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

"A flower with three petals can sever a slave's life."

Inside the hall, there was a deathly silence.

The Fourth Elder stiffly lowered his head, looking at his lower abdomen. Beneath his clothes, on his skin, there was indeed a faint silver pattern, shaped like a flower petal, with three petals open, shimmering with a faint light.

The light was extremely faint, so faint that it was almost imperceptible unless one looked closely. Yet when her divine sense swept over it, it was as if she had hit an invisible wall, unable to discern even the slightest depth of its patterns.

The color drained from her face inch by inch.

Having lived for four hundred years, she knew all too well what this meant. From this day forward, half of her life was in the hands of this smiling little man.

"Li Hanshan..." She looked up, her voice hoarse, "You're so calculating."

"It's not a scheme," Li Hanshan shook his head, slowly rising to his feet. As he straightened his robes, he looked down at her. "Fourth Elder, let's speak frankly."

"This dark pattern is my trump card, and also your talisman."

"The downside is—from now on, I can take your life at any time. No matter how strong your spiritual power or how high your cultivation level, with just a thought from me, the three-petaled flower will bloom, and even a god couldn't save you."

"The benefits are—"

He leaned down, brought his voice close to her ear, and spoke in a very low voice, each word exploding in her mind like thunder:

"First, this Yin pattern is born simultaneously with the Yang pattern within my abdomen. With each advancement in my cultivation, this pattern within you deepens—it's not just a shackle, but a path. If you can use it to break through to the late stage of the Void Refinement realm today, one day, at the peak of the Void Refinement realm, and even…"

"To be in harmony with the Dao."

The Fourth Elder's breath suddenly caught in his throat.

"Harmony with the Dao." These two words struck her like a thunderbolt, cleaving away all the distractions in her mind. In the vast Central Continent, even those at the Void Refinement stage were rare, and those who could even touch the threshold of Dao Harmony were less than one in ten. Her life was already destined to stop at the sixth level of Void Refinement; even the later stages were a distant dream, let alone the peak or Dao Harmony. But this man before her said—follow him, Dao Harmony was not out of reach.

If anyone else had said those words, the Fourth Elder would have thought they were arrogant or even ridiculous. But when Li Hanshan said them, she was inexplicably surprised, or perhaps, it was actually true.

After all, Li Hanshan has created too many miracles along the way.

Not only did his own cultivation advance by leaps and bounds, but the women who followed him also saw their cultivation levels rise in ways that defied common sense. Of course, the most compelling evidence was the sect leader's breakthrough to the Dao Integration Realm.

This alone is enough to make Li Hanshan's statement quite convincing.

Therefore, the Fourth Elder did not think that Li Hanshan was being arrogant at all. On the contrary, he found him somewhat credible and even felt a faint sense of anticipation!

Li Hanshan's voice rang out again:

"Secondly, the Grand Elder left you in the sect to keep an eye on me. But now you're telling me—" Li Hanshan straightened up, looking at her with a smile, "From now on, I need to know everything that happens in the Elders' Council. What Nie Hongyuan does, who he meets, what he says—do you understand?"

"third,"

Li Hanshan paused, then extended a finger and gently lifted her chin, forcing her to look him in the eye.

"Stay with me and I'll treat you well."

"But if you harbor any improper thoughts... Fourth Elder, you've seen enough of my methods today."

One approach is to strike, the other to pull; one is to be tough, the other soft; one is to threaten, the other to make empty promises.

Inside the hall, the Fourth Elder stared blankly at the excessively young man before him, at the nonchalant smile on his face, and at the unfathomable depths of his eyes—a depth as turbulent as an abyss.

She suddenly felt that she had wasted the past thousand years.

She had schemed and weighed her options her entire life, walking a tightrope between the two factions for centuries, thinking herself incredibly shrewd and inscrutable. But in the end, she was swallowed whole, skin and bones, by a few words, a "gift," and twelve days of tenderness.

Moreover, she couldn't even bring herself to hate.

Because what he offered was simply too much. So much that she couldn't refuse—she had struggled for two hundred years to reach the bottleneck of the late-stage Void Refinement realm, so what about the peak of Void Refinement? What about Dao Integration? In the whole world, besides the man before her, who else could give her these two things?! Moreover, although the Yin marks locked away her life force, they had undeniably helped her during her breakthrough; that feeling couldn't be faked.

After a long silence.

The Fourth Elder slowly closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, all the struggle and resentment in his phoenix eyes had vanished, leaving only a sense of resignation, yet also a burning intensity.

She reached out and gently wrapped her arms around his waist, pressing her face against his lower abdomen, her voice soft and gentle, carrying a hint of resigned sigh:

"This servant...understands."

"Owner."

Li Hanshan lowered his head, looking at the late-stage Void Refinement cultivator and the Fourth Elder of the Joyful Union Sect in his arms. Seeing her submissive posture, the chill in his heart quietly dissipated, replaced by a reassuring sense of control. This thorn in his side was more firmly planted than he had anticipated. She was a smart woman, and smart women, once resigned to their fate, are more useful than death squad members. Because they are too adept at weighing pros and cons, too adept at choosing the best path for themselves.

He reached out and gently patted the top of her head twice, as if soothing a spirit beast that had finally agreed to obediently lie on his lap.

"Get up, the ground is cold."

The nail has been driven in.

-

That night, the Fourth Elder stayed in the side hall of the main peak under the pretext of "discussing defense matters" and did not come out all night.

Meanwhile, in the far west, in the command tent of the front-line camp, the sect leader closed the military report in her hand, her gaze fixed on the direction of the Hehuan Sect. Outside the tent, the north wind howled, causing the command flag to flutter. She took a sip of her spiritual tea, which had gone cold, but the corners of her lips curved slightly.

You little rascal.

They were quick.