Weeks passed.
Divine Phoenix Island shed its skin a little more with every sunrise.
In the outer practice fields, Vermillion Bird flames no longer rose in simple straight pillars. What had once been straightforward heat now pressed down with weight—like molten metal instead of ordinary fire. Flame light clung to skin and bones, seeped into meridians, settled into dantians.
Disciples who had been stuck at late Pulse Condensation for years suddenly found their true essence thickening, breathing with a deeper rhythm. Small bottlenecks that had been treated as fate simply… cracked.
…
On one of the outer platforms, a girl on the verge of Pulse Condensation's second stage thrust out her palms.
Phoenix fire erupted.
In the past, it would have scattered in a bright flare, impressive to the eye and hollow beneath the surface. This time, as the flame leapt out, faint dark-rainbow lotus lines shimmered across her meridians, pulsing in time with her heartbeat.
The fire shivered.
Instead of fanning outward and losing force, it gathered, folding along lines only the lotus could see. The flame compressed, condensed into a short, sharp spear. It glowed red-gold at its core, Vermillion Bird heat wrapped in a thin halo of invisible weight.
The spear punched through the stone target.
Stone that had endured thousands of strikes over decades now rang with a dull, shocked note. The spear bored through, then drove on, leaving a hairline crack crawling up the training wall, thin as a knife mark but unimaginably deep.
The girl stared at her own hand.
True essence rolled in her dantian, newly obedient, following the lotus' side channels as if they were the most natural thing in the world. She opened and closed her fingers once, then laughed out loud, bright and disbelieving.
Across the field, another platform trembled.
A young man roared as he stepped into early Revolving Core.
Normally, that crossing was an explosive, chaotic process—true essence rampaging, meridians straining, the forming core threatening to tear itself apart with every turn. Instead, the lotus carved channels through his inner world. True essence cascaded from meridians into his dantian like a river guided by invisible banks.
In the sea of origin energy within him, the core divided and fused, again and again, each cycle making it denser, heavier, more complete. Threads of grandmist, too faint for most to sense, clung to it like primordial fog.
Behind him, a phoenix phantom cried once.
Its voice was thicker than before. Its wings, once translucent illusions, now carried darker edges, as if each feather had remembered that it had once been a real thing that could burn a sky.
The young man exhaled shakily and opened his eyes.
…
On the high terraces, elders watched.
Robes stirred in the heat, phoenix patterns rippling as fire winds swept across the practice fields. The elders' gazes drifted over one platform after another—over disciples whose auras had once been familiar and stagnant, now shifting every day.
"This speed…" an elder murmured, fingers unconsciously brushing the lotus mark sleeping on his back.
"In a month," another said lowly, "we've had more breakthroughs than in the last three years. Yet the foundations are…" He paused, searching for words. "Heavier. The youngsters' Revolving Cores feel like old monsters'."
Even the stubborn walls at late Revolving Core began to show fine fractures.
On the inner islands, those who had stood in front of Life Destruction's gate for decades found themselves waking from meditation with their hearts pounding and their backs damp with sweat. Somewhere at the edge of their senses, there was suddenly a wind blowing from the other side of that gate, cold and enticing.
Their own flames roared in answer.
…
The laws on the island were changing, too.
Fire, once tyrannical and linear—burn, consume, move forward—now twined with hints of weight and subtle distortion. The Heavenly Demon Lotus Art had sunk roots into body and Dao both. Laws braided more naturally; Fire and Wind no longer fought, but wrapped around each other like twin dragons. Thunder threaded through flame without tearing it apart.
For those who could see Dao lines, phoenix phantoms had changed.
Where once they had been simple silhouettes of flame, now faint grandmist shades lingered around their wings. Behind every blazing bird was a blurred fog—primordial gray, heavy as an ancient sky—that clung to their outlines and dragged their presence deeper.
Even the island's great protective arrays hummed differently, their flame runes now laced with thin, dark-rainbow strands that hadn't been there before.
