Chapter Four: Bathing

The night was deep. A few last cries of night birds echoed through the bamboo forest of Qingya Peak, then all was silent. Even the chirping of insects had faded. The entire mountain seemed to be bathed in moonlight, so quiet that only the sounds of the wind and water could be heard.

Lu Qinghan stood in the bathroom behind the wooden house and gently unbuttoned the tattered white robe she was wearing.

The bathhouse was built for her when Shen Du was twelve. Calling it a bathhouse was a bit of a stretch; it was really just a small, enclosed space made of bamboo and thatch, with a shallow pool in the center. The pool's bottom was paved with smooth pebbles, and it drew water from a hot spring on the back mountain. The spring water was warm year-round, carrying a faint sulfurous smell, and was said to soothe muscles and cleanse the body, especially beneficial for those cultivating the Ice Heart Jade Technique. Lu Qinghan remembered that when Shen Du was building the bathhouse, he clumsily cut three fingers on the bamboo, the blood dripping onto the pebbles and staining them with small, dark red flowers. That day, she treated the cuts and bandaged them, and the next morning, he went back to the back mountain to move stones, his fingers still bandaged. When asked why he insisted on building it himself, he said that his master always had to go to the cold pool on the back mountain to bathe, but the water was too cold in winter and there were too many mosquitoes in summer. He wanted his master to be able to take a hot bath right at his doorstep.

She used that simple bathhouse for eight years. From when Shen Du was twelve to twenty, from the Qi Refining stage to the mid-Foundation Establishment stage. And she used it from the early Golden Core stage to the mid-Golden Core stage. Although her cultivation level didn't change much, every winter when she entered that steamy bathhouse, a corner of her heart would always feel warm. Tonight, when she walked in, that warmth was stronger than ever before.

Because this time, she wasn't alone.

Her white robe slipped from her shoulder, revealing skin even more radiant than moonlight. Lu Qinghan looked down at her body—complete, full, and curvaceous. A faint, old sword scar marked her shoulder and neck, a wound from decades ago, perfectly preserved by her skin, like a mark of time. She raised her hand to touch the scar, her fingertips feeling the slightly raised lines of smooth skin, and beneath that layer lay another.

Shen Du's skin.

She could feel his chest pressed against the inside of her ribcage, his abdomen against her abdominal wall, and his arms hanging quietly in the sheaths of her arms. From head to toe, he was inside her, completely enveloped by her skin, without a single inch missing. And at this moment, what she was doing was taking off her clothes.

Is he looking at her?

No, he didn't need to see. He was inside her body, sensing her every movement from within. He might be able to perceive every motion she made as she undressed through the senses inside her skin—the friction of the skin as the collar slipped from her shoulders, the loosening of her waist as the belt came undone, the slight pressure between her skin and the fabric as it slipped from her arms. This information might piece together a blurry image in his mind, and whether that image matched her actual posture at that moment, she didn't know, but the thought itself had already made her heart race.

Lu Qinghan did not close her eyes.

Normally, when bathing, she would habitually close her eyes, letting her consciousness naturally disperse, relaxing her body and mind in the steam of the hot spring. But tonight she didn't. She opened her eyes, looking down at her body, at the smooth, white skin below her collarbone, the fragments of her tattered white dress piled at her feet. Naked, she walked to the edge of the pool, sitting down on the warm stones of the pool wall, the hot spring water just reaching her waist. The rising steam blurred the outline of the cold moon in the night sky, and also caused a layer of fine water droplets to condense on her fair skin.

Then she felt her heartbeat. It was beating very fast, much faster than her own. The rhythm was strong and powerful, pounding against her senses through the thin gel filling between her skin and through the sensitive tactile nerves inside her chest, like a caged animal desperately pounding against the cage door.

Thump, thump, thump.

That was Shen Du's heartbeat.

