Chapter 103 – The Primordial Loom

The steam of jasmine tea still rose slowly over the central table of the Autumn Wind Pavilion.

Zhì Yuǎn rested against the wide bench, his posture loose while Bái Wǎn settled her small body in his lap. The fourth wife adjusted the soft silk skirts between her husband’s thighs, using her delicate fingers to guide a small sesame sweet to his mouth. Just behind, Qīng Yǔ kept her skilled hands working on Zhì Yuǎn’s shoulders—her thumbs found the exact knots of tension at the base of his neck, pressing the points with precision while she injected her Qi to ease her husband’s musculature.

Zhì Yuǎn accepted the sweet Bái Wǎn offered, chewing slowly before speaking in his usual voice, rustic and without fanfare:

“I’m going into seclusion for two or three days. I need to adjust the circulation of Primordial Qi and assemble the structure of the Loom so it runs together with the Mill.”

Bái Wǎn rolled her hips slowly over his lap, resettling her waist to press firmly against Zhì Yuǎn’s abdomen. The thin silk of her dress did not hide the heat of her skin as she lifted her chin, offering another sweet with a gaze shining with pure provocation.

“Three whole days locked down there…?” Bái Wǎn murmured, her tone coaxing, brushing her lips against his chin. “Can’t you at least take one of us to… assist you?”

Behind him, Qīng Yǔ’s fingers rose slowly along the tendons of his neck to the lobe of his ear. The fifth wife tilted her face, planting a soft, teasing bite on the tip of Zhì Yuǎn’s ear, blowing warm air against the skin before whispering very close:

“The fourth sister is right, my Heaven… If you’re going to spend so much time in the cold of that chamber, you should at least ease the tension in your body before you start. My hands can do much more than just loosen shoulders.”

Zhì Yuǎn held a firm grip on Bái Wǎn’s waist, keeping the fourth wife from getting too carried away, while letting out a low laugh from the back of his throat.

At the end of the table, Yù Méi was sprawled while chewing a piece of golden crystal honeycomb.

“Let me guard the chamber. No one will get near the door,” she swung her legs and declared without even lifting her eyes.

Behind the youngest, the Silver Huntress merely straightened her posture.

Yù Qíng, however, remained silent. She kept an erect posture in her seat, disguising the discreet stiffening of her shoulders as she adjusted the fold of her hanfu sleeve. Her black eyes followed the caresses with a touch of jealousy, but the depths of her gaze betrayed her unease.

“Look after Qíng while I’m in there.”

Without altering his expression or drawing his hands from Bái Wǎn’s waist, Zhì Yuǎn fired a direct sound transmission to Lín Jié.

The Seventh Wife, who was signing a stack of Consortium sheets at the corner of the table, did not interrupt the stroke of her brush or change the rhythm of her breathing. She only lifted her eyes for a moment, meeting Zhì Yuǎn’s gaze in a silent agreement.

Zhì Yuǎn delivered an affectionate slap on Bái Wǎn’s thigh, drawing a yelp of surprise from the girl as he lifted her slightly to stand.

“Rest easy,” he said, a mischievous smile touching his lips. “When I finish, I’ll need a great deal of energy.”

Without waiting for further protests, he vanished toward the underground courtyard.

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The stone door of the meditation chamber slid to the end of its track, closing with a muffled impact that cut off the sound from the underground courtyard. Inside, the penumbra was broken only by the faint glow of light stones set into the walls.

Zhì Yuǎn walked to the center of the platform, sat on the straw mat, and crossed his legs.

He wasted no time on unnecessary preparations. He closed his eyes, slowed his breathing, and sank his perception straight into the center of his chest, plunging into the silence of his Inner Universe.

In the dark vastness of his inner vision, the Primordial Mill turned at a constant rhythm, grinding the accumulated Yin Qi into golden mist.

Drawing on the Law of Space, Zhì Yuǎn stretched his perception to the limits of his internal foundation. He did not try to increase the diameter of his cosmos—that would demand a colossal quantity of energy—but rather to fold the edges of the void over themselves. He created an invisible net of anchors that interlaced with the fabric of the Inner Universe.

That arrangement ensured the Loom would not be rigid. As the Inner Universe grew, the spatial folds would expand it along with them, keeping the tension of the mesh perfect.

With the spatial bindings fixed, Zhì Yuǎn began to shape the framework of the Loom.