…
Ren noticed all of it, of course.
He didn't need to sweep his divine sense through every courtyard to know who broke through and where. He felt each micro-breakthrough as a slight shift in the island's breath. Every time a lotus petal in some unknown disciple's Spiritual Sea turned, it tugged—lightly but clearly—on the larger fabric of his Grand Dao.
Those countless small lotuses were all grafted from his own Heavenly Demon lotus.
He smiled.
His attention, these days, was on something else.
On his women.
On the Mu women.
…
Mu Qianyu changed the most visibly.
Once, the Vermillion Bird Saintess had stood like a solitary flame at the mountain peak—proud, distant, as if the world below could never touch her robes. Even when she had been polite, there had always been that inch of space no one could cross.
Now, on the quiet paths between Phoenix Cry Valley and the inner courtyards, her shoulders sometimes touched his.
Sometimes, "touched" was too mild a word.
She walked at his side, crimson robes brushing his black. Vermillion Bird flame flowed around her like a mantle; grandmist flowed around him like a heavier, older sky. Where those two fields met, they tangled, quietly changing both.
When no elders were in sight, his hand would slide around her waist with a natural ease, fingers settling on her hip as if they'd always belonged there. He would draw her in until her body leaned fully into his chest.
The first time he did it, she had stiffened, phoenix eyes widening, breath catching. Her gaze had darted around, as if expecting ancestors to rise from the stone and glare from every corner.
Now…
"Relax," he would murmur near her ear, voice low and unhurried, lips almost brushing the shell. "If anyone sees, they'll just cultivate harder. Motivation."
Her cheeks would heat, Vermillion Bird flame stirring under her skin like a shy bird, but her body would not move away. Instead, she'd lean back a little more, letting his warmth sink into her spine.
When he sat in their shared courtyard, she no longer chose the opposite bench out of habit.
She would simply—quietly—sit on his lap.
The first time had happened almost by accident.
He had pulled her in to adjust a stubborn lotus circulation near her heart. The pattern wound around the deepest place in her Vermillion Bird fire, entangled with old pride and older loneliness; it did not yield easily.
The adjustment took longer than expected.
By the time it was done, her arms were looped around his neck. Her cheek rested near his collarbone, breath warm against his skin. His hand was on her waist, thumb drawing lazy circles over cloth, each small motion loosening knots that stubborn cultivation had never touched.
"If I stand now," she had thought, heart pounding against his chest, "it will be… strange."
So she didn't.
She stayed.
His true essence flowed, grandmist and flame touching in every breath. Her Vermillion Bird fire shifted, certain stubborn spots softening, other parts igniting hotter. She felt her bottlenecks loosen a fraction; old, hard lines inside her Dao softened, like ice beginning to melt beneath spring sun.
From that day on, it became natural.
Sometimes she read jade slips while sitting there, his arm around her waist. Sometimes she simply closed her eyes, letting her flame move in harmony with his grandmist-laced true essence. Every time his hand slid along her back, every time his chest rose and fell beneath her, something inside her loosened and reformed.
She knew it.
She accepted it.
She allowed herself to enjoy it.
…
Mu Bingyun's changes were quieter.
The Blue Luan Saintess had always stood like a lonely glacier—beautiful, distant, untouched by the wind of mortal matters. Her words had been few, her smile like a rare winter sun.
Now, under his Heaven, that glacier had learned a new habit.
It leaned.
Whenever they walked together through the Blue Luan grounds—white robe brushing frost-blue—her body would, almost without her realizing, tilt a fraction toward him. His arm would be hanging loose at his side; her cool shoulder would just… find its way beneath it.
Sometimes, he would lower his hand without thinking, fingers brushing the back of her knuckles.
When he spoke—voice low and lazy, explaining some minute detail of how frost could wrap around flame and guide it instead of being devoured—her gaze stayed clear. Her breathing did not change much.
But if someone looked very closely, they would see it.
Her lashes trembled when his fingers slid over the thin bones of her hand. The frost in her dantian would ripple, waves moving under a frozen lake.
