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

When Yu Mengjia finished speaking, the air in the cave was silent for a moment.

Li Hanshan's gaze shifted from her smiling face to the woman in the pink dress beside her. Qingyao lowered her head, her hands resting neatly on her knees, her fingers twisting the fabric of her skirt, her ears burning red, her shoulders hunched, like a peach blossom bent by the wind. The glow of the luminous pearl fell softly on her slightly lowered neck.

Li Hanshan withdrew his gaze and looked at Yu Mengjia: "Senior Sister Yu, are you joking?"

Yu Mengjia shook her head, her tone matter-of-fact and nonchalant: "Do I look like someone who's joking? Quite a few people heard me make that bet with Qingyao yesterday. Since she lost, she has to accept it." She reached out and patted Qingyao's shoulder, her tone like she was comforting a shy child, "Don't be nervous, Junior Brother Li isn't some monster. Your cultivation levels are similar, dual cultivation will benefit both of you, and neither of you will lose out."

Qingyao's lips moved slightly. She glanced quickly at Li Hanshan, then lowered her head again, her voice barely audible, "Senior sister is right... I... I admit defeat."

Yu Mengjia stood up and walked towards the entrance of the cave. "Then I'll be going now. Junior Brother Li, you should recover well. Don't let me win the finals in three days too easily." She paused at the door, turned back to look at Qingyao who was still sitting on the stone bench, and said with a hint of teasing, "Qingyao, haven't you been complaining about hitting a bottleneck in your cultivation? The pure yang energy of the Pure Yang Sacred Body is the most nourishing for wood-type techniques. Don't regret missing this opportunity."

Qingyao's ears turned even redder, but she didn't refute. Yu Mengjia didn't linger any longer; her pale blue figure stepped out of the stone gate, her footsteps fading into the distance on the stone steps, quickly swallowed by the night wind.

The cave fell silent again, with only the luminous pearl casting a warm glow on the ceiling. Qingyao remained seated on the stone bench, her hands twisting the hem of her skirt, her gaze fixed on the ground before her knees, her breathing shallow and light.

She maintained her reserved posture, her back ramrod straight, like a tender branch trembling slightly in the wind. But Li Hanshan's Nascent Soul level divine sense caught a detail—the force with which she twisted her skirt was even and the rhythm steady, completely different from the unconscious twisting she made when she was truly nervous.

He leaned against the stone bed, not in a hurry to speak. The silence in the cave lasted for a few breaths, and Qingyao's breathing sounded particularly clear in that silence. Then, her shoulders relaxed slightly, the movement was so small that it was as if a layer of disguise that she had been deliberately maintaining had inadvertently cracked open.

She looked up. Her eyes were still clear, her eyelashes still trembling slightly, but beneath the misty shyness in them lay something well-concealed—not calculation, not malice, but an extremely restrained scrutiny, as if secretly weighing the person before her. She was completely different from her shy demeanor just moments before.

Li Hanshan looked into her eyes and suddenly said, "You're quite good at pretending."

Qingyao paused slightly. She lowered her head, her fingers finally stopping the twisting of her skirt, which then spread out smoothly above her knees. Then she looked up at him, a faint smile playing on her lips, a smile completely different from her previous shyness, carrying a composed slyness: "You saw through me?"

After she finished speaking, her entire demeanor changed. Her previously hunched shoulders straightened, her drooping neck straightened again, and the mist in her eyes was replaced by a clear brightness, like a polished bronze mirror reflecting true light. She placed her hands clasped on her knees, her posture elegant and composed, as if she were a completely different person.

Li Hanshan looked at her and said slowly, "So, what Senior Sister Yu said about the bet is true, but you never intended to lose. You came here because you wanted to."

Qingyao didn't deny it. She tilted her head slightly, her gaze sweeping over him, her tone carrying a calm certainty: "Senior Sister asked me to come, and I wanted to come too. The two things don't conflict." She paused, "My wood-elemental spiritual power has indeed been stuck at a bottleneck for a long time. The pure yang energy of the Pure Yang Sacred Body is useful to me, Senior Sister isn't lying to you about that." As she spoke, the smile on her lips deepened, "Moreover, I really want to see with my own eyes what kind of person can defeat a Nascent Soul cultivator at the third level of the Divine Transformation Realm."

Li Hanshan leaned back on the stone couch, looking at the woman before him who had transformed from a shy flower into a sturdy green bamboo. He remained silent for a moment before speaking, "So, you've finished reading. What did you think?" Qingyao's gaze lingered on his face for a couple of moments, then she lowered her head, as if seriously considering the question. After a moment, she raised her eyes again, "Not bad." Her tone was calm, yet it carried a certainty that she had decided to stay despite being weighed in. "At least, it's more interesting than I imagined."