He extracted dense currents of Primordial Qi and spun them in the void, braiding the pillars and the combs of the matrix until they formed a structure both firm and fluid.

A couple of days passed while he settled every detail and balanced how the Loom behaved in space.

Only then did he connect the output of the Primordial Mill directly to the entrance of the newborn Loom.

The entire apparatus began to turn.

The Mill ground the raw energy and delivered it to the Loom, which used the spatial folds to press the Primordial Qi against itself. The consumption was absurd: for every ten measures of ordinary Primordial Qi that entered the matrix, only one fine and absurdly dense thread emerged on the other side.

They were thick, heavy, shining cables, hundreds of times stronger than the energy he used to circulate. Connected to the spatial anchors, those cables covered the inner walls of the cosmos like a supporting web, reinforcing the structure of his core without occupying real space.

Half a day passed in the absolute silence of the chamber.

Zhì Yuǎn observed the uninterrupted functioning of the system. The mesh expanded in synchrony with the space, the thick cables settled into the folds without rejection, and the pressure remained absolutely stable.

A discreet smile crossed Zhì Yuǎn’s face in the chamber’s penumbra.

I did it.

The technique was ready. The Primordial Loom worked exactly as he had drawn it in his mind.

Zhì Yuǎn emerged from the inner vision and opened his eyes. He rose from the straw mat, feeling his body light and his lungs full. Satisfied, he extended his right hand, ready to invoke a fraction of that compressed Primordial Qi to test its application in the real world.

He separated and pulled the first drop out of the Inner Universe.

The instant the concentrated energy crossed the border between his internal cosmos and the manifestation of his physique, a dry, deep tremor cracked at the base of his spine.

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In the corridor of the underground courtyard, the air smelled of spices and roasted meat.

Yù Méi was reclined on a wooden bench against the stone wall, balancing a ceramic tray on her lap. She pulled chunks from a well-roasted leg of spiritual beast—prey Xú Lán had hunted at the start of the week and that Mò Zhōng had prepared with herbs and pepper before sending it to the underground.

The youngest ate without hurry, chewing with appetite while using her greasy fingers to indicate the corner where the Silver Huntress was to remain. Xú Lán continued standing beside the stone door, erect and with her arms crossed, keeping her gaze fixed on the corridor entrance like an impeccable guard.

The corridor’s silence was absolute.

Yù Qíng glided down the steps, accompanied by Lín Jié. The Seventh Wife walked a step behind her eldest sister, her expression calm and her hands gathered in her sleeves, fulfilling in silence the request Zhì Yuǎn had made before entering seclusion.

Yù Méi did not even bother to stand. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and waved a piece of bone at the two of them.

“All quiet here,” Yù Méi said, her voice muffled by chewing. “The door didn’t even tremble.”

Yù Qíng stopped a few steps from the great stone entrance. She ignored Xú Lán’s presence and fixed her eyes on the seam sealed by arrays impenetrable to spiritual sense.

“He’s taking too long,” Yù Qíng commented, her tone low, almost to herself.

“He said two or three days, Eldest Sister,” Lín Jié reminded her, her voice firm and measured, resting a light hand on Yù Qíng’s shoulder. “The house is in order and Mèng Lián has already taken hold of the Consortium reports. There’s nothing outside demanding His presence now.”

Yù Qíng nodded slowly. She drew a breath, trying to scatter the small unease that still insisted on pricking the base of her neck.

It was exactly at that instant that the earth gave way.

It did not begin with a hiss at the door or an ordinary leak of Qi. It was a dull, dry thud, coming straight from the depths of the soil, as if an entire mountain had been dropped from the sixth heaven onto the capital’s bedrock.

The stone beneath their feet shook with such force that the corridor walls cracked. The tray in Yù Méi’s hand slipped, shattering on the gravel floor while the youngest steadied herself on the bench with wide eyes. Xú Lán was thrown a step to the side, the soles of her boots scraping the rock so she would not lose her stance.

The shock was not confined to the corridor. Outside, on the surface, the water of the Autumn Wind Pavilion’s lake leapt from its banks, and the roof tiles rattled in a wave that ran through the entire district.

The chamber’s protection arrays blinked a vivid red, releasing a sharp snap of metal splitting before going dark for good.

The silence that followed was heavy and suffocating.

Yù Qíng froze in place. A violent chill climbed her spine. Her black eyes widened, the mask of self-control shattered before the complete absence of air and sound that had formed on the other side of the wall.