She never commented on it.
Once, he deliberately moved half a step aside, letting a pocket of space open between them.
Her Blue Luan flame stirred with a faint, inexplicable discomfort. The world felt… off-balance. The air between her and that calm, heavy aura suddenly felt too wide.
He watched that tiny stiffness, then smiled and closed the gap again, shoulder brushing hers.
"See?" he teased softly. "Better like this."
Her ears flushed a shade too faint for ordinary eyes to notice. Her voice remained as cool as always.
"…You talk too much," she murmured.
She did not move away.
…
Mu Xiaoqing, in contrast, made no attempt to conceal her new orbit.
She had practically moved into his courtyard.
Wherever Ren was on the inner island, Mu Xiaoqing's Vermillion Bird flame wasn't far behind. When he sat beneath the old flame tree, she sat two steps away. Then one step away. Then somehow ended up pressed against his side, head resting against his arm as he adjusted minor lotus paths for whichever girl he had dragged into his lap that day.
At night, after group training, she often lingered in his courtyard long after other disciples had returned to their quarters.
She would watch Qin Xingxuan practicing Heaven-Piercing Elemental Canon in one corner, spear thrusting again and again, each strike birthing a streak of multi-colored light that pierced the night and made the formation lines hum.
She would watch Murong Zi drilling spear forms in another, Fire and Wind swirling around her, each stab leaving behind thin, compressed lines of flame that took long breaths to fade.
She would watch Bai Jingyun silently refining her flame diagrams, Lantern-Heart runes flickering in her pupils, red-gold patterns blooming in the air like lotus flowers made of fire.
She would watch Na Yi and Na Shui trading blows that made the training field's arrays shudder, bones and blood forging themselves into something that felt like a future calamity.
They formed a loose ring around the inner courtyard, each absorbed in her own task, each aware—without needing to say it—that tonight, every night like this, there was a center everything turned around.
And in that center, Mu Xiaoqing always found herself drifting back toward him.
Her lotus, once wild and unstable, now spun steadily in her Spiritual Sea. Being close to him made it easier—his presence quieted its more reckless impulses, turning terrifying pulls into deep, calm tides. When his arm looped around her shoulders, her breath automatically cleared, true essence sliding into the paths he liked without conscious effort.
Sometimes, a treacherous thought would rise:
If I cultivate like this for another month, I might break through a minor realm without even noticing.
Then her face would burn, because the thought that followed was:
…But I'd rather notice the way his hand rests on my shoulder.
She, too, did not move away.
…
Mu Yuhuang's pattern was different.
The Island Master had always walked alone.
Even now, her every step carried the dignity of someone used to meeting the eyes of third-grade sect masters without blinking. She still sat at the head of council halls, Vermillion Bird crown blazing, still issued commands that shifted the course of sect politics.
Yet…
In private, her hand had acquired a new habit.
Whenever they walked together through the secluded inner paths—those only core elders and Saintesses had the right to tread—his fingers would slide casually between hers.
The first time he did it, she had stopped dead.
"Ren Ming," she had said, voice cool, eyes cutting to their joined hands. "You…"
"What?" he had replied, utterly shameless, a small, easy smile playing at his lips. "It's warmer like this."
Warmth.
A simple word.
Her Vermillion Bird flame, which had burned alone for so many years, flickered in a way that had nothing to do with cultivation.
"…You—" she had started, intending to reprimand him, to pull away, to remind him what identity she carried.
Instead, she realized she wasn't actually trying to pull away.
Now, whenever he reached out, she let their fingers intertwine.
She told herself it was because his Dao sense could better monitor the lotus in her back like this, preventing backlash as her long-suppressed Life Destruction boundary stirred. For someone who had sacrificed her own path so many times for the sect, any help was rational to accept.
It was for the island.
That was all.
But sometimes, late at night, when she sat alone in her cultivation chamber, she could still feel the phantom warmth of his palm against hers, imprinting itself deeper than any lotus mark.
