I CULTIVATED BY TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THE DEMON LORD

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CHAPTER 18: Resistance

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However blunt and straightforward the book's proposed solutions might have looked, Chu Li had to admit, the former sect master's artistry was genuinely impressive.

If the content weren't quite so unsuitable for general audiences, Chu Li would have honestly considered having someone copy these illustrations to frame and hang on her wall, just to add a bit of artistic flair to her quarters.

Take, for instance, the flowing skirt rendered in this particular illustration, so light and ethereal it seemed to weigh nothing at all, through which the graceful curves of the woman depicted were laid bare in full...

"That's mermaid silk," Qi Ying remarked casually beside her, entirely without warning.

Chu Li had just been studying an illustration rendered in almost unnervingly fine detail, and Qi Ying's comment made her freeze instantly.

Quietly appreciating a piece of "niche" art on her own was one thing, she could stay perfectly composed doing that. But getting caught red-handed by a friend was an entirely different matter!

Qi Ying, seemingly oblivious to her embarrassment, continued on. "Mermaid silk is worth its weight in gold many times over. Within the sect, only female disciples at the Nascent Soul stage or above are even permitted to wear it."

"Ah, so it's mermaid silk. No wonder it's so beautiful." Chu Li kept her expression carefully blank, flipping through several more pages, hoping to steer away from the topic entirely, only for her peripheral vision to catch yet another illustration on the very next page.

What exactly had possessed this former sect master, to go to such great lengths showing off her artistic talent through a book like this?

Qi Ying, however, let out a wistful sigh. "This veil the former sect master's wearing is gorgeous. Such a shame, I've only ever seen it in illustrations, never in person."

Only then did Chu Li lower her eyes to look properly.

This particular illustration, surprisingly, was far less explicit than the last.

It simply depicted the partner lying beneath, the woman above, with all the critical details tastefully obscured behind a swirl of clouds and mist.

Even the woman's lovely face was concealed behind a silver, tassel-trimmed veil.

Chu Li felt she'd worked herself up over nothing this time. "Who has this veil now?"

"When the former sect master held her position, she passed the Water Moon Veil down to her own direct disciple at the time, who's now the current sect master." Qi Ying spoke with unmistakable admiration. "The Water Moon Veil's a spiritual artifact, handed down from sect master to sect master, generation after generation. It can change the wearer's appearance."

"Change their appearance?" Something suddenly clicked uncomfortably for Chu Li.

Wouldn't that make it the perfect tool for... roleplay, of a sort?

What had seemed, until a moment ago, like a rather tasteful, understated illustration, suddenly became something she could no longer look at directly.

"The disguise effect's only part of it. Don't you think there's something charming about being half-hidden, half-revealed?" Qi Ying patted her shoulder. "Quite a few disciples in the sect have actually had similar veils custom-made in private, just to wear during cultivation sessions! If you're interested, I could recommend a reliable craftsman."

"...Let's leave that for another time." Chu Li waved a hand primly.

Chu Li had felt nothing but resistance toward this former sect master's personal writings when she'd first opened the book, but the more she read through it, the more she found herself genuinely drawn in.

The illustrations paired with each anecdote weren't nearly as random as they first appeared. Each specific position, it turned out, corresponded to a different strategy for resolving conflict.

When to yield ground in order to advance further. When to shift from defense into decisive offense.

When to quit while ahead. When to press an advantage all the way through.

Endlessly varied, genuinely quite masterful, in its own way.

Approaching it now with something closer to scholarly interest, Chu Li set aside her earlier bias and began reading carefully from the very beginning.

And the more attentively she read, the more her admiration for the former sect master swelled, like an unstoppable river running ever onward.

These illustrations weren't really about the bedroom at all, not fundamentally. They were a whole philosophy on how two people navigated life together!

Utterly absorbed, Chu Li had no idea how long she'd been lost in the library until the space around her suddenly darkened.

She looked up at the dim skylight above, puzzled. "Have we really been here long enough for the sun to set already?"

"Not yet." Qi Ying tilted her head, listening carefully for a moment. "There's a rumbling sound up above. It sounds like it's about to rain."

"Is it thundering outside?" A knot of unease tightened in Chu Li's chest.

She remembered how terrified Little Lian was of weather like this.

Qi Ying asked curiously, "What, are you afraid of thunder?"

"No." Chu Li brushed the question off quickly. "It's just that with a storm coming in this fast, a simple water-repelling charm probably won't hold up well enough. You and Dandan came all the way here with me, and I don't want either of you getting soaked on the way back."

"A storm that comes on this quickly usually clears just as fast." Qi Ying reassured her breezily. "We'll just wait it out until the rain stops."

Chu Li nodded silently.