Lu Qinghan unconsciously lowered her gaze to her chest. She saw the two full, soft mounds trembling slightly—not a large sway, but an extremely subtle, almost invisible tremor, each one precisely coinciding with the rhythm of her heartbeat. Each heartbeat brought a wave of extremely weak vibrations, originating from her chest cavity, passing through the mucus-filled layer inside her skin, and transmitting to the outside of her skin, ultimately creating a barely perceptible ripple on the fair, soft skin of her chest.

Her apprentice was inside her, his heart pounding as if it were about to explode. He was tense. Not just tense, but extremely tense.

Lu Qinghan's lips curled up slightly, then she quickly suppressed it.

"Shen Du." She spoke, her voice as cold as ever, even colder than usual, like a piece of thin ice deliberately thickened to cover the warm, surging water beneath, "Your heartbeat is too loud. Calm your mind, regulate your breathing, and circulate your internal energy."

“…Yes,” Shen Du mumbled in response. He could feel his tongue being gently pressed down. He tried to regulate his breathing in this cramped space, but each expansion of his chest pressed against the soft inner walls of his body. The more he tried to calm himself down, the more out of control that damned place became. He awkwardly contracted his lower abdomen, trying to pull that uncontrollable part back, but there was simply no extra space in this damned body for him to retreat.

Instead of calming down, her heartbeat quickened, and the vibrations hitting her chest became more rapid and clearer.

Lu Qinghan sighed softly in her heart—not a sigh of helplessness, but something more complex, something she wanted to control yet couldn't. She didn't actually want his heart to beat so fast, but she also didn't want it to stop completely. That heartbeat was the most authentic connection between them at that moment, the most direct proof that she could perceive his presence, his emotions, his vitality. If that heartbeat stopped, she would feel like she was truly just an empty shell.

She reached out and picked up a ladle, scooped up a ladle of hot spring water, and slowly poured it over her collarbone.

The water meandered down her neck, over her collarbone, and dampened the upper edge of her full breasts. It wasn't plain water; it was hot spring water, warm with sulfur and slippery with minerals. It flowed much more slowly across her skin than ordinary water, each inch of its soaking feeling exceptionally long. The water gently slid over her chest, circled the sides of her breasts, and dripped slowly from a protruding point with each breath. The sensation was so vivid, so vivid that she unconsciously tightened her grip on the rim of the ladle.

Because she wasn't the only one being caressed by the flowing water. As the warm, slippery water spread down her chest, she could feel an extremely subtle, almost imperceptible twitch in her lower back from the inside of her skin. It was a subconscious reaction that had been forcibly suppressed. It spread from her back all the way to her tailbone, as if her apprentice was trying to curl up even smaller inside her abdomen.

He might not even be aware that he was moving. It was a pure, uncontrollable muscular response—he had probably never experienced anything like it before, that warm, slippery sensation emanating from the outside of his chest, traveling through the thin layer of skin to his own. He couldn't see it, but he could "feel" the path of the water, "feel" the expanding area of ​​his skin being soaked, "feel" the changing pressure as her fingers brushed across his chest. And when he tried to control his reaction, that very control became an even more obvious signal.

Lu Qinghan continued scooping water. This time, the water flowed vertically down from the center of her collarbone, along the midline of her sternum, across the cleavage between her breasts, over her flat upper abdomen, and finally disappeared into the water below her waistline.

The twitching from inside the skin became more pronounced; Shen Du was moving his waist. His waist was thrusting forward—the movement was extremely small, perhaps less than half an inch, but inside this skin that was pressed so tightly together, even half an inch of displacement was clear enough to be seen through a magnifying glass. That half inch of forward thrust caused his lower body to penetrate her even deeper.

The sensation made Lu Qinghan's eyelashes tremble slightly. Inside her body—inside the scrotum of her vulva—came a warm, moist, and slightly pulsating feeling of being enveloped. Shen Du was erect. Not fully erect, but a gradual, uncontrollable process of engorgement. Each time she scooped water to pour over her chest, each time the water flowed over that sensitive spot, she could feel him swell slightly inside her, and the feeling of being stretched and filled became even more intense. She could even feel the slight upward curve of the tip of his penis, and a tiny blood vessel on its side pulsating with his heartbeat.

