I'll make you the furnace and the cauldron, so you can refine Yin and Yang and prove the Great

The moment Zhao Shoudao saw Chen Jie fall, he felt as if he had been doused with a bucket of ice water, chilled to the bone.

He abruptly withdrew his illusory primordial spirit. The grayish-yellow mountain, already teetering on the brink of collapse under the impact of the ghostly soldiers, was now deliberately retreated by him, transforming into a rapidly shrinking beam of light that disappeared into his dantian. Zhao Shoudao didn't even glance at Chen Jie's corpse; as he withdrew his primordial spirit, he transformed into a gray streak of light and soared into the sky, his speed as fast as a bowstring stretched to its limit before being released.

"Stop him!" Li Hanshan's voice boomed through the valley.

Yin Lingyue reacted with lightning speed. Her chains coiled around the gray streak of light like living snakes, while the silver corpse lunged out simultaneously, its claws, imbued with Yin energy, aimed straight for Zhao Shoudao's back. But in the instant of his escape, Zhao Shoudao had already flung out a bone talisman, entirely grayish-white and covered with dense runes, from his sleeve and crushed it violently. An extremely dense, earthy-yellow light exploded from the shattered talisman, transforming into a semi-transparent, thick barrier that stood between him and his pursuer. Yin Lingyue's chains struck the barrier as if hitting a moving mountain, producing a dull thud and being forcefully bounced back. The silver corpse's claws, too, only left a shallow white mark on the surface of the barrier before being unable to penetrate any further.

"Boundary-Breaking Talisman! This guy actually carries something like that around with him!" Yin Lingyue's tone rarely carried a hint of gritted teeth.

The bone talisman was clearly of extremely high grade; the thickness and sturdiness of its barrier far exceeded that of ordinary defensive talismans. Taking advantage of this momentary obstruction, Zhao Shoudao wrapped the earthen-yellow barrier around himself, transforming into an even faster streak of gray light as he sped off towards the southeast. His figure, enveloped by the barrier, was like a projectile launched from a catapult, disappearing behind the rolling hills in a few breaths.

Yin Lingyue didn't chase him too far. She pursued him for about a hundred miles in the direction Zhao Shoudao had disappeared, and after confirming that the aura had completely escaped the range of her divine sense, she released the chains and turned to fly back to the valley. Her face was still disguised as that of a withered old woman, but her cloudy eyes clearly held a hint of resentment. "A third-level Nascent Soul cultivator determined to escape, and even carrying a life-saving item like a Boundary-Breaking Talisman, it's difficult for me not to catch him. Unless you set up an encirclement formation beforehand, it will be difficult to keep a cultivator of this level."

Li Hanshan stood still, his broken sword already retracted into his storage ring, and the light of the Chongyang Primordial Embryo slowly receding into the depths of his consciousness. Sensing Zhao Shoudao's departing aura, he remained silent for a moment, finally shaking his head slightly: "Since he used the Boundary-Breaking Talisman to chase after him, it would be a waste of his energy."

His gaze shifted to the edge of the valley. The Nascent Soul cultivator from the Yinquan Sect was huddled behind a low hill that had been half-flattened by the shockwave, his body pressed low, his aura concealed to the extreme. He was attempting to silently move to the other side of the valley while the three's attention was focused on Zhao Shoudao. His movements were very light, each step displaying the precise control unique to a Nascent Soul cultivator, barely even making a sound as he stepped on any loose gravel.

But he didn't get far. A gray-black chain, like a silent snake, coiled around his ankle from the side, tightening its grip the moment it touched his protective aura. Yin Lingyue's voice came from the center of the valley, hoarse and carrying a suppressed nonchalance: "Why are you running? I'm not going to kill you."

Yin Quanzong's Nascent Soul stage body stiffened abruptly. He looked down at the tightening chain around his ankle, then turned to look at the hunched figure in the center of the valley. His lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but he only managed to utter a few broken, dry syllables: "Senior Sister Yin...you, you and her...I didn't see anything...I really didn't see anything..."

Yin Lingyue did not answer. She merely glanced at Li Hanshan, her cloudy eyes holding a questioning look. Li Hanshan nodded slightly.

