“Shen. Qing. Shuang!”
Ye Jiuhuang’s voice seemed to be squeezed out of the depths of the Nine Nether Hells, laden with boundless venom and killing intent.
Seeing Ye Jiuhuang’s face twist with extreme rage, Shen Qingshuang felt an unprecedented thrill of revenge rise within her.
Not only was she not the least bit afraid, she pressed herself even more tightly into Ye Xuan’s embrace.
Shen Qingshuang lifted her chin slightly and held up the bloodstained handkerchief in her hand. Looking at Ye Jiuhuang, her lips curved into an icy, deeply mocking smile.
“My husband... oh, no. Ye Jiuhuang.”
Shen Qingshuang deliberately emphasized the words “my husband,” before changing her form of address with utmost disdain.
“Now that I have offered my first time to Master, I’m terribly sorry to have beaten you to it.”
“You keep claiming that you endured humiliation for the sake of the Sword God Palace. So why is it that, even when it comes to climbing into his bed, you’ve fallen behind a mere bedchamber maid?”
Ye Jiuhuang instantly flew into a towering rage.
Once, Shen Qingshuang had been her wife in name—the Sect Master’s Wife recognized by the entirety of the Sword God Palace.
And now, this “wife,” who had once obeyed her every word, had not only climbed into the bed of the man who had crushed her dignity beneath his feet, but was even waving a handkerchief stained with her maiden’s blood before her, mocking her—the “legitimate wife,” who had not even offered up her body.
“You vile woman!”
Ye Jiuhuang completely lost control!
Her eyes turned blood-red in an instant, her hair whipping wildly about her as the terrifying sword intent of a peak True Immortal erupted. It swept through the hall like a storm of death.
“I’ll kill you, you shameless whore!”
Roaring, Ye Jiuhuang formed a sword with her fingers. A dazzling, terrifying blade of sword light capable of cleaving apart the stars condensed at her fingertips and slashed viciously toward Shen Qingshuang’s brow.
That strike contained all of Ye Jiuhuang’s humiliation and murderous intent. She wanted this wretch who had cuckolded her to be annihilated in body and soul!
Faced with that heaven-destroying strike, Shen Qingshuang did not evade.
She merely looked coldly at Ye Jiuhuang. She even closed her eyes, a smile of liberation on her lips.
If she could die at the height of Ye Jiuhuang’s fury, then her revenge would be complete.
And yet—
“Clang!”
A crisp sound echoed through the hall.
The terrifying sword light, powerful enough to slay even a Great Vehicle cultivator, came to an abrupt halt less than half an inch from Shen Qingshuang’s brow.
Ye Xuan had merely extended two fingers, casually pinching Ye Jiuhuang’s world-destroying sword strike between them.
There was no warmth in his deep eyes as he cast Ye Jiuhuang a cold glance.
With that glance alone, the sword intent Ye Jiuhuang had summoned throughout the hall instantly crumbled. It was as though an ancient divine mountain had slammed into her chest. She let out a muffled groan and staggered back more than a dozen steps, blood spilling from the corner of her mouth.
Ye Jiuhuang instantly regained her senses. Seeing the icy look in Ye Xuan’s eyes, she trembled all over and hurriedly dropped to her knees. Yet her gaze still bored viciously into Shen Qingshuang.
“That bitch, she—”
“Why are you so angry?”
Ye Xuan casually released his fingers, his long, slender knuckles lightly toying with Shen Qingshuang’s silky hair. His voice carried a lazy, lofty authority.
“She is nothing more than a bedchamber maid—a tool for venting desire and warming the bed.”
Ye Xuan looked at Ye Jiuhuang, who was kneeling on the floor. The corners of his lips curled into a wicked smile brimming with charm and control.
“But you... you are the wife I have personally acknowledged.”
At those words, Shen Qingshuang’s entire body stiffened. The satisfaction of revenge that had filled her moments ago instantly froze, replaced by the desolation of being discarded as casually as a used rag.
As for Ye Jiuhuang, the fury and humiliation in her eyes vanished without a trace the instant she heard the words, “you are my wife.”
In their place came an almost pathological ecstasy, along with overwhelmed, flattered disbelief.
“Husband... Y-you mean it?” Ye Jiuhuang raised her head in disbelief. Her peerlessly beautiful, icy face was now filled with fawning excitement. Not a trace remained of the pride once possessed by the First Sword Emperor.
“Of course.”
Ye Xuan replied indifferently, “Our wedding will be held soon. When the time comes, I will announce it to the heavens and all worlds: you, Ye Jiuhuang, shall be my one and only Empress.”
