Chapter 17 – A Call in the Dead of Night

“So,” Yun Jingfei began. “That information of yours, valuable enough to trade with your clan, care to tell me how you came upon it?”

Three days had crawled by since they were sealed inside this residence, the formation outside, an unyielding barrier. Daylight hours blurred into languid conversation, the very purpose of this strange tradition, while nightfall brought the persistent, tempting fragrance that clung to the air. Even Qin Yun, with his iron will, was beginning to feel the strain.

The logic behind it was straightforward: isolate the newlyweds from the world, leave them no escape but each other, and after night upon night of enforced intimacy, closeness would surely follow.

To outsiders, this ritual might seem barbaric, yet its longevity was owed to one undeniable fact: it worked. So effective was it that only one couple in ten parted for reasons other than death.

Only very rarely at the hands of one another.

Night had settled deep and heavy.

Sleep eluded both Qin Yun and his wife. They sprawled across the wide bed, Qin Yun staring up at the ceiling atop the sheets, while Yun Jingfei lay beneath, quietly studying his profile.

“And why would you want to know?” Qin Yun asked jokingly, thinking nothing of it.

By now, Yun Jingfei had discovered she could ask him nearly anything—a revelation, given that most men she’d known bristled or lashed out when questioned too closely.

Yet this man seemed to have no tender spots. Whenever she brushed against a topic he preferred to keep hidden, he simply fell silent or offered a gentle smile.

She’d learned to gently steer their talks elsewhere when that happened.

But tonight, she wanted a real answer.

“This is your leverage, isn’t it?” she said.

“Indeed,” Qin Yun replied, but then paused. Something flashed across his mind. With a small grin, he turned his head to face her and said, “Are you worried you won’t have a stable foundation now that you are a Qin?”

“Well…” Yun Jingfei admitted, a sheepish smile betraying that she’d been found out.

“I guess when you spend most of your life in the Imperial Palace, and a few years in a prominent sect, you have no choice but to be sensitive to the power structures around you. You’ve had your talent to rely on, but now that your value has been lowered, and your family has all but abandoned you, you’re trying to scope out another avenue to tread. It is a praiseworthy attitude.”

Yun Jingfei’s pupils widened slightly.

“You’re not mad?” she said.

“What a strange question… Why would I be?”

“Well… most men don’t like it when women plot behind their backs. Don’t they?”

“I am not ‘most men’,” Qin Yun laughed. “If anything, I like people who take the initiative, who can think on their own, but tell me: Who instilled this knowledge of men into you?”

“My master,” she replied. “She has a very peculiar view of the opposite sex, but the strange thing is: I found that most of what she spoke about turned out to be true in some way.”

“In what way, if I may ask for some details?”

“She said that men only think with their lower parts.”

Qin Yun burst out into laughter, which couldn’t help but take Yun Jingfei aback. She watched him roar with laughter until he was almost out of breath.

After a while, Qin Yun finally calmed down.

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“I didn’t think I said something that hilarious,” she said, feeling rather perplexed.

“Don’t mind me,” Qin Yun replied with a large smile. “It’s just that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Humans are alike no matter where they find themselves.”

Yun Jingfei could not grasp his meaning, nor did she press him. In these few days, she’d realized she might never truly understand him. Their lives were separated by a chasm of experience. All she could do was gather the fragments she understood and try to assemble the whole.

“So, I am meant to understand it has to do with human nature?”

“Smart girl!” Qin Yun exclaimed, but to Yun Jingfei, being treated as a mere girl was rather demeaning, even if he didn’t intend it this way.

She couldn’t help but frown.

“Don’t make that face. I’m praising you,” Qin Yun laughed again. “But to answer your question: Yes, a large contingent of men follow nothing but their base primal urges. Very few have the mental capacity to willfully go against them. But make no mistakes, men aren’t the only ones like this. Women aren’t immune to this phenomenon either. This applies equally to all living beings. It is simply that male and female instincts are different.”

Yun Jingfei remained skeptical. In her world, it was always men who chased after her, vying for her attention. She’d seen elders swarm around her master, too, though her master never spared them a glance.

She rarely witnessed the reverse: women gathering around a single man.

“They’re just more subtle about it,” Qin Yun smiled, knowing her thoughts. “Males compete overtly, while females compete covertly. You see this everywhere in nature, not just in humans. However, I agree with you that male practitioners aren’t really subtle with their desires. It might be because cultivation, the pursuit of strength, really resonates with the male psyche.”