Stepping on the Demoness to become the strongest

"Anyway, Golden Core Rank directly determines the combat power we cultivators will have after Core Formation. I have a secret technique that can use the battle between the dragon and the tiger to break through the Rank limitations, but the prerequisite is that the Primordial Yang must be preserved until I am ready for the Core Formation Tribulation... Let's not be swayed by fleeting passions and end up ruining our grand cultivation achievements!"

Zhou Hongyu seemed to have taken this to heart and, without moving a muscle, communicated telepathically:

"Then we should stop for now."

Yan Yu breathed a sigh of relief, only to hear Hongyu add:

"Tell Anna not to come looking for you anymore."

Yan Yu: !!!

No, you can't do this! Maintaining good relations with the Eclipse Queen of the Northern Border is key to Lu Country's diplomatic strategy for border stability. You can't disregard the future well-being of the border residents for your own personal desires!

Zhou Hongyu puffed up her cheeks threateningly, and Yan Yu quickly launched into a lengthy explanation of Anna's identity, status, and importance to Lu Country for Hongyu's benefit.

"So, you're courting on behalf of the country?" Zhou Hongyu asked incredulously through telepathy. "What about me, then?"

"Just bear with me," Yan Yu replied.

"You're the one who should be bearing it!" Zhou Hongyu immediately erupted, chatter-chattering nonstop.

Yan Yu was equally startled, quickly holding down her head, but what good would that do, as if you have locked a mouse in the rice storage from the outside? He hurriedly begged for mercy, saying:

"How about this, I will hang up her call first, okay?"

"Don't hang up," Zhou Hongyu commanded, still using telepathy. "Just tell her... that you have a girl you like."

"Anna," Yan Yu quickly turned around and said to the phone with deep affection, "Actually, I have someone I like."

"Mm!" Anna immediately sounded somewhat tearfully grateful, "Don't worry! The girl you like, she likes you, too! She just hopes that you can be more proactive normally and show your affection for her more..."

Zhou Hongyu's eyes widened with anger, nearly clenching her teeth in fury.

Chatter-chatter-chatter-chatter whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh!

Yan Yu shivered violently and hastily called out:

"Ah, I need to pee, goodbye for now!"

He quickly hung up the call, then Yan Yu calmed his mind, suppressing any unnecessary emotions, and afterward, showed an impeccable Chen Lingyun-brand smile, gently saying:

"Good girl, Hongyu, I won't chat with her anymore. Shall I block her for you?"

Just as Yan Yu was about to drag Anna into the blacklist, Zhou Hongyu thought of the Northern Queen's identity and instinctively relented:

"Never mind! I don't necessarily need you to block her..."

Before she could finish speaking, Yan Yu had already performed the Cloud Dividing Eight Trigrams Step and whooshed off to the bathroom.

Take a cold shower! A really cold one! Suppress these idle and distracting desires, dammit!

Seeing him so flustered, Zhou Hongyu suddenly felt a mix of annoyance and regret, thinking did I really mess up his cultivation?

With this thought, she couldn't restrain herself and quietly got out of bed to go to the bathroom door, saying from outside:

"Yan Yu, about your Primordial Yang... is it alright?"

"No problem," came Yan Yu's indifferent voice from inside.

He originally wanted to scare Hongyu by saying that his Primordial Yang was almost ruined because of her, but upon reflection, that would just make him look incompetent. He quickly changed his statement:

"My Primordial Yang is very stable; you don't need to worry about it. But your actions are tantamount to pushing me to the edge of a cliff. Even if I hadn't shattered to pieces from the fall, I can't just forgive you for that."

"...Sorry," Zhou Hongyu said in a small voice.

Yan Yu: ?

With Zhou Hongyu's character being so tough, as if she feared neither heaven nor earth, could she actually be tender enough to apologize to me? Wow, getting to see her reveal such a girlish attitude, I'd be willing to ruin my cultivation path for it!

But he didn't let his pleasure show in his voice, instead continuing to speak indifferently:

"This kind of behavior not only disregards my prospects in cultivation but also ruins your own purity! We aren't even boyfriend and girlfriend yet, how could you do such a thing? Don't you know what self-respect is?"

