The deflated cultivator refused to give up and vowed to turn the tables.

"Speaking of which, how did you suddenly jump from a late-stage four-star cultivator to a mid-stage five-star cultivator? I've been thinking about it for an hour and still can't figure it out. Even the most powerful cultivators have never heard of someone like you. Did you skip a level?" Ou Ruo was both admiring and puzzled.

“I have my own extraordinary encounter. If you behave well, I can give you some pointers later, and you will progress rapidly,” Su Zinong said.

"Really? So, for this part of our journey, I'll pour you tea, hand you water, and warm your bed, and you'll help me improve my cultivation level. What a bargain!" Ou Ruo said excitedly.

"No! Need! To! Warm! Bed!" Su Zinong said irritably.

The two walked for a day and a night and arrived at the Dragon Tiger Strange Slope.

"Driver Ou, when you drive the carriage uphill, does the horse walk particularly slowly and with great effort? When you go downhill, the horse doesn't have to exert as much effort, and the speed increases, right?" Su Zinong asked with a smile.

“What you say makes a lot of sense, yet it seems like you’ve said nothing at all. That’s truly brilliant,” Ou Ruo said calmly, meaning that Su Zinong was talking nonsense.

"What I mean is, you need to be careful when you go to a strange slope later," Su Zinong warned in advance.

When going uphill, the horse and carriage suddenly galloped away without any effort.

Ou Ruo's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets in astonishment. He reined in the horse and turned it back downhill, but the horse was exhausted and covered in sweat, struggling to walk down the slope step by step, making the carriage move extremely slowly.

Su Zinong jumped off the carriage, and Ou Ruo curiously came over and asked, "What kind of strange place is this? The uphill and downhill slopes seem to have been reversed."

“You’re right, the slopes are reversed.” With that, Su Zinong took out a luminous pearl and placed it on the strange slope. Instead of rolling downhill, the pearl rolled uphill.

"Wow, I've never seen anything like this before. Nobody would believe me if I told them," said Aurora. "What could possibly cause this?"

“There are so many strange things in the world! Legend has it that this mountain was no different from other places, and there were no strange things. This hillside originally sloped from south to north. But later, at some unknown time, two immortals came and fought here, causing chaos in the world. This slope changed from sloping from south to north to sloping from north to south,” Su Zinong said.

“Actually, I can only guess that there’s something unusual about the earth’s energy here. Since we’re here, let’s look around and see if there’s anything else strange or unusual.” Su Zinong pulled Ou Ruo along and used his movement technique.

The two searched for two hours before finally finding a hidden rocky cave at the top of the slope.

Su Zinong was skilled in observing qi (vital energy), and seeing that the spiritual energy of heaven and earth was very strong in this rocky cave, he pulled Ou Ruo into the cave.

Ou Ruowei was initially wary, but after thinking it over, she happily went anyway.

Su Zinong had no time to ponder Ou Ruo's unusual behavior. He said, "If you don't want to come in, you can wait outside. This cave is full of spiritual energy, mainly earth spiritual energy. When we practice, we usually absorb heaven spiritual energy, so coming here to replenish earth spiritual energy will make our cultivation grow rapidly."

“Of course I’m coming in,” Aurora said with a smile. “I was afraid you might have bad intentions towards me, but then I realized I hoped you would have bad intentions towards me. But in the end, I was wrong. I was judging others by my own petty standards.”

"Don't be so smug. You haven't seen how terrifying I can be when I have evil intentions," Su Zinong threatened.

Inside the rock cave, they sat down to cultivate, and sure enough, they didn't want to stop. The earth's spiritual energy flowed into their bodies like a spring, quickly replenishing the earth's spiritual energy they had lacked due to their years of cultivation that had "excessively consumed" heavenly spiritual energy.

Su Zinong practiced for a while, then stopped, pondered for a moment, and took out the yellow spirit stone that Xinyangzi of Chaoxia Mountain had given him. Yellow belongs to earth; could it resonate with the earth's spiritual energy here?

