Day 115 Post-Impact
Serena's probability sense was broken.
Not literally - the ability still functioned, still fed her streams of data about possible futures and statistical outcomes. But ever since the entity's attack, the numbers had been wrong. Scrambled. Like trying to read through shattered glass.
She sat in the analysis room, surrounded by data streams she couldn't parse, and tried not to scream.
"Probability of entity return within 72 hours: 34%. No, 67%. No, 12%." She rubbed her temples, fighting a headache that had been building for two days. "The numbers keep shifting. I can't get a stable read on anything."
The door opened behind her. She didn't need to turn around to know who it was - even with her sense scrambled, some patterns were unmistakable.
"You've been in here for sixteen hours," Sarnav said.
"Twelve. The first four don't count - I was actually making progress then."
"And now?"
"Now I'm staring at probability matrices that look like abstract art and wondering if my brain is permanently damaged." She finally turned to face him, and he saw the exhaustion carved into her features. Dark circles under her eyes. Tension in her jaw. The carefully controlled exterior cracking at the edges.
"When did you last sleep?"
"Define sleep."
"Serena."
"I can't sleep." The admission came out sharper than she intended. "Every time I close my eyes, the calculations start. Threat assessments. Survival odds. Probability of the seal breaking, probability of the entity returning, probability of..." She stopped, swallowed. "Probability of you dying."
He crossed the room and crouched beside her chair. "What's the probability?"
"It keeps changing. That's the problem. Before the attack, I could model outcomes with 89% accuracy. Now I'm lucky to hit 40%. The entity introduced too many variables. Your bloodline, the system's hidden agenda, whatever it's planning next..." She laughed bitterly. "I used to be able to see the future. Now I can barely see the present."
"Maybe that's not a bad thing."
"It's my only useful ability. Without it, I'm just..."
"Just what? Brilliant? Strategic? One of the most capable women I've ever met?" He took her hands, stilling their restless movement. "Your probability sense is a tool, Serena. It's not who you are."
"It's all I've ever been good at." Her voice was small. Vulnerable in a way she rarely let herself be. "Growing up, I wasn't pretty or charming or talented. I was just... efficient. Good with numbers. Useful for calculations. And when my ability awakened, it was the same thing. I finally had value because I could see outcomes before they happened."
"You have value because you're you."
"That's easy to say when you're not the one whose brain feels like it's full of static."
He was quiet for a moment, studying her face. Then: "What helped before? When your sense got scrambled during the initial awakening?"
She flushed. "That was different."
"How?"
"I..." She looked away. "The first time my ability stabilized was after we... after we were together. The release helped. Cleared my head. But I can't just use sex as a reset button every time my brain malfunctions."
"Why not?"
"Because it's..." She stopped. Frowned. "Actually, I don't have a good reason. I was going to say 'unprofessional,' but we're married. And 'inappropriate,' but you've seen me naked multiple times. And 'embarrassing,' but you already know all my embarrassing quirks."
"So the only thing stopping you is pride."
"Pride is important."
"Pride is keeping you awake and miserable when there's a solution right in front of you." He stood, pulling her up with him. "Come on."
"Where are we going?"
"Your quarters. Where I'm going to make you stop thinking."
Her breath caught. "Sarnav..."
"Unless you'd rather stay here and stare at broken probability matrices for another sixteen hours?"
She didn't have an answer for that. So she let him lead her out of the analysis room, through quiet corridors, to the small but efficient quarters she'd claimed as her own.
Serena's room was exactly like her - organized, practical, with everything in its precise place. Even her sheets were arranged with geometric precision.
"You know," Sarnav said as the door closed behind them, "the goal is to make you lose control. This room suggests that's going to be a challenge."
"Everything in my life is controlled. Has to be." She stood in the center of the room, arms crossed, walls firmly in place. "If I don't control my environment, I can't control my thoughts. If I can't control my thoughts, I can't control my ability. If I can't control my ability..."
"You might actually feel something?"
Her eyes flashed. "That's not fair."
"No, it's accurate. You use control to avoid emotion. But emotion isn't the enemy, Serena. Neither is chaos." He stepped closer, invading her carefully maintained personal space. "Sometimes you need to let go."
"I don't know how."
"Then let me show you."
He kissed her before she could calculate the probability of what came next.