Yin Lingyue's chains tightened simultaneously, and the silver corpse's claws, like a bolt of silver-gray lightning, slashed in from the side, precisely piercing the Nascent Soul cultivator's dantian. His protective aura had already been weakened by most of the aftershocks of the bone talisman while he turned to flee, and now it shattered like paper before the silver corpse's full-force attack. The Nascent Soul cultivator from the Yinquan Sect widened his eyes, looking down at the piercing wound in his chest that was oozing blood, then looking up at Yin Lingyue, as if silently accusing her of the last unspoken question.

"You..." He uttered a single word, then had no strength left to say anything more.

Yin Lingyue retracted the chains, and the silver corpse silently retreated to her side. She took a few steps forward, squatted down beside the lifeless body, reached out to probe its dantian, and nodded after a moment, her tone carrying a restrained calmness: "This guy's cultivation isn't high, but his body is intact, so he can be used to refine silver corpses. Adding Chen Jie's, making two new ones shouldn't be a problem."

Li Hanshan stepped forward and stood beside the two corpses, his gaze sweeping over Chen Jie and the Yin Quan Sect Nascent Soul cultivator's body. Chen Jie's face still bore the look of shock from when he was pierced by the sword; his gray-brown outfit was covered in dust and blood, and the piercing wound in his dantian was charred and curled by the pure yang fire. The Yin Quan Sect Nascent Soul cultivator's body lay among a pile of rubble, its face contorted, still bearing a hint of resentment.

He collected all their storage bags, took inventory, and found that they contained a considerable amount of goods, making him quite wealthy.

Then, Li Hanshan looked at Yin Lingyue and said, "You did a good job this time."

The reason Yin Lingyue was able to find him was mainly because Li Hanshan discovered that they could sense each other's distance through Yin and Yang patterns, provided that he made the other party sense it.

A month ago, after Li Hanshan won the competition, he contacted Yin Lingyue and learned that she could also enter the secret realm.

Yin Lingyue said, "Now that everyone is dead, I'll be leaving if there's nothing else. I still need to find some Yin Sha spiritual items; I've wasted too much time here."

She turned to leave, her hunched back casting a long, thin shadow in the twilight. Li Hanshan reached out and pressed her wrist, the pressure light but just enough to stop her in her tracks. "What's the rush?" His voice was neither loud nor soft, carrying a matter-of-fact composure. "I just fought a tough battle, and my spiritual energy is mostly depleted, and my nascent soul power is also quite low. Since you're here, you should help me recover before you leave."

Yin Lingyue's back stiffened slightly. She didn't immediately break free from his grasp, nor did she turn around. She remained silent for several breaths, as if weighing something. Finally, she turned around. Her dark purple eyes shimmered with a complex, suppressed light in the twilight. The disguised old woman's face rippled slightly like the surface of water in the fluctuations of spiritual energy, then returned to normal. "You... how can you be like this?" Her voice was half an octave lower than before, carrying a tone that was hard to discern as either anger or helplessness.

Li Hanshan had already led her towards a recessed area at the edge of the valley, hidden by the mountain wall. Yin Lingyue followed behind him, her steps somewhat reluctant but not truly resisting. When she stood in the shadows of the recess, Li Hanshan casually set up a simple soundproof barrier. The pale golden light curtain silently unfolded around the two of them, shutting out the sounds of the wind and the rolling of loose rocks.

Yin Lingyue dropped her disguise, his image reflected in her dark purple eyes, a faint blush rising on her cheeks. She bit her lip, letting Li Hanshan pull her closer, and then... Pure Yang energy surged into her meridians along the point where their bodies met, like a warm current seeping into a parched riverbed.

Li Hanshan's spiritual power was indeed greatly depleted. The tiny cracks in his meridians were healing at a visible speed under the continuous flow of pure yang energy, and the light of the divine infant in his dantian was also becoming bright again.

At the edge of the valley, Xiao An's figure floated silently in mid-air. Her eerie green eyes swept across the surroundings, and after confirming that there were no other cultivators within a hundred miles, she landed on a flattened rock roof and sat cross-legged. The eerie blue light on the surface of her soul body slowly receded, like a lantern with its wick turned down. She closed her eyes, and the aura of eighty thousand ghost soldiers rose and fell within the soul banners around her, surging rhythmically like the tides.