb, half her face flushing red. She bit her lip and giggled. “Oh my, you… you really are… how do you know it’s Chi Yun? Why not ask about your naturally charming and uniquely beautiful Miss A’Shui? I can see you have deep feelings for her—how can you be so heartless now?”

Tang Lici laughed softly, the vibration reaching her ear. “If you could be certain I have ‘deep feelings’ for her, you wouldn’t have captured Chi Yun, would you? After all, capturing A’Shui alive would be much easier than capturing Chi Yun alive.”

Xifang Tao sighed. “I indeed don’t know whether your ‘deep feelings’ for her are genuine or an act. If you were performing for my benefit, and I rashly made a move to capture someone, what if you had arranged for Shao Yanping to play the mantis stalking the cicada? Wouldn’t I have killed for nothing?” Her bright eyes flowed with charm, her cheeks flushed. “But Chi Yun must certainly be an important person to you. Seeing you like this today, I know I wasn’t wrong.”

“Letting him pursue Shen Langhun and Liu Yan alone was indeed my miscalculation,” Tang Lici said gently. “I was troubled and confused then, forgetting there was still a mad demon like you lurking behind, causing him to be isolated and captured. This is entirely my fault—” He pressed his forehead against hers, sending a stream of true energy straight from his brow through his yintang point into Xifang Tao’s mind. “Speak—where are you hiding him?”

Xifang Tao smiled charmingly and circulated her qi in resistance. Both possessed world-shaking internal cultivation—both practiced extreme and strange left-path evil arts. At the tiny space where their foreheads pressed together, their energies clashed, collided, and flowed back. This method of combat was far more dangerous than palm-to-palm fighting—the slightest carelessness would result in exploding brains and death. Yet seeing Tang Lici and Xifang Tao embracing waists and necks, touching foreheads while smiling, who could know the deadly killing intent and extreme danger within? Xifang Tao said softly, “The Energy Exchange Great Method’s fierce true qi is truly remarkable. Your gains far exceed Liu Yan’s—no wonder he couldn’t defeat you repeatedly… Want to know where Chi Yun is? Fine… kill Shao Yanping, and I’ll tell you where he is…”

Tang Lici smiled lightly, his true power surging forth even more powerfully, fierce as flaming blades. “Ha! If I kill Shao Yanping, you can transform into the master of the Central Plains Sword Association? Getting the Central Plains Sword Association to accept a ‘woman’ as master would be extremely difficult.”

Xifang Tao neutralized his incomparable blazing power with apparent ease. “Unparalleled strategy, a wonderfully inconceivable chess move—how could everything be guessed by you?”

Tang Lici said, “What if I don’t kill Shao Yanping, but kill Puzhu instead?”

At these words, Xifang Tao’s internal breathing became slightly disordered—clearly she was startled. Tang Lici immediately gained the upper hand. Xifang Tao’s face turned pale, the blazing yang true power making her dizzy and causing severe ear pain. “You—”

Tang Lici said gently, “Puzhu is about to return to participate in the Shaolin abbot assembly. With his talent, martial arts, and Buddhist foundation, being selected as abbot shouldn’t be difficult. Add to that your subtle paving of the way for him, and Puzhu becoming Shaolin’s abbot is a sure thing. You’ve already invested much effort in him. When he becomes abbot and commands Shaolin, once you tighten your tender net of affection and he suddenly discovers life is impossible without you, with emotional roots planted deep and no turning back, even if Puzhu were truly a living arhat or incarnate bodhisattva in the flesh, he couldn’t escape your grasp. Shaolin Temple would be a great ally for your entry into mastering the Central Plains Sword Association. Am I divinely calculating and prophetic?”

“You… you’re truly unexpected. A hypocritical gentleman like you—so charming, beautiful, yet vicious in thought—why must you oppose me? If you assisted me instead, wouldn’t everything in the world be much simpler and easier? Don’t you think so?” Xifang Tao concentrated her qi and gradually held back Tang Lici’s blazing yang true power. “Though you and I aren’t the same type of people, we’re not so different.”

Tang Lici smiled, showing his teeth. “Why do I oppose you? The common people of this world originally had nothing to do with me—but you—you took in Liu Yan and taught him martial arts, you made him refine the Scarlet Ghost Nine Hearts Pill, trapping him in eternal damnation, you made him master of the Romantic Shop, making him the target of all in the martial world, then you made him suffer great defeat at Haoyun Mountain, reducing him to a homeless dog! A’Yan has a simple mind and stubborn temper—he doesn’t understand that this step-by-step path of no return was arranged by you long ago. He might not hate you at all, only hate me—tell me, why shouldn’t I oppose you?” His lips and teeth parted slightly, biting Xifang Tao’s left ear. “Mm…”

“Don’t bite…” Xifang Tao laughed softly. “Oh my, the offense has already been committed—nothing can be done about it.” Her internal power wasn’t rigid yang force, but neither was it yin-cold—it formed its own school. When resisting Tang Lici’s incoming true qi, she wasn’t at a disadvantage. Exactly what level her cultivation had reached was hard to guess. “Puzhu is very important to me. Don’t threaten to kill people. How about this—I won’t ask you to kill Shao Yanping. I’ll tell you where he is—within three days, if you can’t rescue him, then you can’t blame me.”

Tang Lici’s teeth released, but his lips remained at her ear. The tingling warmth at her ear remained, and his breath was even more soul-stirring. “Where is he?”

“Thirty li north from here, at Xifeng Garden under the camellia trees, there’s an underground prison.”

Xifang Tao’s face was full of rosy clouds, her left ear warm, even her left hand weak and powerless. Her watery eyes glanced lightly at Tang Lici. “Young Master Tang’s flirtation techniques are truly… quite admirable.”

Tang Lici smiled slightly, released her right hand, slowly raised his head, smoothly stroking her chin as he departed gracefully.

His fingers were soft yet strong. Xifang Tao leaned against the wall, gently touching her own face as the charming flush gradually faded. This person was different from Liu Yan. Liu Yan merely relied on the advantages of his natural appearance and personality to make women fall for him, while he… he thoroughly understood every advantage about himself, acted with effectiveness, and never made meaningless gestures. This was what a master of flirtation was like. It seemed that against Tang Lici, beauty traps absolutely couldn’t be used. Xifang Tao smiled lightly—truly a cunning and vicious white fox, somewhat impossible to handle.

Outside in the corridor, Puzhu had just passed by. He didn’t see the passionate scene of two people embracing waists and kissing ears in Xifang Tao’s room, but Cheng Yunpao, who passed by shortly after, did see it.