As she spoke, she stood up and slowly walked to the stone bed, stopping in front of him. The light pink hem of her skirt shimmered softly in the glow of the luminous pearl, like peach blossoms blooming under the moonlight. She looked down at him, her clear eyes holding a restrained seriousness: "The stagnation in my body needs pure yang energy to clear it, and you happen to need to recover too, don't you? Senior Sister said you won't lose out, and neither will I." She tilted her head slightly, her tone teasing, "So… you're planning to let me do it myself?"

Li Hanshan looked at her, smiled, and stepped aside to clear half of the tatami mat: "Since you're being so proactive, then you can do it."

Qingyao did not refuse. She sat down by the stone couch, her back straight, her movements much more composed than before. When she raised her hand to untie the ties of her robe, her fingertips did not tremble at all, as if she were doing something she had already decided. The light pink outer robe slid onto the couch, revealing the plain white inner garment underneath, outlining her slender and well-proportioned figure.

Li Hanshan, however, made no move.

Qingyao tilted her head to look at him, her gaze carrying a hint of urging: "Are you planning to keep watching?"

Li Hanshan didn't answer, but reached out and put his arm around her waist, pulling her closer. Qingyao leaned forward with his pull, the collar of her plain white undergarment slightly open, revealing her fair and delicate collarbone. She lowered her head, her clear eyes holding a restrained interest, as if she were carefully reading an interesting scroll, savoring every stroke of the brush.

She didn't close her eyes; instead, she looked at Li Hanshan with a faint smile playing on her lips. When their eyes met, her brow furrowed slightly, then quickly relaxed, as if she had expected it. She lowered her head, resting her forehead on his shoulder, her breathing gradually becoming more even.

Li Hanshan closed his eyes, and the Yang Ce cultivation technique quietly began to circulate. Pure Yang energy surged into her body from where their bodies met, slowly advancing along the lines of her meridians. He could clearly sense the deep-seated blockages—indeed, as she said, those blockages were quite large, and if she relied solely on her own arduous cultivation, it would take at least several decades to clear them one by one. His pure Yang energy, like warm flowing water, advanced inch by inch along those blocked channels, peeling away and melting away the accumulated impurities layer by layer. Qingyao's body tensed slightly, then relaxed, letting out a very low hum from her nose, as if her joints had been softened by warm water.

At the same time, the wood-elemental spiritual energy within her body was also drawn by the circulation of the Yang Ce technique, beginning to flow backward into his meridians. That spiritual energy was clear and vibrant, like a spring thawed in early spring seeping into a dried-up riverbed. The subtle, hidden injuries deep within his meridians, left by the great battle, were soothed by this vitality, healing much faster than if he had simply used spirit stones. He could feel the remaining fatigue on the surface of the divine infant in his dantian fading layer by layer, like a mirror repeatedly polished, regaining its luster.

Qingyao seemed to sense his change as well. She propped herself up slightly, looked down at his face, and lingered for a moment on the wrinkles between his brows that had been smoothed out by the pure yang energy. Her voice was languid: "You're using me to recover." She said this in a flat tone, without any accusation, as if stating a fact that interested her.

Li Hanshan didn't open his eyes, but the corners of his mouth slightly lifted: "We're using each other, and neither of us loses out." Qingyao chuckled softly, lowered her head again, and rested her forehead on his shoulder: "That sounds nice. But... your pure yang energy is indeed purer than I imagined." Her voice gradually lowered, carrying a kind of languidness that had been completely relaxed, "If I had known it would be this good, I should have come sooner." She didn't speak again, but just quietly leaned against his chest. With the rise and fall of her body, that circulation continued to flow within her, gradually breaking through the last few stagnations.

The candlelight in the cave had burned out sometime earlier, flickering briefly before going out. Only the soft glow of the luminous pearl remained, enveloping the two figures in a warm, gentle light. A night breeze rustled through the bamboo grove on the southern slope, the sound carrying clearly through the cracks in the stone door and echoing in the quiet cave.

As the last stagnation within her body was broken, Li Hanshan clearly felt her wood-elemental spiritual energy become much clearer in that instant. The cleared channels increased the flow of her spiritual energy by nearly double, and her entire aura rose to a new level. Although she was still some distance from a breakthrough, the long-stagnant vitality within her body had begun to flow again.

Qingyao straightened up, looked down at her slightly gleaming fingertips, and a genuine surprise flashed in her clear eyes. She was silent for a moment, then looked at Li Hanshan again. The scrutinizing tone in her gaze had faded somewhat, replaced by a refined seriousness: "Not bad, you're more useful than I imagined."

"Now it's my turn."

Li Hanshan no longer held back, flipped her over and pinned her down, and then...