There was a red mark on his arm where her strength had gripped him, but he seemed more amused than hurt.

That chuckle made her flinch as realization crashed over her like a cold wave. What had she done? She had just physically assaulted someone she believed carried her husband's soul.

The guilt and confusion warred with her rage, creating a tempest of emotion in her ancient heart.

He just shook his head with that infuriating smirk and turned away, his voice carrying casual dismissal. "You will never be able to satisfy me."

As he began to walk away, panic seized her chest. She couldn't let him leave—not when she had finally found him, not when the impossible had become reality. Her hand shot out, grabbing his other wrist with desperate strength.

"Stop!" The word tore from her throat with raw desperation. "What did you say?"

He turned back to face her, and his expression shifted into something that made her heart skip beats for all the wrong reasons. Those crimson-gold eyes softened with what appeared to be genuine respect and confusion.

"Listen, Lady Akane," he said, his voice carrying a gentleness that made her walls begin to crumble. "I really respect you."

Inwardly, his thoughts were calculating and predatory. 'Perfect. Time to break down her remaining defenses.'

"I don't know why," he continued, his voice growing more uncertain, more vulnerable, "but I feel respect looking toward you. As if I know you, yet I couldn't recall..."

The words hit her like physical blows. Akane's entire body began to tremble as his confession awakened memories she had buried for millennia. Her lips found her lower lip, biting down as emotional turmoil crashed over her in waves.

Her mind became a battlefield of conflicting thoughts and desperate hopes. 'This could be him. This could actually be my beloved.' The chance to have her husband back, even in this corrupted form, made her heart race with possibilities too precious to contemplate.

Her mind grew hazy as ancient memories surfaced—memories old enough to survive even a millennium of grief and longing. The way her prince had looked at her with that same gentle confusion when they first met. The respect in his voice when he spoke her name. The way her heart had raced then, just as it was racing now.

But something was wrong. She could sense it in her very bones. Desperate for answers, she activated her most advanced spiritual technique. Her golden eyes began to shine with brilliant light as she prepared to use a formation that would reveal the truth.

For just a millisecond, the formation seal that kept her power suppressed to the Great Vehicle realm vanished, and her true cultivation exploded outward—the overwhelming might of the Mahayana realm.

The instant display of power was noticed only by Tianlong, who visibly stiffened as if a predator had suddenly focused on him. The crushing weight of her true strength made the air itself seem solid, reality bending around her unleashed aura.

The whole world turned black and white for that brief moment, color draining from existence as her power reached into the very fabric of reality. She peered directly into his soul, past flesh and blood and bone, into the dark space where the essence of being resided.

What she saw there made her ancient heart stop beating.

She couldn't quite grasp the depth of what she was witnessing, but there in the darkness, she saw it—a soul fragment hovering in the void.

It was so powerful, so ancient, that she couldn't fully open her eyes to perceive its true identity. The spiritual pressure radiating from that fragment was beyond anything she had ever encountered.

But she knew with absolute certainty that this body carried the soul of someone else—not the emperor it appeared to belong to. This was transmigration, reincarnation, or something even more impossible.

Her lips began to tremble as the devastating realization crashed over her the moment she tried to increase her sense. A sudden gust of hazy pink energy emitted from that soul which made her whole body tremble, her heart thumping, as she felt herself being touched by someone's enormous love.

'!!'

'Ugh—' Tianlong clearly seemed to halt, his body flinching as he felt sweat break through his body.

Though that perfect mask was keeping his exterior composed, inwardly his mind raced with sharp alarm. 'What is she doing to me?'

The ancient fox matriarch's golden gaze remained fixed on him with an intensity that made his cultivation base tremble—not from fear, but from the raw spiritual pressure of someone who had just pierced through every defense he possessed.

Yet he inquired with forced calm, 'System, what happened just now?'

[CRITICAL ALERT: Soul Detection Confirmed]

[Target: Akane has successfully penetrated Host's spiritual defenses]

[Analysis: Advanced soul-reading technique utilized - The woman had just seen your soul]

[Warning: All concealment methods have been compromised]

[Recommendation: Immediate damage control required]

The moment the System's words registered, he instantly yanked his hand back from her grip as if burned by divine fire.

His crimson-gold eyes widened in shock as the grim reality crashed over him like a tidal wave—he was caught. Completely, utterly exposed.

All his careful planning, his sophisticated manipulation tactics, his perfectly crafted deceptions—useless against someone who could literally peer into his soul and witness the foreign essence dwelling there.

'Fuck, fuck, FUCK!' His internal monologue screamed as he tried to step back, every instinct telling him to create distance, to escape, to fight—anything but remain within reach of this impossibly dangerous woman.

She knew. She fucking knew everything.

But her words—spoken with eyes now gleaming with tears—made him freeze mid-retreat.

"Husband."

The single word hit him like a technique aimed directly at his heart. Not because of its meaning, but because of the way she said it. The desperate hope. The trembling vulnerability. The millennium of grief and longing packed into those two syllables.

'Huh?' He inhaled sharply as she suddenly threw herself at him, her voluptuous body crashing against his firm muscles with desperate need.

Her massive breasts pressed against his chest like the softest cushions, yielding and warm through the thin silk of her robes. Her arms wrapped around him with a possessiveness that spoke of someone reclaiming something precious they thought they'd lost forever.

"Husband, husband," she whispered against his neck, her voice breaking as she held him with trembling arms. Her fox ears brushed against his jawline, soft and vulnerable. "I knew it was you. I felt it the moment I saw your soul. That beautiful, ancient essence... it's really you."

His hands moved involuntarily, one settling on the small of her back while the other found her hair.

The reddish mixed silver strands felt like liquid moonlight between his fingers as she pressed closer, molding her curves against every plane of his body.

"Please don't leave me again," she breathed, her voice muffled against his shoulder. "I'll do anything. I'll give you anything. Just don't disappear like before. I can't... I can't survive losing you again."

And there he chuckled—low, dark, and filled with an emotion he couldn't quite name.

The sound vibrated through his chest where she pressed against him, and he felt her shiver in response. Slowly, deliberately, he returned her embrace, his arms encircling her trembling form.

He inhaled deeply, burying his nose in her hair. The scent was intoxicating—honey and moonflowers, mixed with something uniquely feminine that made his cock press insistently between her soft abdomen and his own firm muscles.

'She smells exactly like I imagined,' he thought, his rational mind warring with the primal satisfaction of having this devastating woman in his arms.

His doubts about morality—about manipulating a grieving widow, about using her longing for a dead husband—began to shift and transform.

'You bastard of a man... how can you die leaving such a woman?'

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.