Su Zinong thought for a moment and then picked up the yellow spirit stone to cultivate. Wow! The earth spirit energy that was originally like a small spring was now surging in from all directions, and even the earth spirit energy next to Ou Ruo was absorbed by him.

After practicing for an hour, Su Zinong opened his eyes, stopped, and said, "I feel like I'm surrounded by waves of spiritual energy surging from all directions."

“Let me try it too,” said Aurora. She had spirit stones, but had never used yellow spirit stones before.

Su Zinong didn't refuse and handed her the yellow spirit stone. Ou Ruo practiced for an hour before stopping and saying, "This is truly an unprecedented feeling. Do you only have one yellow spirit stone?"

“Yes,” Su Zinong said, “Let’s take turns using it. This kind of absorption of earth spirit is to replenish the imbalance of heaven and earth spiritual energy that we lacked before. After a few days of practice, it will slow down after it’s replenished, and it will be about the same as other places, so there’s no need to feel sorry about it.”

The two took turns cultivating on the strange slope for ten days before stopping, by which time they could no longer absorb the earth's energy.

Both of them felt their cultivation had greatly increased, almost by half a minor realm, and they were very happy.

"So following Su Zinong, you might lose your life at any moment, or you might advance in cultivation at any moment. Haha..." Ou Ruo concluded.

"Why are you in such a hurry to improve your cultivation level? Your family's guards are already so strong, who would dare to bully you?" Su Zinong asked curiously.

"Didn't you say I have many old friends? And you come to bully me every day, and I have to serve you every day. Now I'm your prisoner. But the day my cultivation surpasses yours and I defeat you, then we'll switch roles and you'll be my prisoner. That'll be interesting," Ou Ruo said with a smile.

"Are you really going to be so frank?" Su Zinong smiled wryly. "I think you're only a year or two younger than me, yet you've already reached the fifth-level cultivation level. Your cultivation is incredibly fast. Does your Heavenly Demon Sect have some strange cultivation methods, like evil arts? Something like male-female cultivation? Otherwise, why would you want to marry me as soon as you capture me? Are you trying to absorb all my yang energy and true qi into your body?"

“Isn’t that your technique? Hahaha…” Ou Ruo said with a laugh, “Now the whole martial arts world is spreading rumors that you practice evil techniques that can absorb people’s true energy.”

“I do know how, so you should be a little worried.” Su Zinong nodded.

Ou Ruo hunted a fox, roasted it, and ate it. She thought it tasted pretty good. Su Zinong gave her a thumbs up and said, "Okay, your skills are good."

Ou Ruoxin thought to herself, "No wonder people often say that to win a man's heart, you must first win his stomach. It seems I need to make better use of my culinary talents in the future."

At this moment, Su Zinong thought to himself, "I didn't expect this woman to be good at grilling meat. Although her skills are just so-so, I have to praise her so that she will work hard to improve her cooking skills. That way, I can have a good meal in the future. Oh dear, it's really too burnt!"

"Sigh, young master, have you ever thought about going to the far west to fight monsters and improve your combat power?" Ou Ruo suddenly asked.

"I did think about going to take a look, but it was just out of curiosity, not to train my combat skills," Su Zinong said.

"Why? Wouldn't it be better to increase combat power?" Ou Ruo asked.

"Improving combat power is certainly good, but going there means fighting those ferocious beasts. To put it bluntly, it's about constantly improving your reaction speed and combat experience through continuous battles. But I don't need to go. I just need to take off my mask, hang a sign on my back that says 'Su Zinong,' and plenty of people will come to fight me." Su Zinong laughed heartily, thinking he was quite humorous.

"What you said is true." Ou Ruo smiled faintly.

“That’s absolutely true. You’ve only been with me for about ten days, and you’ve only mentioned my name once, yet you’re being hunted down by the enemy. There will be many more like this in the future, so you’d better be careful! Not only my enemies, but your enemies will also appear one after another,” Su Zinong said.

"Really? I don't quite believe it." Ou Ruo smiled faintly, like a summer breeze. She thought Su Zinong was just trying to scare her. However, it wouldn't be long before she discovered how undeniably true it was…