She never admitted that to anyone.
…
Mu Qingyi fell somewhere between duty and surrender.
As the elder responsible for so much of Divine Phoenix Island's internal fabric—schedules, resource flows, faction balances, alliances—she carried stress like armor. Her spine was straight, her robe immaculate, her expression composed.
Ren had touched that armor.
He had found the old knots in her meridians and untied them with a few lazy circles of his thumb against her back, a gentle press along her neck. The first time, she had nearly collapsed from the sudden rush of ease.
After that, her body never quite forgot his hand.
Now, when they walked through council corridors, discussing resource allocation or outer island disputes, his arm would sometimes slip lightly around her waist as if he were simply steering her around an incoming disciple.
Her first instinct was to tense. To look around, to remember that eyes were everywhere.
Then she remembered how her true essence had flowed after his last "adjustment," how the lotus at her back spun more steadily when his presence was near.
Her body relaxed almost of its own accord.
She rationalized it with the same excuse: "It's good for the sect if I'm in peak condition."
Ren never argued.
He simply smiled, hand settled with quiet confidence at the curve of her waist.
…
Mu Fengxian, on the surface, was the hardest to move.
The High Ancestor had weathered storms that the current generation could only read about in records. Her cane had tapped through rises and falls; she had stood as Saintess, then as Ancestor, had watched geniuses blaze and fade like sparks in a furnace.
Her tongue was still sharp enough to cut jade.
When he first reached for her hand, she had smacked his arm with that cane.
"Brat," she'd snapped. "Do you take this old woman for some young girl you can fool with sweet words?"
He had simply grinned, unbothered.
"Not foolishness," he had replied. "Accuracy. You're still lovely, ancestor. And your lotus spins faster than most 'young girls' on the island."
She had sputtered, then struck him again.
The third time, her cane slowed halfway through the swing.
The fourth time, it only tapped his shoulder.
Now, on lonely high perches overlooking the sea of fire, it was not unusual to see them sitting side by side.
The wind tugged at their robes; phoenix cries echoed between clouds. Lava rivers far below sent waves of heat rolling upward, shimmering the air.
Ren's hand would rest over hers on the cane's handle.
"I told you," he would say lazily if she grumbled. "It's warmer like this."
She would scoff, eyes narrowing, lips curling into a half-smile that she would never admit was there.
Inside, her Life Destruction fire—once resigned to slowly thinning—burned with new restlessness. The lotus in her back turned, petals tracing possibilities she had long ago told herself were no longer for her.
She did not pull her hand away.
…
Weeks passed like this.
Trust was not born overnight. It was carved, slowly, into existence—like Dao marks etched into stone through years of repeated passes.
By the time the island's general transformation had become "normal" in the mouths of outer disciples and elders, Ren could feel it.
The fabric between him and the six Mu women had changed.
The distance they allowed him was no longer the gap between "guest" and "sect master," between "junior" and "ancestor."
It was the distance between hearts that had already chosen.
So he decided to move to the next step.
…
That night, his courtyard burned softly.
Lanterns hung from the old flame tree, their light mingling with the natural glow of flame shrubs planted along the stone path. Those shrubs—mutated spiritual plants that only grew under Vermillion Bird fire—swayed in a mild breeze, leaves pulsing faint red like slow, patient heartbeats.
Phoenix Cry Valley murmured in the distance.
The night's heat was comfortable, not oppressive. Formation layers wrapped around the courtyard in quiet tiers, shimmering faintly, sealing sound and locking the night in. Outside, the island slept in its sea of fire; here, the air felt like a bowl cupped in Ren's hand.
Outside the main warded area, his other women trained.
Qin Xingxuan stood alone at one edge of the broader field, Heaven-Piercing Elemental Canon circulating in her body. Every spear thrust she sent into the air birthed a streak of multi-colored light—red for fire, violet for thunder, pale blue for wind—that pierced the night sky, punched through formation clouds, and vanished into distant darkness.
