Yue Yang gave exactly zero thought to how the honeytrap operation was going.

He had a reasonable estimate. Qingping, who had probably never encountered this concentration of attractive men in her life, was now in the presence of Snow-Hungry Wolf, the Tianra Prince, and the rest — each with his own bearing and temperament — and the fact that her legs were still functioning could only be attributed to exceptional willpower.

The contrast with Sea Fatty made the whole thing even more effective. It wasn’t just Snow-Hungry Wolf and the Tianra Prince who benefited from that particular foil — even Ye Kong, who under ordinary circumstances registered as a perfectly ordinary young man, looked considerably better standing next to Sea Fatty’s specific brand of disaster. Fortunately for everyone, Yue Yang was too busy to come along. If he’d removed the silver mask and turned that sunny smile loose on Qingping, there was a real possibility she’d have needed a moment to collect herself right there on the street.

Yue Yang deposited Ganquan at the Sky Stairway and slipped away.

Homesickness. Exiled descendants. Tearful reunions with the ancestral homeland.

All of that could be handled by Old Fox and Jun Wuyou. In the great hierarchy of concerns, nothing outranked the matter currently in front of him.

It was genuinely rare to have time alone with the Southern Wilderness Demon King, and the man currently running an Eastern Demon Clan princess questline was not about to volunteer that information to anyone.

“Being a national ruler is actually quite pleasant. So many treasures just flowing in.” If any other national ruler had overheard this remark, they would have spat blood on the spot. Who else, upon assuming rulership, immediately inherited a vault full of someone else’s accumulated wealth? The Windstill national ruler had spent years collecting treasures for Lady Zhiguang, and that entire collection — every last piece — now fell to the Southern Wilderness Demon King. That alone was already extraordinary. But it didn’t stop there. The families and subordinates of Blue Wolf, Luoluo, Wanjiao, and the other national rulers who had fallen in the recent conflict all came forward to pledge themselves to the ‘Divine Punishment Empress’s younger sister,’ opening their vaults and waiting to be received. Then came the wave of domain lords and city masters eager to ingratiate themselves with the new ruling queen, each arriving with tribute. The Southern Wilderness Demon King had, in short, received so many treasures that her arms were getting tired of accepting them.

“Is that really a problem?” Yue Yang was at this moment sharing a hot spring with the Southern Wilderness Demon King in the Eastern Demon Clan’s snow territory, the two of them soaking in their own private warmth, entirely unhurried.

“It’s wonderful, of course. I just feel like the foundation isn’t quite there to match it yet.” The Southern Wilderness Demon King stretched lazily against the edge of the pool.

The water temperature had climbed slightly high, and the heat had brought a soft flush to her face, the moisture giving her skin a dewy, luminous quality. Her chin rested on one propped arm, the delicate line of her jaw angled down in languid contentment, her complexion catching the steam-filtered light like a snow lotus opening in mist. A bathing cloth was wrapped around her, though it strained somewhat against the task of concealment. The fabric clung close, and a small gap had opened along one edge — whether from the water or from careless movement — revealing just enough of the curve beneath to constitute a rather more effective temptation than full exposure would have been. Yue Yang was exercising considerable restraint in not looking, fully aware that his willpower had limits and he was already testing them. She normally kept herself so thoroughly covered that the current situation felt somewhat like discovering that a carefully sealed vault contained considerably more than anticipated.

Under any other circumstances, Yue Yang would have already made his move. But this particular situation called for care.

It wasn’t that a move was impossible — it was that the consequences required consideration. Push her over without offering her a proper place in his life, and her father would come after him with a cleaver. Offer her a proper place before things with Wuxia, Luohua, and Princess Qianqian were formally settled, and he’d face an even larger collection of fathers, older brothers, and younger brothers, all with cleavers.

The Fourth Mother and the other elders had been holding things together for him. Adding more complications to that situation before the time was right was not a sustainable strategy.

