Perched in the treetop, Qian Renxue sat cross-legged, trying to enter a meditative state.
The two people by the lake had eaten their fill. One had gone into the tent to sleep, while the other stayed outside to keep watch. It didn't look like anything would happen anytime soon.
She didn't want to waste time, so she planned to take the opportunity to cultivate for a while.
But for some reason, she was restless today and couldn't settle down no matter what she tried.
The scenes she'd witnessed that day kept replaying in her mind.
Hu Liena's daring outfit, her ingratiating smile, the kiss she'd initiated...
And that man called Qin Chuan. He seemed ordinary, yet there was something strange about him at every turn.
Qian Renxue irritably opened her eyes and gave up on cultivating. She looked toward the lakeshore.
The campfire was still burning, but no one was sitting beside it anymore.
Where was Hu Liena?
A sense of foreboding suddenly welled up in Qian Renxue's heart.
Her gaze slowly shifted toward the blue tent.
Its zipper was closed tight, and she couldn't see what was happening inside.
But Qian Renxue's eyesight was astonishingly keen. She focused on the tent and could just make out two overlapping silhouettes on its fabric.
One was lying down, motionless.
The other... was slowly making some strange movements.
Qian Renxue's breath caught.
She saw the moving shadow seemingly taking off its clothes.
One piece... then another...
First, something black, like leather armor, was thrown out of the tent and landed in the grass nearby. Then came a pair of men's trousers.
Qian Renxue felt as if her brain had been struck by a sledgehammer. It rang in her ears.
What... what had she just seen?
Hu Liena... she actually...
The tent began to rock gently, in a steady rhythm.
Along with its swaying came faint, muffled sounds in fits and starts.
There was a man's heavy breathing, as well as a woman's faint cries.
"Mm..."
Those sounds were like red-hot needles, stabbing into Qian Renxue's eardrums. Heat rushed through her body, leaving her unable to sit still.
Sunlight shone through the tent fabric, casting the intertwined silhouettes of the two people inside in sharp relief.
One was tall, the other slender.
One was passive, the other active.
One was an ordinary man, the other a genius.
All manner of unbelievable positions played out in turn on that tiny screen of light and shadow.
It was... it was utterly indecent! Completely unfit to be seen!
Qian Renxue's face had turned so red it looked ready to bleed. She wanted to look away, but her emerald-green eyes seemed trapped by a magnet, fixed on the rocking tent and unable to move.
Her body trembled faintly, beyond her control.
An unfamiliar feeling she'd never experienced before rose from her lower abdomen and quickly spread throughout her body.
It was a complicated mix of shame, anger, curiosity, and a trace of... longing.
In her twenty years of life, this was the first time she'd learned that a man and a woman could do something like this.
The first time she'd learned that a woman's body could be so soft, so... wanton.
Watching Hu Liena's body bend in ways no human body should, striking all sorts of poses in the shifting silhouettes, Qian Renxue felt the worldview she'd built over the past twenty years crumbling inch by inch.
A storm surged through her heart.
Just as her mind reeled and her entire worldview shattered, the tent suddenly began to rock violently.
"Ah!"
A brief, sharp cry came from inside.
Right afterward, the whole tent seemed to be lifted abruptly by some invisible force!
Startled by the sudden change, Qian Renxue instinctively leaned backward.
She forgot that she was sitting on a rather thin branch.
"Crack!" The branch snapped with a sharp sound.
"Oh no!" Qian Renxue panicked and tried to steady herself, but it was too late.
Like a kite with its string cut, she fell straight down from the treetop, more than ten meters above the ground.
"Thump!"
The muffled impact of a heavy object hitting the ground rang out across the quiet lakeshore.
The tent's rocking and the sounds inside stopped abruptly.
"Hm? What was that?"
A groggy, confused male voice came from inside the tent.
"I-it was probably a Soul Beast... It's fine! Don't be scared. Let's... let's keep going..." A woman's voice answered. Yet beneath it lay a faint note of panic and guilt.
Qian Renxue felt as though every bone in her body had nearly come apart.
She'd fallen from a tree several meters high. The injury wasn't serious, but the enormous impact had left her dizzy and made her blood and qi surge.
