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

A warm hand grasped Yin Yue's hand. She came to her senses and saw Li Hanshan smiling at her, not urging her, just holding her hand and waiting for her.

She lowered her eyes and let him lead her out of the cabin.

The cabin door next to it opened and then closed again. The last rays of daylight outside the porthole were blocked out, and the whale oil lamp in the corner burned extremely quietly, its flame a straight line, as if supported by someone's breath.

Yin Yue stood in the lamplight, her long, silvery-white hair cascading down, the tips of her ears almost translucent red. She knew perfectly well what he was going to do—push her onto the bed, and then spend the entire night transferring the cultivation he had taken from another woman into her meridians.

There is no such logic in the world.

She opened her mouth, wanting to say "There's no need for that," wanting to say "Your cultivation is your foundation," but before she could finish speaking, he had already lowered his head and kissed her.

The kiss was slow and gentle, without any eagerness to conquer, as if it were waiting for her—waiting for her to peel away the last remaining layers of defenses that belonged to the Holy Maiden of the Heavenly Demon Sect.

Her eyelashes trembled, and she finally slowly closed her eyes.

His belt came undone, and his silver-white robe slipped to the ground.

He scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the bed covered with animal hides. She buried her face in the crook of his shoulder, her voice so soft it was almost inaudible:

"...Be gentle, I'm injured."

"I know." Li Hanshan chuckled. "This time, it's my turn to serve you."

The whale oil lamp went out silently.

-

This time, the dual cultivation was completely different from before.

Last time, yin and yang complemented each other, each getting what they needed, resulting in pleasure for two people; but this time, from beginning to end, there was only one direction.

Within Li Hanshan's body, the "Yang Book" slowly circulated, extracting strands of pure spiritual essence from Ye Feiyan's body, which had been repeatedly refined through the vortex, and continuously flowing over them along with the intertwined auras of the two.

The spiritual energy entering the body was like warm river water flowing into a long-parched riverbed.

Yin Yue felt a powerful yet gentle force flowing through her meridians. Wherever it passed, the seven streams of cold, yin energy that had been entangled in her heart meridian dissipated and dissolved one by one, as if encountering a natural enemy. The rib under her left side, which had been cracked for months, emitted a soft, tingling sound under the nourishment of spiritual energy, and the crack gradually healed. The demonic moon in her dantian, which had been reduced to a mere shell, lit up again—first as a firefly, then as a waning moon, and finally, as silvery-white moonlight filled her entire dantian, illuminating her sea of ​​consciousness.

Midway through the journey, she suddenly looked up, grabbed his wrist, and her voice trembled:

"Enough... Li Hanshan, that's enough. Keep it for your own breakthrough, don't use it anymore—"

"Shut up." Li Hanshan pressed down on the back of her neck, pulling her back into his arms. His tone left no room for argument. "Concentrate and circulate your energy."

"This is your cultivation level—"

"This is Ye Feiyan's cultivation level." He lowered his head and touched her sweaty forehead, his voice lowering, "My cultivation level is maxed out; any more would be a waste. The sooner your injuries heal, the greater my chances of breaking through. No matter how you look at it, I'm the one who gains."

Yin Yue buried her face in his shoulder and said nothing more.

At that moment, something silently collapsed in her chest, and from the collapsed ruins, something scalding hot emerged that she had been trying to understand for hundreds of years.

Since she began cultivating demonic arts, her father had given her cultivation techniques, her sect had given her a position, and the Immortal Alliance had given her missions. Everything she received had a price tag.

This was the only time someone presented her with centuries of arduous cultivation, saying they wanted nothing in return.

The sun rose and set. The waves outside the cabin changed one after another. Xiao An exchanged spirit stones three times, circled around two groups of reefs, and once peeked into the cabin, then quickly pulled his neck back and continued sailing.

The yin and yang cycle inside the cabin never stopped.

-

This dual cultivation lasted for an entire day.

The following evening, when the cabin door was opened, the sunset was burning red across half the sea.

Yin Yue stood at the bow of the ship, the sea breeze ruffling her long, silvery-white hair. The gloom that had accumulated between her brows for months had vanished, her complexion was as radiant as the moon, and the spiritual energy flowing around her was steady and powerful—overnight, the chill in her heart meridians had disappeared, her broken bones had regenerated, and the demonic moon was three times brighter than before she was injured.

Her cultivation level broke through two levels from the seventh level of Void Refinement, and she steadily stood at the ninth level of Void Refinement, only one step away from the peak of Void Refinement.

Such a rapid pace of improvement would be enough to astound any elder in any sect in the Central Continent.

Xiao An, gripping the steering wheel, turned back in disbelief: "Senior, you...you seem like a completely different person..."

Yin Yue's lips curved into a very slight smile, but she didn't say anything.

Li Hanshan stepped out of the cabin, stretched, and looked sleepy—after a whole day of tireless cultivation, his overflowing cultivation pool was mostly empty, but he looked great.

"What are you looking at?" He waved his hand at Xiao An. "Sail the boat carefully, we'll reach Poseidon Island tonight."

Yin Yue turned her head and looked at him. After a long while, she suddenly spoke:

Why?

