Dual Cultivation System: My Cultivation Was Crippled, So I Rely on Intimacy to Level Up

Chapter 217: My Heart Laid Bare, Do You Understand?

High in the firmament, the astral winds bit like daggers.

“Hanyi, stop pretending. Come here.”

Zhou Kai’s long arm swept out, scooping up Shen Hanyi’s cool, yielding body and pulling her horizontally into his embrace.

He looked down at the beauty in his arms. “Using a high-level Divine Sense transmission to forcibly imprint a technique… you really have no regard for your own safety.”

Shen Hanyi’s face was indeed pale, drained of color. She rested her head against Zhou Kai’s chest, her breathing shallow.

“For a moment… I lost control of my emotions,” she whispered. “My Divine Sense is not yet robust enough. The consumption was severe.”

Zhou Kai smiled, tightening his hold and slowing their flight speed to shield her from the wind.

After a moment of silence, his expression turned serious.

“Hanyi, I need to ask you something.”

“Mm?”

“Back in Red Cliff Town, you held your sword half an inch from my throat.” Zhou Kai’s gaze was profound, searching her eyes. “In that specific moment, what were you truly thinking?”

The System had indicated her Affection was maxed out, yet that flash of killing intent had been icy, bone-piercing, and undeniably real.

He had to understand. This wasn’t just about the past; it concerned his future with her, and inevitably, with Li Youci.

The wind seemed to fall silent.

Shen Hanyi looked up, meeting his gaze. Her phoenix eyes held no evasion. They were calm, like a deep, frozen pool.

“I wanted to kill you.”

She spoke the words without emotion, yet they made Zhou Kai’s heart sink like a stone.

“Without a shred of hesitation,” she continued calmly.

“You destroyed my Dao Heart in the most despicable way possible. At that moment, my Sword told me that I had to execute you—the source of my Heart Demon—to return to Perfection.”

“But my sword stopped.”

Her eyes drifted, seemingly looking into the past. Her voice stretched out, hollow and distant.

“It wasn’t because your methods were clever. Nor had I lost my Sword Heart. It was because… when my Sword Intent locked onto your throat, a voice from the deepest fracture of my soul began to scream.”

She looked at Zhou Kai, enunciating every syllable.

“Don’t.”

“Love him.”

Zhou Kai’s Adam’s apple bobbed. He said nothing, but the arm around her waist tightened reflexively.

Shen Hanyi smiled, a self-deprecating curve of her lips.

“Ridiculous, isn’t it? A Sword Cultivator who pursues the severance of all attachments, whose mind should be void… yet my soul split in two.”

“Killing you would have been as easy as turning over my hand. But severing that emotion? That was harder than ascending the Heavens.”

“If that sword had truly fallen… who would I have killed?”

She paused, her gaze trembling like water.

“I would have killed the ‘foolish’ part of myself. The part that had already merged with you. The part willing to believe you, to lower all defenses for you.”

“To kill you would be to commit suicide. To destroy that part of me.”

“That kind of self-destruction… it is fundamentally incompatible with my Sword Dao. With my will.”

She took a deep, shuddering breath, exhaling the confusion that had plagued her for years.

“You destroyed my purity as a Sword Cultivator. But you also forced me to see what is Real.”

“I honed my sword for years, day and night. But it wasn’t until that night that I finally understood…”

Shen Hanyi’s voice trembled—a rare crack in her armor. A single tear seeped from the corner of her eye, tracing a hot line down her pale cheek.

“The reason I couldn’t cut you down wasn’t because my sword was dull.”

“It was because of that faint, lingering… hope.”

“Hope that you and I wouldn’t end in wretchedness. Hope that this farce of a beginning… could have an ending that wasn’t so tragic.”

As her voice faded, the world between them fell silent.

It was a confession like weeping, like a blade, resolute and transparent.

It was her most profound self-dissection, and her ultimate response to him.

Zhou Kai’s heart felt like it had been struck by a heavy hammer—a dull, numbing ache that spread through his chest.

He had always assumed it was the System’s unreasonable power that had twisted her will.

He had never considered that, beneath the System’s influence, her own soul had been fighting such a brutal, bloody war of choice.

No wonder her comprehension had fluctuated so wildly back then—soaring one moment, plummeting the next.

