I'm caught in the cycle of endless competition, you're waiting for me in the apocalypse.

"Xinxin, you're awake!" Master Zou was so excited that he was almost in tears.

"Master, I'm alright, don't worry! Congratulations, Master, you've become the number one Golden Core cultivator in the world!"

"Hmm, if it weren't for my disciple blocking the tribulation lightning for me, I might have been reduced to ashes. How could I be a Golden Core cultivator now?" Master Zou's eyes were bloodshot as he recalled the sneak attack. "Disciple, do you know who interfered with your master's advancement?"

“I know, it was my fake sister Anna. I saw her go to your secluded retreat with a man.” An Xin slowly recovered, sat up, and told her master everything that had happened.

After gulping down a bottle of spiritual liquid, An Xin felt as if she had finally come back to life. She moved her body, and as she stood up, she heard a series of crackling sounds coming from her body.

"Xinxin, there are purple-gold arcs of electricity on your body!" Master Zou also stood up and was amazed to see the purple-gold flash on An Xin's joints.

"Xinxin! Congratulations! You can now control the power of lightning!" Di Ting said in her sea of ​​consciousness.

"Haha, good people really do get good rewards! Now I'm 'electrified'?" An Xin was in a great mood and couldn't help but joke with Di Ting.

“Yes, Master, I can now control water and lightning, but it’s only at a very basic level. I will be able to truly use them after I have practiced the corresponding techniques,” An Xin replied respectfully.

"Good! Excellent!" A genuine smile finally appeared on Master Zou's face. "Let's go back quickly!"

"Ah, Master, come with me to the cave below to pick up Gu Shuohan. I have something to show you."

After speaking, An Xin took out her Ruyi scepter, leaped up, and flew down the mountain. Turning back, she saw Master Zou standing with his hands behind his back, gracefully approaching. "Master, you can already fly?"

At this moment, Master Zou, exuding an air of otherworldly grace, nodded in agreement. An Xin, watching, clicked her tongue in admiration: "My master is so handsome!" "Master," she continued, "below is a Yin-Yang Spring, composed of two rivers from two different worlds, representing the ultimate Yin and Yang! It can be used for body tempering..."

"what--"

Before she could finish speaking, a scream rang out. An Xin panicked and sped towards the cave. Upon arrival, she saw Anna's manager dragging Gu Shuohan, as if he were about to throw him into the spring.

Using her spiritual power, An Xin drew water from the Yin-Yang Spring and slapped it at the man. With a wave of her hand, she deflected the water. The man turned and saw someone using magic to fight him. He gave a gloomy laugh and sneered, "I didn't expect a Golden Core cultivator to emerge from this small Spirit Realm, and now someone who can control water, especially such a young girl. Very well, then, let's all become the key to opening the door!"

"What kind of villainous speech is this?" An Xin attacked with water again without saying a word. While the man was still deflecting the water wall, she drew A Guang and stabbed straight at the man's throat.

Infused with spiritual power, Ah Guang was unstoppable; each strike was accompanied by a howling wind! He forced the man to retreat step by step…

"Who are you? How can you possess such formidable swordsmanship?" the man roared.

An Xin did not stop swinging her knife and continued to advance!

"Speak up! Don't you know how to respect your opponent? At least answer them!" The man, exhausted from dodging and parrying, kept babbling on and on.

"Shut up! Don't you know villains die from talking too much?" An Xin said disdainfully. She had thought that someone who dared to ambush the Golden Core Daoist and spout such arrogant words must be a formidable character, but she never expected him to be just a master of empty talk.

"Snapped--"

The man threw something on the ground, and instantly a gray mist filled the area. An Xin, not daring to be careless, covered her nose with her hand. The man then took the opportunity to run away.

Seeing this, Master Zou, who had been watching the scene unfold for a long time, shouted loudly to An Xin inside the cave, "Little disciple, your master is going to chase after him. You take young friend Gu back to the Taoist temple, and we'll meet there..."

As Master Zou's voice faded into the distance, An Xin used Yin-Yang Water to create a fine drizzle in the cave, completely eliminating the gray fog.

When everything calmed down, she felt a sense of dizziness and lightheadedness.

"Xiao Jiu, what's wrong? I feel like I have no strength left..."

"You've been poisoned by the gray fog just now," Di Ting said calmly.

"Oh, that's alright. My light energy can detoxify itself. I guess this poison is quite potent, otherwise I wouldn't have any symptoms. Take out a bottle of spiritual liquid and drink it; it'll help you recover faster."

He took out the spiritual liquid and drank a sip. Suddenly, he remembered Gu Shuohan by the Yin-Yang Spring. He walked closer and saw that the handsome young man's lips were almost turning purple.

Squatting by the spring, An Xin laboriously lifted Gu Shuohan's upper body and carefully fed him the remaining spiritual liquid.

"Bam—"

An Xin was suddenly slammed into the water by a tremendous force, dragging Gu Shuohan, who was still leaning against her, into the spring water as well. Still recovering, An Xin choked on several mouthfuls of water, feeling as if she were being eroded by both extreme yin and extreme yang forces from her mouth to her stomach. The pain was overwhelming.

Gu Shuohan floated up and down in the spring water without realizing it, drifting towards the center of the spring with the whirlpool.

"Damn it!" An Xin cursed inwardly, then swam towards the center with all her might. Just as she grabbed Gu Shuohan's hand and steadied them, she heard a faint voice coming from inside the cave.

