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

Li Hanshan followed her instructions and began to write. The next few strokes went quite smoothly. Each time he completed a line, Shen Yun would lean closer to check it. The distance between them varied, and occasionally her fingertips would lightly touch the edge of the back of his hand holding the pen, indicating that he should adjust the angle or pressure at a certain point. Those touches were extremely brief, like the edge of a leaf brushing against the surface of water in a breeze, yet they carried a very light, almost imperceptible warmth. He could feel the focus she had when she stood beside him—a focus that was more than the seriousness she showed when she was teaching; it had an added layer that she herself might not have fully realized, like a mirror that had been repeatedly wiped clean, reflecting more details without her even noticing.

When he completed the basic framework of the first rune, Shen Yun straightened up, took a half step back, and examined the talisman paper for a moment before nodding slightly. "To be able to draw the basic framework completely on your first attempt is indeed better than I expected." As she spoke, she carefully put the talisman paper away and placed it aside, then took out a new sixth-tier talisman paper and spread it on the table. "Take a break and continue after your spiritual energy recovers. Drawing the second-tier talisman consumes a lot of spiritual energy, and forcing it when you're not in good condition will only make mistakes."

Li Hanshan put down his talisman brush and stretched his slightly stiff knuckles. He could feel that continuously drawing those intricate patterns had indeed consumed a lot of his divine sense and spiritual power. Although with his Void Refinement level divine sense and the fifth level of Nascent Soul cultivation, he wasn't exactly exhausted, a proper rest would definitely make subsequent practice more efficient. He leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and regulated his breathing for a moment. When he opened his eyes again, he saw Shen Yun standing by the window. The night breeze seeped in through the half-open window, causing the tassels on her hairpin to sway gently.

Shen Yun sensed his gaze and turned around. She held a cup of spiritual tea in her hand, but didn't drink it, merely gripping the warm porcelain bowl as if waiting for it to cool down. After a moment, she spoke: "That matter you mentioned in the workshop—you said you needed to consider it, was that just an excuse, or did you genuinely need more time?"

Li Hanshan sat up straight. She could sense the seriousness in her tone when she asked the question, like a taut string on a musical instrument. "This disciple has only been in the Immortal Alliance for a few months, my foundation is not yet stable, and my understanding of the Purple Thunder Pavilion is not yet deep enough. To agree rashly would be irresponsible to Qingyue and disrespectful to my own choices during this period."

He paused for a moment, "Besides, I haven't fully adapted to life in the Immortal Alliance yet. It always takes time to settle down after wandering from one place to another."

Shen Yun's gaze lingered on his face for a moment, a glint in her almond-shaped eyes that he couldn't quite decipher, as if she were weighing the true weight of his words. After a moment, she put down her teacup, her tone returning to its usual calm: "You're right. Marriage is indeed a serious matter and shouldn't be decided hastily."

As she spoke, she walked back to the desk, stood beside him, and her gaze fell on the untouched sixth-tier talisman paper. "However, until you've thought things through, you still need to continue practicing talismans. You've only just grasped the basic structure of second-tier talismans; the practice that follows will only be more mentally taxing than before."

As she spoke, she reached out and pushed the drawing up a bit so that Li Hanshan could see it more clearly.

As she withdrew her hand, her fingertips inadvertently brushed against the edge of the back of his hand, the touch as brief and light as the edge of a bamboo leaf brushed by the night breeze.

She didn't pull her hand away, nor did she deliberately prolong the touch; she simply completed the contact naturally as she withdrew her hand, as if she hadn't noticed anything unusual. Li Hanshan didn't deliberately avoid it either, but simply turned his gaze back to the drawing, feeling the slightly cool sensation from that brief touch slowly dissipate from his fingertips.

For several days in a row, Li Hanshan spent almost all his time in this talisman room.

The complexity of the double runes far exceeded his initial expectations. Although he could draw the basic framework of the first layer of runes completely, superimposing a second layer on top of it and ensuring that the spiritual energy flows between the two layers of runes did not conflict but rather resonated with each other was as difficult as drawing two completely different patterns with both hands simultaneously and then perfectly blending them on the same piece of paper. Each newly added line would have a subtle impact on the original spiritual energy circulation, and each adjustment required repeated deduction and testing to confirm its feasibility.

Shen Yun would come to guide him every day. At dawn, she would open the door to the talisman room, bringing a cup of warm spiritual tea and placing it in the corner of the desk. Then she would stand beside him, watching him put pen to paper. When the afternoon light filtered through the window paper, she would take the talisman brush after he completed a complex pattern, sketching key correction paths on a blank practice sheet, pointing out subtle deviations in the flow of spiritual energy with her fingertips, before handing the brush back to him. At night, when the lamp on the desk was refilled with oil, she would sometimes stay a little longer, waiting for him to finish the current pattern before leaving.