Each strike birthed small eddies in the world, thin rifts that healed an instant later.
Murong Zi tangled with Na Shui nearby in a spar that tore up half a practice array.
Fire and Wind wrapped around Murong Zi's spear, every thrust condensing flame into long, needle-thin lines that drilled through air like shooting stars. Na Shui's fists answered with thunder that burst in heavy, rolling waves, each punch detonating with a sound like a collapsing mountain.
They slammed each other into stone, laughing, cursing, bodies already remembering Ren's corrections and trying to surpass them.
Bai Jingyun stood at the edge, Lantern-Heart diagrams flickering around her.
Layer upon layer of red-gold circles spun before her eyes, diagrams of Fire Laws that Ren had drawn and then made her dismantle, rearrange, and rebuild. Each time she completed one, lantern-light deep inside her chest flared, a flame rune-wheel turning once before sinking deeper.
Na Yi oversaw them, arms folded, quiet presence smoothing the field's violent fluctuations.
Her aura was calm, heavy, filled with the steady grind of bones forging themselves for war. Every impact in the field, every stray shockwave, sank into her body, was recorded, folded into her own path.
They formed a loose ring around the inner courtyard.
Each was absorbed in her own task.
Each was aware—without needing to say it—that tonight was not their turn.
Tonight was for the Mu women.
…
Inside the warded courtyard, Ren leaned against a stone pillar, hands loosely folded behind his back.
He wore simple black robes, collar slightly open at the throat. Across his skin, invisible to ordinary eyes, the dark-rainbow lotus pattern of his Heavenly Demon intent slept. Grandmist-laced true essence rolled lazily through his meridians, keeping the heat at a comfortable caress.
He had not arranged this place by accident.
Every lantern's position, every flame shrub, every line of the formation beneath the stone had been laid down with a cultivator's precision. The air here was thick with his Heaven—subtle, but unmistakable to those who had touched his Dao.
One by one, they arrived.
Mu Qianyu came first.
Her Vermillion Bird robes trailed flame light behind her like a sunset comet, phoenix eyes steady. Her back was straight, chin lifted, steps measured.
Yet each step was a touch smaller than usual.
Her heart, wrapped in fire and pride, beat just a little faster.
Mu Bingyun followed soon after, blue-white robes fluttering like falling snowflakes, her expression as calm as still water. Frost aura gathered around her ankles as she walked, the ground beneath her cooling in faint answer.
Mu Xiaoqing practically rushed in behind them.
Then remembered her dignity and slowed, hands clasped in front of her, ears already faintly red. Her eyes kept trying to look everywhere at once and failing.
Mu Yuhuang arrived with the quiet authority of an Island Master.
Her Vermillion Bird crown was dimmed for privacy, but even subdued, it made the air around her tighten. Every movement was measured; every breath felt like it could turn into a decree at any moment.
Mu Qingyi slipped in along with her, the aura of someone who had just finished a dozen tasks and still had more waiting trailing behind her like a cloak. Paperwork, elders, resource disputes—she carried them all in her shoulders, even as she walked into a place where none of that mattered.
Mu Fengxian came last.
Her cane tapped lightly against the stone, each tap solid as if it were striking an entire history instead of a simple courtyard floor. Her eyes were sharp as ever, lips already curled in a half-scoff as if ready to swat away whatever nonsense this "brat" had prepared.
They took seats around the low stone table at the courtyard's center.
No one spoke immediately.
The only sounds were the distant clash of spear and fist outside, the soft crackling of the flame shrubs, and the faint rustle of Vermillion Bird fire circulating in six different ways.
Ren let the silence stretch.
One breath.
Another.
He took them in.
Mu Qianyu, whose shoulders were a little tighter than usual, fingers resting too properly on her knees, as if she were back in the main hall greeting visiting sect masters.
Mu Bingyun, whose gaze was steady but whose Blue Luan frost had a faint, imperceptible tremor at the edge, like ice over water that had not yet fully frozen.