"I never expected you to still be alive after all this! An Xin, how can you be so resilient!" The voice grew increasingly sinister, even tinged with a murderous rage. "But it doesn't matter, you're about to die. What you owe me, everything you stole, will come back to you! Hahaha..."

Hearing Anna's almost insane remarks, An Xin cursed inwardly. She wanted to retort, but couldn't open her mouth; otherwise, the Yin-Yang Spring water would be poured into her mouth. This infuriated and frustrated An Xin.

"Good sister, I'll see you off now! Hahaha..." With the monstrous and arrogant laughter, the Yin-Yang Spring surged with waves, the vortex grew larger and larger, and the centrifugal force became excessively strong.

With her last bit of strength, An Xin took a deep breath, pulled Gu Shuohan closer, hugged him tightly, cast a light-based shield on them, and then lost consciousness in the turbulent spring water.

Unaware of what was happening, the two were swept into the center of the whirlpool by the current and disappeared into the spring water in no time. Anna stood there for a long time, until the spring water returned to normal and she saw no one rise to the surface, then she let out a soft hum and flew away on her sword.

........................

"It hurts..." A rough, hoarse groan escaped the handsome man's lips. Gu Shuohan's thick eyelashes trembled incessantly, his eyes darting left and right. He struggled to open his eyes, only to be met with a grayish-blue sky, cloudless and devoid of sunlight. The cold, dampness all over his body made the Second Young Master Gu extremely uncomfortable; he shifted his body, a sharp pain shooting through his neck.

A chilling sensation, penetrating to the bone, emanated from his waist down. He looked down and saw that his lower body was still submerged in the water. The river was as black as ink, and its surface was unusually wide. The opposite bank was faintly shrouded in thick fog, with only sporadic glimmers of red light visible.

Where am I? How did I get here?

Gu Shuohan had just started to get up when he was pinned to the spot by a fair, jade-like arm. Only then did he realize that his head was resting on an unusually soft surface. Turning his head, he saw a delicate, petite face before him. The face belonged to An Xin, whose long, damp hair clung to her pale face. One hand was holding Gu Shuohan's, while the other arm was tightly wrapped around his chest and abdomen, her body slightly bent over.

One can only imagine how tightly she protected herself in the water. Only when he turned his head again did he belatedly realize that he was resting his head on An Xin's ample bosom…

Gu Shuohan, whose body temperature had instantly risen, used all his strength to break free from An Xin's embrace.

When he calmed down and looked around, he found that it was just a riverbank with nothing there. He had to walk a while before there was a forest, which was really gloomy and terrifying. So he decided to stay on the riverbank and wait for An Xin to wake up before discussing what to do next.

Sitting beside An Xin, Gu Shuohan noticed she seemed to be shivering, her lips turning purple from the cold. He glanced at himself and An Xin, both wearing thin summer pajamas; An Xin's pajamas even had many charred and torn areas, revealing large expanses of pale skin. Gu Shuohan's face flushed again…

"What a vixen... Since you saved me, I'll reluctantly hug you..."

As if doing some mental preparation and self-hypnosis, Gu Shuohan muttered to himself for a while before picking up An Xin and holding her in his arms. Only then did he truly feel the coldness of An Xin's skin. If it weren't for the slight rise and fall of her chest, Gu Shuohan would have thought he was holding a dead person.

Gu Shuohan kept rubbing An Xin's arms, trying to warm her up. But in less than half a minute, An Xin's skin began to heat up, turning visibly red. Holding her increasingly hot body in his arms, Gu Shuohan felt that much of the chill within him was being dispelled.

"Hot..." An Xin murmured, her whole body starting to sweat... Gu Shuohan didn't know what was going on either, he just thought that An Xin might have caught a cold and had a fever, so he tried hard to recall how the servants in his family helped him cool down when he was sick as a child.

He took off his shirt, revealing his well-built physique; his muscles stretched and trembled gently with his movements. He soaked his shirt in water, wrung it out, and walked back to Anxin, wiping her forehead, neck, palms, and legs…

After repeating the actions several times, An Xin's furrowed brows relaxed slightly. Gu Shuohan then let out a breath and pulled her into his arms again.

"I never expected that someone so petite would have such muscular build..." Gu Shuohan muttered to himself to ease his embarrassment and the strange, tingling sensation.

While the handsome man was talking to himself, An Xin's soul was fighting against the forces of Yin and Yang in her sea of ​​consciousness.

"Xinxin, do you still remember the Tai Chi Yin Yang Fist? Try guiding the two forces into the golden platform of your Divine Palace."

"……good……"

She struggled to her feet, began to move slowly within her sea of ​​consciousness... After a while, as her movements became more fluid and skillful, the yin and yang energies surrounding her seemed like obedient pets who had found their master, allowing An Xin to knead and shape them in her hands.

After the ninth repetition of the Tai Chi Yin Yang Fist, An Xin flicked his hand, sending the rotating Yin and Yang energies flying towards the golden platform and hovering in the center.

"It's done!" Di Ting was overjoyed and circled around An Xin. "In the future, when using Yin-Yang Water to temper the body, we can use this method. First, it will temper the body, and second, it will increase the Yin and Yang energies to prepare for the fusion of the Five Elements in the future."

"Alright, alright! We've finally finished. I wonder how things are outside. I'm heading out now!"