425: When love reaches its peak, even metal and stone can be moved.

"Senior Alchemist!"

Liu Yan's voice was clear and firm, carrying a power that pierced through the heart, resounding throughout the entire Huichun Hall.

"We just went to the City Lord's Mansion to request official witnessing and become husband and wife! This is our marriage certificate! Now, I am his lawfully wedded wife, recognized by the government! I, Liu Yan, in the capacity of Han Yan's wife, sign this 'Life-Death Contract'! Please perform the procedure!"

She slammed the marriage certificate, which carried the recognition of secular law and symbolized the simplest of promises, onto the consultation desk with a "slap," her gaze burning like a raging flame as she stared fixedly at the Alchemist.

Boom!

The entire Huichun Hall instantly fell into a deathly silence!

Han Yan shuddered violently and looked up abruptly at Liu Yan, the woman who had accompanied him through countless storms.

At this moment, upon learning that he was suffering from a "terminal illness" and his future was ruined, she had actually chosen without hesitation to use a secular marriage contract to bind herself completely to him!

All just to gain the qualification to sign that "Life-Death Contract" which could potentially lead to her eternal damnation!

A massive shock and surging emotions instantly breached his defenses, and hot tears welled up and spilled from his eyes.

He gripped Liu Yan's hands tightly, his voice choked and broken: "Yan'er... you... why must you do this! Why..." A thousand words were reduced to this heart-wrenching sentence.

The Alchemist was also completely stunned.

He had practiced medicine for hundreds of years and had seen too much of the ugliness of human nature exposed in the face of life and death, and had also seen deep affection and righteousness, but he had never seen such a resolute, such pure display of affection that challenged the ironclad rules of cultivation with a secular marriage certificate!

That bright red marriage certificate, those names side by side, that striking official seal, seemed to carry a force of a thousand jun, slamming fiercely against his Dao Heart that had long been honed to near numbness by the rules.

His hands trembling, he picked up the marriage certificate that still carried Liu Yan's body heat, his fingertips brushing over the bright red official seal.

He then looked at the young "husband and wife" tightly embracing each other in this desperate situation, a complex and indiscernible light flashing in his cloudy old eyes.

After a long time, he heaved a long, deep sigh, filled with both moved emotion and helplessness: "Fine... fine... Where emotion reaches, even metal and stone can be opened. The rules are heartless, but the human path has righteousness... This contract... I will allow you to sign it! Prepare to perform the procedure!"

The process of performing the procedure was suffocatingly tense.

Liu Yan mixed a drop of essential blood from her fingertip with a wisp of her Origin Divine Soul and solemnly signed her name—Liu Yan—on the Jade Slip that the Alchemist had unfurled, which radiated the power of an ancient contract.

When the last stroke fell, the Jade Slip flashed with light, and an invisible force of Karma instantly entwined between her and Han Yan.

Her face turned slightly pale, as if a portion of her vitality had been instantly drained, but her eyes became even more resolute.

The Alchemist's expression was solemn as he took out a "Profound Vein Spirit-Probing Needle" as thin as a cow's hair, shimmering with a cold, ghostly blue light.

He held his breath and focused his mind, concentrating his life's cultivation at the tip of the needle.

Under Liu Yan's gaze, which was so tense she had almost stopped breathing, he slowly and precisely pierced it into the "Spirit-Eroding Black Spot" entrenched at the core of Han Yan's dao foundation!

Time seemed to freeze. Every breath was incredibly long.

Finally, a tiny trace of "ulcer source" carrying an eerie, greyish aura of decay was carefully guided out and dropped into a specially crafted jade bottle.

The Alchemist immediately began a tense examination.

He employed various secret techniques, spiritual light flickering and runes circulating as he repeatedly confirmed the results.

The entire Huichun Hall was silent enough to hear a pin drop, with only the Alchemist's rapid breathing and Han Yan's suppressed groans of pain.

I do not know how much time had passed when the Alchemist's tightly furrowed brows suddenly relaxed.

An expression of incredulous ecstasy appeared on his face, and his voice trembled slightly: "No... it is not the 'Dao-Devouring Demonic Ulcer'! It is 'Yin-Sha Congestion'!

