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

Inside the Jade Balance Palace, it was so quiet that one could hear the sound of the spiritual spring water dripping.

"You're the only option left."

As soon as she said those words, the sect leader looked away. Her eyes were lowered, her long eyelashes casting a small shadow beneath them, and the faint blush at the base of her ears could no longer be suppressed this time.

Eighteen hundred years.

She has guarded her primordial yin for a full 1,800 years, and tonight, she will hand it over to her disciple.

"Master," Li Hanshan's voice was soft, "if you are not ready yet, you can wait a little longer—"

"No need."

The sect leader interrupted him. She raised her head, the panic in her eyes gone, replaced by a calm that seemed to have reached its breaking point: "My foundation is intact, and I am still at my peak. There's no better time than now—let's do it."

"But," she looked at him, enunciating each word clearly, "Hanshan, I'm making this clear. After tonight, if you dare to betray me—"

"Rest assured, Master." Li Hanshan raised his right hand, palm facing the sky. "This disciple swears to Heaven that in this life and the next, I will protect you. If I harbor any disloyalty, may I be annihilated, body and soul, and die a horrible death."

The sect leader gazed at him for a long time before softly humming in agreement.

The hall fell silent for a moment. She sat on the edge of the jade bed and suddenly asked, "Hanshan, I have a question for you."

"Master, please speak."

"Your 'absolute certainty'—" she stared into his eyes, "was it any exaggeration?"

Li Hanshan met her gaze and said earnestly, "Regarding the method of transferring Qi, this disciple is only fifty percent confident, so this disciple dared not claim full certainty. But regarding the method of dual cultivation—Master, you possess the Profound Yin Body, and this disciple possesses the Pure Yang Sacred Body. Yin and Yang complement each other, water and fire mutually contain each other; in ancient cultivation methods, this is called 'Heavenly Match.' If there were any exaggeration, why would this disciple need to swear an oath?"

"The Mysterious Yin Body?" The sect leader was stunned.

Of course she knew what those four words meant. The sect leader's lineage passed down its techniques through a single successor, and the first page of the general outline of the techniques stated—"Those who are not of the Xuan Yin physique cannot cultivate this method."

The Xuan Yin Body is extremely rare, one in ten thousand. Even in the thousands of years since the founding of the Hehuan Sect, only the founding patriarch has confirmed that he possessed this body. Generations of practitioners have followed suit, taking it as an exaggeration by the patriarch, and no one has taken it seriously.

"It's normal that Master himself doesn't know," Li Hanshan said. "The Profound Yin Body is extremely well hidden; before the primordial Yin is released, even the person himself cannot perceive it. This disciple dares not be certain—but during these seven days of Qi transmission, the pure Yin power within your body has been devouring things rapidly and cleanly, much like the 'Profound Yin Devouring Yang' described in ancient cultivation techniques. Whether it's true or not, we'll see tonight when the cultivation technique reaches its peak."

The sect leader looked down at his outstretched palm.

It turned out to be the case.

It wasn't the cultivation method that misled her, nor was it a lack of talent. It was that her body was destined from the beginning to wait for someone—to wait for a pure Yang holy body, to wait for a scoundrel disciple who dared to tell her, "The supreme treasure is me."

She suddenly wanted to laugh, but then suddenly felt her eyes getting hot.

Eighteen hundred years. So she hadn't waited in vain.

Outside the palace gate.

"Yan'er," Li Hanshan's voice rang out, "retreat to the front hall. Tonight, no matter what noise you hear, you are not to approach the back hall—anyone who disobeys will be executed."

"……yes."

Yan'er stepped back, clutching her sword, her expression beneath the veil extremely strange.

The rear hall is located beside the sacred spring.

The jade bed was warm and smooth, and the gauze curtains hung low.

The sect leader sat down beside the bed, her fingertips gently tracing the edge—an ancient jade from ten thousand years ago, warm to the touch. She sat there for a long time, then suddenly asked in a low voice, "Hanshan, do you think… if the world knew, would they laugh at me?"

"What are you laughing at?"

"I've been putting on airs as the sect leader for a thousand years," she said, turning her face away, her voice almost inaudible, "and after guarding the primordial yin for eighteen hundred years, in the end, I've still followed the old path of the Hehuan Sect that the world speaks of."

"Master," Li Hanshan said earnestly, "the balance of Yin and Yang is the Great Way, not a mere path. Besides—" He paused, "The Joyous Union Sect has existed for thousands of years. When our founder created this technique, he wasn't after what people think. He was after the Way of Heaven. Tonight, you are walking the Way of Heaven; no one can laugh at you."

The sect leader turned his head and stared at him for a long time.

Then she took a deep breath, lifted her wide sleeves slightly, and her sash slipped down silently.

Inside the gauze curtain, two figures sat facing each other.

"Master, the key to dual cultivation lies in the word 'harmony'," Li Hanshan's voice was more solemn than ever before. "I use pure Yang as the catalyst, and you use pure Yin as the furnace, so that Yin and Yang harmonize, and water and fire mutually contain each other. You only need to focus on circulating the cultivation technique; leave the rest to your body."

"……Um."

She paused, then added, her voice as soft as a sigh: "Hanshan, I've never asked anyone for anything in my life. Tonight... I beg you."

"Master, you flatter me." Li Hanshan extended his hand. "Disciple is here."

Four palms pressed together.

The next moment, the two auras collided with a thunderous roar.