Yue Yang swallowed, filed the thought away, and told himself to keep waiting. Fathers put a great deal of effort into raising daughters, and he understood that — if he ever had a daughter himself, he couldn’t imagine letting her go either. The receiving was certain; the timing had to be managed. Rushing the sequence would get him driven to madness by those old men. Besides, approaching an Eastern Demon Clan princess required something more than walking up and knocking things over. Even dating simulation games required conversations and outings to build favor before anything happened — only certain categories of dramatic entertainment skipped those steps, and that approach was really only suited to certain categories of professional performer. Applying it to the Eastern Demon Clan princess felt like a category error.

For now: conversation. Favor accumulation. Incremental progress.

“With your cultivation, you could walk sideways across the Sky Realm as a national ruler — what foundation is there to worry about? And whenever the national ruler gives an order, this guard captain will carry it out without a word of question. Whoever dares give our national ruler trouble is just asking for a beating. Give the order, and I’ll do the work — leg massages included, I’m quite good at those.”

“But I can’t be a national ruler forever.” The Southern Wilderness Demon King laughed at him.

“National ruler’s ambitions soar to the heavens — truly admirable.” Yue Yang cupped his hands in mock salute, which made her laugh harder. When the laughter settled, he shifted to something more genuine: “Actually, keeping the energy suppressed and holding the cultivation level in check has value, but if you feel the breakthrough pressing harder and it’s becoming harder to hold back, it may be time to stop fighting it. Higher levels are waiting ahead. Building a solid foundation matters, but every person’s path has its natural limit — you can’t force endless growth from the pressure of holding yourself at the edge forever.”

What he was saying echoed advice the Night Empress had given after the World Tree advancement session on the Sky Stairway — speaking to Xue Wuxia, Princess Qianqian, Luohua, and the Southern Wilderness Demon King, all of whom had approached the Perfect Innate Sovereign Realm. The Night Empress had advised a slow, deliberate breakthrough — prioritizing the foundation, taking the time to build properly.

The reasoning was sound: through the mental fusion they shared with Yue Yang, all of them had already perceived the deeper nature of the Perfect Innate Sovereign Realm, which meant that when the time came, the breakthrough itself would be straightforward — none of the grinding difficulty that those who cultivated alone faced. That ease, however, came at a cost. A breakthrough achieved through the struggle of solo cultivation produced a deeper, more substantial foundation than one that came simply because the way had already been illuminated.

Everyone had agreed with the Night Empress’s assessment.

And cultivating entirely alone, deliberately avoiding paired cultivation with Yue Yang — that felt unnecessarily artificial. The paired cultivation was simply the best method available. So Wuxia, Luohua, Princess Qianqian, and the others had all accepted a slower pace, focusing on deepening their foundations rather than rushing the breakthrough.

The Southern Wilderness Demon King had done the same. Without that deliberate suppression, her cultivation speed and natural ability would have pushed her past the Perfect Innate Sovereign threshold long ago. Yue Yang estimated that with the two Law inheritances she’d received at the Sky Stairway combined with the divine realm perception from the World Tree session, she could have reached the second tier of Perfect Innate Sovereign — possibly higher — well ahead of even Xue Wuxia, who had been the earliest among the others to advance. Her baseline was simply that strong. It was only the comparatively limited time she and Yue Yang had spent in paired cultivation that had allowed the others to move ahead.

“Lately, the urge to break through has been getting harder to push down. But people are greedy — I keep hoping the harvest will be even bigger if I wait a little longer. Maybe that kind of thinking is exactly what a real powerhouse shouldn’t be chasing.” Her smile, warm and self-aware, softened the cold white landscape around them.

“On the cultivation path, the principle is to act in accordance with the natural flow — counting outcomes too carefully leads to an obsession with power. All we need is the will to grow stronger, and let the rest follow.” Yue Yang’s voice was quiet and steady.

