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

Li Hanshan stood in the cave, the silvery-white light of the array flowing around him, stretching and shortening his shadow on the damp stone wall.

He looked at Shen Yun, at her face still flushed from her recent breakthrough to the Void Refinement stage, at her almond-shaped eyes that were waiting for his answer, and slowly asked, "Sect Master, what is our relationship?"

Shen Yun's body stiffened slightly the moment he asked that question.

She stood at the edge of the stone surface, her deep purple dress shimmering warmly in the dim light of the array. A flicker of panic, which she tried desperately to suppress, still betrayed her, welled in her almond-shaped eyes. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but then swallowed it back.

The silence lasted for several breaths. The twilight seeping through the narrow crack in the cave ceiling was slowly deepening, coloring the quiet between the two with a subtle, warm hue, like shattered amber.

Her hand unconsciously rubbed the edge of her sleeve twice before she finally spoke, her voice a few decibels lower than before, yet carrying a sect leader-like restraint as she tried to regain her composure: "Between us... it was just an accident. That time, I was blinded by the aphrodisiac mist; this time, it was for a breakthrough. It was all for cultivation; I won't take it seriously. From now on, I will never have these kinds of relationships with you again."

She said it was "just an accident" and "all for cultivation," but the little gesture of her fingers rubbing her cuffs clearly revealed that she didn't really believe her own explanation.

He chuckled silently to himself. You think you can just decide not to let something happen? This isn't something you can decide on your own.

He is now at the seventh level of the Nascent Soul stage, just one step away from the eighth level. When he helped Shen Yun break through to the Void Refinement stage, the Void Refinement essence flowed back into his meridians, allowing him to break through two and a half levels in a row. The light of his Pure Yang Primordial Spirit was more than twice as bright as before he entered the cave.

He had tasted the benefits of dual cultivation with a Void Refinement cultivator. The improvement in the quality of spiritual energy was far beyond what he could achieve with a Nascent Soul stage female cultivator. If he could cultivate with Shen Yun a few more times, the time it would take him to break through to the eighth level of the Nascent Soul stage or even the peak of the Nascent Soul stage could be shortened by at least half. Even reaching the Void Refinement stage would no longer be an unattainable dream.

Shen Yun thought that her words would sever all ties between them. But she clearly didn't realize that she had already opened a door. And once the door is open, closing it again isn't so easy.

He looked into her eyes and said in a calm voice, "What if I say I don't agree?"

Li Hanshan thought Shen Yun would turn cold and use her status as sect leader to pressure him, or even bring up the rules of the Immortal Alliance to threaten him.

He had prepared for the worst—if she really turned on him, he could simply end his undercover mission early and leave the Immortal Alliance using the escape talisman given to him by the sect leader. In any case, the gains from this trip were already substantial enough: the Immortal Alliance's intelligence, clues about the teleportation array, the secrets of the overseas immortal islands, plus the Void Refinement Origin he obtained when helping Shen Yun break through to the Void Refinement stage—enough to allow him to return to the Huan Sect and report back.

But Shen Yun's reaction was completely unexpected.

She stood there, her deep purple dress fluttering slightly in the dim light of the array, her gaze fixed on the ground as if looking at the fine lines etched by spiritual energy.

Her fingers slowly unfurled from the edge of her sleeve, clenching into a loose fist, then releasing it. When she spoke, her voice was significantly lower than before, carrying a softness he had never heard from her before, a suppressed gentleness: "Please... stay."

Li Hanshan looked at her and was startled.

Shen Yun raised her eyes, her almond-shaped eyes swirling with a complex emotion he couldn't fully decipher for a moment—a mixture of earnestness, worry, and a softness that seemed to have been wrapped up for a long time before finally being revealed: "You stay at the Purple Thunder Pavilion and help Qingyue improve her cultivation. Although that girl has good talent, her cultivation progress is always slow. Her lightning-attribute spiritual power, though pure, is too forceful, just like mine was back then, always stuck at a bottleneck. You helped me, so you should be able to help her too, no matter what method you use—as long as you can help her grow up as quickly as possible."

When she said "no matter what method," her voice unconsciously lowered, and her gaze shifted slightly away, as if avoiding some idea that was not yet fully formed.

Li Hanshan gazed at her profile; in the dim light of the array, her features appeared exceptionally soft, and her almond-shaped eyes held a motherly earnestness. He remained silent for a moment before speaking, "Including the way I helped you?"

His voice was neither too loud nor too soft, yet it was exceptionally clear in the quiet cave, like a pebble thrown into still water, creating a silent ripple.

Shen Yun's face flushed crimson at a visible speed.

A blush spread from her neck to her ears, as if someone had lit a lamp on her face, illuminating the panic and shyness in her almond-shaped eyes. She opened her mouth, then closed it again, finally looking away: "Well... after you get married, you'll be husband and wife, which naturally includes that kind of thing."

The air in the cave seemed to freeze for a few moments.

Li Hanshan looked at the lingering blush on her ears, and at the strands of hair falling to her shoulders, shimmering softly in the dim light of the array. He felt a chord deep within his heart being gently plucked. He didn't rush to respond, but instead carefully considered her reaction in that moment of silence—her shyness, her unnatural retreat, and the deliberate averting of her gaze when she said "including that way" were all completely different from any female cultivator from the Joyful Union Sect he had ever encountered.

When those enchanting women of the Joyful Union Sect mentioned dual cultivation, they either acted with calculated initiative, with a frankness of transaction, or with submissiveness after being conquered. But Shen Yun's shyness carried a quality he rarely saw in the female cultivators of the Joyful Union Sect—the unease unique to respectable women when discussing such topics, as if some kind of boundary had been touched.

This was an unexpected bonus. The thought flashed through Li Hanshan's mind, but he remained outwardly calm. Just as he was about to say something, the rocks above the cave began to tremble slightly again.

This tremor was more intense and heavier than before, even causing the fine pebbles on the cave walls to fall and make a soft, rustling sound on the stone surface.

His Void Refinement level divine sense almost instinctively probed out of the cave, and a few breaths later he sensed a massive aura rapidly approaching—an aura like an undercurrent stirred up in the deep sea, carrying a more oppressive and tyrannical feeling than the previous Void Refinement demon beast, surging towards the island from below the sea at an extremely fast speed.

Shen Yun's expression turned serious the moment she sensed that aura. She quickly walked to the cave entrance, her gaze piercing through the sea shrouded in twilight and spiritual mist, locking onto a series of enormous silhouettes that were rapidly rising.

The three Void Refinement Beasts each possessed an aura no weaker than the previous one, with one even being more imposing.

"A three-headed Void Refinement demonic beast..." Shen Yun's voice carried a suppressed gravity, "This wave of beasts might not be so easy."

As she spoke, she turned to look at Li Hanshan, her gaze lingering on his face for a moment. Her voice was a few decibels lower than before, but it was earnest: "You should carefully consider what I just said. Qingyue's cultivation level, and your future, all depend on your decision."

Without saying anything more, her deep purple figure leaped out of the cave entrance, transforming into a dark purple streak of light in mid-air, heading head-on towards the approaching beast tide on the sea.