Yang Kai spent the next day in a state of agitated anticipation. The triumph of the previous night, of seeing the crack in his aunt's composure, had settled into a low, humming anxiety. He had gained a great opportunity by handing her the surveyor's journal, but with it came great risk. A foundation-tempering bath was a priceless resource, but it was also a double-edged sword. It would bring him under the direct scrutiny of his First Aunt in a way he had never been before. He would be in her debt, a tool she was now actively sharpening for her own purposes.
He avoided everyone. He did not go to the library. He did not go near the gardens. He stayed in his room, rereading the 'Introduction to Mortal Meridians' with a new, desperate focus. He was no longer just reading theory; he was preparing for a practical exam. He traced the lines of the major channels—the Governing Vessel, the Conception Vessel—on his own body, trying to commit their paths to memory. He knew that when the medicinal power of the bath flooded his system, he would need to guide it. A mistake could lead to wasted opportunity or, worse, internal injury.
The day dragged by with agonizing slowness. Lumina's golden eye seemed to hang motionless in the sky.
Finally, as the deep, chilling light of Selene's Veil crept over the horizon, the summons came.
The Alchemist's Garden was an island of tranquility in the encroaching twilight. The silvery glow of Selene's Veil was just beginning to eclipse the last, faint blush of Lumina's fire on the horizon. The air was cool and fragrant, a stark contrast to the sweat and dust of the training grounds.
He walked with a deliberate, theatrical limp. His muscles were genuinely screaming, his thighs feeling like they had been torn to shreds, but he amplified the effect. He was a boy who had foolishly pushed his weak body past its limits, a pathetic creature in desperate need of aid.
He was led not to the garden, but to a different, even more secluded courtyard behind it. This place was dominated by a single, small stone building from which a faint, herbal-scented steam emanated. The Bathhouse of Purifying Jade. It was Madam Lan's private facility.
The servant who had brought him bowed and scurried away as if fleeing a sacred, dangerous place. Yang Kai took a deep breath, his heart pounding, and pushed the heavy wooden door open.
The air inside was thick with steam, so dense he could barely see. It smelled of a dozen potent, exotic herbs, a scent so rich it was almost intoxicating. In the center of the stone-flagged room was a large, circular bath, carved from a single piece of pale green jade. The water within was a dark, almost black liquid, steaming gently.
And standing beside it, her back to him, was Madam Lan.
She was not dressed in her formal robes. She wore only a single, thin, sleeveless inner robe of white silk. The steam had made the fine fabric translucent, clinging to her body like a second skin.
He had expected punishment. A beating. Exile. He had not expected this.
He watched her as she moved, a voyeur in a sacred space. She glided to a small stone workbench, her movements a fluid, unhurried symphony of grace. As she walked, the damp silk of her robe shifted, clinging to the powerful, elegant curve of her hips and the serene, maternal fullness of her ass. It was not the brazen, aggressive curve of his mother's, but a shape that spoke of quiet strength and profound, confident femininity.
She reached up to a high shelf for a crystalline jar. The movement pulled the silk taut across her back, outlining the sharp, elegant lines of her shoulder blades. It also lifted her magnificent, full breasts, their heavy, serene weight a breathtaking silhouette against the steam.
He was a 21-year-old virgin from another world, and he had just walked in on his beautiful aunt in what was essentially her underwear. The sight was so overwhelming that he forgot to breathe.
She heard the door open, but she did not turn. Let the boy wait. Let him stew in his own awkwardness. She needed a moment to observe, to analyze. She had summoned him here for a purpose far more complex than a simple reward. This "foundation-tempering bath" was not a gift. It was an experiment.
She had read the ancient texts. A mortal body, untempered by Star Force, subjected to such a volatile mixture of opposing herbal energies, should, by all rights, be torn apart. But he was different. The information he had provided her, the whispers from the Dregs about the Governor, had been valuable. It showed a cunning mind. And his performance in the training yards had been a masterful piece of political theatre. He was not a fool.
