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

Li Hanshan stared blankly at Shen Qingyue and Lin Qingyin's clasped hands, unsure how to react.

He originally thought that Shen Qingyue would turn away with a cold face, or at least frown and say something like, "Sister, you came too suddenly."

She simply held Lin Qingyin's fingers quietly, her clear eyes still holding a hint of surprise, but without any resistance or hostility.

Shen Yun clearly noticed her daughter's reaction. She stood by the spirit spring pool, her deep purple dress fluttering gently in the mist. Her gaze lingered for a moment on their clasped hands, and the smile on her lips deepened.

She turned to Li Hanshan, her voice neither too loud nor too soft: "Since she's willing to stay, you shouldn't let her down. As for Qingyue, I'll talk to her about it slowly."

Her tone was flat, as if she had simply agreed to something trivial.

Upon hearing Shen Yun's words, Lin Qingyin's stubbornness softened slightly. She released Shen Qingyue's hand, took a half-step back, and bowed gracefully to both Shen Yun and Shen Qingyue: "Thank you for your kindness, Sect Leader Shen, and thank you for your understanding, Sister."

She then turned to Li Hanshan, her gaze settling calmly on his face. "You saved me three times, each time at a life-or-death juncture. If you were unwilling, I wouldn't force you. But since you didn't directly refuse just now, I'll take that as a yes."

Li Hanshan stood in the center of the cave, looking at the three pairs of eyes before him—one calm, one composed, and one expectant. He knew that saying something like "I'm already married" would be meaningless.

He was silent for a moment, then looked at Lin Qingyin, his voice serious: "Before we talk about this, let me ask you something—did you know why you suffered a qi deviation before?"

Lin Qingyin paused slightly, then her brows furrowed gently. She lowered her head and pondered for a moment, as if revisiting the recurring sensations, before shaking her head: "I don't know. I cultivate the Jade Maiden Heart Sutra of the Biluo Sect. Although this technique leans towards Yang, it is known for its balance and harmony. My foundation is solid, and my meridians are unobstructed. In theory, my breakthrough to the peak of the Nascent Soul stage should be a natural progression. But ever since entering this immortal island, every time my spiritual energy accumulates to a certain thickness, a scorching aura inexplicably surges from the depths of my meridians, eroding my spiritual energy layer by layer, as if... something is hidden deep within my meridians, waiting for my spiritual energy to grow to a certain level before turning against me."

As Li Hanshan listened to her description, his brows furrowed slightly.

He had never seen this symptom in any ancient texts. Normal cases of qi deviation are mostly caused by defects in the cultivation technique itself or external interference. But the fact that it recurs repeatedly and always occurs at the same stage suggests that there is some hidden danger buried in her body, which is only triggered when her cultivation level reaches a certain critical point.

He didn't press further, but instead turned to look at Shen Qingyue and Shen Yun, saying, "Qingyue, go back and continue studying that rune. Sect Master, I'll handle this matter."

Shen Qingyue nodded, turned and walked back to the quiet room. Shen Yun glanced at him, her eyes filled with a hint of unspoken words, but in the end she only nodded slightly and turned back to her own room.

Only Li Hanshan and Lin Qingyin remained in the center of the cave. The light from the luminous pearl flowed between them, and the sound of the spiritual spring water was exceptionally clear in the quiet space.

He turned to look at her: "Let's go back to your cave first. I need to carefully examine your meridians. The emergency cleansing method we used earlier won't solve the problem. If we can't find the root cause, the next time you suffer a qi deviation, it will only be more serious than this time."

Lin Qingyin didn't ask any further questions and followed him through the rift in the restriction back to her cave. When she sat down cross-legged again on the spirit herb mat, her movements were much more stable than when she had walked out, clearly indicating that the repaired branches in her meridians were recovering at an extremely fast pace.

Li Hanshan sat down opposite her, but did not rush to make a move. He closed his eyes and sank his consciousness into the depths of his sea of ​​consciousness. The light of that pure Yang primordial spirit was stable and gentle, like a tamed flame burning quietly in a lamp, while in the shadows inside the primordial spirit, a dark blue light was slowly flowing.

Xiao An remained within his consciousness.