For a moment she was rigid, her mind still trying to process, to predict, to control. But his hands found her waist, pulling her against him, and his tongue traced the seam of her lips, and slowly - so slowly - she began to melt.
"Stop thinking," he murmured against her mouth.
"I can't just - "
He kissed her harder, swallowing her protest. His hands slid under her shirt, finding warm skin, and she gasped into his mouth.
"What's the probability of you enjoying this?"
"Ninety-three percent based on previous encounters, but the variables - "
He pinched her nipple through her bra, and her calculation dissolved into a moan.
"What about now?"
"I... I can't..." Her eyes were slightly glazed, her usual razor-sharp focus softening. "The numbers aren't... you're disrupting my..."
"Good."
He walked her backward toward the bed, stripping her shirt off in the process. Her bra followed, revealing breasts she usually kept hidden under practical clothing. She moved to cover herself - instinct, control - but he caught her wrists.
"No hiding. Not tonight."
"Sarnav..."
"You want to reset your probability sense? Then you need to completely let go. No control. No calculation. Just sensation." He pushed her gently onto the bed. "Can you do that?"
She stared up at him, vulnerability warring with the need for control that defined her existence. Then, very slowly, she nodded.
"Make me," she whispered. "Make me stop thinking."
He smiled. "Challenge accepted."
He took his time undressing her, removing each piece of clothing with deliberate slowness. Her pants. Her underwear. Everything arranged neatly on the floor because he knew the mess would distract her otherwise.
Then he looked at her, spread out on the bed, and felt his own control slipping.
"You're beautiful," he said.
"Statistically average for my demographic, actually. Height is in the 54th percentile, weight distribution suggests - "
He covered her mouth with his hand. "No statistics. No percentages. Just feel."
Her eyes widened above his hand. Then, slowly, she nodded.
He replaced his hand with his mouth, kissing her until she stopped trying to talk. His hands explored her body, learning the places that made her gasp, the spots that made her squirm. She was responsive despite herself, her body reacting even as her mind tried to resist.
When he finally moved down between her legs, she was already wet.
"Probability of orgasm within five minutes?" he asked, just to watch her try to calculate.
"Sixty-seven percent if you maintain optimal stimulation patterns, seventy-three if you - ah!"
His tongue found her clit, and statistics became meaningless.
She gasped, her hips jerking involuntarily, decades of careful control undermined by a single sensation. He worked her slowly at first, learning what made her twitch, what made her moan, cataloging her responses the way she cataloged data.
"What's the probability now?" he asked, pulling back just enough to speak.
"I don't - I can't - please don't stop..."
"Answer the question."
"Probability of - shiok - probability of orgasm is..." She was trembling, her hips trying to chase his mouth, all that vaunted control dissolving. "Numbers aren't... I can't focus... wah lau, just please..."
Singlish. She was already slipping.
He rewarded her with more pressure, two fingers sliding inside her while his tongue maintained its assault on her clit. She was tight, hot, clenching around him with each stroke.
"Don't stop lah," she begged, the Singaporean cadence fully taking over. "So good... cannot tahan already..."
He loved this - the moment when her careful English crumbled into something more honest. More real. The woman beneath the calculator.
"I'm going to - " she gasped, her thighs shaking. "The probability of climax is approaching one hundred percent and I can't - I can't stop it - aiyah, I'm going to - !"
"Then don't."
She came with a cry that shattered every wall she'd ever built. Her body arched off the bed, thighs clamping around his head, voice breaking on sounds that weren't words in any language. And through the bond, he felt her probability sense go completely blank - no numbers, no calculations, just pure overwhelming sensation.
[DUAL CULTIVATION: INITIATING][WIFE: TAN WEI LING "SERENA"][PROBABILITY SENSE: RECALIBRATING]
He didn't give her time to rebuild. Before the first orgasm fully faded, he was inside her, filling her with one smooth thrust.
"Oh god." Her eyes flew open, wild and unfocused. "That's - you're - the variables are all wrong, this shouldn't feel this..."
"Shouldn't feel this what?"
"Good." She wrapped her legs around him, pulling him deeper. "This shouldn't feel this good. The endorphin response is exceeding predicted parameters by - "
He thrust hard enough to make her forget parameters existed.
"What was that about endorphins?"
"I don't remember," she admitted breathlessly. "I don't remember anything. Just don't stop."
