This Counts as Healing? The Yuheng Was Too Embarrassed to Raise Her Head
Keqing's eyes flew open. She could even feel clearly that the transformed Vision at her waist could directly draw upon the free-floating Soul Power of heaven and earth on the Douluo Continent, converting all of it into Violet Firmament lightning that was purer and more violent than before!
The lightning gradually faded, and the night breeze grew calm once more.
Having regained all her strength, Keqing belatedly realized just how utterly embarrassing a position she was still in.
She was practically reclining in Chu Yuan's arms, her crossed legs resting along the side of the young man's legs, a broad expanse of the fair, delicate skin on her chest pressed against his. Chu Yuan's large, warm hand still covered her slender, smooth, bare waist without a gap, his fingertips even brushing almost imperceptibly over the soft flesh at the hollow of her waist.
"Ah...!"
Keqing's pretty face flushed all the way down to her neck in an instant. Like a startled purple-haired cat, she scrambled to push herself up and pull away from Chu Yuan's embrace.
But at the very instant her Vision finished being completely reforged, a sudden change occurred!
Before Keqing could push against Chu Yuan's chest and retreat even half an inch, the [Electro-Attribute Vision] at her waist, newly imprinted with pale golden divine patterns, abruptly entered into a deeper resonance of laws with the [Crown of Heavenly Principles] floating above Chu Yuan's palm!
In an instant, a purple-gold torrent of origin power, several times more concentrated than before, roared back out from the Vision's core. Under the dominion of the [Crown of Heavenly Principles], it became scalding, boundless primordial divine power and surged forcefully into her body once more through Chu Yuan's palm, which was pressed against her waist!
If the baptism just now had been no more than preliminary treatment to strip away the plane's rejection and mend her damaged meridians, then this resonance was the new Heavenly Principles' complete reforging of his dependent's body and soul, and the mingling of their origins.
"Mm...!"
The little strength Keqing had just gathered vanished in an instant. Her arms went limp, and instead of escaping, she fell back even more snugly into Chu Yuan's broad embrace.
That immensely invasive yet warm and boundless primordial divine power seemed to possess a life and consciousness of its own. Following the lines of Chu Yuan's scalding palm, it roamed freely through her limbs and bones, and every inch of her extraordinary meridians.
Keqing tilted back her long, fair swan-like neck, and a shimmering, hazy mist instantly veiled her amethyst eyes.
She had devoted her life to governance and the sword, and in Liyue Harbor she was always dignified and self-possessed. Let alone holding a man this close, she had never even experienced ordinary physical contact.
Yet now, Chu Yuan's left hand was wrapped firmly around her slender willow waist, so narrow it seemed a hand could encircle it. It slowly traveled upward along her side, guiding the scalding divine power through every hidden meridian point in her body.
Too hot...
The warmth of Chu Yuan's palm, together with the purple-gold divine power surging through her body, nearly melted her reason away completely.
As the divine power flowed past her tailbone and up her back, Keqing felt an unbearable sensation and heat rising from every inch of her skin, as though countless faint, gentle currents of electricity were dancing deep in her marrow.
Keqing bit hard on her lower lip, trying to preserve the last of the Yuheng's modesty and dignity. But when the divine power from Chu Yuan's palm slowly washed over her heaving contours, the supreme shudder that struck the very origin of her soul still easily shattered all her defenses.
Chu Yuan looked down at the graceful, delicate figure in his arms, now thoroughly suffused with a rosy glow, even her cat-ear hair buns trembling slightly. A trace of appreciation and warmth flashed in his eyes.
Several dozen breaths passed.
"Clang-!"
A clear sword cry, like the call of a phoenix and the roar of a dragon, echoed from within Keqing's body. The purple-gold radiance erupting from the [Electro-Attribute Vision] at her waist finally reached its peak, then receded completely like the tide, becoming a translucent, flawless purple-gold lightning crystal with pale golden Heavenly Principles divine patterns flowing across it.
The violent power enveloping Keqing subsided completely.
After that intimate baptism, which had lasted several minutes and felt almost like a mingling of souls, Liyue's usually proud and strong-willed Yuheng was drenched in fragrant sweat, drained of even the strength to lift a finger.
Her clothes were half-undone, her face flushed crimson, and she lay limp in Chu Yuan's arms like a boneless water snake.
Her violet eyes, usually flashing with a sharp edge, now shimmered like rippling water, full of springtime warmth. She kept them lowered in utter embarrassment, not daring to meet Chu Yuan's gaze as he looked down at her.
Yet her hands, driven by her subconscious, clutched the front of Chu Yuan's robes tightly, showing no intention of letting go.
At the final moment of their divine powers' mingling, through the connection of laws between the [Crown of Heavenly Principles] and her Vision, Keqing had not only truly felt the pure and supreme origin of creation within Chu Yuan, vast as a sea of stars, but had also clearly sensed the unreserved protection and salvation the young man offered her beneath his domineering exterior.
In this alien wilderness, utterly unfamiliar and where even the laws of heaven and earth sought to put her to death, only the embrace of the man before her could give her an unprecedented sense of safety and warmth; only his power could let her be reborn from a desperate situation and even touch a higher realm of the sword.
Whether out of awe for the station of the new "Heavenly Principles" or because of the skin-to-skin intimacy that had penetrated to her marrow, Keqing's heart, which had never opened to any man, had fallen completely before she knew it.
"Th... thank you..."
Keqing half-buried her burning cheek in Chu Yuan's chest. Her voice was as faint as a mosquito's, tinged with lingering breathlessness and shyness. "If you hadn't saved me, I surely would not have escaped calamity today... From now on, in this world called the Douluo Continent, I... I am willing to follow your commands."
As she spoke the last few words, her small, delicate earlobes turned so red they seemed ready to bleed, and the slender, fair fingers clutching Chu Yuan's robes tightened slightly.
For the proud and haughty Yuheng, words so close to a declaration of devotion and allegiance undoubtedly meant entrusting her life, all she possessed, and her future entirely to Chu Yuan.
The corners of Chu Yuan's lips lifted slightly. He reached out with his right hand and gently brushed the tip of her pert, reddened nose with his fingertip, then stroked the long purple hair spilling over her fragrant shoulders. His voice was gentle, yet carried the natural authority of one accustomed to command:
"Now that you have come under my wing, there is no need to be so reserved. Whether I am reshaping the order of Teyvat or reigning over this Douluo Continent, I am in need of a capable assistant as swift and decisive as you... and someone who can stay by my side and walk with me."
"By... by your side..."
Keqing's heart gave a heavy leap. So embarrassed that she hurriedly closed her eyes, her long lashes fluttered fiercely like butterfly wings. In the end, though, she offered no objection, merely pressing her cheek a little closer to his warm chest.