It was a face of such decadent, intoxicating beauty that even a peach-blossom spirit or a creature of desire could not match its allure. She seemed born to be an enchanting temptress.
Her distant-mountain brows were dark and delicate, carrying the softness of spring and willow branches.
Her jade-white face had peach-tinted cheeks, rosy lips, pearly teeth, and a luminous, glistening fullness to her lower lip.
If this face had belonged to Yu Mian in her previous life, she couldn't imagine what a confident little girl she would have been.
But with this body as things stood, all she wanted was to smash her head against a block of tofu and die.
It would have been one thing if she were merely a standard vicious supporting character in a novel. Unfortunately, she'd landed in an erotic novel.
An erotic novel with multiple partners, at that.
It was a multi-partner erotic novel titled *Fragrant Shadows, Damp with Desire*.
It told the story of a reborn heroine whose Heavenly Yin Sacred Body enabled her to captivate countless favored children of heaven in the cultivation world, men and women alike. It was shameless smut.
These favored children of heaven included imperial princes, the fox clan's young master, a swordsmanship prodigy, an immortal soul that had survived a heavenly tribulation, and a holy son of the demon race…
The male leads spanned humanity, ghosts, immortals, spirits, and demons, an impressive assortment of species. One thing, however, remained constant.
Every single one was devastatingly handsome.
Yu Mian understood. Male leads had to be incomparably handsome; otherwise, how would they satisfy their readers?
The plot went roughly like this: in her previous life, the heroine was coveted by many factions because of her Heavenly Yin Sacred Body and ultimately died miserably as a cultivation vessel. Reborn, she turned ruthless and corrupt, exploiting her natural advantages to move among powerful men and steadily increase her strength. After she finally took revenge, the story ended abruptly. Perhaps even the author realized that a plot involving so many competing male-lead factions had become impossible to finish…
But.
Yu Mian wasn't the heroine. She was the vicious supporting character who appeared before the heroine, served as a decoy for her physique, and possessed the second-ranked cultivation-vessel constitution: the Minor Yin Sacred Body.
She was the comparative cannon fodder who constantly flaunted her constitution to provoke the heroine and seduced the male leads the heroine had set her sights on.
Having joined the Wayward Immortal Sect and become a direct disciple of the foremost immortal sect, Yu Mian was spoiled, domineering, hot-tempered, and arrogant. She envied the beautiful men constantly surrounding the heroine, Ning Yue. She couldn't understand why, with her appearance, those favored sons of heaven wouldn't fall at her feet and instead fawned over Ning Yue, who wasn't even as pretty as she was.
Whenever a handsome man appeared beside the heroine, she deliberately went after him, taking pride in sleeping with him. Little did she know that those men regarded her merely as a cultivation vessel and a tool to make the heroine jealous.
Toying with her was just one part of their romantic push-and-pull with the heroine.
Eventually the heroine gathered all of them into her embrace. Yu Mian, meanwhile, was thrown into the Myriad Demon Caverns by the senior brother she'd believed loved her most. There she became a plaything for countless demons, who drained her through cultivation until she was a desiccated corpse.
Not! Even! A! Grave! To! Be! Buried! In!
Yu Mian shuddered in terror. The Wayward Immortal Sect had already tested her and found that she possessed superior aptitude. It was too late to run; she could only do her best to salvage the situation.
She stood among a scattered group of a dozen or so new disciples. Beneath their feet was a teleportation array inscribed with complicated formations and the immortal script unique to the cultivation world. Looking at it for even a moment too long would leave one's soul dizzy and entranced.
Yu Mian's mind went blank for an instant. She quickly looked away and tried to raise her head to identify the mountain lords who were picking through them like shoppers selecting radishes.
Powerful cultivators were also called immortal masters. Their immortal presence was so overwhelming that no one around them dared lift their head to stare directly at them.
Yu Mian secretly raised her eyes and, following the habits of a modern person, began identifying them from left to right. The first wore white-and-gold enchanted robes and a white-jade crown. His clothing was studded with countless jewels and spirit jades, with interlacing golden threads embroidered into ten dragons and nine phoenixes. He was extravagantly dressed.
His face was like fine jade, a smile rested at the corners of his mouth, and his beautifully shaped features were gentle and dignified.
This was Lu Wuqie, lord of Soaring Wind Mountain and the richest man in the Wayward Immortal Sect. Rumor had it that his true form was the ancient divine beast flood-bringing deer spirit, whose feet trod on gold and jade and were never touched by dust.
An old verse went: “As days pass, filth accumulates; when the flood-bringing deer spirit appears, oceans surge.”