But what was he?
The boy's body was a mystery, a locked room she intended to open. She would use this bath to see how his unique, flawed vessel reacted to true alchemical power. It was a dangerous, high-risk diagnostic. A necessary one. She had an investment to appraise.
She turned, her face a mask of calm, clinical professionalism, deliberately ignoring the blush she could feel on her own cheeks from the heat of the steam and the intensity of his unseen gaze.
"You are on time, Nephew Kai," she said, her voice a soft murmur. "Good. The efficacy of the herbs is at its peak. There is no time to waste."
She gestured to the bath. "Undress."
Her command was a bucket of ice water on the fire in his gut.
"Undress?" he squeaked, his voice cracking.
A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched her lips. "The medicinal essence must be absorbed through the skin. Do you intend to temper your robes instead of your body?"
His face flushed a deep, burning crimson. He felt like a complete and utter fool. Of course. It was a bath. She was an alchemist, a physician. To her, this was a clinical procedure. The fact that his mind was screaming with a thousand profane, forbidden thoughts was his problem, not hers.
He turned his back to her, his hands trembling as he fumbled with the ties of his outer robes. He shed them, then his inner shirt, his fingers feeling clumsy and useless. The cool, steam-filled air on his bare skin was a shock. He was painfully aware of his own scrawny, untempered physique.
"All of it," her calm voice commanded from behind him. "The process must be total."
With another surge of humiliation, he quickly shed the last of his clothes and, without looking back, practically dove into the bath.
The water was hot, almost scalding, but it was a pleasant, muscle-deep heat. It was thick, like a heavy broth, and it clung to his skin. The moment he was submerged, a thousand tiny needles of herbal essence began to prickle at his skin.
"Now, listen carefully," Madam Lan's voice commanded from the edge of the bath. She knelt beside the jade tub. "This bath is designed to do one thing: purge your mortal dross and scour the pathways of your body. Your body is a clogged riverbed. We are about to send a flood through it."
She placed a hand on the water's surface. A faint, green light glowed from her palm. A gentle stream of her Star Force flowed into the water, acting as a catalyst, activating the herbs. The water began to churn, the scent intensifying.
"This is a purely physical tempering," she explained, her voice sharp and focused. "It will not grant you power. It will merely make your vessel clean enough to one day hold it. The pain will be immense. Your only task is to endure it. Do not fight it. Do not try to guide it. Simply withstand it. Do you understand?"
He gave a jerky nod, gritting his teeth in anticipation.
"Good," she said. "The process begins now."
She placed her cool, slender fingers on his back. A jolt went through him. Then, she pushed a single, concentrated pulse of her Star Force directly into the water around him.
The bath exploded.
The dormant herbs came to life, a violent, chaotic war of opposing energies. He felt a searing heat and a biting cold slam into his mortal body at the same time. It was not a forging. It was an annihilation. He screamed, his body arching in the water, his muscles locking up. It felt like his very flesh was being torn apart.
"Endure it!" Her voice was an anchor in the storm of his agony. "This is the price of rising from the mud! This is the pain of purification!"
The wave of agony moved through him, a slow, grinding torment. A black, foul-smelling sweat beaded on his skin, the physical manifestation of the impurities being violently expelled from his body. He lost all track of time. His world was reduced to pain. Just as he felt his consciousness beginning to fray, the pain reached a crescendo and then… it stopped.
The violent, tearing sensation vanished, replaced by a profound feeling of lightness and purity. A deep, thrumming vitality flowed through his newly cleared pathways.
He lay limp in the water, gasping, his body trembling with exhaustion. The bathwater, once a dark, opaque liquid, was now a murky, translucent grey, its essence spent.
He slowly opened his eyes. Madam Lan was still kneeling beside him, her face beaded with sweat. Her white silk robe was damp, clinging to her form.
"It is done," she said, her voice carrying a note of weary satisfaction.
