Lin Yao did not return to the outer disciple quarters that night.
Instead, he climbed to the Stone Pavilion overlooking Azure Lotus Sect, a place reserved for disciples whose cultivation had reached a critical threshold. The wind was cold, but his mind was burning.
What had happened at the spirit spring was not an accident.
When Su Qingxue's spiritual energy had entered his body, the Primordial Chaos fragment had reacted instinctively—harmonizing, refining, absorbing. It wasn't hunger. It was recognition.
"Dual cultivation…" Lin Yao murmured.
He had heard the term before, whispered in half-serious jokes among disciples or spoken cautiously by elders. Most saw it as a shortcut, a dangerous indulgence that blurred cultivation with desire.
But what he felt earlier had been nothing like reckless indulgence.
It was resonance.
Lin Yao closed his eyes and entered meditation. The Chaos fragment responded immediately, unfolding like a star map within his soul. Lines of light traced his meridians, revealing truths he had never been taught.
Dual cultivation, at its highest form, was not about flesh.
It was about synchronization.
Two cultivators aligning spirit, intent, and Dao comprehension—allowing yin and yang, chaos and order, to circulate as one complete cycle. Physical intimacy was merely a medium, not the source.
"Which is why it requires consent," Lin Yao realized. "And trust."
Without those, the cycle collapsed into imbalance. Desire turned toxic. Cultivation regressed.
He exhaled slowly.
The fragment fed him knowledge in fragments—ancient, incomplete, but profound. It warned him as well.
Those who walk this path attract fate.
Those who accept many bonds must bear many karmas.
Lin Yao opened his eyes, gaze steady.
"I don't want mindless conquest," he said softly. "If I walk with someone… it'll be because they choose to walk with me."
The night deepened.
Far away, in an inner disciple residence, Su Qingxue sat silently on her bed, fingers pressed against her wrist. Her cultivation refused to settle. Her normally icy spiritual sea rippled with unfamiliar warmth.
"…Troublesome man," she muttered.
Yet she did not sever the faint thread she felt connecting them.