Mu Xiaoqing, who kept shifting her weight, then catching herself, sitting straight only to curl her fingers in her skirt, then noticing and yanking her hands back into her lap.
Mu Yuhuang, whose chin was lifted an imperceptible fraction higher than normal, Vermillion Bird flame held in a firm, unyielding rein.
Mu Qingyi, whose composed face hid the tiny clench of her jaw, as if she expected some problem to fall out of the sky and land on the table.
Mu Fengxian, whose cane was planted with unnecessary force into the stone, knuckles a touch whiter than usual around the handle.
He chuckled quietly.
"You all seem tense," he said, voice relaxed, eyes half-lidded.
Six sets of eyes snapped toward him.
He tilted his head, lips curving.
"Called to a man's courtyard at night," he went on lazily. "Six beautiful phoenix flames sitting in a circle. If anyone heard… they might start imagining things."
Mu Xiaoqing's heart jumped into her throat.
Mu Qianyu's fingers curled slightly against her robes.
Mu Bingyun's lashes flickered once, the only crack in her calm.
Mu Qingyi's ears heated despite her best efforts. She scolded herself immediately. Elder. You are an elder.
Mu Yuhuang snorted, Vermillion Bird flame flaring for half a heartbeat in annoyance.
Mu Fengxian clicked her tongue and smacked her cane lightly against the stone.
"You little brat," the High Ancestor said. "Speak properly."
"We came because you said it was about cultivation," Mu Yuhuang added, tone cool. "Do not say such things as if this Island Master had nothing better to do than attend your… rendezvous."
Her words were sharp.
None of them stood up to leave.
Ren laughed softly.
"All right, all right," he said. "I won't tease too much. For now."
He pushed himself off the pillar and walked toward the table, each step unhurried.
When he reached it, he didn't sit on a stone stool.
He sat on the table itself.
One leg casually folded, the other dangling. It was a position that would have made most elders choke with outrage; here, in the sealed courtyard under his Heaven, it only emphasized how utterly unconcerned he was with ordinary rules.
His gaze swept over them, warmth and intent braided together.
"You're right," he said. "This is about cultivation."
Their flames stirred.
They all felt it: whenever he spoke that word, in that tone, the world seemed to lean closer.
"You've seen the island," he went on. "Disciples breaking through small realms like taking another breath. Elders stepping closer to Life Destruction in weeks than they have in years. Laws… smoothing themselves out."
Mu Yuhuang's eyes narrowed, but she nodded once.
Mu Fengxian's fingers tightened faintly on her cane.
The others listened, breaths unconsciously syncing with the rhythm of his voice.
"For all of them," he added, "that's enough."
His gaze sharpened.
"For you," he said quietly, "it's not."
Heat slid through the air, different from Vermillion Bird fire.
Their hearts beat faster.
"You already know it," he continued, voice like warm water soaking into cold stone. "You've felt it."
He lifted a hand, fingers trailing lazily through the air as if stroking something only he could see.
The lotus imprints sleeping on their backs stirred in answer.
"The hugs," he said lightly. "The times I pulled you into my arms to fix a circulation. The way your cultivation flows when I hold your hand, when my palm is on your back, when your head is against my chest."
Mu Qianyu's breath hitched.
Images flashed through her mind—the first time thunder had truly fused into her Vermillion Bird flame, cracking open a path she had beaten herself bloody against for years, his hand resting over her heart as he guided her Dao.
Mu Bingyun remembered the day he had casually draped an arm over her shoulders in the Blue Luan grounds—how the frost in her dantian had deepened until her Blue Luan cold could freeze even phoenix flame for a breath, revealing a new edge to her Dao.
Mu Xiaoqing recalled an evening on the bench.
Her heart pounding, his arm around her, thumb drawing circles on her back as the lotus' pull turned gentle, every wild tug smoothing into a deep, calm tide. Her cultivation, which had always felt like a runaway horse, suddenly walked at her side.