He felt… clean. His body felt light, responsive. The chronic, low-level aches from his long coma were simply gone. He felt like he was inhabiting his own skin for the first time. And he sensed something new. An external awareness. He could feel the air in the room differently. It contained something. A faint, almost imperceptible energy.
Star Essence. His body, now a cleansed and pristine vessel, could finally sense the rain in the desert.
"I have prepared the vessel," Madam Lan said. "Your body is now a clean slate. But the gate to power remains closed to you. You have a perfect foundation, but you still lack the key."
He knew what she meant. The memory of the Grand Elder's verdict, a story whispered by servants, was a cold stone in his gut. The Stellar Seed, the very core of a person's potential that was supposed to reside in their Sea of Consciousness, had been shattered in his accident. And the Awakening Trial, the sacred clan ritual that used precious resources to ignite bloodline and that seed to begin a cultivator's journey, could not be performed on a boy with a dead seed. He had a pristine, empty vessel, but the engine that was meant to power it was believed to be a pile of dust.
She picked up a large, dry cotton towel. "Get out before the water turns cold."
He obeyed, pulling his trembling body from the tub. He stood there, dripping and exposed. He reached for the towel, but she was already in front of him.
"You will catch a chill," she said, her voice clinical as she began to dry his back and shoulders. Her knuckles brushed his spine. His entire body was a live wire.
She moved around to his front to dry his chest. Her face was only inches from his. He could see the faint lines at the corners of her eyes, the result of years of intense, scholarly focus. He could smell the clean, herbal scent of her skin.
Her hand, holding the towel, moved lower, a slow, methodical path down his stomach. He watched her hand. He saw the way her long, slender fingers gripped the coarse cotton. He saw the pale, flawless skin of her wrist.
As she leaned forward to dry his lower abdomen, the simple, steam-dampened white silk of her inner robe, which had been a modest covering, shifted. The fabric, now clinging to her form, pulled taut across her magnificent, full breasts. He saw it all in perfect, excruciating detail. He saw the high, serene curve of her bosom, the way the damp silk became almost translucent, revealing the large, dusky-rose areolas beneath. He saw the hard, jutting peak of her nipple, a defiant point against the fine weave of the cloth.
The sight was a thunderclap in his mind.
His gaze dropped lower. He saw the way the same damp silk clung to the gentle, maternal swell of her stomach, the fabric disappearing into the shadowed valley where her powerful hips met. He could see the faint, tantalizing outline of her mound, a soft, hidden promise beneath the sheer, wet fabric.
His breath hitched. A wave of pure, white-hot fire shot from his gut straight to his groin.
His cock, which had been dormant, flushed with blood, springing to life with a violent, undeniable urgency. It was a hot, hard, aching rod, a testament to the sudden, overwhelming storm of lust that had just consumed him.
Her hand, still moving with the towel, stilled. She felt it. She felt the sudden, hard length of him press against the back of her hand through the towel.
A strange silence descended. Her eyes, which had been focused on her task, slowly lifted to his face. The clinical mask was gone, shattered. In its place was a complex expression: startled awareness, followed by a wave of cold, cutting disdain. She had felt his pathetic, mortal reaction. She had seen where his eyes had been.
She knew.
"It seems," she said, her voice dangerously soft, laced with ice, "the bath did more than just temper your meridians." She took a deliberate step back, dropping the towel on the floor between them. "It has invigorated your base, mortal humors as well. Control yourself."
The words were a slap. Heat flooded his cheeks. He snatched the towel from the floor, quickly covering himself. "My apologies, First Aunt," he mumbled, thick with humiliation.
"Apologies are meaningless," she stated coolly, her composure returning like a fortress wall. "I have provided you with a clean vessel. Do not defile it with crude impulses. I expect a return on my investment, Nephew Kai. Do not disappoint me."
She turned and walked out of the bathhouse, leaving him alone with his shame and the thrumming, newfound sensitivity of his own body.
[Cycle of the Azure Emperor, Year 3473, 5th Moon, 18th Day]