In other words, he could bring about strange phenomena involving the waters of heaven and earth. Wherever he went, floods could erupt, washing away every sin.
Soaring Wind Mountain was also the school Yu Mian had originally joined, because before her Minor Yin Sacred Body awakened, her constitution showed an affinity for water, which nourished all things with compassion.
But now Yu Mian absolutely would not join Soaring Wind Mountain. Its eldest senior brother, Pei Yunqing, was one of the male leads who eventually threw her into the Myriad Demon Caverns!
She skipped Lu Wuqie and looked at the next person… Mm. The master of Male Lead Number Two, the fox clan's young master Hu Shiyu. Absolutely not!
Next was Male Lead Number Three himself, the ghost cultivator Wen Ruyan. Nope!
Then the next one…
! Yu Mian's eyes widened.
The person before her had eyes as beautiful as spring in a painted hall and a peerless loveliness that seemed to perfume the air. Her beauty was heaven-made: skin pure as ice and luminous snow, dark green-black hair swept into cloudlike coils adorned with trembling jade ornaments, a rosy crown and jeweled slippers, the elegance of sandalwood music sounding a phoenix melody, and the fragrance of fine wine rising from a jade goblet like a dragon's breath.
Her long, narrow phoenix eyes were icy and sharp; her thick lashes curved languidly like snowflakes falling onto the eaves. Dark shadows lay beneath her eyes like the first crescent moon over a snowbound peak.
It was an indescribably cold, incomparable beauty, beyond imagination, as if ten-thousand-year-old profound ice had been sculpted by heaven and earth into something transcending the mortal world.
Only amazement remained in Yu Mian's eyes. What was this, the goddess who created mankind showing off at the absolute peak of her craft?!
Could someone this beautiful really exist?
All at once, the woman's frosty gaze settled on the audacious mortal. Those cold eyes looked like a deity gazing down in mercy; like a glacier breaking apart. And she smiled at Yu Mian~
Yu Mian felt as though she'd been struck over the head. That single smile left her utterly bewitched.
Then, the very next second, she came to her senses and lowered her head at lightning speed.
One must never stare directly at an immortal master!
She'd been caught.
Yu Mian lowered her head, not daring even to look at the array patterns beneath her feet. She simply closed her eyes nervously and waited for the four immortal masters to make their selections.
Her talent was outstanding. Like a singer getting multiple coaches to turn their chairs on a modern talent show, if several immortal masters wanted her, she would have the right to choose. For now, she had only to wait as they selected the other disciples, until her turn came.
She'd lowered her head too quickly to notice the godlike woman's smile widening little by little, first gently, then radiantly, and finally with a trace of manic allure. A strange light flashed through the depths of her pitch-black pupils.
Dear reader, there's more after this part of the chapter! Please turn to the next page to continue reading. The excitement is still ahead!
The woman stared at her like a hunter who'd spotted a particularly prized quarry, lightly licking a sharp tooth with the tip of her tongue.
Her arrival brought the three mountain lords' disciple selection to a halt. As her senior brother, Lu Wuqie could still exchange a few words with her. He asked, “Junior Sister, what brings you here?”
“I came to see whether there are any suitable seedlings.” Once Sheng Qing withdrew her gaze from Yu Mian, she recovered her former ethereal, immortal bearing. No trace of her earlier sickly expression remained. Her disguise was thoroughly beguiling.
Yet every mountain lord present knew what she was like when she lost her mind. Her mask of normalcy was as thin as paper, ready to tear at a touch.
“Junior Sister,” Lu Wuqie said gravely, “the sect master expressly forbade you to accept disciples.” He turned slightly toward the disciples, placing himself protectively between them and her.
Sheng Qing glanced at the group of disciples with complete disinterest. Only when her eyes fell on the audacious Yu Mian did a spark of interest return.
“I only want her.”
It was as though she'd selected a particularly pleasing head of cabbage. Once she'd pointed it out, she intended to take her purchase and leave.
Lu Wuqie looked at the disciple Sheng Qing was pointing to. She was a young girl, head lowered and body huddled obediently, just under the human cultivators' age limit of eighteen. Her aptitude seemed quite good. Such a promising seedling absolutely must not fall into his junior sister's hands.
“Junior Sister…” Lu Wuqie tried to dissuade her, but the moment her star-bright black eyes fixed on him, the words died in his throat.
He looked down at the group again. All the disciples in this batch had good aptitude. If he sacrificed one pawn to save the rest and exchanged her for seventeen talented disciples, it wouldn't be a bad bargain.
He yielded, nodding as he answered hoarsely, “All right…”
