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

Lin Qingyin leaned on Li Hanshan's shoulder, her breathing gradually becoming steady, like the shallow ripples left after a tamed tide recedes, even and long. Her body temperature seeped through the fabric, still carrying the lingering heat from before, but no longer as scorching as a red-hot iron.

Li Hanshan did not rush to withdraw. Instead, he maintained that posture and carefully sensed the state of her meridians with his divine sense. He confirmed that the impurities he had stripped away had been completely burned away and the flow of spiritual energy had stabilized back on the normal track. Only then did he reach out and support her shoulders and back, gently laying her flat on the spiritual grass mat.

Her body twitched slightly as he lowered her, like someone who had been adrift in the deep sea for a long time finally touching the sandy bottom, instinctively seeking the most secure position. Her eyelashes trembled slightly in the mist of the spiritual spring, and the cut on her lip that she had bitten herself had stopped bleeding, replaced by a thin scab that gleamed a dark red in the light of the luminous pearl.

Li Hanshan stood up, checked his surroundings, and confirmed that the spiritual spring pool in the cave was still providing spiritual energy steadily and had not been damaged by the earlier surge of spiritual power. Only then did he turn and walk towards the rift in the restriction he had torn open. As he passed through it, the layer of silvery-white light silently closed behind him, like water that had been blown by the wind returning to its smooth surface, leaving not a trace.

When he returned to Cave Nine, Shen Yun was waiting for him at the entrance. Her deep purple dress fluttered slightly in the mist of the spiritual spring. Her gaze fell on him, and the questioning look in her almond-shaped eyes relaxed a little when she saw his expression.

"She's alright." Li Hanshan stopped in front of her and briefly explained Lin Qingyin's condition. "Her spiritual energy has stabilized again, but her foundation is quite damaged and will take at least several days to recover. I've taken care of her, and she's safe for the time being."

After listening, Shen Yun remained silent for a moment before speaking, "Your technique is indeed something never recorded in the Purple Thunder Pavilion's tradition." She didn't press him about where he learned it, but simply nodded slightly, "As long as you can save lives, that's enough."

Li Hanshan didn't reply, but turned and walked towards the quiet room. He could feel Shen Yun's gaze lingering on his back for a moment, like a stretched thread suspended in the air, before slowly retracting.

In the following period, Li Hanshan resumed his usual routine.

During the day, he and Shen Qingyue would study runes and draw spirit talismans in the quiet room, and at night they would cultivate together. Every ten days or so, he would visit Shen Yun. Everything was as usual, as if the incident that happened in the neighboring cave was just a ripple in the spirit spring pool, which would disappear after it appeared.

However, he hadn't completely let go of Lin Qingyin's situation.

Every few days, he would carefully probe the direction of the neighboring cave with his divine sense to check on her spiritual energy status. Two days ago, her aura still carried a sense of weakness, as if she had just struggled out of a storm, like the fine sand on the surface of a riverbed that had been repeatedly washed away had not yet completely settled, but at least the fluctuations of her spiritual energy had returned to a normal rhythm.

By the fifth day, her energy began to steadily recover, and the residual injuries from her qi deviation were healing at a visible rate. She clearly hadn't wasted that time, focusing all her efforts on regulating her breathing and recovering.

Lin Qingyin woke up on the morning of the sixth day after she was rescued.

When she opened her eyes, the first thing she sensed was the sound of the spirit spring pool and the still so dense, almost tangible, spiritual energy in the air. She lay on the spirit grass mat, covered with a neatly folded light gray outer robe—it was her own, folded and placed on the edge of the stone platform beside her.

She sat up, looked down to sense the state of her meridians, and then froze. The spiritual energy circulation in her dantian, which was almost collapsing due to the qi deviation, was now flowing slowly in a state of stability she had never experienced before.

Those meridians and branches that were once almost broken by the scorching impurities have now been repaired and reconnected by some extremely pure force, just like a dry riverbed that has been moistened by spring water and restored to its original smoothness.

She raised her hand and looked at her palm. Spiritual energy condensed at her fingertips into a warm, clear, and stable silver halo, without the slightest trace of disorder.

"What happened..." Her voice, hoarse from just waking up, sounded exceptionally clear in the quiet cave. She remembered the process of her qi deviation, remembered the scorching heat spreading from the depths of her dantian, burning and eroding her spiritual power inch by inch, disintegrating it in her meridians like a block of wax thrown into boiling oil. She also remembered the moment her consciousness was about to fade, as if she had fallen into a bottomless abyss, surrounded by scorching darkness.

Then it was all a dream.

In that dream, a warm golden light enveloped all the burning and pain in her body, pulling her inch by inch from the abyss back to the surface. She couldn't see the figure in the light clearly, but she could sense the gentle, spring-like aura, carrying a pure power she had never experienced before, flowing through, repairing, and reshaping the charred meridians within her body.

She vaguely remembered the feeling of the person laying her flat on the herb mat—the warmth of that moment was like a pebble warmed by the sun touching her shoulder, causing her to unconsciously curl up slightly, as if she had grasped something that made her feel at ease.

"It must be a dream..." she murmured, her gaze falling on the neatly folded outer robe. Her consciousness was indeed on the verge of going berserk, and the details of the dream were as blurred as sand washed away by water. But the feeling of being enveloped in warmth still lingered deep within her meridians, like a mark branded into her bones, so clear that it didn't seem like an illusion.

But as she sensed the flow of spiritual energy within her body, she felt that the dream was too real—real enough to pull her back from the brink of demonic possession, real enough that the repaired meridians and branches still carried a warm, lingering resonance of spiritual energy that did not belong to her own.

"Could it be that the founder of the Yaoguang Sect has manifested his power?" she muttered to herself, then shook her head, banishing the absurd thought from her mind.