Little Lian was safely tucked away inside their quarters, after all, with the thunder and lightning confined to the world outside. He was a grown young man now; surely he'd have to get used to it eventually, one way or another?

There were still so many days left ahead of them at the Bliss Sect. She couldn't realistically hold him every single time it thundered for the rest of their time here, could she?

Chu Li steadied herself and went back to reading.

Meanwhile, Qi Ying stepped aside, using a message jade slip to exchange a few words with Xu Huai on the other end.

The moment she put the jade slip away, her expression turned grave as she informed Chu Li, "I just heard from Ah Huai. This storm's turned unusually violent, striking the ground repeatedly. In just the time it's taken us to finish this cup of tea, it's already brought down several large trees, and blocked the path the outer-sect disciples use to get home."

"That severe?" Chu Li began to feel a genuine sense of alarm.

"In all my years at the Bliss Sect, I've never seen, or even heard of, lightning striking this densely." Qi Ying hugged herself, shivering. "It's almost petty, the way this storm's behaving, like it's chasing some old grudge straight into the sect itself."

Chu Li's unease deepened even further.

Her fingers pressed hard against the spine of the book in her hands, and suddenly, every word, every illustration on the page in front of her seemed to warp into nothing more than a scorched, smoking patch of earth, freshly struck by lightning.

In that same instant, a sharp, piercing ring sounded from the bell at her waist, yanking her out of her daze and back into the present.

Qi Ying pointed at the mother bell on her belt, bewildered. "Xiao Li, why's your bell suddenly ringing like that?"

Chu Li looked down, dazed, watching faint golden light pulse outward from the bell in ring after ring, her voice still managing to stay level at first. "It's a paired bell set. This one's the mother bell. The child bell's tied to Little Lian's ankle. When the child bell senses danger, the mother bell responds, and sounds a warning..."

She listened to herself deliver the explanation in an almost mechanical monotone, and it was only then that the full weight of the situation finally hit her. She grabbed Qi Ying's shoulders, her words tumbling out in a panic. "Ah Ying, Little Lian's still in the room, and he's so afraid of thunder, and it's storming this violently outside right now, and I, I'm afraid he might..."

Chu Li spun around and bolted straight for the library's exit, but she'd barely taken two steps before a bolt of lightning crashed down just three feet ahead of her.

"You can't just run out there like that!" Qi Ying wrestled her back beneath the eaves, pointing ahead at a small tree, split clean in half and now burning. "If I hadn't grabbed you just now, you'd have ended up exactly like that tree!"

The bell at Chu Li's waist rang out furiously, and she clutched at Qi Ying, nearly collapsing with panic, shaking her by the shoulders. "But Ah Ying, what if the lightning strikes the room itself? I'm the one who cast the confinement spell on him, I'm the one who trapped him inside, I'm the reason he has nowhere to run!"

Qi Ying didn't press for further details, keeping her own voice steady instead. "Don't panic. I'll help you figure this out."

Chu Li clutched the glowing mother bell tightly and looked out toward the thick, dark clouds gathering to the west, lightning striking down repeatedly in the distance, tearing jagged, violent gashes across the sky.

But high above the storm clouds, by contrast, the sky remained perfectly calm.

Chu Li pointed upward. "Ah Ying, if we could get above those clouds, wouldn't that put us out of reach of the lightning entirely?"

In the brief lull between successive lightning strikes, a crane let out a cry so piercing it seemed capable of splitting eardrums, carrying Qi Ying and Chu Li straight up into the towering sky.

Chu Li felt as though her own features might warp entirely under the force of the wind, and she couldn't help but scream at the top of her lungs. "Didn't you say Dandan flies smoothly—!"

Qi Ying laughed into the wind. "You could have checked the conditions before saying that, hah—!"

Chu Li kept her eyes shut, holding tightly onto Qi Ying, letting the rushing air roar past her ears without resistance.

At some point, without her noticing exactly when, the turbulence around her suddenly smoothed out entirely. She opened her eyes to find Dandan's massive wings sweeping slowly across the dark, lightning-flecked cloud layer below them, like an ink-wash painting unrolling in slow motion.

Using her farsight, Qi Ying pinpointed the direction of the outer-disciples' courtyard and guided Dandan through a thin gap in the clouds, diving sharply downward.

Chu Li heard her own scream splinter into fragments as they plummeted, the sensation of weightlessness leaving her feeling suspended in some vast, empty void.

And yet, her resolve had never felt more certain.

She had to find Little Lian. She had to tell him herself that she would never, ever leave him alone like this again, so recklessly, so carelessly.

The moment they touched ground, the ringing at her waist and the thunder overhead both fell silent all at once, as if switched off.

