Xu Ziqing’s body jolted violently, as though struck by lightning. Every part of him turned weak and pliant.
An immense surge of pleasure swept over him at once, ten thousand times more intense than anything he had experienced earlier!
Previously they had merged their true essence. Now their primordial spirits were joining!
Even cultivators who had become Dao companions ordinarily would not lightly attempt the joining of primordial spirits.
Once they did, they would understand not only every detail of each other’s techniques and cultivation but also the deepest and most carefully concealed secrets within their primordial spirits.
Nothing whatsoever could be hidden.
Unless two lovers’ hearts were genuinely united, who would willingly entrust their entire selves to another without reservation?
Yet Yun Lie had done exactly that.
His cultivation was powerful, and his primordial spirit had completed its transformation long ago. Xu Ziqing had only now advanced to late Golden Core, transforming all three souls and seven spirits completely into a primordial spirit.
But a newly formed primordial spirit was inevitably unstable. Yun Lie’s had undergone years of tempering and was stronger even than those of ordinary cultivators. Thus he sent more than half of his primordial spirit into Xu Ziqing’s Purple Palace first. This was extremely dangerous. If Xu Ziqing harbored even the slightest malice, Yun Lie’s entire path to immortality could be cut short.
But how could Xu Ziqing possibly harbor such a thought?
Precisely because he had not the slightest guard against Yun Lie, his senior brother’s primordial spirit caught his completely unprepared. The two became entwined immediately, awakening wave after wave of pleasure so powerful Xu Ziqing could barely endure it.
If anything in the world could truly be called supreme bliss, nothing would be more deserving of the name than the merging of primordial spirits.
Yun Lie’s primordial spirit wrapped around Xu Ziqing’s and poured into it every experience he had known since first gaining consciousness. His memories flashed past like old images, each frame as quick as lightning yet perfectly distinct as it passed to the other.
They included his numerous insights and experiences: the arduous sword training of his childhood, his initial achievements in the sword Dao, his comprehension of sword intent, and everything he had understood in all the years that followed. He withheld not the smallest part.
How could Xu Ziqing bear such an experience easily?
His face flushed deep red and his body became soft as spring water. He could no longer fully control himself.
Yun Lie’s memories surged into him, making Xu Ziqing feel as if he had accompanied his senior brother through countless years. He could even faintly sense and remember passing thoughts that Yun Lie had once had.
His primordial spirit was not yet resilient enough; otherwise, he might have learned even the deeply buried feelings of which Yun Lie himself was hardly aware. Yet simply realizing the steadfastness of Yun Lie’s love for him was enough to clear Xu Ziqing’s pleasure-dazed mind a little and fill him with boundless joy.
Yun Lie knew that he was a man of few words, naturally solitary and cold, and that even when feelings arose in him, he rarely showed them. This time he simply laid his heart bare so that his junior brother could understand.
Xu Ziqing accepted everything without reservation, and a still deeper sense of peace gradually filled his heart.
The more he understood Senior Brother, however, the more he sensed that Yun Lie had a question to ask.
Are you willing?
…Of course I am.
In the next moment, Xu Ziqing opened his primordial spirit completely and allowed Yun Lie’s to enter it without restraint.
Earlier Yun Lie had been giving and Xu Ziqing receiving. Now Xu Ziqing responded in kind, offering himself entirely.
A hundred years of this life, the long road of cultivation, countless uncertainties and tangled thoughts: confusion about the Great Dao as well as unshakable faith in his own path, every passing concern was revealed. There were also his growing feelings for Senior Brother, the bitterness and shyness he had sometimes felt, his uncertainty and later peace, and finally his overwhelming love now that he could walk beside him. All appeared one by one.
His most carefully guarded secret was that he had lived another life before this one.
Xu Ziqing sighed inwardly, and the scenes of his previous life appeared as well.
That had been an entirely different and mysterious world, nothing like this one, not even one of its innumerable small worlds. A barrier seemed to separate the two worlds.
He probably could never return. However dearly he missed his family in that life, he could not go back.
Even if he eventually found a means to do so, his relatives had been ordinary mortals and would likely long since have passed away.
How much yearning and grief had there been between those thoughts, and how much tempering of his state of mind before he gradually made peace with them?
Many of his heart-demon trials had arisen from this very matter. Only as his cultivation advanced had he finally overcome those heart demons and slowly found tranquility.
The obstacles of the seven emotions existed everywhere on the immortal path. Whatever method a cultivator practiced, one had to master those feelings and free oneself from their restraints to have hope of ascending.
Xu Ziqing did not want cultivation to make him forget his former life. He could only learn to let go of his attachments while remembering the past honestly.
That flood of thoughts and feelings became known to Yun Lie as Xu Ziqing opened his primordial spirit.
Now they were dual-cultivation Dao companions who had even joined their primordial spirits. No secrets remained between them.
After Yun Lie received the experiences of Xu Ziqing’s two lives, their primordial spirits came close to complete fusion.
The black-gold essence and the pale-green sphere of light interpenetrated each other. The black-gold essence was more forceful, while the green light was exceptionally accommodating.
Joined together, they seemed to become a single being while still remaining two distinct entities. The sensation was wondrous beyond description.
