He wasn’t offended by her remark, as he knew Qin Ruqing’s nature—she always thought practically and rarely had emotional reactions.

To demonstrate the jade’s uniqueness, Tang Zifeng pinched the sculpture with his fingers, breaking it apart right in front of Qin Ruqing.

“Hey! Xiao Tang, what are you doing?”

But the shattered jade didn’t fall to the ground.

Instead, it transformed into fine streams of light, flowing from Tang Zifeng’s fingers and gradually dispersing into the air.

The glowing jade fragments floated around like green fireflies.

This time, Qin Ruqing gave a genuine exclamation of wonder.

Hearing her reaction, Tang Zifeng smiled, and with a wave of his hand, the scattered lights gathered again, forming the small sculpture of Qin Ruqing once more.

He handed the jade back to her and said, “This is why it’s called glowing jade.”

Though giving a small jade sculpture wasn’t necessarily going to win Qin Ruqing over (though giving her spirit stones would certainly work), this glowing, firefly-like jade sculpture truly delighted her.

This kind of strange and rare thing was exactly to Qin Ruqing’s taste.

This time, she took the jade sculpture with much more appreciation, mimicking Tang Zifeng’s demonstration by breaking and reforming it several times before finally putting it away, cherishing it.

Tang Zifeng stood by, smiling as he watched her.

Noticing his smile, something flashed in Qin Ruqing’s mind.

She vaguely felt it was familiar but couldn’t quite recall.

Since she couldn’t remember, she let it go and resumed practicing mental communication techniques with Tang Zifeng.

But this calculation unexpectedly backfired!

During the mental communication, she suddenly remembered.

“Hey, didn’t the Illusion Xiao Tang give me a similar little trinket?”

This thought echoed in Tang Zifeng’s mind as if it were spoken through a loudspeaker.

He froze, then opened his eyes in surprise. “Who’s Illusion Xiao Tang?”

He spoke through his mental thoughts.

Qin Ruqing was startled, instinctively blurting out, “Oh no! Now Xiao Tang knows about the Illusion realm!”

Unfortunately, she had forgotten they were still in mental communication, so Tang Zifeng heard this as well.

At the same time, the image of Illusion Tang Zifeng giving her a small wooden carving also surfaced in her mind.

By the time Qin Ruqing realized what had happened, she quickly pulled back, retreating a few steps.

Her clear eyes widened in rare shock.

Seeing Tang Zifeng looking at her with an expression she had never seen before, Qin Ruqing forced a dry laugh, trying to play dumb:

“Haha, Xiao Tang, you didn’t hear anything, right?”

Tang Zifeng seemed lost in thought, his mind still lingering on what he had just heard.

After a pause, he hesitantly asked, “Is Illusion Xiao Tang… me?”

“Ahem, well, he looks just like you, so of course it’s you! It’s a version of you I dreamed about. In the dream, you also gave me a small carving, though it was made of wood… Funny, isn’t it, how you always give me these kinds of things?”

Tang Zifeng’s expression grew serious.

At this point, he was unusually difficult to deceive.

“No, a dream is just a dream. Knowing how meticulous you are, how could you call a dream a ‘realm’ in a mental communication session?”

This wasn’t just self-deception.

Qin Ruqing clamped her mouth shut.

Tang Zifeng was already tracing the clues, his dark eyes probing as he looked at Qin Ruqing. “The Xiao Tang in that illusion seemed quite intimate with you, not like an ordinary person.”

Hah, if it were a Dao partner, of course, it wouldn’t be just anyone.

Qin Ruqing could only awkwardly smile.

“Can we infer that in some kind of illusion, you and I—or rather, someone identical in appearance and identity to me—had a relationship that was closer than ordinary, sustained over a considerable time?” Tang Zifeng said.

Did he really have to be this perceptive?

Qin Ruqing couldn’t take it anymore and jumped up like a startled shrimp.

“You said it yourself—it was an illusion! An illusion!” she shouted.

Tang Zifeng nodded. “So, it was real, and it did happen.”

Qin Ruqing: …I want to die.

She forced herself to stay composed, glaring sharply at Tang Zifeng and raising her chin. “Today’s mind-melding practice is over!”

With that, she vanished in a few quick steps, her figure darting over the rocky islets until she disappeared.

Tang Zifeng was left staring thoughtfully in the direction Qin Ruqing had fled.