"Master...Master," Shen Du's voice rang in her mind, stammering as if he had used a lot of strength to squeeze the words out of his throat, "When you take a bath...are your eyes open or closed?"

Lu Qinghan's hand paused slightly.

The question itself says it all. He sensed that her eyes were open—perhaps through the subtle sensory transmission inside her skin, he perceived the opening and closing of her eyelids; perhaps he could vaguely perceive the changes in light and shadow through shared vision; or perhaps he was simply probing, trying to find a word to break the silence in such an extremely awkward situation.

"Keep your eyes open," Lu Qinghan replied calmly, his hands continuing their work as he scooped up another ladle of water and poured it over his shoulder.

Shen Du was silent for two seconds. She could feel his Adam's apple try to move—but it was firmly locked in place by her skin, and the movement was forced to stop halfway through.

"Then... then what can you see?" His voice was even more muffled, as if it were coming from someone who had buried their face in a pillow.

Lu Qinghan looked down at her body. She saw her full, white breasts swaying gently with her breath and the rushing water in the rising steam. She saw her slender waist, and her long legs reflecting the shimmering light beneath the water's surface. She saw it all, felt it all, and beneath it all, every inch of her skin was pressed against his. Every part of her body was tightly embraced by him through this thin layer of human skin.

“I see myself,” she replied. “What else can I see?”

Shen Du remained silent. But his body betrayed him; deep inside her, the tightly locked area swelled up again, an undeniable presence making her almost moan softly.

Lu Qinghan put down the water ladle.

She leaned against the stone wall of the bathtub, her body slightly reclined, her neck resting on the smooth edge of the stone. Her long hair spread across the water like a sheet of dark silk. The steam brought a faint blush to her fair cheeks, but her expression remained calm and composed, revealing no flaws. She spoke, her voice as steady as ever: "What's there to be shy about? You're twenty this year, you'll have to touch women eventually. Your first is your master, isn't that great?"

As she spoke, there was a faint, almost imperceptible smile in her voice—not mockery, nor teasing, but a subtle tone somewhere between a teacher's gentle instruction and something else entirely. She raised the final syllable of "okay?" slightly, as if asking him, or perhaps talking to herself. As she uttered the words, her tongue curled slightly, the tip brushing against the underside of his tongue, sending a tingling, electric sensation through him.

Shen Du's reaction was even stronger than she had expected. He froze completely inside her, as if someone had acupunctured him, and even his heart skipped a beat. Then his heart started beating again, faster, stronger, and more erratically than before, the vibrations hitting her chest as fast as a drumbeat.

"Master, Master, what are you saying!" Shen Du's voice rose several octaves, cracking, "You are the master! I am the disciple! How can you say such a thing—"

"Why not?" Lu Qinghan's tone remained indifferent, even carrying a hint of the seriousness one would show when instructing a disciple in swordsmanship. "You've been by my side for twelve years, and there hasn't been a second woman on Qingya Peak. The only woman you've ever been in contact with is me. Am I not a woman?"

"You're my master!"

"Can't the master be a woman?"

Shen Du was speechless, choked with emotion. His mind was a complete mess: twelve years of master-disciple ethics, the stories of talented scholars and beautiful women in folk tales, and the physiological reactions deep within his body that he neither wanted nor dared to acknowledge—all were tangled together in a chaotic jumble. If he could move, he would probably be kneeling on the ground, kowtowing and admitting his mistakes by now, but he was locked inside his master's body and couldn't move, not even to kowtow.

Lu Qinghan waited a few seconds, and seeing that he was indeed speechless, she slowly added, "If we are separated in the future, and it really doesn't work out, you can marry your master."

When she finished speaking, her heart skipped a beat.

It wasn't out of shyness—as a sword cultivator who had practiced the Ice Heart Jade Technique for hundreds of years, she had seen all sorts of storms. Her heart skipped a beat because of nervousness. She was waiting for Shen Du's response. She threw out a weighty question with a half-joking, seemingly nonchalant tone, like casually tossing a pebble, but only she knew that the pebble had struck the deepest part of her heart, the ripples it created enough to shake her centuries-old, icy defenses.

