The week of supervised training began not with fanfare but with the soft, relentless rhythm of the sect—gong at dawn, kettle whistles, the distant clack of wooden training swords. Li Wei woke each morning to the same chorus of ritual, and each evening he fell asleep with the same small, electric weight in his chest: the system humming at the edge of his awareness, Mei Ling's shy look, and the memory of Xue Lian's frost that could crack a man's confidence and make him want to thaw it, carefully.
Master Han was a measured man. He taught the body like a sculptor teaches clay; slow pushes and small corrections that, over time, reshaped a person. The outer disciples bent and breathed under his watchful eye. Li Wei learned to treat the practice like a game: what the master demanded, he gave; what the system requested, he folded into it like a secret ingredient.
[Daily Objectives] the blue orb displayed that morning:
• Complete Basic Qi Circulation sessions.
• Use Heavenly Groping Hand twice in sanctioned drills.
• Maintain discretion; public reprimand reduces rewards.
He smiled. Discretion was less a restraint than a new rule to gamify.
Mei Ling became his primary partner for paired practice—not because the elders arranged it, but because fate (and the system) nudged them together. She had an earnestness that made her very easy to guide through the first awkward motions of microcosmic orbit; she listened with both attention and trust. Their hands brushed during drills more often than was choreographically necessary. Each brush earned Li Wei a tiny thrill; each earned him a soft reward from the orb. The system was efficient and oddly approving of gentle cunning.
Between lessons he worked to refine the Heavenly Groping Hand—not as a crude gag gift but as a technique that could be used to stabilize, to cushion, to redirect incoming force. It was both farce and craft: a palm movement that looked suggestive until it exploded into an elegant harmonic of qi that could stop, confuse, or soothe an opponent. In practice, it made him appear reckless and competent at once—a dangerous combination that spectators hated and masters admired.
The yard had its rhythms. Bo Feng still jeered and shoved sometimes; another outer disciple, a brawny woman named Yun Shuang, took to wiping sweat on her arm and grumbling, "Pervert or not, the move works." The flute player—the quiet-hearted Wen—watched Li Wei like someone cataloguing every small, ridiculous expression he made. Xue Lian kept her eyes on him as if she were reading a book whose pages she did not wish to mark with a thumbprint. The tension between them felt like a taut cord in the air, waiting to be plucked.
On the third day, Master Han announced a small test: paired meditative exchange. Each pair was to sit in circle formation and intentionally synchronize breath and intent for twenty minutes while focusing on a designated meridian. Under the surface, the test evaluated patience and subtlety—qualities Li Wei believed his system valued even more than spectacle.
He and Mei Ling sat beneath a pine's thin shade, palms hovering a breath apart. The afternoon sun painted her hair golden at the edges; she folded into the breathwork with the diligence of someone who had practiced small mercies for as long as she could remember. They inhaled in rhythm. Li Wei felt the warm silk of system-qi—different from the dry, metallic tang of iron-hard training—curl against his inner channels. It was gentle, sensual in its own right: an intimacy of warmth, of slow exchange rather than sudden fire.
Halfway through, Mei Ling's fingers moved, not by any demonstration but by the logic of comfort. She slid her palm to rest over his, then drew it back in the practiced motion of a healer checking a pulse. The orb pulsed brightly.
[Side Quest Triggered: Stabilize Mei Ling's Recovery — gentle hand-hold or forehead contact recommended.]
A preacher of restraint might have chosen the forehead. Li Wei chose both: he leaned until their foreheads met. The contact was soft, closed, a private sealing that said more than a dozen proclamations. Around them the circle breathed and churned with its own quiet. For a stuttering minute the world narrowed to the grain of Mei Ling's breath. The orb awarded them with a surge of Qi.
Mei Ling's cheeks warmed; she pressed her fingers to his as if cataloguing the sensation, then looked up at him with a curiosity that had suddenly the depth of a well. Li Wei's system registered not only the mechanical benefit but the ethical coefficient—consent, trust, and care multiplied the returns. The message was subtle but clear: kindness amplified power. That nuance lodged in him like a splinter that felt both uncomfortable and useful.
As evening unfurled, the rules bent toward private training. The elders' eyes were everywhere, but the inner channels of the sect had pockets of privacy: the herb garden behind the alchemy hall, the rooftop for midnight qi tempering, the willow shade where the moon made promises to those who listened. Li Wei and Mei Ling came to know two or three of these places well.
That first private session—what follows now is the book's quietest candor—led, as the system predicted, into territory both tender and decisive. They did not make spectacle of it. There are kinds of closeness that are a whisper against the perimeter of the world, and those are the ones that the sect's law tolerated most harshly because they were, by nature, hard to censor. Mei Ling trusted him; he returned that trust with care. The scene fades to black here:
They closed the willow's curtain of leaves, sat together, and allowed breath to lead them. The rest is private. The next morning a new surge of calm energy had knitted between them; Qi readings spiked on the orb in a way that felt almost holy. The system logged a large reward.
[Dual Cultivation Recorded — Gentle Exchange Completed.]
Reward: +300 Qi; Yin Affinity +10.
Note: Such exchanges attract attention. Concealment advised.
