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

On the last night, a bonfire was lit on Poseidon Island.

The news had already spread—Senior Hanshan was leaving tomorrow.

In front of the stone houses and on the beach on the island, bonfires burned in clusters, the aroma of roasted monster meat mingling with the fresh scent of fish soup wafting far and wide. Uncle Liu, along with his generals, brought out medicinal wine that had been buried for many years. Ayan, carrying the wine jar, ran around the area, chased and laughed at by several elders. Even the giant tortoise beneath the island, unusually, poked its head out of the water, quietly listening to the commotion on the shore.

Li Hanshan sat around the largest bonfire, being toasted by a group of people in turn.

He did not refuse. After reaching the Void Refinement stage, ordinary wine and drink were no different from plain water to him, but he accepted the islanders' hospitality cup after cup.

Yinyue did not come.

She disliked such lively occasions and returned to the flying boat early. Ye Feiyan was even less likely to come—she was now a prisoner, and Li Hanshan had no intention of letting her appear in public.

The little beast did arrive, squatting by the campfire, holding a sizzling, oily roasted animal leg, eating it with its mouth full of grease.

As night deepened, the campfire gradually died down, and everyone dispersed. Ah Yan, having drunk too much, was still muttering as Uncle Liu carried him away, "Senior Hanshan must come back to see us."

Li Hanshan walked alone towards the sea.

The tide rose and fell, washing over his feet. He gazed at the dark sea to the south for a long time.

Tomorrow we part ways, and who knows when we'll be able to return. The game in Central Continent has already reached its middle stage. Although the Heavenly Demon Sect has been destroyed, the Elder Council of the Joyful Union Sect and the Heavenly Demon Sect Master who fell into the void turbulence—each of these hangs over his head. Not to mention, there is another pair of eyes beyond the heavens who once looked down at him across the endless chaos.

Compared to those eyes, Li Hanshan felt that even the threat from the Heavenly Demon Sect Master was nothing to fear.

The road ahead has never been as perilous as it is now.

Behind me, I heard very light footsteps.

Li Hanshan did not turn around. On this island, at this hour, there was only one person who would walk up behind him like this.

"Why aren't you going to sleep?" he asked.

The footsteps stopped. After a moment of silence, that familiar voice rang out, softer than the sea breeze:

"I can't sleep."

A-Ling stopped half a step away from him. Tonight, she was not wearing her usual coarse cloth dress, but a clean, sun-dried sea-blue long dress that she only wore on festive occasions. Her long hair was loose and not tied up with a wooden hairpin, and it was gently blown by the sea breeze.

Li Hanshan turned his head to look at her.

Moonlight fell on her profile. This girl, who once calmly placed monster meat into his bowl with an iron fork, had grown into such a beautiful young woman.

"Hanshan".

She suddenly spoke, calling him by his name. Not "senior."

"Um?"

"I like you."

Four words, so light, yet like a pebble, they crashed straight into the sound of the tide.

Li Hanshan turned his head and looked directly at her.

A-Ling didn't flinch. She tilted her head back to meet his gaze, her fingers twisting inside her sleeve until the tips turned white, but her eyes shone with an astonishing brightness, like moonlight shattering on the sea at high tide.

"I can't say exactly which year it started," she said slowly. "It might have been the year you taught Ayan to box, or the year you shared the monster meat with our family, or even earlier—as early as when I could only weave nets and you were teaching me how to identify herbs in the thatched hut."

"You are a celestial being. I am just a fisherwoman from an island. I am not worthy of you. I have known this since I was a child."

"But I've been thinking about it all night." She took a deep breath, the sea breeze making her skirt flutter. "You're leaving tomorrow. And once you leave, we might never see each other again. I don't want to be old, lying in a rocking chair in a fisherman's hut, only to regret—regret that I never even dared to tell you I liked you."

"I don't want you to marry me, I don't want you to take me away, I don't want anything."

She looked at him and said, word by word:

"I only want you. Remember, on Poseidon Island, there was a girl who loved you."

The tide came in and then receded.

Li Hanshan looked at her for a very long time.

This girl has always been like this, from childhood to adulthood. She never says what she wants; she never speaks of her heartache. If she hadn't drunk alcohol tonight to bolster her courage, and if she weren't parting ways tomorrow, she probably would have taken those four words to her grave.

He suddenly laughed.

"Silly girl."

He reached out and gently pried her intertwined fingers apart one by one, taking them into his palm.

"In this kind of situation, the girl shouldn't be the one to speak first."

A-Ling's eyes suddenly widened.

The next second, she was pulled into an embrace filled with the scent of cooking fires and the sea breeze. She heard a soft voice descend from above her:

"Close your eyes."

-

That night, the tide rose very slowly.

The flickering candlelight reflected on the paper windows of the stone house, and in the candlelight, two figures intertwined, as tender as the tide rising and washing over the beach, inch by inch, soaking the entire sandy shore.

At first, A-Ling was so nervous that she trembled all over, but that familiar feeling enveloped her, like a bowl of hot soup from many years ago, slowly soothing the panic in her heart.

She could feel a warm current flowing slowly into her limbs and bones from where the two were joined.

That is pure Yang energy.

She had practiced physical cultivation for over a decade, her qi and blood as powerful as a furnace, already comparable to a Nascent Soul cultivator. But she knew herself—that wasn't a true Nascent Soul. No matter how abundant one's qi and blood, without a "navel" of one's own, there would always be an insurmountable chasm between them, an insurmountable threshold.

At this moment, that warm current was gently drawing the blood and qi throughout her body towards her dantian.

Compression. Coagulation. Metamorphosis.

I don't know how much time passed—

"Buzz".

A soft hum resounded from the depths of her dantian.

Under the guidance of pure Yang energy, the surging blood and qi finally condensed into a small yet incredibly solid nascent soul, which sat cross-legged in her dantian. The moment the nascent soul opened its eyes, her aura surged dramatically, drawing in the spiritual energy within a radius of several miles, forming a small vortex in the sky above the island.

The nascent soul is formed.

Moreover, it is a Qi and Blood Nascent Soul formed through the path of physical cultivation.

Ah Ling slowly opened her eyes and saw in the candlelight that the person was looking down at her with a smile on his lips.

"Congratulations," he said.

Ah Ling looked at him, and suddenly her nose tingled, and tears fell without warning.

Li Hanshan raised his hand and gently wiped away the tears from the corner of her eyes with his fingertips.

"Why are you crying?" he chuckled. "Tonight is the night to laugh."

Ah Ling buried her face in his chest, listening to his steady heartbeat, and mumbled an "Mmm".

Outside the window, the tide gently laps against the beach.

Li Hanshan held her close, but his gaze was fixed on the night sky outside the window.

The sky was filled with stars, and all was quiet as usual.

But he knew that beyond the nine heavens, in the depths of that boundless chaos, there had once been a pair of eyes that looked down upon this world, and upon him.

He held the arm of the person in his arms and tightened it slightly.

We need to hurry.

He thought to himself.