Chapter 196: everything I have is your* [+18]

Min-Soo didn’t waste time looking at the sleeping girl on the silk sheets. He picked up his shirt, pulled it over his broad shoulders, and walked toward the marble coffee table. He picked up the dull bronze band of the ring, sliding it back onto his right index finger.

The metal was freezing cold, completely unresponsive. The soul link inside his mind was dead silent, indicating that Lady Ling-Xian was intentionally shutting him out after being cast aside the previous night.

Min-Soo walked out of the master bedroom, closing the soundproof door behind him. He took the rear staircase straight down into the cold concrete vault of the subterranean basement, locking the titanium deadbolts into place. The air down here was crisp, holding the lingering trace of the silver Liquid Qi condensate he had burned through yesterday.

He sat cross-legged at the center of the floor, his eyes fixed on the bronze ring.

"Lady Ling. Awake," Min-Soo commanded internally, his voice dropping into that razor-sharp, authoritative register he had copied from Chae-Yoon. "The transaction is complete. The capital margin is secure. We need to begin the next cultivation phase."

A dense, turbulent wave of white amber smoke suddenly erupted from the ring. It didn’t drift lazily out like before; it shot forward, pooling violently on the concrete before forming her stunning, hundred-score figure. Lady Ling-Xian floated three inches above the floor, her long yellow and white silk hanfu sleeves whipping around her narrow waist with an unmistakable, ancient anger. Her beautiful, starry eyes flared as she glared down at him.

"You dare summon me back to the waking world after treating my vessel like a common trinket, Lee Min-Soo?" her voice rang inside his skull like a cracking crystal glass, vibrating with intense humiliation and wrath. "I am a supreme cultivation sovereign! My core residue was forced to endure hours of your crude, shameless mortal noises before you stripped me from your skin! You have zero discipline!"

"I have fifteen million dollars," Min-Soo said, his voice entirely flat as he pulled out his phone and turned the screen face-up toward her transparent face.

The bright green digits of his mobile banking app illuminated the dim concrete room: $15,291,000.

Ling-Xian’s voice died instantly. Her long white silk sleeves froze mid-air, her jaw slightly parting as her dark eyes scanned the verified balance. In less than eight hours, he had nearly quadrupled his liquid wealth, vaulting himself within arm’s reach of the twenty-million-dollar threshold required for the Star-Core Lotus auction.

"The modern world is empty of natural energy, Lady Ling," Min-Soo said, standing up and opening the titanium case containing the remaining nine glass ampules of Liquid Qi condensate. "If I spent my nights meditating like an ancient ascetic in a cave, it would take me ten years to crack my first meridian. The system is my extraction engine. Every scream, every drop of pride that girl threw away on my sofa last night was just raw fuel turning into pure liquid capital to fund your revival."

Ling-Yian stared from the silver ampules back to his dark, unblinking eyes. The elite, bone-chilling confidence radiating from his Level 1 core was undeniable. He wasn’t a reckless youth playing with money; he was a cold, calculating mastermind who treated his own body and the women around him as strategic capital to conquer both the corporate underworld and the hidden cultivation sects.

The anger in her eyes slowly dissolved, replaced by a deep, breathless fascination that made her transparent cheeks flush with a faint, phantom warmth. "To use the passions of mortals to fund an immortal lineage... your path is truly terrifying, Min-Soo," she whispered through the soul link, her long yellow silks settling softly around her ankles.

"Let’s break the next ampule," Min-Soo said, his fingers reaching for the silver glass. "The auction opens in thirty days, and I want to hit Level 3 before Monday morning."

Before he could crack the glass, the heavy satellite terminal on his wrist buzzed with a high-priority, secure communication alert from the Ilshin Group’s executive line. It was an encrypted file from Jung Chae-Yoon, but as Min-Soo swiped the screen open, his copied s-Tier intelligence spotted an external tracking block attached to the signal.

The Sun-Woo Clan elders hadn’t waited for the Monday market opening. Following the liquidation of their local pharmaceutical labs yesterday, they had tracked the satellite routing directly to the coordinates of his new Pyeongchang-dong estate. Outside the five-meter stone walls, the ambient temperature was already beginning to plummet as three high-level hidden cultivators closed the net around his house.

Min-Soo slowly slipped the silver ampule back into the case, his eyes turning black as a cold, dangerous smile touched his lips. He looked down at the bronze ring on his finger, his Level 1 Qi core humming with a fierce, unstable energy. The wealthy legacies thought they could use their ancestral blades to corner him in his own home, but they were about to realize that every expert they sent into his courtyard was just another asset waiting to be liquidated.

——

The cold front descending over Pyeongchang-dong had nothing to do with the seasonal weather. Through the basement vault’s narrow ventilation slits, the ambient temperature outside was plummeting. The thin mountain air was freezing over, a direct physical manifestation of the three Sun-Woo Clan cultivators channeling their Earth-Core Qi against the estate’s perimeter walls.

Inside the concrete vault, Min-Soo didn’t move from his cross-legged stance. His eyes remained locked on the floating yellow and white silk hanfu sleeves of Lady Ling-Xian.

"They are clumsy, Min-Soo," Ling-Xian purred, her transparent figure drifting closer until her breathtaking, hundred-score face was bare inches from his jaw line. The phantom scent of ancient peach blossoms enveloped his senses, thick and intoxicating. "They have zero understanding of stealth. I can see their spiritual pathways leaking energy into your stone courtyard. Shall I dissolve their cores from inside the ring?"