If the balance of Yin and Yang during the exchange of Qi is like a stream flowing into the sea or a spring breeze melting snow, then at this moment, it is like a celestial river flowing backward or a volcano erupting. The two purest spiritual energies exploded with a roar that only the divine soul could hear the instant they touched. The entire spirit-gathering array of the Jade Balance Palace shone brightly, and spiritual energy, like hundreds of rivers flowing into the sea, frantically converged towards the rear hall.

"Hmm—"

The sect leader's body trembled violently.

She had cultivated the Hehuan Sect's cultivation method for nearly two thousand years. The method was filled with the principles of yin and yang in balance, but she had never truly achieved that balance. Before tonight, the words written in the classics were just cultivation methods to her; but from this moment on, every word came alive, turning into hundreds of warm currents that flowed into her limbs and bones along with the connected energy between the two of them.

Wherever the pure yang energy passed, the pure yin energy that had accumulated within her body for 1,800 years surged, evaporated, and sublimated wildly, like a spring river encountering a raging fire.

What horrified her even more was that her own body was greedily taking more.

When the first wisp of pure yang energy entered her body, she was still able to maintain her composure and her cultivation technique remained perfectly in place. When the tenth wisp entered her body, her circulation of qi began to accelerate uncontrollably. After the hundredth wisp, the cultivation technique that she had practiced for 1,800 years and was extremely proficient in had completely taken over this body—it had been waiting for this night longer than she had ever been.

"Hanshan..." Her voice changed, a tremor in the last syllable that even she couldn't believe, "This...this is..."

"Master, don't be distracted." Li Hanshan's voice was also strained, "Follow the Qi... Heavens, Master, your constitution—"

It was only at this moment that he "saw" it clearly.

The moment the sect leader's technique reached its peak and her primordial yin was fully awakened, her physique was revealed in Li Hanshan's perception in every detail—pure yin as the foundation, mysterious ice as the bone, and her primordial yin power had not been depleted even a fraction for a full 1,800 years, like a cold moon buried deep underground for 10,000 years, breaking through the soil one day, shining with boundless brilliance.

It truly is a body of profound Yin.

The conjecture of "mysterious yin swallowing yang" during the seven days of Qi transfer has now been settled—a top-grade physique that is on par with the Pure Yang Holy Body and may not appear once in an era!

No wonder the founder of the Hehuan Sect established the rule of "guarding the primordial yin"—this furnace of "fire" is never waiting for firewood, but for another naturally formed raging fire.

"So that's how it is..." Li Hanshan gasped, then his heart leaped with joy. "Master, relax! We...we're a match made in heaven!"

Inside the gauze curtain, a misty haze rose.

The sect leader's composure was crumbling piece by piece.

She had lived for nearly two thousand years. In public, she was the high and mighty leader of the Hehuan Sect, a cold and aloof peak Void Refinement expert, a figure even the Elders feared. But at this moment, in that blissful state of Yin and Yang, all those identities, that authority, that thousand-year-old icy barrier, melted away like water.

She didn't know when she collapsed.

She didn't even know when her hand had gripped the arm of the person beneath her.

All she knew was that the spiritual energy within her body was growing ever more powerful, and her soul was becoming lighter with each passing moment. A barrier that had held her for millennia was gradually loosening, softening, and dissolving under the influence of that warm current. And the unprecedented pleasure emanating from deep within her body, like waves and tides, layer upon layer, lifted her up, tossed her to the clouds, and then gently set her down.

Above the clouds, there is no Hehuan Sect, no Elders' Council, no Immortal Alliance, and no 1,800-year-old set of rules.

Only him.

Only the ever-flowing, scalding breath ignited her entire being.

For a few moments, her soul even seemed to float away from her body, hovering above the gauze curtain, looking at herself—looking at herself with frost-like eyebrows and unchanging features for a thousand years, now with her eyes lowered and cheeks flushed, like a flower completely soaked by spring rain.

"Hanshan..." she heard her own voice, so soft it was almost unbearable, "Deeper...deeper..."

"Master, stabilize your Dao heart!"

"I know...I know..."

She knows nothing anymore.

The steam from the spiritual spring drifted over the gauze curtains, and the aura of the spirit-gathering array rose and fell like tides.

Outside the rear hall, Yan'er sat on the threshold of the front hall, clutching her sword, staring intently at the ground. Her face flushed red and then paled, and she dared not move an inch.

That barrier could block people, but not sounds. Besides, those two hadn't really suppressed their presence at all from the beginning—the dignified sect leader of the Hehuan Sect, usually as cold as ice, who would have thought that beneath that layer of ice lay such fire?

Yan'er couldn't stand it after a few words. She raised her hand and covered her ears tightly, cursing that bastard three hundred times in her mind.

She froze halfway through her tirade, silently swallowing the rest of her words.

—I almost forgot, that person can hear me.

Deep within the gauze curtains, in Li Hanshan's last remaining sliver of clarity, only one thought remained—

He had experienced quite a lot in his life—the wind and snow of the Northern Wilderness, the blades of the Immortal Alliance, rolling through mountains of corpses and seas of blood—he thought he had seen it all. But all those experiences, even multiplied by ten, and then by ten again, couldn't compare to even a fraction of what he was going through tonight.

The ancient classics dared not write "pure yang paired with dark yin".

This taste...

It was like ascending to heaven, like becoming an immortal.