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

After leaving the bay, the airship traveled westward at a leisurely pace.

On the day of her departure, Xiao An voluntarily retreated into Li Hanshan's sea of ​​consciousness. She said that her cultivation had increased too quickly this time, and she was still somewhat unable to control her late-stage Void Refinement Soul Power, so she needed to return to her sea of ​​consciousness to "digest" it. Before leaving, she specifically instructed Li Hanshan to call her if there was any fighting.

The sea of ​​consciousness has returned to tranquility.

Meanwhile, on the airship, another long "training" process was just beginning.

-

On the first night, when Li Hanshan pushed open the door to the Night Scarlet Smoke cabin, she was huddled in a corner, her whole body tense, like a fully drawn bow.

These days, she's terrified of being interviewed. Every night feels like a slow, agonizing torture for her.

But tonight, Li Hanshan didn't push her into a corner like he used to.

He sat down on the edge of the tatami mat and beckoned to her: "Come here."

Ye Feiyan walked stiffly towards him, each step feeling like she was stepping on a knife's edge. She stopped three steps away from him, head bowed, her voice hoarse: "Master... today, could you please be a little gentler? My cultivation is truly..."

"Who said I was going to pick you?"

Li Hanshan raised his hand and pointed a finger at her brow.

A wisp of warm, pure yang energy flowed into her through her brow.

Ye Feiyan shuddered and her eyes widened.

The wisp of pure yang energy entered her body without plundering or tearing her apart. Instead, it was like spring rain after a long drought, slowly seeping into her riddled meridians, soothing and nourishing the hidden wounds left by years of forced cultivation. Her life force, which had plummeted to rock bottom, steadily recovered slightly within this wisp of pure yang energy.

"Your cultivation has been reduced to only the early stage of the Void Refinement realm by me." Li Hanshan withdrew his hand, his tone as casual as if he were talking about a trivial matter. "Now that the flower has bloomed to six petals, your life or death is in my hands. Whether I preserve your cultivation or not is no longer important."

So—I'm going to take you back.

Ye Feiyan stared at him blankly, her peach blossom eyes filled with disbelief and astonishment.

Raise it back?

He harvested them, then raised them back to health... What exactly is he trying to do?

"Don't look at me like that." Li Hanshan smiled and pinched her chin, forcing her to raise her head. "What's the point of keeping a dog that can't bite? I need a useful servant, not a breathing decoration."

"From tonight onwards, I will gradually return your cultivation to you."

"And you, too, must learn, little by little—"

"Learn how to serve people."

-

So, from that night on, the former Holy Maiden of the Heavenly Demon Sect began to learn how to serve tea and water.

On the first day, her hand trembled as she poured tea, spilling half a bowl of scalding hot tea onto Li Hanshan's hand. Terrified, she knelt down and begged for mercy, thinking she was about to suffer again.

Li Hanshan simply wiped his hands slowly, then took her fingertips in his hand and gently blew on them.

"Did you get burned?"

Ye Feiyan froze, as if struck by lightning, her body burning from her fingertips to her ears.

"Be more careful next time." He released her, his tone flat. "Let's try again."

On the fifth day, the tea she brewed was already seven-tenths cooked.

On the tenth day, she learned to quietly kneel beside him and grind ink while he read the jade slip; she learned to undress him, perfume him, and straighten his sleeves before he entered meditation; she learned to lower her eyes, hold her breath, and stand as an object without any presence.

Two weeks later, she no longer just stiffly endured the nights.

She would bite her lip, yielding when she needed to, begging for mercy when she needed to, gradually shaping her once stunningly beautiful body into what another person desired. Even after each act of yielding, she would turn away, biting her hand hard in the darkness, swallowing back the hatred in her eyes bit by bit.

She did try to resist.

She tried poisoning the tea, using a colorless and odorless poison that was highly toxic to cultivators—but as soon as the poison entered the cup, she herself experienced excruciating pain in her chest, and black blood seeped from her seven orifices.

She tried to strike him at night while he was asleep—her fingertips were still three inches from his throat when her soul was almost shattered by the twisted flower.

After several attempts, she finally realized in despair that the flower blooming in her abdomen had long since become one with her soul. His thought was faster and more ruthless than her own.

So she learned to be obedient.

Under the nourishment of dual cultivation and pure yang energy, her cultivation level rose day by day. First level of Void Refinement, second level, third level… the yin-patterned flower on her abdomen bloomed petal by petal. The seventh petal, the eighth petal, and finally, on the night her cultivation level returned to the mid-stage of Void Refinement, it silently bloomed to the ninth petal.

Nine petals bloom in unison, the slave contract is complete.

After that night, even the hatred in Ye Feiyan's eyes became blurred when she looked at Li Hanshan again. She would often stare at his profile while pouring tea, lost in thought. When he turned around, she would hurriedly lower her eyes, her heart fluttering for no reason—and then she would ruthlessly extinguish it herself.

This is not her feeling.

The flowers have bloomed.

She told herself this over and over again.

The flying boat stopped at a market town along the way. There was an auction being held in the market among independent cultivators, with a Grade Earth magic artifact as the grand finale. The cultivators were fiercely vying for it, their faces flushed. Li Hanshan sat with her in a private room, idly munching on melon seeds. Occasionally, he would turn to her and ask, "How's this one?" She would cleverly reply, "Not as good as what Master casually crafted," which earned her a satisfied chuckle and a youth-preserving pill as a reward.

At that moment, Ye Feiyan held the small jade bottle, stunned for a long time.

She recalled how she had thanked her father in the Heavenly Demon Sect in the same way when he bestowed gifts upon her. Only then, she had knelt before the sect leader of the Heavenly Demon Sect, while now she knelt before the man who had destroyed her sect.

Fate is even more unreasonable than the demonic path.

-

Several months later.

As dusk fell that day, a vast, endless mountain range finally appeared at the edge of the horizon ahead of the flying boat.

The mountains rise and fall like a dragon's spine, with five main peaks piercing the clouds. The rich spiritual energy condenses into a visible mist even hundreds of miles away. Between the five peaks, palaces and pavilions are layered upon each other, appearing and disappearing. A huge protective array, like an inverted glass bowl, envelops the entire mountain gate.

We've arrived at the Hehuan Sect.

Li Hanshan stood at the bow of the boat, gazing at the familiar mountains, his eyes sweeping over them inch by inch—over the outer gate archway, over the inner gate stone steps, and over the purple bamboo forest on the southern slope where he had once lived.

After many years, he has returned.

Before the flying boat had even approached within thirty miles of the mountain gate, his eyebrows twitched slightly.

"Interesting." He chuckled softly.

"Master?" Ye Feiyan asked softly from behind, holding a teacup.

"Nothing." Li Hanshan took the tea, took a sip, and squinted towards the mountain gate. "I was just thinking—"

"When did so many guests arrive at our doorstep?"