"Master!" Shen Du's voice was almost terrified. "Don't scare me! This kind of joke is not allowed! A master and disciple having an affair is a major taboo in the sect, and it will result in expulsion from the sect!"

His voice was so loud and urgent, it was almost like he was crying for help.

Lu Qinghan sighed softly to herself.

He said that "a illicit affair between master and disciple is a major taboo in the sect." He was thinking about the sect's rules and the ethics between master and disciple. He was afraid of breaking the taboo and that she would be stigmatized. His rejection was not because he disliked her, but because he dared not—dared not cross the line between master and disciple, dared not imagine that possibility, and even dared not admit whether he had thought about it.

But ultimately, he still didn't dare. In his heart, she was first and foremost his master, and only secondly a woman. This realization brought a pang of bitterness to Lu Qinghan's heart. She had thought that twelve years of living together day and night would have changed his feelings for her to some extent, but now it seemed that the change was far less obvious than she had imagined.

She couldn't let him know. Not even a tiny bit.

Then she chuckled, a soft, short, and controlled laugh, as if it had been precisely calculated. “It’s good that you know fear,” her voice regained its usual coolness and certainty, even carrying a hint of the sternness of a master disciplining a disciple, “It means your brain isn’t completely broken.”

Upon hearing these words, Shen Du completely relaxed—she could feel his muscles tense and then relax from the inside of his skin, like a fully drawn bow suddenly unstrung. He felt the crisis was over. He thought his master had just been testing him, teasing him. He must have been thinking with lingering fear, "Master is so ruthless, daring to make such a joke." Little did he know that at the moment his body relaxed, an even more turbulent wave was crashing heavily against Lu Qinghan's heart.

She was in great pain. Not physical pain, but emotional pain. His words, "Don't scare me," were like a fine thorn, piercing the softest part of her heart. It wasn't deep, but every heartbeat caused a sharp pain. She had always thought of herself as someone who couldn't feel pain; the Ice Heart Jade Technique was meant to keep her heart unmoved, untainted by worldly affairs, and untouched by emotions. But after the Demon Blade incident, the ice layers cracked, and she realized that she wasn't immune to pain; she had been numbing herself with ice, and only when the ice broke did the pain surge forth all at once.

She was jealous. Not jealous of other women—she knew perfectly well that she was the only woman Shen Du had met in the past twelve years—she was jealous of herself. She was jealous of his "master" identity, an identity like an invisible wall separating her from him. She was on this side, he was on the other, visible but untouchable, or like now, tangible but afraid to admit it. She envied the version of herself that Shen Du treated as a woman, yet resented the version of herself that Shen Du treated as a "master." She had never been so conflicted in her life, so conflicted that she wanted to tear herself in two.

But she couldn't show it in front of Shen Du. She was his master. A master couldn't be jealous, couldn't be sad, and couldn't show any weakness in front of her disciple. She could only swallow this bitterness, let it ferment slowly in her heart, and then use the remaining power of the Ice Heart Jade Technique to suppress this fermented bitterness in the deepest and coldest corner.

Then, while showering, try a different method and let it flow out slowly.

So she picked up the water ladle again.

This time, her movements were exceptionally slow and meticulous. The hot spring water poured down her shoulders, flowing gently along the curves of her back. Her fingers, wet with water, began at her collarbone, tracing the contours of her body inch by inch downwards. Her fingertips brushed the curve of her shoulders, the lines of her upper arms, and the most delicate skin on the inside of her forearms. Each touch was light and slow, like a caress, but not to the point of being provocative. In the rising steam, it was a perfectly normal bathing motion—the soft sound of water, the rising steam, water droplets clinging to her fair skin, her movements exuding elegance—no one could find the slightest abnormality.

But only she knew that she wasn't simply taking a bath.

