Su Yi saw through Huang Qianjun’s thoughts at a glance. “Zhang Yiren is saying that the army is a cold, harsh place. It’s hard to avoid loneliness and other hardships. If you want to thoroughly indulge tonight, I won’t object.”

Huang Qianjun coughed dryly, then said with a righteous, solemn air, “Brother Su, I’ve already turned over a new leaf. How could I covet such momentary pleasures?”

“You’re wrong. Pleasure and passion are normal, and suppressing yourself for no reason won’t do you any good. That’s true for men, and for women too.”

The words just seemed to flow out of him. “You ought to know that the Daoists have dual cultivation techniques, the Buddhists have sutras of tantric bliss, and the demonic cultivations have methods of seizing yin to replenish yang. Even the Confucianists believe that food and intimacies are mankind’s most fundamental desires. They ought to come from the heart, restricted only by the bounds of propriety.

He continued, “Without first experiencing the entanglements of love, how can any cultivator hope to control their mental state and sever unwanted emotion?

“Consider what goes on between men and women a form of cultivation. If you can see through it and gain enlightenment, you’ll be able to ‘act freely without acting improp...