For the next seven days, Qin Ruqing avoided practicing mind-melding with Tang Zifeng altogether.

During this time, she rigorously honed her mind control techniques, ensuring that from then on, her thoughts would always be precise and never stray into unrelated content.

Tang Zifeng didn’t actively seek her out; he was entangled with the Grandmasters, busy with the forging of the divine artifact, and his time was already tight.

After seven days, Qin Ruqing decided to take the initiative.

She called for Tang Zifeng, and when she saw him, she provocatively said, “You’ve been slacking lately. Why haven’t you come looking for me? Finding the Sixth Domain is crucial, so we must continue our practice.”

Tang Zifeng opened his mouth to speak, but Qin Ruqing quickly interrupted, “Today, let’s up the difficulty…”

Tang Zifeng fell silent, watching Qin Ruqing with a deep gaze before giving a quiet hum.

With the full cooperation of the Grandmasters, the artifact designed to aid Qin Ruqing in locating the Sixth Domain was finally forged.

On that day, forty-seven bolts of heavenly thunder struck down from the sky above the cultivation world—a staggering number.

For any Grandmaster, it would be an achievement worth boasting about for a lifetime, but in this moment, it wasn’t quite enough.

To truly form a divine artifact, it needed to endure forty-nine bolts of heavenly thunder.

With only forty-seven, it fell two bolts short and couldn’t be considered a genuine divine artifact.

Tang Zifeng’s lips bled, and his breath was weak.

He stubbornly stared at the thunderclouds that had yet to dissipate and attempted to summon more lightning.

This forging session used the ancient technique of “forging with one’s own body,” and since Tang Zifeng was the one truly receiving this inheritance and linked to the artifact’s consciousness, he had to endure at least twenty percent of the thunder tribulation’s power.

This was already a reduced burden because the artifact wasn’t his life-bound weapon.

If it were, and Tang Zifeng’s body and the artifact were one, he would have to endure the entire force of the tribulation.

But even at twenty percent, forty-seven bolts of thunder had left Tang Zifeng barely hanging on.

Minghua frowned at him. “That’s enough, Zifeng. The thunderclouds have dispersed; no more bolts will come! Even if you summon them, you’re in no state to withstand them!”

The other Grandmasters, though disappointed, saw that the situation was settled and urged him to stop.

Yet Tang Zifeng’s will to summon lightning did not waver, and the thunderclouds above thickened, rumbling ominously without releasing further strikes, creating an oppressively intense atmosphere.

The crowd was uneasy.

They couldn’t understand why Tang Zifeng was pushing himself to the brink.

Was this the conviction of a Grandmaster craftsman, to forge a true divine artifact at all costs?

But he was still so young.

He had already faced forty-seven strikes—crafting an artifact capable of withstanding forty-nine was just a matter of time. Why this relentless insistence now?

Minghua, however, seemed to grasp something and looked over at Qin Ruqing, calling loudly, “Fairy Ruqing, perhaps you can persuade him. The power of the tribulation is spent; no more lightning will come. He’s only harming himself by holding onto the storm.”

Qin Ruqing’s brow furrowed deeply.

She flew to Tang Zifeng’s side beneath the thunderclouds.

Tang Zifeng used the last of his strength to raise his eyes, pushing her away with his hand. “Go… the tribulation might… affect you.”

Qin Ruqing’s voice was cold. “Nonsense! There’s no power left; the lightning’s spent!”

Tang Zifeng remained silent.

Qin Ruqing glanced at him a few times, then suddenly raised her voice, using spiritual energy to transmit her words to the surrounding family heads and onlookers: “Everyone, the divine artifact is complete. I’ve had some insights recently, and I plan to activate it in seven days to search for the Sixth Domain. I hope you will all cooperate!”

Standing on a cloud, Feng Qinxue glanced at Tang Zifeng, then at Qin Ruqing, and nodded. “If Master Tang has no objections, I will immediately seek approval from our clan’s Grand Elder.”

Qin Ruqing kicked the still-grounded Tang Zifeng.

When he looked at her, she said expressionlessly, “In seven days, I will activate the artifact, and you will need to protect me. Master Tang, is that a problem?”

After a moment of silent confrontation, it seemed Tang Zifeng finally conceded.

“No problem,” he said, one word at a time.

As his words fell, the gathered thunderclouds finally dissipated.

Daylight broke through.