Each time, she slightly increased the pressure of her palm, gently massaging along the muscle lines from the acupoints on her shoulders and neck—something any woman would do to stretch her muscles while bathing. But what followed was a slight twitching deep in her abdomen, and the thing buried deep inside her swelled even more, pressing tightly against the tightly closed opening at the deepest part of her lower body. Feeling her disciple's slightly helpless pulse, her heart trembled. She secretly and subtly pressed a little longer. Sure enough, another rapid pulse came, accompanied by Shen Du unconsciously twisting his waist slightly inside her—it wasn't a struggle, but more like a welcoming gesture to gain more friction. She felt an extremely subtle tremor on the skin of her shoulder. It was her disciple's tense breathing.

She silently counted in her mind: one, two, three. When she massaged near the Tianzong acupoint, Shen Du's waist thrust forward another inch, and the fullness inside her became even more intense, almost throbbing. As her fingers brushed against his waist, she could feel his legs unconsciously tighten within her thigh sheaths. That movement activated the muscles of his entire lower body, and also the part embedded inside her—it followed his movement, thrusting upwards to her most sensitive indentation.

A thin, spider-web-like electric current shot up her spine to the top of her head. She barely managed to pretend nothing was wrong, only thanks to the last vestiges of her Ice Heart Jade Technique's power. Her teeth clenched tightly into the soft flesh inside her mouth. The force was so great that she tasted a hint of blood.

She quickly withdrew her hands from the acupressure points and continued scooping water to wash, pretending nothing was wrong. She could feel Shen Du inside her, tense like a stone. The tension wasn't fear or resistance, but a desperate attempt to suppress something. His heart was pounding like a drum, his breathing was trying to be even but would always betray a hint of rapidity at certain moments, and the muscles in his waist would unconsciously contract every few seconds, causing the part embedded in her body to twitch slightly. He was probably trying desperately to control himself, but the more he tried, the more out of control he became.

But Lu Qinghan knew that compared to her body, her own rationality was teetering on the brink of collapse. She only had a sturdy outer shell, enough to cover all of this. Enough, she had enjoyed enough. If she continued to provoke her, it wouldn't be the innocent disciple who would lose control first, but rather she, the "master" whose defenses were already riddled with cracks. She needed to finish washing immediately and leave this damned bath.

She rose from the water, the surface receding from her waist to her knees, then her ankles. She stepped out of the bath, her bare feet landing on the cool flagstones, the soles making a barely audible splash. A night breeze blew in through the cracks in the bamboo wall, brushing against her damp skin, bringing a slight coolness. She took a clean cloth from the bamboo rack and began to dry herself. Her movements were as swift as ever—she never lingered in front of Shen Du; a master must behave like a master. She quickly patted the water dry from her arms to her shoulders, back, waist, and legs. She didn't linger on any part for a moment, nor neglected any inch of skin; everything was just right, like a routine she had repeated hundreds of times.

As the cloth brushed against her chest, she felt Shen Du tremble. His heart was pounding faster than at any other moment during the entire bath, almost as if it were pounding against the inside of her breastbone. But she didn't stop; her movements were clean and efficient, without a single unnecessary caress. When she wiped his waist and abdomen, she felt his abdominal muscles twitch, probably from being tickled, but she didn't stop, simply drying every inch of that area of ​​skin with practiced ease. Then, when wiping the inside of his legs, her movements became even faster. She dared not slow down, dared not stop—she had sensed his limit, and she had sensed her own as well.

After finishing all that, she quickly put on a clean undergarment. The soft white silk fabric clung to her skin, concealing all the unsettling curves. She fastened her belt twice as fast as usual, her fingertips deftly tying a neat knot. She straightened her clothes, smoothed out the wrinkles, and gathered her long hair up, securing it with a bamboo hairpin, ignoring the few strands of damp hair clinging to her cheeks.

Lu Qinghan pushed open the bamboo door of the bathhouse and stepped out. Under the moonlight, a fairy-like woman dressed in white emerged from the rising steam, her hair still damp with the hot spring water, her skin glowing with the faint rosy hue unique to bathing. Tall and graceful, with an air of composure, every gesture exuded the air of an immortal.

No one could tell what had just happened.