They stuck in his throat like shards of glass as his thoughts rose and fell at an absolutely tremendous pace, memories flooding back from another world, another life.

As a teenager in his previous world, consuming web novel after web novel, he used to devour those NTR scenes where a man would claim another man's wife or woman.

The readers always seemed to appreciate those moments—the thrill of conquest, the satisfaction of crushing some weakling and taking what was theirs.

It had been one of the reasons he'd developed his kink for MILFs and married women in the first place.

Arriving in this cultivation world, he'd thought it would be the perfect opportunity to fulfill those desires. To claim someone else's woman, to live out those fantasies that had sustained him through his lonely existence.

But the way Akane had hugged him and cried...

He wasn't naive enough to not understand why she'd reacted that way.

Of course, it was shocking—the absolute coincidence of his resemblance to her lost love, enforced by the system's rewards and his stolen plot armor working in his favor.

But those tears...

Those tears seemed to resonate with something deep inside him, shaking the very foundation of his worldly support—his lust.

His perverted nature, which had somewhat made him feel alive in a world where everyone was serious about walking the path of power, suddenly felt... wrong.

Tianlong felt the bed dip slightly as Yu Xiang took a seat beside him, causing him to slowly lift his eyes.

He noticed a blanket had been placed over his body while he'd been unconscious.

Slowly, he lifted himself to a sitting position.

The wound on his abdomen had completely vanished—not even a scar remained.

He had many questions about what had transpired while he was out, so after taking a moment to compose himself, he looked at Yu Xiang directly.

"Where did she go? And what happened after I lost consciousness?"

Yu Xiang's expression softened slightly as she recalled the events.

"That woman seemed to stop crying after you said those words to her," she began, her fingers unconsciously playing with the hem of her robes. "While clearly panicking, she healed you with a technique I've never seen before. It was... confusing how possessively she held you. That was genuine—I can at least see that much."

As she spoke, Xiang seemed to shake her head, as if still trying to process what she'd witnessed.

"It was strange, seeing someone loving someone so dearly that even I could feel that sheer emotion from their expression. It wasn't like she acted any different from how a woman should act when the person they love is hurt, but still... the way she looked at you..."

She paused, her violet eyes distant.

"It was as if I could feel how deeply that woman loves you, and that was too confusing to witness."

Yu Xiang continued, her voice taking on a more practical tone.

"Overall, after she brought you here, she asked me about where I found you. Naturally, as you told me, I gave her the location you specified."

Tianlong gave a small nod, relieved that his contingency plan had worked.

He had used his novel knowledge to provide the name of a heritage site present within this lower realm—a tomb with significance to the upper realm but containing only the dead body of someone long absent.

There wouldn't be any issue with suspicion arising from that story.

Yet, seated there on the simple wooden bed, his mind kept returning to those tears.

The memory should have become routine by now.

He had seen his wives crying before—Mei when she'd been forced to betray him, Lin Yue when recounting her traumatic past, Feng Lianhua when he'd for the first time fucked her or Ying Jia who was betrayed by heaven crying due to his favour to her body and destiny.

But their tears had been different.

They had fueled his desire in some way, whether because they were crying from loving him or because he was filled with lust while comforting them.

Their tears had always served a purpose in his plans, had always been something he could work with, manipulate, or use to deepen their bonds.

But this... this had been something else entirely.

For the first time, Tianlong realized that tears had texture.

When someone was happy, their tears felt different against your skin. When they were broken and sad, the very weight of them changed.

It was the first time he'd understood that tears carried meaning beyond their simple existence.

He had always thought they just had a taste.

He exhaled slowly, looking down at the rough blanket covering his legs.

The weight of realization settled on his shoulders like a physical burden.

Ever since arriving in this world, he had never thought to be truly serious about anything.

Even though he was a transmigrator with novel knowledge that gave him incredible advantages, he had never wanted to become like those cold main characters he used to read about in cultivation stories.

Those calculating protagonists who manipulated women so strangely that it felt like they were toying with them like chess pieces.

In his previous world, with no family to emotionally support him, his only refuge had been web novels.

Reading those stories, spending his money on more chapters, sending gifts to get more chapters, letting himself become perverted through countless stories of conquest and harem building.

He knew it was wrong on some level, but in one way or another, those stories had been his support system.

Working his dead-end job and using that money to escape into fantasy worlds where power and women came easily to those clever enough to seize them.

Even after arriving in this cultivation world, he had never wanted to act like those cold, calculating main characters.

He had just wanted to be himself—a perverted, easygoing guy fulfilling his desires while building genuine relationships with women who chose to love him.

But while doing so, it seemed several things had changed in ways he hadn't expected.

Except for this feeling of guilt that was completely foreign to him.

It was strange—feeling guilty about her tears when all he had originally wanted was to fulfill his horny desire to claim Yuki's mother.

Like how it was shown in those NTR stories he used to devour.

But seeing Akane's state, witnessing that overwhelming power reduced to such raw vulnerability, had made him realize something uncomfortable about his own perspective.

In his desire to see women's bodies, to claim them and add them to his collection, he might have forgotten that they also had deeper emotions.

Not that he had ignored those emotions entirely, but most of the time he had never truly realized that those feelings could be stronger than his desire.

That they were real people with real pain, not just beautiful NPCs in his personal cultivation story.

The silence in the hut stretched on as these thoughts churned through his mind.

Finally, he lifted his head and looked at Yu Xiang directly.

"Hey," he said quietly.

Yu Xiang lifted her eyes, meeting his gaze.

For quite a while they simply looked at each other, but her eyes began flickering with something like surprise.

This was the first time she was seeing such raw vulnerable human emotion forming on his face.

She had seen so many different sides of him—the loving husband with his wives, the dominant emperor commanding absolute loyalty, the perverted man who could make her body respond against her will.

But right now, she was seeing the face of someone much younger, filled with doubt about this world and his place in it.

When he finally spoke, his voice carried a genuine vulnerability she had never heard before.

"Xiang... Do you think I'm trash for always seeing women's bodies?"

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