"Once I've tortured and slaughtered your little sweetheart, I'll take my time with you!"
"A Moonlight Physique as my cultivation cauldron will surely carry me to the Spirit Transformation realm!"
Qin Shou dropped all pretense and attacked.
Senior Sister Zhao was only at the final-stage Golden Core realm. Talented as she was, capable of holding her own against ordinary Nascent Soul cultivators, Qin Shou was no ordinary opponent, and the gap between them showed.
Li Fan was completely dragging them down, an outright liability, and Qin Shou knew it, directing every attack at him rather than at her. Already stretched to her limit, now forced to shield her beloved as well, Senior Sister Zhao could only scramble to respond.
It was clear they could not win. Relying on an artifact their master had bestowed upon them, the two fought their way backward, retreating deeper into the ruins. The hidden mechanisms and exotic beasts lurking within bought them enough chaos to finally throw Qin Shou off their trail.
Unable to find them at once, Qin Shou changed tactics. He began laying down an array outside the ruins, determined to cage them inside it.
"This is the Central Wuji Array," Senior Sister Zhao said, resolve hardening in her eyes as she watched it take shape.[1] "Once it is fully formed, neither of us will have any hope of escaping. In a moment, I'll go out and fight him to the death. You run. Return to the sect and expose him to our master."
She drew her sword and was already moving when the Heavenly Mechanisms Guide their master had given them flared with sudden light.
"Senior Sister, wait!" Li Fan called out. "Heaven may not have closed all doors yet!"
They followed the glow of the Heavenly Mechanisms Guide to a hidden chamber deep within the ruins.
Inside lay a skeleton of peculiar appearance. It was several times larger than an ordinary human and possessed a full thousand bones. Yet though they formed a coherent whole, something about them felt subtly wrong, as though the bones had been drawn from many different bodies.
Beside the skeleton, Li Fan found a storage ring. Inside were a few cultivation techniques and a strangely shaped token engraved with the character "Xuan."
"Heaven and Earth Conjoining Ode, Only I Remain Through the Ages..." Li Fan scanned through them one by one, his expression brightening. "Senior Sister, look at this—the Heaven and Earth Conjoining Ode is a dual cultivation technique, and a rare one at that. According to the instructions, both practitioners experience a great advancement in cultivation from the very first session. If we use it, we might both break through in time to—"
He noticed that Senior Sister Zhao's expression had gone grim.
"Senior Sister Zhao? What's wrong?"
"This place..." she said, staring at the massive skeleton, her voice careful and low. "This should have been an outpost of the Xuantian Sect. And this... this was one of their Dharma Kings."
"The Xuantian Sect?" Li Fan frowned. "I've never heard of them. What about it?"
Senior Sister Zhao's voice was grave as she explained. "The Xuantian Sect was an evil cult that unified the world in ancient times. Its leaders named themselves Dharma Kings. They usurped heaven's authority and committed every atrocity imaginable, until a united front of cultivators finally brought them down. The sect has been destroyed for thousands of years, but its shadow refuses to fade. The Ten Immortal Dao Sects, our Great Dao Sect among them, still maintain strict vigilance against anything connected to it. Any remnants of the Xuantian Sect are to be executed on sight, no questions asked."
Li Fan took it in, then shook his head. "The Xuantian Sect is the Xuantian Sect. A technique is a technique. Can knowledge itself be good or evil? We're disciples of the Great Dao Sect, orthodox to our core. We're not Xuantian remnants. If we cultivate their technique to save our lives, that shouldn't be unacceptable."
Senior Sister Zhao's brow stayed creased. "It's not the same..."
Li Fan glanced toward the ruins' entrance. The light of the Central Wuji Array was thickening visibly, growing more solid by the moment.
"Either way, it beats dying here. And if we fall into Qin Shou's hands, death might end up being more than we can hope for." He pressed on. "At worst, once we survive this, we discard the technique and never speak of it again."
They deliberated as the weight of the array outside bore down on them, heavier with every passing moment.
In the end, with no other path remaining, Senior Sister Zhao gave a single nod.
They began studying the Heaven and Earth Conjoining Ode together.
In the exhilarating depth of spiritual dual cultivation, they felt themselves become one. Their thoughts intertwined, flowing together like water and milk until they could not be separated. A single moment stretched longer than ten thousand years. Their auras resonated and built upon each other, rising steadily.
When they emerged from the cultivation session, Senior Sister Zhao had broken through to the Nascent Soul realm and Li Fan had successfully formed his Golden Core.
With a full cultivation realm between her new and old selves, Senior Sister Zhao's combat power had leapt to a different level entirely. Seizing the last moment before the array solidified completely, the two burst out of it and went straight for Qin Shou.
He had spent days laying that array, burning through his mental reserves, and the sight of them both emerging with fresh breakthroughs sent violent tremors through his heart. He couldn't accept that his scheme was on the verge of collapse. His composure cracked, and as Senior Sister Zhao pressed him with relentless, lethal exchanges, he began to flounder.
Li Fan's transmissions only made it worse.
"Senior Brother Qin, aren't you curious how we broke through so quickly?"
"Hahaha! You have yourself to thank for it!"
"Cornered and desperate, we found a dual cultivation technique inside the ruins."
"You know what a dual cultivation technique means, don't you, Senior Brother Qin?"
"Tsk, tsk, tsk..."
"If you hadn't arranged all of this, who knows how long I'd have had to wait to get what I wanted!"
Between every taunt, Li Fan threw himself into the fight, pressing each opening that Qin Shou's fury created. Watching the two of them move in seamless coordination was more than Qin Shou could stomach.
"You! Damn you both!"
He threw caution aside entirely and came at them in a mutual-destruction assault, raw and frenzied.
Even working in tandem, Senior Sister Zhao and Li Fan were hard-pressed for a time. But an attack born of lost reason cannot sustain itself. Gradually, they read his rhythm, and Qin Shou found himself losing ground.
In the thick of it, he understood with quiet despair that his injuries had already gone too far. There would be no escape.
"Filthy dogs! I curse you!"
Senior Sister Zhao's sword flashed.
Qin Shou's head left his shoulders, his eyes frozen wide with undying grievance.
Li Fan exhaled slowly.
"I was only trying to provoke him earlier," he said to Senior Sister Zhao. "If anything I said caused offense, I'm sorry."
She turned to look at him, brow furrowed. "We have already shared the intimacy of husband and wife. Must we still stand on such ceremony?"
Li Fan slapped his own forehead. "I'm being foolish."
After seeing to what needed to be done, the two returned to the hidden chamber. Drained in body and spirit, Li Fan held Senior Sister Zhao close and they fell into a deep sleep.
When they woke, they did not set out for the sect immediately. After a period of quiet deliberation, they decided to abandon the Heaven and Earth Conjoining Ode. There were other dual cultivation techniques; there was no reason they had to keep this one.
Yet, after some attempts, the two exchanged a glance, their expressions shifting slightly.
1. 戊己 (wù jǐ): the fifth and sixth Heavenly Stems in Chinese cosmology, both associated with earth ☜