Xu Ziqing was now completely open to his senior brother, and the pleasure of their merged primordial spirits became even more powerful than before.
Fine sweat gradually dampened his skin. In his dazed state, he felt a similar moisture settling upon his own perspiration.
The pleasure was so intense that his skin grew increasingly flushed, until it seemed suffused with a remarkably beautiful glow that inspired affection.
Through the haze Xu Ziqing lifted his eyes and saw beads of sweat upon Senior Brother’s stern face as well.
His senior brother’s eyes had become an expanse of chaos.
They were not deep black as when he had fallen under demonic influence, nor as sharply defined as usual.
Instead they were a nearly silver shade of gray: the color of chaos.
That chaos seemed empty of all things, yet it also appeared to contain extreme emotions in tumult, revealing that Yun Lie was far from unmoved.
Xu Ziqing was captivated. He drew Yun Lie down by the neck, slipped his tongue between his lips, and kissed him deeply.
Yun Lie embraced him in return. The hardness within Xu Ziqing was not withdrawn; instead, he pressed even deeper.
Then he began thrusting firmly again.
The overwhelming pleasure of merging primordial spirits was almost impossible for cultivators to withstand. Combined with the joining of their minds and bodies, their intertwined limbs and intimate connection, it plunged both men into passion, their desires and feelings blending inseparably.
At the same time, Xu Ziqing dimly seemed to perceive an enormous sword domain. Countless swords stood densely packed within it, all pointing toward the heavens. Innumerable sword intents filled them, as though they meant to pierce the sky. Above those swords hung an inverted river of stars, nourishing a giant black-gold sword with tremendous force and sharpness.
He recognized it as his senior brother’s inner world.
Once that inner world had existed only in embryonic form. Now its star river had continued evolving, extending into boundless stars scattered across the heavens.
Its killing intent and sharpness were sufficient, yet it seemed to contain too much death and was somehow lonely.
As this thought passed through Xu Ziqing’s mind, he seemed to gain a faint realization.
But he could not yet identify what he had understood. Soon he sank back into his daze, floating in the tides of desire.
He did not know that even while he acted almost entirely on instinct, his Purple Palace had begun to swell.
It was as though countless thoughts and conceptions were pouring in, rapidly filling it. Yet once it was full, the momentum seemed to falter, unable to advance any further.
What was still missing?
Yun Lie’s primordial spirit was intertwined with Xu Ziqing’s, so every insight Xu Ziqing gained was clear to him.
Although he too was acting largely on instinct, he remained much more aware.
Just as Xu Ziqing could see his sword domain, Yun Lie could also perceive the faintly comprehended embryonic inner world within Xu Ziqing.
Xu Ziqing’s Purple Palace had not yet been opened, so his embryonic inner world could not truly take form.
Even with only the slightest signs of it present, Yun Lie was capable of perceiving the unformed conception within his junior brother.
Xu Ziqing’s embryonic inner world was almost the complete opposite of Yun Lie’s early one: one centered on life and the other on slaughter, each somewhat one-sided.
During their earlier dual cultivation, Yun Lie had already gained much from Xu Ziqing’s life force. Now, by observing the beginnings of Xu Ziqing’s Purple Palace inner world, he gained still deeper comprehension. In an instant the many swords within his own sword domain seemed to grow more lively.
A faint strand of white mist appeared above each sword.
Swords possessed spirits, and such spirits were also living beings.
At the same time, Yun Lie perceived what Xu Ziqing was lacking.
Just as Yun Lie lacked vitality, Xu Ziqing lacked killing intent. He cultivated the Dao of life’s and death’s cycle of reincarnation. Without death, how could there be reincarnation?
Over the years Xu Ziqing had become decisive when he needed to act, but his compassionate nature meant he rarely killed.
Precisely because he rarely took lives, the life and death aspects of his Dao were badly imbalanced.
He was naturally gentle as a wood-attribute cultivator, but since he had chosen this Great Dao, he must have possessed some understanding of it. The two sides did not need to be exactly equal. Yet the gulf between his comprehension of life and of death had become so great that it obstructed him.
The solution was to absorb killing intent.
And he could naturally obtain that from his senior brother.
Soon, acting by instinct, Xu Ziqing’s unformed conception began stirring and, taking advantage of their merged primordial spirits, drew threads of Yun Lie’s killing intent into itself.
The killing intent entered his Purple Palace, combined with his conception, and gradually strengthened it.
However icy and hard that killing intent might be, it belonged to Yun Lie. Since Yun Lie’s primordial spirit was joined to his, Xu Ziqing could draw upon what belonged to his senior brother.
For an ordinary cultivator, making another’s killing intent one’s own was extremely difficult. But by continuing to nurture and refine it, Xu Ziqing could eventually succeed.
After this, opening his Purple Palace inner world would only require patience and steady work.
The longer their dual cultivation continued, the stronger their desire became, and the more smoothly and rapidly their true essence circulated.
Their primordial spirits entwined more tightly still, sharing their insights, experiences, and innumerable mysterious perceptions.
The closer they became, the deeper their passion and the greater the gains they received. Each understood his Dao companion more fully.
With inner and outer union complete, and everything between them blended together, their lovemaking became almost desperate in its intensity.