Although it is similar in form and also damages the dao foundation, its nature is much milder and it is not unsolvable!

With just the specific 'Sha-Cleansing and Congestion-Clearing Pill' supplemented by gentle wood-attribute Cultivation Technique recuperation, in time, the congestion will naturally resolve itself! There is hope! There is hope!"

The massive surprise exploded in their minds like a thunderclap!

"Yin-Sha Congestion? Not a terminal illness?!" Han Yan could hardly believe his own ears.

"Brother Yan!"

Liu Yan could no longer hold back and threw herself into Han Yan's arms.

The immense joy of surviving a catastrophe turned into hot tears that gushed out, instantly soaking Han Yan's clothes.

Han Yan also held her tightly, this woman who had gambled everything for him, trembling all over with excitement and speaking incoherently: "It's alright... Yan'er... It's not the Dao-Devouring Demonic Ulcer... There is hope... Thank you... Thank you..."

The "Life-Death Contract" Jade Slip that bound Liu Yan also had most of its terrifying backlash power automatically dissipate because the examination result was not the most dangerous "Dao-Devouring Demonic Ulcer," leaving behind only a faint connection of Karma.

Within Huichun Hall, a moving atmosphere of joy and warmth from surviving a catastrophe permeated the air.

And all of this was clearly "seen" within the Divine Thought of Yao Delong, who sat by the window at the Drunken Immortal Residence.

His hand holding the wine cup hung in mid-air.

The amber wine in the cup reflected the last trace of the setting sun outside the window, and also reflected the extremely rare waves surging in his deep eyes.

That bright red secular marriage certificate... Liu Yan's desperation in defying the rules of cultivation with her secular identity... Han Yan's hot tears bursting forth from despair... The sobbing embrace upon surviving the catastrophe...

These scenes, like the sharpest carving knife, were fiercely gouged into the depths of Yao Delong's heart-lake, which had been silent for eighty years!

What had he experienced?

It was a life in his previous existence spent toiling and rushing for a livelihood; it was the humbleness of when he first entered the Immortal Sect in this life, sitting in dry meditation for eighty years without an inch of progress in cultivation, enduring all the white eyes and mockery, the despair of being regarded as trash by the Sect!

It was the loneliness and inferiority before activating the System, when his Spiritual Power Affinity was only 2, and no one would even pay attention to him when he sought people for Dual Cultivation to obtain yin-yang value!

It was later, when his strength advanced by leaps and bounds, surrounded by beauties, seemingly infinitely glorious, yet he knew deeply how much cold calculation and interest exchange were mixed in, all for the sake of obtaining yin-yang value for the System!

He possessed the gentle attachment of Luo Miaomiao, the fiery affection of Liu Rumei... But those relationships, more or less, carried the shadows of cultivation, interests, and the System.

And what about this pair of Loose Cultivator Dao Companion before him?

Their cultivation was low, and they were living from hand to mouth.

They had no earth-shattering vows, no contracts of living and dying together.

They only had a secular marriage certificate, a choice made without hesitation in a desperate situation, a sentiment so pure that they were willing to bear the Karma of death for each other, without asking for anything in return!

It erupted in a desperate situation with a light that shook the rules!

This had nothing to do with the Great Dao of longevity, nothing to do with Sect interests, and nothing to do with System tasks.

This was the most sincere, most unreserved surrender of two tiny lives to each other under the heavy pressure of fate!

"Where emotion reaches... even metal and stone can be opened..." Yao Delong repeated the Alchemist's sigh in a low voice, his voice barely audible.

His silent Dao Heart seemed to have been cast with a burning hot stone, rippling out circles of unfamiliar ripples.

It was a long-lost emotion called "love." This touch was not about romantic entanglements, but rather a shock—and a trace of yearning that even he himself had not yet realized—for this pure, persistent light in human nature that dared to face death and live!

He put down his wine cup, his fingertips tapping unconsciously on the tabletop.

His gaze was cast once again in the direction of Huichun Hall, his eyes now completely different from the pure observation of before.