He didn't stop.
He fucked her with methodical intensity, finding the rhythm that made her gasp, the angle that made her scream. She'd always approached sex like an equation to be solved - optimize stimulation, calculate optimal positions, predict orgasm timing. But there was nothing mathematical about the way she clung to him now, the way she begged for more, harder, please.
"More," she gasped, her nails digging into his back. "Deeper. I need - the sensation parameters require increased - "
He shifted her leg over his shoulder and thrust deeper, hitting a spot that made her eyes roll back.
"What parameters?" he asked.
"I don't - wah lau - there aren't any - just don't stop - "
"Tell me how it feels. Not in numbers. In words."
"Good." The word came out broken, honest. "So good. Like my brain is finally quiet. Like I can just... be here. With you. Not calculating. Not predicting. Just feeling."
"That's all I want." He kissed her, tender despite the intensity of his thrusts. "Just you. Just this. Just us."
"Sarnav..." She was crying again, tears streaming down her temples into her hair. "I've never - no one's ever made me feel - "
"Let go," he ordered. "Completely. No more control."
"I can't - I've never - "
"You can." He grabbed her wrists, pinning them above her head with one hand. The other found her clit, rubbing in time with his thrusts. "Stop fighting it. Stop calculating. Just be here, with me, and let yourself feel."
Something in her expression shifted. Cracked. And then she was crying - not from pain or sadness, but from the sheer overwhelming relief of finally, finally letting go.
"Yours lor," she sobbed, the Singlish surrender she'd only ever said once before. "I'm yours lor. Don't make me think anymore. Just make me feel."
"Always."
He released her wrists to cup her face, kissing the tears from her cheeks. His pace gentled, became something tender rather than overwhelming, and she wrapped herself around him like he was the only solid thing in a world of probabilities.
"I'm close," he said.
"Inside me. Please. I want to feel you."
He came with her name on his lips, spilling into her warmth, and felt her clench around him as a final, gentler orgasm rippled through her body.
[DUAL CULTIVATION: COMPLETE][ESSENCE GAINED: +2,720][SERENA ESSENCE: +2,050][PROBABILITY SENSE: STABILIZED][BOND RESONANCE: DEEPENED][PROGRESS TO SECOND STAGE: 22% → 23%]
They lay tangled together afterward, her head on his chest, her breathing slowly steadying. When she finally spoke, her voice was raw but clear.
"Probability of entity return within 72 hours: 47%. Stable reading." She laughed, weak and relieved. "It's working again. The numbers make sense."
"See? Sometimes the solution is simpler than you think."
"The solution was letting my husband fuck my brains out until my ability reset itself. That's not simple - that's absurd."
"Did it work?"
"...Yes." She propped herself up to look at him, something soft in her expression. "Thank you. For knowing what I needed when I didn't."
"That's what husbands are for."
"Is it? I don't have statistical data on husbands. My sample size is limited to one."
"Lucky you." He pulled her back down against his chest. "Rest. Your brain just rebooted. It needs recovery time."
"That's not how probability sense works."
"Don't care. Rest anyway."
She huffed, but her eyes were already closing. Within minutes, she was asleep - the first real sleep she'd had in days.
Sarnav held her and watched the ceiling and tried not to think about all the probabilities she couldn't calculate. The entity's return. His bloodline's purpose. The cage he was being built to become.
Some things were better left unknown.
[DAY 115]
[SARNAV: S-RANK (HARMONY SOVEREIGN - FIRST STAGE)][PROGRESS TO SECOND STAGE: 23%]
[WIFE CULTIVATION STATUS][1. NISHA - C | 2. ISHANI - C | 3. ANANYA - C][4. MINJI - D+ | 5. JADE - C | 6. SANA - C+][7. JIYEON - C | 8. SERENA - C+ | 9. ZARA - C+][10. ELENA - S | 11. YUKI - D]
[HARMONY SAFE ZONE: 1,335 SURVIVORS | 3 SECTORS]
[SEAL INTEGRITY: 92.8% (REPAIRS ONGOING)]
[ENTITY STATUS: RETREATED - PROBABILITY OF RETURN WITHIN 72 HOURS: 47%][SERENA: PROBABILITY SENSE STABILIZED][BOND: DEEPENED]
[WIVES BONDED: 11/32]