She had chosen the hardest path: To accept this “imperfect” reality, to embrace this “flawed” self, and to seek a thread of “Truth” amidst the chaos.

“Satisfied?” Shen Hanyi looked at him again. The frost returned to her eyes, as if the vulnerable woman who had just bared her soul had vanished.

Zhou Kai did not answer.

He lowered his head abruptly, sealing her lips with his own.

It was a kiss devoid of lust, yet more domineering and forceful than any before.

He poured everything into it—his shock, his heartache, and the fierce, terrifying relief of regaining something he hadn’t realized he’d almost lost.

A long time later, they parted.

Zhou Kai rested his forehead against hers, their noses touching. His voice was hoarse, vibrating with unprecedented iron resolve.

“Satisfied? I am not satisfied!”

“Hanyi. From this day forward, I will not let a single thread of your ‘hope’ fall into the void.”

This woman had not been conquered.

She hadn’t chosen him; she had chosen to gamble on a future with him.

Shen Hanyi’s body trembled. The ice in her phoenix eyes melted completely, turning into a pool of spring water, rippling with light.

The trace of eerie red light flickered at the corner of her eyes. She reached up, wrapping her arms around his neck, burying her face in his shoulder.

“Husband… remember what you said today.”

They returned to the Spirit Mountain in silence.

Zhou Kai held her tight, and Shen Hanyi leaned quietly against him. A new tacit understanding grew between them, binding them tighter than any oath.

After settling Shen Hanyi into a quiet room to recover her Divine Sense, Zhou Kai stood alone on the cliff edge.

Her words still echoed in his ears, churning his emotions.

A promise, heavy as a mountain.

Shen Hanyi had dissected her own Sword Heart to show him her most vulnerable truth. That trust tempered his will more effectively than any Spirit Pill.

“Hanyi…”

He whispered her name to the wind.

To protect this hard-won reality, to ensure that her hope—and the hopes of all his women—did not wither, there was only one path.

Absolute strength. Strength to sweep away every obstacle.

“I cannot delay.” He inhaled deeply, crushing his chaotic thoughts into pure fuel. “Within six months… I must break through!”

He returned to his own cave dwelling. With a flick of his finger, three Jade Arm Mantises flew out of his Spirit Beast Bag, landing on the stone floor.

With Sun Qingli dispersing her cultivation, he had a window of time. It was perfect for nurturing these little killers.

“I don’t know how much intelligence you three have awakened,” Zhou Kai said, sitting cross-legged and eyeing the insects.

“But your spiritual nature is far superior to common crickets.”

“You are a species unique to the Heavenly Spring Sect. I cannot find males to pair with you. If you don’t want your lineage to end here, you must cultivate.”

“Whether you become dragons or remain bugs… depends on your own Fated Chance.”

The three Jade Arm Mantises tilted their triangular heads. They didn’t seem to understand the words, but their scythe-like forelimbs waved restlessly, clicking against the air.

Zhou Kai wasted no more breath. He closed his eyes and activated the True Explanation of Spirit Controlling from the Heavenly Scripture.

This was not language. It was pure mental data transfer.

The complex runic diagrams of the Heavenly Demon Return to Origin Art were forcibly stamped into the simple consciousness of the three mantises.

Buzz…

The insects instantly panicked. They spun in circles, erratic and violent, even lashing out at each other. The information overload was nearly crushing their primitive minds.

Zhou Kai’s eyes narrowed. His powerful Divine Sense split into three gentle streams, restraining them. He combed through their chaotic thoughts, guiding the energy, smoothing the pathways, over and over again.

The process was tedious and draining, but he possessed infinite patience.

For the next month, Zhou Kai did nothing but cultivate his own body and guide the insects.

On the day the month ended, a mutation occurred.

Two of the mantises stabilized. Their exoskeletons glowed with a soft spiritual light, and faint traces of Qi began to circulate within them. They had successfully entered the Novice stage.

But the third one—the most aggressive male, the one Zhou Kai jokingly called “Little Gold”—was different.

Its triangular head suddenly erupted with a flash of bloody light.

Right in the center of its brow, a dot as bright and red as fresh blood slowly manifested, pulsating like a third eye.