When Hu Xiaotian woke that morning, he found the bed beside him empty. He dressed and went outside, where he saw Huo Shengnan practicing with her sword in the courtyard. Her longsword whirled so tightly that neither wind nor rain could penetrate its defenses, just as Du Fu's poem described: "She came like thunder gathering its wrath; she ceased like rivers and seas congealing their clear light."
Hu Xiaotian watched from the side without rushing to disturb her. Only when Huo Shengnan finished her sword routine did he applaud.
Neither flushed nor out of breath, Huo Shengnan sheathed her sword and walked over to him. With a hint of shyness, she said, "You're awake?"
Hu Xiaotian said, "I haven't slept that comfortably in ages."
"You only slept for two hours," Huo Shengnan chided softly. Remembering their night of lingering passion, she was too embarrassed even to look him in the eye.
Hu Xiaotian said, "Your internal power seems to have increased quite a bit again."
Huo Shengnan said, "It's more than twice as strong as before."
They exchanged a rather intimate look whose meaning could be understood but not put into words. Both knew that Huo Shengnan's dramatic increase in internal power over such a short time was entirely due to the Sun-Shooting Scripture. This peculiar cultivation method allowed her to use Yin Steals Yang during their lovemaking to draw Hu Xiaotian's internal power into herself. While strengthening her, it also siphoned off his ever-expanding internal power, easing the pressure on his dantian sea of qi. It truly gave them the best of both worlds. In fact, the internal power Huo Shengnan absorbed was only a small fraction of his reserves. The internal power Hu Xiaotian had previously absorbed through the Void Art had not remained stagnant; as his martial