During his years on the core immortal island, Li Hanshan would engage in dual spiritual cultivation with Xiao An every so often. Her soul had become increasingly solidified through continuous spiritual tempering, and now there was almost no trace of her former yin spirit.

Her cultivation progress was equally astonishingly fast—in the years that Li Hanshan had gone from the seventh level of the Nascent Soul realm to the ninth level, Xiao An, with the help of the continuous tempering of her Pure Yang Primordial Spirit, had already broken through to the peak of the Nascent Soul realm and was only one step away from the Void Refinement realm.

The reason he hadn't allowed Xiao An to appear before Shen Yun and Shen Qingyue was because he wasn't sure how to explain the existence of a ghost within the Immortal Alliance.

But at this moment, facing the strange inner demon within Lin Qingyin's body, Xiao An's Netherworld Record Technique was more acute in its perception of the soul than his own.

"Xiao An," he transmitted his voice telepathically, "come out for a moment."

The dark blue light in his mind flickered slightly.

A moment later, a wisp of extremely fine, dark blue soul power seeped into Li Hanshan's meridians from the depths of his sea of ​​consciousness. Then, it moved silently forward along the pure yang energy thread that he was probing towards Lin Qingyin's dantian, like a shadowy fish diving into deep water. When it touched the edge of Lin Qingyin's meridians, it merged into her spiritual power.

Lin Qingyin felt an extremely cool aura slowly coursing through her meridians, unlike any spiritual energy she had ever encountered before. The aura was neither scorching nor cold, but carried a calm quality like the undercurrent at the bottom of a deep pool, seeping down layer by layer through her meridians, leaving no trace of even the old wounds she thought had completely healed.

Xiao An followed Lin Qingyin's main meridians upwards and downwards, finally stopping at a very hidden crack at the edge of her dantian. She gently touched the edge of the crack with her soul power and felt an extremely faint, scorching aura, like the embers of a dark fire that had been frozen for many years, seeping out from it.

"Found it." Xiao An's voice rang in Li Hanshan's mind. "There's an extremely hidden fissure between her dantian and heart meridian, located very deep, impossible for ordinary divine sense to detect. A tiny wisp of demonic remnant resides within that fissure, planted at some unknown time, attached to the edge of her spiritual core. It's usually inconspicuous, but once her spiritual power accumulates to the critical point of the peak of the Nascent Soul stage, the fissure will widen, and the demonic remnant will accelerate its growth, eroding the newly accumulated spiritual power within her body layer by layer."

"Can it be removed?" Li Hanshan asked.

"Yes, it's possible," Xiao An said earnestly, "but it's troublesome. The rift is too deep, and the lingering demonic energy is already entangled with her spiritual core. If we simply use pure Yang energy to peel it away from the outside, it's easy to damage her dantian foundation. With my abilities, I can only detect it at most. To completely eliminate it without damaging her foundation, there's probably only one way."

Li Hanshan was silent for a moment: "Dual cultivation of spirit and soul?"

"Yes," Xiao An affirmed. "Using the power of the soul to sever the entanglement between the lingering resentment and spiritual energy from within, while simultaneously using pure Yang energy to reseal the rift. But this process requires a prerequisite—the essence of dual cultivation of the soul is the deep fusion of the two people's spiritual energy. If that level of contact cannot be achieved, it can only be peeled away layer by layer like an onion, which will take a very long time, and it may relapse at any time. To eradicate it completely in one go, it is necessary to…"

She didn't finish her sentence, but her meaning was already very clear.

Li Hanshan opened his eyes. Lin Qingyin was sitting cross-legged opposite him, her clear eyes quietly watching him, waiting for his judgment. He could feel his pure yang energy still flowing very slowly through her meridians, like fingertips testing the temperature of water, repeatedly confirming something at the edge of her meridians.

He spoke, his voice neither loud nor soft: "Your inner demon is hidden in a rift between your dantian and your heart meridian, in an extremely concealed location. Ordinary cleansing methods can only suppress it temporarily, and it will recur after a while. To completely eradicate it, you must simultaneously sever the entanglement between your lingering resentment and spiritual power at the level of your soul, and then completely seal that rift."

Lin Qingyin listened to his words, and after a moment, the corners of her mouth curled up slightly: "I didn't understand everything you just said, but the last part probably meant—you need my body?"