"Why? Why?"

"That cultivation level," she said softly, "you can save it for when you break through to the Void Refinement stage. Even if you only use half of it, your chances of success will increase."

Li Hanshan walked to the ship's side, looked at the gradually clearing golden outline at the horizon, and smiled.

"Because I've done the math," he said. "The most crucial factor in my breakthrough to the Void Refinement stage isn't my cultivation level, but rather, you. The stronger you are, the greater my chances of survival—so giving you that cultivation is more valuable than keeping it within myself."

He turned his head and looked at her with a smile.

"This is an investment, not charity. Yin Yue, just focus on becoming stronger."

Yin Yue looked at him and suddenly realized that this man spoke of "giving you hundreds of years of ascetic practice" as if it were a matter of course, like haggling in the market.

But the thought that Li Hanshan's method of breaking through to the Void Refinement stage was to merge with her... made her face flush.

She lowered her eyes and softly hummed in agreement.

-

That night, Li Hanshan pushed open the door to the lower deck.

Ye Feiyan was huddled in the corner, and the moment she saw him enter, she tensed up instantly. She watched him approach step by step, his smiling face bathed in the dim light, and her heart sank deeper and deeper.

"No...no..." She crawled over on her knees, grabbed his clothes, and tears welled up instantly. "I beg you...I've already fallen to the threshold of the Void Refinement stage. If I do it one more time, I'll fall out of the Void Refinement stage...Thousands of years of cultivation, is it really all gone now..."

"I'll recite the secret formula for the vault to you right now. I'll tell you the order in which the twelve mechanisms at the bottom of the Blood River are activated, one by one... I also know half of the list of agents of the Joyful Union Sect and the Dark Nether Sect in the Central Continent... and Father, if Father is not dead, he must be hiding there..."

She laid out everything she could sell, one by one, quickly and hastily, like a vendor clearing out a stock at a market. By the end, her voice was broken and fragmented, reduced to a single, repetitive plea:

"Please, leave me some, just a little bit..."

She cried her heart out, each word dripping with anguish. Anyone who didn't know the situation would likely have softened their heart.

Li Hanshan looked down at her for a long time.

"Ye Feiyan," he suddenly spoke, his voice calm, "when you were in the Heavenly Demon Sect, did you ever refine people's souls?"

Ye Feiyan's crying stopped abruptly.

"Have you ever used people as furnaces for cultivation? Have you ever used rogue cultivators as resources?" he asked with a smile. "When those people cried in front of you, did you ever feel any pity?"

Ye Feiyan opened her mouth, unable to utter a single word.

"You know the rules of the Demonic Sect better than I do." Li Hanshan leaned down and whispered in her ear, each word as soft as a sigh, "The law of the jungle, the survival of the fittest, is a matter of course—these are your own words."

The candlelight went out again.

-

The sobbing that came from the lower deck that night continued intermittently until it finally subsided in the latter half of the night.

The next morning, Li Hanshan emerged from the lower deck feeling refreshed. His cultivation pool was more than half full again—this time, he didn't refine much into his body, but carefully sealed away the pure spiritual energy, like storing away a spare medicinal herb.

Of course, most importantly, over these two nights, Li Hanshan had quietly planted Yin patterns in Ye Feiyan's body.

In the lower deck, Ye Feiyan lay prone in the cold black water, her wet hair obscuring her face, her thin shoulders trembling.

She cried during the interview.

It wasn't acting, it wasn't scheming, it was real, tearful tears, like beads falling from a broken string.

From the most dazzling Holy Maiden of the Heavenly Demon Sect in Central Continent to a prisoner in the Endless Seabed whose cultivation had been completely drained—it only took a few short months.

It was bad enough that Li Hanshan had drained her of her cultivation, but the real problem was that he had toyed with her all night, driving her to the brink of collapse.

Li Hanshan paused for a moment at the cabin door, without turning around.

"Stop crying," he said. "Crying won't solve anything. Think about the secret formula, think carefully—that's all the value you have left."

The hatch closed.

He climbed the steps and walked to the bow of the boat. In the morning light, the outline of a dark blue island filled the entire field of vision—coconut groves, beaches, fishing villages, and the green mountain covered with dense forest on the island.

Yin Yue stood by the ship's railing, having waited for him for a while. Li Hanshan raised his hand and tossed her a sealed ball of pure spiritual energy: "Here. The last medicinal ingredient."

Yin Yue took the ball of spiritual energy; it was warm to the touch. She squeezed it, then suddenly asked, "She...cried?"

"Yes." Li Hanshan gazed at the island in front of him. "He was crying very sadly."

Yin Yue remained silent for a few moments, her gaze falling on the lower deck. It was as quiet as a tomb. After a long while, she softly hummed in agreement, put her spiritual energy into her sleeve, and said nothing more.

She couldn't say whether it was more of a feeling of relief or something else. She just suddenly remembered that on that snowy night hundreds of years ago, by the pool of blood, someone had cried like this—the one who cried was herself.

"Senior!" Xiao An's excited voice came from the helm, "We're here! We've arrived at Poseidon Island!"