What made her feel even more ashamed and horrified were the two sentences that had come from the tent.
"What was that?"
"It was probably a Soul Beast. It's fine! Don't be scared. Let's keep going."
Keep going?! They were going to keep going?!
Qian Renxue lay in the grass, mortified and furious, wishing she could crawl into a crack in the ground.
She was the president of the Spirit Academy Student Council and the future heir to the Angel God. Yet she'd hidden in a tree like a peeping thief to watch two people fooling around—and then fallen out because she'd been watching too "intently"!
If word got out, how could she ever face anyone again?
Qian Renxue struggled to her feet. She didn't even bother brushing off the dirt and leaves clinging to her. On her hands and knees, she scrambled behind a thicker tree and clamped both hands over her mouth, not daring to breathe.
Fortunately, no more "keep going" came from the tent.
After a while, the tent zipper opened, and a sleepy-looking man crawled out.
Qin Chuan rubbed his eyes and yawned widely.
He felt like he'd had a very, very long dream.
In it, he seemed to have turned into a fish, caught in a gigantic, soft, fragrant net.
The net had kept tightening around him, leaving him both breathless and strangely comfortable. He'd also dreamed of exploring a warm, damp cave, with a winding passage that led deep inside and a hot spring...
All in all, it had been a very strange dream, but one that was... hard to forget.
"How long was I asleep?" Qin Chuan stretched, feeling full of energy, though a faint ache had crept into his lower back.
"Not... not long." Hu Liena crawled out of the tent as well.
Her pretty face was flushed, and her eyes darted away, unable to meet Qin Chuan's gaze. Her black leather armor sat crookedly on her, and a few strands of rose-gold hair clung in disarray to her sweat-damp cheeks.
Seeing her like this, Qin Chuan looked puzzled. "Nana, what's wrong? Your face is so red. Do you have a fever?"
As he spoke, he naturally reached out to check her forehead.
"No... I'm fine!" Like a startled rabbit, Hu Liena suddenly stepped back, dodging his hand.
Her reaction only made Qin Chuan more confused.
But just then, the same notification that had left Hu Liena utterly intoxicated rang in her mind again.
[Congratulations, player Hu Liena! You unlocked a new scene and earned the Shopkeeper's utmost favor. Member experience +100 points!]
[Congratulations, player Hu Liena! Your membership level has increased! Promoted from "Silver Member" to "Gold Member"! Current experience: 30/1000.]
[Gold Member privileges unlocked:]
[1. Game Coins received per exchange +3.]
[2. Daily number of grabs +3. Current grab limit: 6!]
[3. Slightly increased grab success rate in the "High-Tier Zone"!]
A string of system notifications exploded in Hu Liena's mind.
She... she'd gone from Silver to Gold! She'd gained 100 experience points at once!
She'd started with 30/100 experience, so the 70-point gap had been filled outright, with 30 extra points left over, enough to promote her to Gold Member!
What a bargain! She'd struck it rich!
She looked at the bewildered man in front of her, and her eyes instantly burned with fervor.
This wasn't some ordinary man. He was a walking treasure trove, inexhaustible and impossible to drain!
Qin Chuan, however, had no idea what had come over Hu Liena.
"Brother Chuan!" Unable to contain herself any longer, Hu Liena rushed over and wrapped her arms around Qin Chuan's waist. "You're my lucky star!"
Qin Chuan nearly lost his balance.
He could feel the woman in his arms trembling slightly, not with fear, but with... intense excitement.
"Nana, what's going on?" Qin Chuan was utterly baffled.
"Nothing! I'm just so happy!" Hu Liena mumbled, her face buried against his chest.
Hidden behind the tree, Qian Renxue watched the two of them cling to each other and felt her stomach churn.
All she wanted now was to get away from this place as quickly as possible. She couldn't bear to look at this couple of "lovebirds" for another moment.
It was about three in the afternoon now.
Qian Renxue had crouched in the forest for several hours. Gripping the tree trunk, she staggered to her feet, ready to sneak away.
But as soon as she moved, a pain shot through her ankle.
"Ah..." Qian Renxue looked down and saw that her left ankle had been scraped.
After treating her injury, Qian Renxue left without looking back.