Chapter 3
The evening wind blew across West Lake, carrying a faint mist and the emptiness left after the tourists had gone.
I curled in his arms, listening to his steady heartbeat, one thump after another, pounding against my eardrums. It was completely different from the wild frenzy he had shown earlier.
The rough fabric of his kasaya rubbed against my chest, which was covered in bite marks with almost no intact skin left. It stung sharply.
Every bone in my body felt like it had been taken apart and reassembled. I had no strength at all.
Especially that unspeakable place. It burned like fire.
What the hell was this? Taking me to bed for salvation? Some new Buddhist service?
I looked up at him.
His jawline was pulled tight, and there were clear tooth marks on his Adam's apple from when I had bitten him in desperation.
Tsk. He really went all the way in breaking his vows.
"What are you looking at?" He stared straight ahead, but his voice had returned to that damn low, calm tone.
"I'm looking at how satisfied you look, Master, after eating your fill."
My voice was hoarse as I snapped back at him. "So, are you planning to take me back to your broken temple? Keep me locked up like a pet?"
His steps paused. He lowered his gaze, his eyes sinking heavily onto my face.
That look was too complicated. It made my heart flutter strangely.
"Quiet cultivation," he said, spitting out the two words before continuing forward.
"Quiet cultivation?" I almost laughed out loud. I twisted, trying to break free, but the movement pulled at all the soreness in my body and I immediately behaved. "The way you acted just now didn't look like quiet cultivation at all! Fa Hai, you're a fake monk! A lecherous monk!"
"Shut up." His arms tightened around me, squeezing until I could barely breathe. "If you make any more noise, I'll 'save' you again."
I shut my mouth instantly.
This monk was now capable of anything.
Eight hundred years of holding back. It was terrifying.
He carried me, avoiding the tourist paths and choosing only quiet, almost nonexistent trails that barely counted as roads.
The sky darkened quickly. Street lamps lit up one by one, casting shifting light and shadow across his sharp profile.
His profile looked solitary.
The annoyance and absurdity in my heart were strangely bitten away by that shadow.
Damn it.
When we were almost at Jinshan Temple, he turned and headed toward an inconspicuous side door at the back courtyard.
Pushing the door open revealed a very small but clean courtyard and a meditation room. It looked like his private space for cultivation, separated from the public temple area in front.
He carried me into the meditation room and placed me on a hard meditation bed.
It was really hard. It dug into my waist painfully.
"Can't you at least get a mattress?"
I bared my teeth and propped myself up, looking around the place.
One table, one chair, one bed, one green lamp, and a few scrolls of Buddhist scriptures. The simplicity was outrageous.
The air was filled with the same old sandalwood scent that clung to him.
He ignored me, turned to an old wooden cabinet in the corner, took out a set of clean plain clothes, and tossed them to me.
"Change."
I picked them up. They were wide at the waist and sleeves, clearly men's clothing. Obviously his.
"You want me to wear yours?" I raised an eyebrow. "Master, are we playing some kind of kink?"
His eyes swept over sharply with a clear warning.
I pursed my lips and wisely swallowed the rest of my words.
Fine. I had just been thoroughly disciplined. For now, I wouldn't tug the tiger's whiskers.
The café uniform skirt I had been wearing was completely ruined, wrinkled and stained with things I didn't want to think about.
I turned my back to him, painfully pulled off the torn skirt, and put on his pants.
The fabric was rough. It scraped against the swollen, sensitive skin between my legs, making me hiss through my teeth.
The top was oversized and fell all the way to my thighs, loose and empty, filled entirely with his scent.
At some point he had turned around and was watching me.
"What are you looking at!" I tugged at the collar. "Haven't you seen enough?"
He suddenly stepped forward and reached out. His fingertips touched a prominent kiss mark on my collarbone.
I shivered, wanting to dodge, but couldn't.
The pads of his fingers had thick calluses. They rubbed against the skin there, bringing both itch and numbness.
"Eight hundred years ago," he said, his voice extremely hoarse, "this is how you... bewitched me."
My heart jumped. I forced a smile. "Old debts. No point digging them up now, right? Didn't we just settle them?"
"They can't be settled." He suddenly withdrew his hand and turned away, back facing me. "The karmic sin runs too deep. How could it ever be cleared?"