Mu Yuhuang thought of his fingers at her wrist, pressing a few points, making her dormant Life Destruction bottleneck roar like a beast waking after a hundred years, shaking the throne of the Island Master inside her chest.
Mu Fengxian felt again the phantom weight of his hand on her back when he had "fixed what time did to your meridians," as he put it, turning thin fire thick again with a few corrections and a casual smile that made her want to smack him—and didn't.
Mu Qingyi remembered the pressure at her neck loosening, that old, grinding ache disappearing as her true essence finally flowed like a river whose dam had been removed.
"All of you," Ren said, watching their eyes, "have smoother cultivation when I touch you."
No one tried to deny it.
"Lotus circulation more stable. True essence less wasteful. Law comprehension… faster."
He smiled, shameless and honest at once.
"And that's just from small things," he said. "From holding your hand, from a hug, from sitting close."
Hearing it laid out so simply made their hearts pound even harder.
Mu Xiaoqing's cheeks were now scarlet. Mu Qianyu's ears burned beneath her hair. Mu Bingyun's fingers tightened on her robe sleeves just enough to wrinkle the fabric. Mu Qingyi looked down, lashes hiding the sudden storm in her eyes. Mu Yuhuang and Mu Fengxian both straightened, as if trying to pull some lost distance back into place.
Ren did not let them.
He leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on his knees, voice dropping a fraction.
"My Dao is… peculiar," he said. "You've felt that too."
His grandmist-laced aura flared for a brief instant.
"When I come into contact with someone," he continued, "I don't just send true essence into their meridians and walk away. My Dao reads them. Body, bloodline, Law accumulation, unhealed scars, future buddhas and demons all at once."
His gaze deepened.
"The more direct the contact—bare skin to skin—the clearer I see what's happening inside."
The words "bare skin" made Mu Xiaoqing's brain short-circuit.
Her true essence stuttered.
Her mind split between—bare skin?—and—cultivation benefits?—and refused to put the two together in a straight line.
Ren's mouth quirked, eyes gleaming with quiet mischief.
"You've seen the results on others," he went on. "Na Yi's calm, Na Shui's spear, Murong Zi and Bai Jingyun's transformation. Qin Xingxuan carving the sky with her spear Dao. All of that came from laying a foundation and then, occasionally, using this ability to nudge them when they were stuck."
He let that sink in.
"Tonight," he said, "I'm telling you something simple."
He met each of their gazes in turn.
"If I use this power fully," he said softly, "if I let my Dao touch you with no barriers… then the road ahead for you will be much, much easier."
The night seemed to hold its breath.
"For the so-called 'faraway places,'" he added lightly, "those realms the highest-under-heaven like to pretend only they can see? For us, they'll become stepping stones."
His eyes flicked briefly toward the direction of the main hall, where records of the Divine Sea realm and beyond were stored like distant legends.
"Those future Divine Kingdoms people dream about?" His lips curled. "Less than ants, eventually."
It wasn't arrogance.
It was a calm statement of intention.
They believed it.
Their lotus marks thrummed, as if agreeing.
Ren watched the way curiosity and embarrassment tangled on their faces, then smiled again, softer.
"Of course," he said. "This isn't charity."
They blinked.
"I'm not that magnanimous," he added dryly. "I don't scatter my true abilities on every passing phoenix feather."
His voice dropped another shade, gentle and shameless all at once.
"I'm doing this for selfish reasons," he said.
The words fell like stones into still water.
Mu Xiaoqing's eyes went round.
Mu Qingyi's fingers clenched together in her lap.
Mu Yuhuang's heart skipped a beat, a faint tremor passing through the Vermillion Bird flame that had withstood so many storms.
Even Mu Fengxian's breath slowed.
Ren chuckled quietly as he watched them lean in—physically or spiritually, it didn't matter.
"I like you," he said simply.
No elaborate poetry. No flowery lines.
Just quiet, undeniable truth.
"When I first saw you," he went on, voice warm, "I couldn't help falling for your charms."