“I’ve… actually been ready for a while.” The Southern Wilderness Demon King suddenly lowered her head, her voice dropping until it was barely audible. “I just wasn’t sure what a certain someone was thinking.”

“Should we go to your palace, or—”

If Yue Yang hadn’t understood the meaning behind those words, he’d have had to hand in his credentials as a person.

“Could we… stay here?” The Southern Wilderness Demon King’s reasoning was simple: going back to the palace meant witnesses, no matter how discreet anyone tried to be. Somewhere unfamiliar meant nervousness. Here, in this snow-country hot spring, there was no one else at all.

Just the two of them, in their own small world.

Was there a more beautiful place than that?

Yue Yang understood her completely in that moment.

For all the authority she carried, all the decisiveness and commanding presence of an Eastern Demon Clan princess who ruled in her own right — in matters of the heart, she was quiet and gentle. Soft, even. Obedient in her own way. Though she was also not without initiative. She was the kind of woman who dared to be the one to speak first, to reach out — the way she’d played the pipa for him to express her feelings had been exactly that kind of courage. Subtle, perhaps, but real.

Yue Yang reached over and picked up the jade pipa resting at the pool’s edge, and offered it to her.

He settled himself on the edge of the pool, then reached down with both hands and gently lifted her — water still trailing from her skin — and placed her across his lap with the same care one uses for something precious. He pressed a kiss to her smooth forehead, soft and unhurried.

“I want to hear that song again.”

The Southern Wilderness Demon King ducked her head, a faint warmth in her expression that she didn’t try to hide.

Still slightly dripping, her jade hands moved over the pipa strings with practiced grace. The notes rose and floated through the cold air — clear as a mountain valley, pure as wind through empty space, filling the entire snow-country spring.

Even someone who knew nothing about music could hear the longing woven through it. And even without listening to the notes at all, one look at the way she turned to glance back at him — eyes full of everything — told the whole story.

At some point, the music stopped.

The feeling didn’t diminish by a single degree.

Neither of them remembered the precise moment they ended up holding each other, but it didn’t matter. Their lips met at first like a dragonfly touching water — careful, tentative, each testing what the other meant to say through the lightest possible contact. It wasn’t enough. It was never going to be enough. One touch became another, and another, and then there was no more separating, only the kind of kiss that burns because the alternative is worse — because the warmth coming up from somewhere under the heart demands it, and nothing less will do. They kissed until kissing itself felt insufficient, and they kissed some more.

When her lips finally pulled back, they were swollen.

Her small tongue retreated from him with visible reluctance.

“You’re terrible,” she said, making a show of reproach, her voice contradicting the complaint entirely. She liked exactly this — exactly his particular brand of urgency and possession.

“I can be quite gentle, actually. Right now, for instance.” Yue Yang’s hand had, in the meantime, found its way inside the Southern Wilderness Demon King’s bathing cloth and was conducting a very bold exploration of the high, snow-white terrain within.

“You— you scoundrel. Why is your hand trembling?”

“When you’re taking a liberty with a national ruler, can you blame me for nerves?”

Yue Yang wanted to laugh out loud — she was impossibly endearing, and he had no intention of explaining to her the concept of deliberate technique between lovers. That was something she’d learn for herself. And learn quickly, at that — she was not unintelligent, and when his movements became more pronounced and she observed the visible effect on the snow-white landscape, comprehension arrived promptly, accompanied by an expression of fond indignation.

“Bold criminal. How dare you commit an offense against the national ruler. By law, you are sentenced to life imprisonment. You may never leave the national ruler’s side again from this day forward. And stop — don’t bite — if you bite me again, I’ll bite you back—”

“Biting is actually a very easy technique to learn. Would the national ruler care to try?”

“Is that true?”

“Absolutely. You’ll get it on the first attempt, I guarantee it.”

The smile that crossed Yue Yang’s face at that moment was the smile of a small fox who has found his way into a very well-stocked henhouse.