"Back in high school, I heard them say," Zhou Hongyu defended in a low voice, "those female classmates got boyfriends and, without establishing a relationship, just...just did that."

"What kind of high school was that..." Yan Yu was left speechless, but after thinking carefully, he realized that Hongyu's school was indeed a mess, with the average student quality being what it was, and a chaotic atmosphere couldn't be more normal.

"Is your Primordial Yin still there?" he hurriedly asked to confirm.

"Of course, it is!" Zhou Hongyu subconsciously wanted to explode in anger but, remembering she was at fault this time, quickly lowered her voice, "I got into fights often at school, so... I haven't had a boyfriend, and nobody even dared to come close to me."

"That's good then." Yan Yu let out a long sigh of relief and cautioned, "You must also take good care of your Primordial Yin, it's useful when you go through the Core Formation Tribulation, understand? Don't let curiosity get the better of you and lose it..."

"I won't!" Zhou Hongyu's voice suddenly rose from outside the door, then cooled down again, and she said softly:

"I'll save it for you, I'll definitely save it for you."

"Mhm, mhm." Yan Yu thought to himself that with this level of training, there shouldn't be a problem now, so he relaxed his tone and said:

"Let's put this matter to rest then, I won't pursue it further, you go rinse your mouth."

"Oh."

——————————

Meanwhile, Tang Xiaolian was next door, munching on snacks and sipping tea with the girls from Zhenhai Team, laughing and sharing gossip; she found herself so entertained that she almost forgot her homesickness.

All-female teams are the best! Surrounded by young, pretty, sweet, and soft Jiangnan girls, who speak so nicely, I absolutely love staying here!

Suddenly, they heard a faint "I won't!" coming from across the wall, and the girls were puzzled, turning their heads to look.

"The captain is scrolling through short videos again." Xie Ruoxi stuffed a cookie into her mouth, "I saw him earlier watching those super boring hyper-masculine power fantasy web series."

"Eh, Captain Yan likes that sort of... subject matter?" Tang Xiaolian inadvertently wanted to say vulgar but then thought, can the hobby of Lu Country's number one cultivator be vulgar? Would the country even allow it?

Like if you like to drink red wine and the nation's richest person chooses to drink baijiu, then that baijiu must have more class than red wine! If the nation's richest person drinks baijiu, it proves it's a luxury for the rich, so what's the point of drinking red wine, aren't you the problem?

"What video?" Su Yunjin pulled out her phone, "I want to check it out."

I won't allow the captain to have any interest that I don't know about!

"Hmm..." Xie Ruoxi tilted her head, thinking for a moment, "'Dragon King returns from conquest to find his wife and daughter sleeping in a dog kennel', try searching for this title."

"It's that long?" Literature girl Su Yunjin was shocked, and also, the title... it's not vulgar, okay? Even popular literature at least has value and standards, your title sounds like it belongs to toilet paper literature, used to pass the time while sitting on the toilet!

"Right." Xie Ruoxi explained, "It's about commercial operation, the best is to quickly show the selling point in the title, after all, some readers are too lazy to read the synopsis."

Su Yunjin went silent, started to type, while Lin Ning had already searched, clicked, and was watching with lightning speed.

"Hahaha!" She laughed uncontrollably, "Why does the male lead have to grimace!

"It's quite interesting," said Chen Lingyun, "as a comedy"

"I think it's rather domineering," Zhao Yuanzhen, however, had a different opinion, "Look, when he smiles crookedly, everyone on the other side kneels down, right? A great power should have such might and authority when flipping their hands over, as all beings bow down."

"What's so fun about everyone being afraid of you?" Lin Ning expressed her incomprehension, "It's better if everyone likes you."

"So Ningning, you're not the target audience for this kind of drama," Xie Ruoxi said with a smile.

But Tang Xiaolian wasn't in the mood to watch short videos with them because she had felt that something was off for a while now. As her recollection grew stronger in her mind, the sense of something being amiss intensified.

Wait, that "I won't" from earlier, the voice sounded like...

Captain Zhou?