She came from the Biluo Sect and knew some of its secrets. The Biluo Sect was descended from the Yaoguang Sect, which was destroyed thousands of years ago. Therefore, the founder of the Yaoguang Sect was regarded as the founder by some disciples of the Biluo Sect who knew the inside story.

But the Yaoguang Sect had been destroyed for thousands of years. If the founder had truly manifested his power, he shouldn't have saved her alone. She thought about it for a while without reaching a conclusion, so she stopped dwelling on the question, sat down cross-legged again, and closed her eyes to regulate her breathing.

She decided to put this question aside for now and deal with it after her cultivation was more stable.

Next, Lin Qingyin devoted almost all her time to cultivation. Her foundation was already solid; although the qi deviation had depleted her spiritual energy, it had also opened up several previously blocked meridian nodes during the spiritual energy surge that was forcibly quelled by external forces. Using those newly opened nodes as a breakthrough point, she continuously circulated her cultivation technique, repeatedly flushing spiritual energy through the reopened meridians, steadily accumulating her foundation in each cycle.

She would occasionally recall that dream during moments of meditation. The warm golden light, the gentle, spring-like breath, the brief yet warm touch—those details had become blurred with the passage of time, like the worn edges of pages after repeated reading, leaving only outlines and lingering echoes.

But every time she thought about it, she felt a faint warmth rising from the depths of her dantian, like embers buried under ashes suddenly rekindling in the night wind.

Two more years passed.

The eighth year on the core immortal island arrived silently, like the mist drifting across the surface of those spiritual springs. Li Hanshan had already spent eight years in this cave—according to the acceleration ratio of the time array, less than two years had passed in the outside world. He sat cross-legged in the center of the quiet room, pure Yang energy surging like a tide in his meridians. The surface of the pure Yang primordial spirit in his sea of ​​consciousness was covered with fine silver-purple lightning patterns, like a meticulously carved jade statue gleaming with a warm, cold light in the glow of a luminous pearl.

The barrier between the eighth and ninth levels of the Nascent Soul realm, after continuous accumulation and repeated tempering, finally began to show slight signs of loosening. He felt the spiritual power that had been accumulating within him for a long time advancing towards that barrier in a slow but irreversible manner, like the rising tide continuously crashing against the embankment, each impact weakening the thickness of that barrier.

Instead of rushing to break through that bottleneck, he circulated his spiritual energy through his meridians for another full cycle, soothing and restoring the slightly agitated nodes caused by continuous cultivation. Then he closed his eyes, sank his consciousness into the depths, and once again entered the dream he shared with Luo Li.

Moonlight spilled across the river, bathing it in a silvery-white glow. Luo Li sat on a blue stone, her white robes as pure as snow, her bare feet dangling lightly. Sensing his arrival, she tilted her head slightly, her gaze lingering for a moment on the aura emanating from him. Her clear eyes curved into a smile: "Grandpa, your cultivation speed is getting faster and faster. You should be breaking through to the ninth level of the Nascent Soul stage soon, right?"

"Soon." Li Hanshan sat down beside her. "At most, another year should be enough for him to break through to the ninth level of the Nascent Soul stage."

This time, the dream lasted for nearly thirty years.

Not long after waking up, Li Hanshan sensed a familiar fluctuation of spiritual energy—the fluctuation came from the direction of the adjacent cave, carrying a chaotic aura so hot it almost ignited the air, like boiling water that had been repeatedly poured over the edge of a pot, churning endlessly in the mist of the spiritual spring.

"Here we go again." Li Hanshan frowned slightly. Lin Qingyin's aura in the next cave was indeed getting out of control, and that scorching impurity was surging in her meridians again.

He got up and left the meditation room without disturbing Shen Qingyue, who was meditating by the spirit spring pool, nor did he knock on Shen Yun's door. He passed directly through the pale golden barrier at the entrance of the cave, arrived at the door of the adjacent cave, and tore open a crack in the barrier using the same method, slipping inside sideways.

Lin Qingyin had indeed gone mad again. She remained seated cross-legged on the spirit grass mat, her back slightly arched forward. Beads of sweat on her forehead condensed into fine droplets in the mist of the spirit spring, sliding down her jawline. An abnormal dark golden light swirled in her pupils, like embers slowly burning deep within them. With each breath, visible fragments of spiritual energy escaped from her mouth and nose.

But this time the situation was much milder than the one two years ago—although the impurities were still eroding her meridians, they had not yet reached the core of her dantian, as if a certain layer of defense in her body had become more resilient after being repaired.

Li Hanshan knelt before her, his pure Yang energy condensing into a warm golden halo in his palm, like a lamp lit in the dark, probing deep into her meridians. As he peeled away the churning impurities, he sensed her internal state—her foundation was indeed much stronger than two years ago. While the frequency of her qi deviations remained, the severity of each episode was decreasing. Those meridians and branches forcibly repaired by external force, like a parched riverbed moistened by spring water, were gradually adapting to the rhythm of that warm, nourishing power.

In less than two hours, he stripped away and burned all the churning impurities. Then, just like two years ago, he laid her flat on the spirit grass mat, checked the surrounding environment, and left quietly after confirming that everything was alright.

When Lin Qingyin awoke, she once again felt the lingering warmth that had enveloped her. She sat up, looking down at her spiritual energy, which had stabilized again, and remained silent for a long time. This time, she no longer doubted that it was a dream. Her fingertips unconsciously clenched the edge of the spiritual grass mat beneath her, the fabric wrinkling from her grip. She could feel that warm aura lingering deep within her meridians, like the afterglow of a branding iron, undeniably real.

"It's not a dream," she whispered.