On the evening of the tenth day, Li Hanshan was focused on the most complex connecting point on the double-layered talisman paper. The precision required at that turn was extremely high; even a slight deviation in the flow of spiritual energy at the intersection of the two runes would cause irreversible disruption to the spiritual energy circulation of the entire talisman paper. His pen tip moved carefully at that turn, his Void Refinement level divine sense fully focused on locking onto every subtle flow of spiritual energy within the talisman paper. Shen Yun stood beside him, also watching the trajectory of the rune. She turned slightly to the side so she could clearly see the precise angle at which the pen tip touched the talisman paper, and unknowingly, her shoulder had already touched his back.

In that instant, the distance between them shrunk to almost touching. Through the thin fabric, they could feel the subtle warmth of their body heat mingling in the air. Shen Yun clearly noticed it too; her body paused slightly at that moment of contact, and the faint sound of the brush tip gliding across the talisman paper was exceptionally clear in the quiet talisman room.

Her face flushed involuntarily. Even though she had given birth, this was the first time she had been so close to a man since her husband had died so many years ago.

They're practically glued together.

Then, something even more deadly happened.

"Mom, a message from the Immortal Alliance, the beast tide is coming..." Shen Qingyue arrived, and as soon as she arrived, she saw Shen Yun and Li Hanshan sticking together.

The air in the talisman room froze for a moment.

Shen Qingyue stood at the door, one foot still inside the threshold, holding a silver-white communication talisman in her hand. Her face, which always carried a bright smile, was now frozen with a look of astonishment that she tried hard to suppress but still managed to reveal.

Her gaze first fell on Shen Yun—her mother stood sideways by the desk, close to Li Hanshan's back, a distance that clearly exceeded the bounds of normal teaching—then her gaze moved to Li Hanshan's face, as if trying to read some answer from his calm expression, or as if afraid of actually reading something.

Shen Yun reacted extremely quickly. Almost instinctively, she took a half-step back. That half-step wasn't large, but it was enough to pull the intimacy that had been unintentionally crossed between them back to the normal distance for teaching.

She reached out and pushed the rolled-up double-layered rune diagram towards the center of the table, her movements deliberately slow and unhurried, as if the brief moment of closeness just moments before was merely a common occurrence during instruction. Her voice had returned to its usual calm when she spoke, only a very brief pause at the end betraying that she was not as composed as she appeared: "A message from the beast tide? Let me see it."

Shen Qingyue entered the talisman room and placed the communication talisman in her hand on the table. Her movements were very light, but her gaze lingered on the talisman for a moment, as if to confirm that what she had just seen was indeed a communication talisman and not some other object.

The silver-white talisman glowed faintly on the table, its edges etched with the unique defensive zone markings of the Immortal Alliance. Shen Yun picked up the talisman, channeling her spiritual power into it. After a moment, her brow furrowed slightly, and as she put the talisman down, her tone returned to seriousness: "The sea beasts deep within the Endless Sea are gathering in large numbers and are expected to reach the first line of defense within five days. The Purple Thunder Pavilion needs to dispatch a group of talisman-making disciples to the front lines for support."

As she finished speaking, her gaze quickly swept between Shen Qingyue and Li Hanshan, then she nodded slightly: "I'll go arrange the personnel list. Qingyue, you stay here and register this batch of talismans that arrived today." After she finished speaking, she walked towards the door. Her deep purple figure swept across the threshold in the light of the luminous pearl without looking back. Her footsteps gradually faded away in the corridor and were soon drowned out by the rustling of bamboo leaves outside the window.

Shen Qingyue stood there, watching her mother's figure disappear at the end of the corridor, then turned around. Her gaze fell on Li Hanshan, and after a moment of silence, she spoke: "My mother was just... teaching you how to draw a double-layered talisman?"

As she spoke, she walked to the table, her gaze falling on the practice talisman paper that was already mostly completed. Her fingertips gently traced the edges of the silver-purple patterns, as if confirming that the lines were indeed just ordinary rune patterns and nothing more.

Li Hanshan put down his talisman brush and put the practice talisman paper into a jade box beside him. He could sense the probing in Shen Qingyue's eyes when she asked that question; it was like a carefully concealed needle tip, hidden deep yet still possessing an imperceptible sharpness.

He began, "The structure of the double-layered talisman is far more complex than that of the sixth-order purple lightning talisman. The sect leader was just helping me calibrate the flow of spiritual energy at that core turning point."

Shen Qingyue nodded and did not ask any further questions.

But her feelings became complicated. She learned about what had happened in the workshop a few days ago: her mother had betrothed her to Li Hanshan, but Li Hanshan had politely declined.

Originally, she thought Li Hanshan really needed to consider it, but now it seems that's not the case.

Could it be that Li Hanshan truly loves her mother?