“And as for her...” Ye Xuan casually pinched Shen Qingshuang’s pale cheek. “She is merely a maid trying out the bed in advance. As the Empress, why lower yourself by squabbling with a servant?”
“Yes! Yes, it was Jiuhuang who was narrow-minded! Thank you for your grace, Master! Thank you, Husband!”
Ye Jiuhuang trembled with excitement as she climbed to her feet. She completely ignored Shen Qingshuang, who sat naked upon the bed, her face drained of all color. Instead, she eagerly moved closer to the bedside in an utterly sycophantic manner.
“Husband, since our wedding is to be held soon, where should the ceremony take place? Should we pave the way with Nine Heavens Star River Stone? And those sects that are too blind to submit—Jiuhuang will go tomorrow and slaughter them all, using their blood to lay out a red carpet for you. What do you think?”
Ye Jiuhuang chattered incessantly about the details of the wedding, her eyes gleaming with cruel excitement. She had become utterly immersed in the vanity and power granted by the title of “Empress,” thoroughly transforming into a madwoman completely tamed by Ye Xuan.
“Such trifles are for you to decide. Withdraw. I wish to rest.”
Ye Xuan waved a hand.
“Yes, Husband. Rest well. Jiuhuang shall take her leave! I will immediately begin preparing the grandest wedding in all the heavens!”
With a radiant face, Ye Jiuhuang withdrew from the hall. Before leaving, she even cast Shen Qingshuang a contemptuous glance—the haughty look of a victor—as if to say: See? Even after offering up your body, you are still fit only to be a lowly bedchamber servant!
Bang.
The doors of the bedchamber closed once again.
A deathly silence fell over the hall.
Shen Qingshuang sat blankly upon the dragon bed like a puppet that had lost its soul.
Watching Ye Jiuhuang’s excited yet servile retreating figure, her eyes gradually reddened. At last, great tears spilled uncontrollably down her cheeks.
She had lost.
Lost utterly and completely. Even the last remnants of her dignity had been trampled into the dust.
She had thought that sacrificing her purity for revenge would make Ye Jiuhuang suffer—that it would awaken the Sword Emperor who had once been so proud.
But reality was that Ye Jiuhuang simply did not care!
In Ye Jiuhuang’s heart, so-called love, honor, even the “wife” she had once been, meant less than the title of “Empress” casually bestowed by Ye Xuan!
Shen Qingshuang bit down hard on her lips until they bled. She did not cry out, yet the silent anguish and despair she radiated were more suffocating than any shrill scream.
As he looked at the woman in his arms—her Dao Heart utterly shattered, her despair having reached its depths—
Ye Xuan felt not the slightest sympathy. His gaze remained like a pool of stagnant water: calm and merciless.
Slowly, he lifted a hand. His long fingers gently stroked Shen Qingshuang’s frail back, trembling violently with pain, as though he were petting a pitiful stray cat.
A long sigh, laden with endless mockery and a profound understanding of the coldness of the world, slowly echoed through the vast, lavish bedchamber.
“Don’t cry anymore.”
“Falling in love with her was a mistake from the very beginning.”
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
to panic—he has a system. As long as an investment target dies, he can claim a reward. And since he is immortal, the one thing he has plenty of is time. ... Countless years later. “Immortal Emperor of Longevity? I invested in him.” “Supreme Celestial Venerable? I invested in him.” “Undying Empress? I invested in her.” “...” “Heh. Once they’ve all died, even the Heavenly Dao will have to kneel and call me Dad.”
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
his freshman year, Su Bai accidentally bound the "Indulgence Tycoon System." 【Sleeping in? Reward: +$1,000】 【Spent $288 at a street barbecue stall? Cashback: +$2,880】 【Dropped $14,396 on in-game skins? Special reward unlocked: A brand-new Porsche Panamera!】 Luxury cars, penthouses, corporate shares, financial empires… College life was all about living freely and doing whatever he pleased! … When the adorably naive academic genius faced family medical bills and financial struggles, Su Bai waved his hand dismissively: "Your future is on me." "Wuwu~ Big Brother is so good to me! I’ll become a scientist to repay you!" When the genius girl got bullied by a shady professor? Su Bai casually dropped a billion-dollar investment, forcing the university to grovel and beg for her return. A company’s funding chain collapsing? Su Bai smirked—cash was the one thing he’d never run out of. Years later, when people traced the rise of the AI prodigy beauty, who was the man behind her success? Not just that—Su Bai also became the tsundere campus belle’s unattainable dream, the contrast senior’s daily necessity, and the beautiful counselor’s emotional anchor…