The air hung thick with the lingering smell of scorched wood. Female disciples who'd been sheltering indoors were pouring out into the courtyard now, gathering in front of Chu Li's own door, exchanging worried murmurs over the wooden door split open by a direct lightning strike.

Chu Li leapt off the crane's back before it had even fully landed, shoving her way through the crowd without a word, rushing back inside to search for Little Lian.

The moment she stepped through the door, all that greeted her was a floor scattered with broken shards of pottery.

She searched the sitting room, the inner chamber, even the small dark room, but found no trace of him anywhere.

But the confinement spell bound to him meant he couldn't have left. If he wasn't here, where could he possibly be?

Chu Li clutched the now-quiet mother bell, feeling more lost than she'd ever felt before.

Sitting perfectly still at the edge of the bed, she felt as though she were falling endlessly into some bottomless abyss, unable to find any solid ground to settle on.

She reached out instinctively, running her fingers over the bed curtain, the fine gauze sliding through her fingers like sand that refused to settle in her grip, and it was only then, beneath the lifted curtain, that she noticed a small, huddled shape in gray-blue curled into the corner where the bed frame met the wall.

Chu Li's breath caught for a moment.

The bell fell from her hand and hit the floor with a clatter, and only then did the boy who'd been hiding in the corner stir, as though rousing slowly from hibernation, lifting half his face toward her.

Those once tear-filled eyes now looked like a spring run entirely dry, without a single tear left in them.

Chu Li closed the distance quickly and crouched down slowly in front of him, calling out softly, "Little Lian?"

He looked at her without so much as a flicker of his lashes, his gaze utterly flat, as though studying a total stranger.

Those doe-like eyes that had once been so full of feeling now held no light at all, only a stillness Chu Li had never seen in him before, deep and unsettling.

She tried to reach for his hand, but he only curled his fingers tighter against his knees.

Hesitating for a moment, Chu Li reached instead to touch the top of his head, but before her fingers could even reach his hair, the boy flinched sharply, his shoulders and back trembling without pause, his cold gaze turned pointedly aside, his entire being radiating three unmistakable words.

Don't touch me.

Worried he might be hurt, Chu Li reached both arms around behind his shoulders, trying to pull him toward her.

But he strained backward with everything he had, his lips pressed into a tight, unmistakable line of rejection, keeping her at arm's length.

His resistance dug painfully into her fingers.

She said nothing, only leaned in closer, until her forehead nearly touched his, and asked him quietly, in a voice meant only for him, "At least let me check if you're hurt, all right?"

Little Lian said nothing.

Taking the opportunity, Chu Li cast a quick spell with her fingertips, trying to gently pry him away from the wall, but the moment his back left its surface, he twisted his body and thrashed violently, like some small, cornered creature forced into self-defense.

She stopped pushing, wincing as she pulled her hands back, reddened from where he'd dug into them, and let him curl back into the small, tight space he'd claimed as his own.

Every detail on the boy's face radiated resistance, an unfathomable, distant coldness settling in his eyes that no ordinary gesture of comfort could possibly reach.

Somehow, Chu Li suddenly found herself recalling two lines from the former sect master's writings.

More than words, it's a look that truly moves someone.

More than actions, it's warmth that truly moves someone.

With hands still faintly numb, Chu Li cupped his face gently, studying him closely.

Little Lian had always been slender, and his face, drained entirely of color, looked barely larger than the palm of her hand, as fragile in her grip as a fine, breakable piece of porcelain. His pale lips showed no sign of life at all, save for a faint trace of blood where he'd bitten through his own lower lip.

Even with every part of him bristling with defense and wariness, that soft, wounded mouth, like a flower petal battered by rain, seemed like the one true crack in this otherwise flawless piece of porcelain.

The body healed easily enough. It was the heart that needed real comfort.

Chu Li reached up and gently wiped away the trace of blood, then leaned down slowly, pressing her lips to that one small imperfection.

【Author's Note】

【Bonus scene 1】

Question: What would make them happy?

Ji Wuyan: Her kissing me would do it.

Chu Li: I made him cry from kissing him once.

Ji Wuyan: ?

What exactly is your fixation with making me cry?

【Bonus scene 2】

Ji Wuyan: I always imagined my true love as some legendary hero, riding in on a crane to save me...

Ji Wuyan: Wait, is this script somehow wrong???

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Translator's Notes for Curious Readers 🤍

鲛绡 (mermaid silk): A legendary fabric from Chinese mythology, said to be woven by mermaid-like beings (鲛人, jiāorén) who live in the sea and weep pearls instead of tears. It's traditionally described as impossibly fine, light, and waterproof, and appears throughout classical Chinese poetry and folklore as a symbol of rare, otherworldly beauty and craftsmanship.

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