"No," Min-Soo said, his voice flat, completely unaffected by the level of threat outside. "They are tracking the satellite relay Chae-Yoon used to send the auction pre-registration files. If we erase them here, the Sun-Woo elders will merely liquidate their hidden assets and run. I want them inside the courtyard where the legal title deeds protect my proxy."

Ling-Xian chuckled softly, her starry eyes widening with a playful, dangerous spark. She floated down until her knees almost touched his lap, her long, delicate silk sleeves draping over his broad shoulders like a transparent wrap. "You are a deeply wicked man, Lee Min-Soo. You use your mortal laws to trap cultivators like animals. But... I find your lack of fear quite alluring~."

She leaned closer, her soft, ethereal lips hovering just a fraction of an inch away from his ear, her phantom breath sending a sudden, electric shiver through his newly opened Level 1 meridians. "If we survive this month, you must promise to show me more of your modern... transaction methods. The noises that mortal girl made last night... were they truly necessary for printing gold?"

Min-Soo’s jaw tightened slightly at her teasing tone. He reached up, his bare hand passing straight through her transparent shoulder as he stood up, his Level 1 Qi core humming with a cold, solid strength. "The capital doesn’t lie, Lady Ling. Go back to the seal."

With a soft, reluctant sigh, her flawless form dissolved back into a trail of white smoke, snapping cleanly inside the bronze band on his index finger.

Min-Soo walked up the concrete stairs, unlocking the heavy subterranean door to enter the main foyer. The three-story estate was completely quiet, but as he reached the top landing of the grand staircase, the master bedroom door opened.

Choi Jin-Ah stepped out onto the marble corridor.The transformation from the night before was striking. She wore nothing but one of Min-Soo’s oversized white button-down shirts, the hem falling loosely to her mid-thighs, leaving her long, smooth legs completely bare under the morning sun. Her dark hair was messy, falling in wild waves over her shoulders, and her face was flushed a vibrant, soft rose pink, her doe-like eyes swimming with a lazy, deep intimacy as she looked at his chest.

The system grid instantly illuminated her silhouette.

[Target Locked: Choi Jin-Ah. Beauty Score: 88.]

[Current Favorability: 92 (Total Emotional Dependence / Blind Devotion).]

[Notice: Advanced Intimacy parameters are fully primed for immediate extraction.]

"Min-Soo," she whispered, her voice dropping into a low, alluring purr as she walked straight into his space, completely ignoring the freezing draft coming from the lower windows. She reached out, her small bare hands sliding smoothly under his shirt, her fingers tracing the hard, athletic contours of his lower back before lacing securely through his fingers.

The moment their palms locked against the marble wall, the phone inside his pocket began to vibrate with an explosive, unrelenting drone.

Shinhan Bank Alert: An anonymous wire transfer of $20,000 has been deposited.

Shinhan Bank Alert: An anonymous wire transfer of $20,000 has been deposited.

The cash printed continuously, twenty thousand dollars hitting his account for every single second she remained pressed against him, her body completely surrendering to his presence.

Jin-Ah didn’t let him walk away. Driven by the intense emotional dependence sealed into her core logic, she stood on her tiptoes, her full breasts pressing firmly against his chest as she drove her lips hard against his. The kiss was wet, deep, her tongue tracing his mouth with a frantic, unreserved hunger that made her let out a soft, helpless moan—hnggg, ahhh—against his jaw.

Min-Soo’s left hand slid down her waist, his fingers gripping her smooth, bare thigh, lifting her leg slightly to lock her hip against his waist. The raw physical contact triggered the newly unlocked Tier 5 metrics, causing the system text in his vision to blur into an absolute frenzy of green digits.

[Tier 5 Advanced Metric Active: Continuous Thigh/Waist Lock.]

[Payout Scale Exploding: $200,000 per second.]

Current Balance Surging Past: $15,891,000... $16,291,000...

"Min-Soo... it feels so good..." Jin-Ah whimpered between her gasps, her fingers digging deep into his shoulders as he pressed her back firmly against the marble wall, his hands sliding up to squeeze and shape her full chest under the white cotton shirt, making her moan even louder. "Ohh... don’t stop... I’m yours... everything I have is yours..."

The intense, sexy friction continued for minutes in the quiet corridor, the sound of her breathing and moans echoing off the high ceiling. The bank balance inside his vision shot past the sixteen-million-dollar mark with absolute ease, proving that her total emotional surrender was a high-reward money printing press.

Min-Soo slowly broke the deep kiss, his thumb rubbing against her wet, swollen lips as she leaned her forehead against his chest, her breath coming in short, hot pants.

"Stay inside the master suite," Min-Soo said, his voice dropping to a low, authoritative masculine register that made her core shiver. "The Sun-Woo Clan has just crossed the outer security gates. I have an administrative asset to liquidate in the courtyard."

Jin-Ah looked up at his calm, unblinking face, her eyes filled with total, unquestioning devotion. "Yes... be careful, Min-Soo."

Min-Soo turned on his heel, walking down the marble stairs toward the main entrance as his phone delivered the final tracking balance. With over sixteen million dollars in liquid cash, a Level 1 cultivation base running through his veins.