The consequence was immediate. Word, as it always did, traveled faster than particularity. The courtyard's whispers grew teeth. Xue Lian's eyes were seldom more than a pale blade of judgment, but this time there was the quick flicker of something else—unease, perhaps; or the faintest temperature of curiosity. Elder Ji's jaw had that calculus look again: a man cataloguing liabilities. Li Wei's week had been intended to be a learning curve; instead it had become an experiment in how far a boy with a perverted system could push the edges without falling over them.
He pushed anyway.
A mid-week sparring demonstration came like a bell. Each outer disciple would face an assigned senior for five breaths; creativity and control were judged. Li Wei drew Lan Yue: quick as reed and precise as frost. He did not fight her like a drunkard fights a storm. Instead he choreographed a provocation. The Heavenly Groping Hand—refined now—bloomed as a cushion-of-qi beneath her advancing footwork. It was a move that appeared, at first glance, foolish: a man reaching for a woman's wrist in the middle of a bout. But the touch was tempered; the redirection was artful; the result was a blur of skirts and a stutter in Lan Yue's rhythm that capitalized on her momentary confusion.
The crowd gasped. Master Han's brows scrunched not with disapproval but with calculation. The judges sat with their pens like priests weighing laws. The verdict favored creativity. Li Wei was rewarded—150 Qi and a dry, grudging nod from someone who had seen many foolish things turn useful.
That night he found temptation at every corner: Yun Shuang's blunt, amused smiles; Wen's flute notes that became messages; Mei Ling's shy presence like a lantern he could approach carefully. Each flirtation was its own tiny calculus: a compliment here, a touch of the hand there. The system logged them and gave small returns—charm, glances, a dash of social capital.
On the fifth day a different kind of test arrived: a challenge to his discretion. Elder Ji, who had authority that could sour a man's prospects with a single ledgered note, called Li Wei out during evening roll-call. He asked for an account of the recent "intimate exchanges." Li Wei could have cowered; he could have lied and wept penitent tears. Instead he chose a different performance.
He stood in the hall and offered a public apology with all the appropriate humility—acknowledgement of mistake, acceptance of punishment, a promise to temper his conduct. He delivered it well enough to placate the elders and memorable enough to keep the gossip thriving but not lethal. The crowd murmured; Master Han's eyes were like flint and water, steady and dangerous.
As a small mercy he was assigned a week of extra training but allowed to retain paired practice with Mei Ling. It was a reprieve that tasted like luck. It confirmed a delicate truth: Li Wei could walk the line between scandal and usefulness if he learned the choreography of both.
That same night, in a corner of the herb garden, the blue orb flashed with a new objective.
[Long-Term Hint Unlocked]
Objective: Build stable bonds—three reliable partners strengthen Yin absorption.
Bonus: Invitation to sect preliminary if renown threshold met.
The suggestion was a stone dropped into a pond whose ripples would widen. Li Wei considered it like an architect considering a foundation. This was no longer about a single kiss pushed by luck; this was about strategy and careful cultivation of relationships that could be relied upon when the storms came. He had tasted how dual cultivation could jump his Qi in a single night. To replicate that ethically and repeatedly, he would need trust—consent, affection, and care.
And so the business of charm became an artform. He practiced the small things: remembering a woman's favorite herb, retrieving a misplaced practice fan, offering a hand after an awkward fall. These gestures were small currencies; they bought trust and unlocked intimate paths the system recognized as valid conduits of power. He grew adept at blending the line between genuine kindness and the strategic play his new life demanded.
The week closed with the inner satisfaction of accomplishment and the raw knowledge that attention—whether admiring or suspicious—had consolidated around him. He was rising, yes, but also becoming noticed. Xue Lian's frosty silence had softened into a watchful neutrality that contained, somehow, the prospect of future thaw. Mei Ling's trust had deepened into something that could be called companionship, at least in the early, tender stages. The system hummed a low, expectant note, like a bell that waits for a hand to strike.
As he lay in bed that night, listening to the gentle chorus of the sect, Li Wei made a practical list in his head—targets, small kindnesses, training adjustments. He also made one promise that was less tactical: he would not abuse trust. The Dao of Lust, the system insisted, rewarded intimacy. But intimacy was not a vending machine; it was an exchange between people, and people were complicated and deserving of care.
A final notification winked on the orb before he drifted to sleep.
[Achievement Unlocked: Audacious Heart — Rank C]
Condition: One week survived; three consensual bonds initiated.
Reward: Title: Junior Pervert (visible only to host), +200 Qi.
His smirk in the dark was irreverent and sincere at once. The title might read ridiculous on a parchment, but the hidden reward was useful. He had climbed a notch. The path upward would demand steadier feet, but it would also offer the intoxicating possibility that desire could be forged into power—not by trickery alone but by care, wit, and a surprising measure of kindness.
Outside, the sect's lanterns swayed with a wind that smelled faintly of lotus and pine resin. Inside, beneath the thin eaves and straw mattress, Li Wei breathed the quiet promise of things to come: tournaments that would test his guile, senior sisters who might thaw, and a small circle of women whose trust, once won, would be as valuable as any ancient talisman.
He closed his eyes with a private grin. The Perverted Dao had opened its doors wider. He would step through them with both mischief and a slow, careful hand.
End of chapter 3