Re-birth: The Beginning after the End-Chapter 191: GOLD

Li Hua nodded and shifted toward the cauldron. "My spiritual energy has recovered but my body is still weak—"

Before she could finish her thought, much less make her request, Mo Xing had already moved. He settled behind her with fluid grace, his legs bracketing her thighs, chest pressed against her back. The sudden intimate contact made her breath catch in her throat. His warmth enveloped her like a living shadow, and she could feel his breath stirring the hair near her ear.

How am I supposed to concentrate, she thought, painfully aware of every point where their bodies touched.

"Don't stop, my Little Tempest." The words came out hoarser than his usual smooth tone, his breath hot against her ear. The way he said it—half command, half barely contained desire—sent a shiver down her spine.

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Li Hua pursed her lips, squeezing her eyes shut as she fought to contain the moan threatening to escape. She could practically feel his satisfaction radiating from behind her, and she knew without looking that he wore that infuriating smile of his.

Despite Mo Xing's distracting presence, Li Hua forced herself to focus on the task at hand. Taking several deep breaths to steady herself, she began the familiar motions of pill refinement. Her eyes darted between the ancient text and the cauldron, checking each step with meticulous care.

First, she channeled her spiritual fire beneath the cauldron, maintaining a precise temperature that made the vessel hum with approval. With careful concentration, she drew spirit water from her inner space, letting it flow into the cauldron in a crystalline stream.

Only then did she add the soul strengthening fruits, watching as they dissolved slowly into the spirit water, their ethereal essence spreading in swirling patterns that reminded her of starlight in dark water.

She let her wood essence flow into the mixture, its natural binding properties beginning to weave the ingredients together at a fundamental level. Like roots connecting earth to tree, her wood energy created intricate patterns through the solution, strengthening the connections between each component.

The grounding mind lotus would need to be added last, she noted. Its ability to nourish spiritual consciousness and enhance mental clarity would serve as the perfect final component, anchoring the volatile energies of the other ingredients while ensuring the pill wouldn't just heal the soul, but strengthen the mind as well.

Each gesture was calculated, each adjustment of the spiritual fire and wood essence measured with precision.

But maintaining such delicate control while being hyper-aware of every slight movement Mo Xing made behind her was proving to be its own kind of challenge. Every time she needed to adjust her position, his arms would shift with her, his chest pressing closer against her back, his breath warming her neck in a way that threatened to shatter her concentration.

After what felt like hours of careful manipulation, Li Hua felt the moment when all the elements finally aligned. The mixture in the cauldron began to glow with a soft, pearlescent light, and the combined essences settled into perfect harmony. With one final, precise application of her wood essence, the liquid coalesced into twelve perfectly formed pills, each one gleaming like captured moonlight.

She released a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, her body relaxing slightly against Mo Xing's chest. The pills hovered above the cauldron's surface, their spiritual energy pulsing in sync with her heartbeat. Each one represented a perfect fusion of the ingredients.

"Beautiful work, Little Tempest," Mo Xing murmured against her ear. And for a moment she wasn't sure if he meant the pills or how perfectly she still fit against him, despite having been seated together for so long.

"You take one," she said through steadying breaths, drained from the refinement process.

"Little Tempest..." Mo Xing's voice carried a note of protest, but she cut him off.

"You pulled me back from dissolution," she insisted, turning slightly to meet his gaze. "Your soul must have been affected too." The memory of obsidian threads reaching through realities to gather her scattered consciousness made her voice soften. "Please."

She felt him pause at her rare display of genuine concern. His arms tightened slightly around her waist, and for a moment she thought he might refuse again. But then his hand reached out, fingers gracefully plucking one of the hovering pills from the air.

"Only because you asked so nicely," he murmured, taking the pill between his fingers. Then his voice lowered to an intimate whisper. "Though I find myself craving a different kind of medicine—the one we shared earlier." The deliberate reference to their kiss sent a wave of heat cascading through her body, settling low in her abdomen. His golden eyes darkened as they caught her reaction—the sudden hitch in her breathing, the way her gaze involuntarily traced the curve of his mouth. His lips curled into that dangerous smile that promised he remembered every detail of how she'd tasted.

But before she could gather her scattered thoughts, exhaustion began to seep into her bones. She watched through increasingly heavy eyes as he plucked one of the pills and fed it to her, his thumb lingering on her lips. The toll of the refinement finally overwhelmed her defenses, leaving her boneless and yielding.

In that moment of raw vulnerability, she lacked even the strength to maintain her usual façade of indifference—her body betraying what her pride would never admit: the comfort she found in his embrace.

"Sleep, Little Tempest." His voice wrapped around her like silk as he adjusted his hold, cradling her more securely against him. "You need to recover." There was something in his tone—possessive yet tender—that made her feel oddly safe as consciousness began to slip away.

"Gold," she whispered, her voice barely audible as sleep pulled at her. "Like your eyes in the morning light..." The confession slipped out without her permission, carried on the edges of exhaustion and trust. She felt his arms tighten around her, heard the catch in his breath, but she was already drifting into dreams, too far gone to feel embarrassed by her own honesty.

Her last coherent thought was how natural it felt to fall asleep in the arms of this mysterious man.