Long Tian sat beneath a dying peach tree behind the servant quarters.
The same tree where he once waited for someone who no longer remembered his name.
The same place he now returned to—not out of nostalgia, but necessity.
He needed silence.
Stillness.
Control.
But the Sutra did not sleep.
The Lust Dragon Core beneath his navel pulsed—softly at first, like a heartbeat against a lover's skin.
Then deeper, more urgent.
As if it were... hungry.
He inhaled slowly.
Circulated what little Qi he could manage.
But the moment his thoughts calmed—
The air around him shifted.
---
Whispers in the Wind
A girl laughed, not far away. A junior disciple—he didn't know her name.
The sound of her voice brushed past his skin like fingers down a bare chest.
Another disciple walked nearby, muttering curses—about love, about betrayal.
His bitterness clung to the wind, sharp and wet.
A third voice… softer, shyer.
A whisper:
"I dreamed of him again…"
"…why do I keep dreaming of him?"
Long Tian flinched.
The Sutra wasn't listening.
It was feeding.
And suddenly, he could feel them all.
Desires not his own.
Touches never meant for him.
Unspoken dreams, unconfessed needs, buried fantasies rising from everyone nearby—flooding into him like heat from too many bodies in a closed room.
---
Losing Control
His skin tingled.
Not from cold.
But from pressure—like hands grazing over him, tongues tracing his spine, breath stirring the nape of his neck.
He wasn't hallucinating.
He was experiencing.
A phantom memory of someone else's first kiss.
A fragment of a moan buried in a junior disciple's dream.
A touch that never happened… but was yearned for so deeply, the Sutra remembered it.
He gasped, body arching slightly.
"No… I didn't ask for this—!"
But the Sutra didn't care.
The path of pleasure was not walked through permission.
It was carved by truth.
And truth… was raw.
---
She'yan Intervenes
Suddenly—
Darkness swallowed him.
He fell backward—not onto dirt, but into an endless bed of crimson silk.
And She'yan appeared.
Not standing.
But straddling his waist, eyes glowing with disappointment.
"You opened the Sutra," she whispered, leaning close, her flame-dark hair brushing his cheek.
"You awakened it with longing and union."
"But now…"
"You're letting it feed without a master."
He tried to sit up—but her hand pressed gently against his chest, holding him down.
"The Sutra is not a beast," she said. "It is a mirror. You reflect into it, and it reflects into the world."
"But if you let it go wild—"
She leaned closer. Her lips brushed his ear.
"It will become you. And the boy you were… will vanish."
---
The Ritual of Restraint
She lifted her hand, and a lotus made of ice formed in her palm.
"Take this," she said.
"It's a ritual seal—the Sutra's first discipline."
"Place it on your heart. And choose which desire to keep… and which to lock away."
Long Tian's hand trembled.
So many desires.
So many voices.
So many dreams pressed against his skin.
He pressed the lotus to his chest.
And whispered one word:
"Mine."
---
The voices faded.
The hunger dimmed.
And when he opened his eyes again—
He was back beneath the tree.
Alone.
The wind was normal again.
The world, silent.
But something within him had changed.
---
A Lesson Etched in Fire
That night, as the stars returned, She'yan's voice echoed inside him:
"Pleasure is a flood, Tian.
But you… must be the dam."
"Or you will not walk the Path to Pleasure."
"You will drown in it."
---