His gaze moved.
"To the Saintess who carried a lonely flame on her shoulders," he said, looking at Mu Qianyu, "terrifying the South Horizon Region but still dreaming of a higher sky."
Her phoenix eyes shook.
His eyes slid to Mu Bingyun.
"To the cold Luan who froze even her own heart to keep walking her path," he said, voice unhurried. "Who locked herself in snow because the world beneath the clouds disappointed her."
Frost rippled in her pupils.
She remembered years spent watching the world from behind a veil of ice, never expecting anyone to step through it without getting cut.
To Mu Xiaoqing.
"To the young phoenix who shook even Na Shui with her devotion," he said, smiling. "Who saw one spark and decided to follow it with everything she had."
Her heart lurched. Her ears burned so hot she wondered if smoke was about to rise from them.
To Mu Yuhuang.
"To the Island Master who bent her Dao over and over to protect others," he said, tone gentling just a fraction further. "Who turned her own bottleneck into a wall for the sect and stood there alone for years."
Her fingers tightened around the edge of the stone seat. That was a wound she had never said aloud; he laid it bare in a few casual words.
To Mu Qingyi.
"To the elder who held a thousand threads without dropping them," he said. "Shoulders tense from holding everyone else together, even when no one was looking."
She swallowed.
For a moment, the weight of schedules and duties, elders and juniors, threatened to crash over her all at once. Then his eyes—calm, amused, unwavering—caught hers and steadied them.
And finally, to Mu Fengxian.
"To the ancestor who pretended to be finished with her road," he said softly, without a hint of mockery, "but whose flame never actually died down."
The old woman's grip on her cane trembled.
She had been the one to say, again and again, "This old woman's road is finished." It had been armor. He had pierced through it as if it were rotten paper.
The courtyard felt smaller.
He straightened a little.
"I want you to stand by my side," he said. "Not behind me. Not far away on your own peaks. Beside me."
He smiled, a little crooked, a little boyish despite the terrifying Heaven coiled behind his eyes.
"I'm selfish," he repeated, unashamed. "I want your hearts. So I'll only use this full method on women who truly touched mine."
Silence.
It lasted exactly one heartbeat.
Then Mu Xiaoqing exploded.
…
Her chair scraped loudly as she shot up to her feet.
"I—I—!" she blurted.
Six sets of eyes snapped to her.
Her cheeks were crimson from ear to neck. The tips of her ears burned. Her Vermillion Bird flame flared wildly around her, then sputtered as she remembered where she was and frantically tried to control it, lotus lines in her back spinning in panicked circles.
She half-stepped forward—then froze, realizing she was practically charging him in front of the Island Master and High Ancestor.
She half-sat back down—then realized she was hovering halfway between standing and sitting in the most ridiculous posture imaginable, bent knees trembling.
"Xiaoqing," Ren said, eyes crinkling. "Breathe."
She inhaled sharply.
"I—agree!" she burst out.
The word tore itself from her throat like a confession dragged from the depths of her soul.
Then she clapped both hands over her mouth, horrified at her own volume, wide eyes staring at him above her fingers.
What did I just say? In front of the Island Master, in front of the High Ancestor, in front of Saintess, in front of…
But the words were already out.
She stood there, hands covering her lips, ears ringing with the sound of her own voice, as if awaiting some heavenly judgment.
Ren laughed, warmth spilling into the sound, softening the edges.
"Good," he said softly.
Her eyes shone.
Her devotion—reckless, fierce, childish and mature all at once—spread through the courtyard like a spark touching dry tinder. It wasn't just emotion; their lotus marks resonated with it.
The others felt it.
Mu Qianyu's fingers trembled on her knees.
She had been halfway there already—no, further. Her heart had practically been in his hand for weeks, ever since she had felt her long-standing bottlenecks crack under his casual guidance, ever since she had leaned back against his chest and discovered she didn't want to leave.
Hearing Xiaoqing's unhesitating answer…
She could not hold her silence any longer.