Xiao Honglian’s fingernails had dug deep into the creases of her palms, but even that sharp pain was less than one ten-thousandth of the agony in her heart.
She truly wanted to strike. She wanted to summon the Eight Desolations Heaven-Refining Flame without regard for the consequences and burn this woman who had stolen everything from her to ashes!
But… she sorrowfully and helplessly realized that she did not dare.
Even if Ye Jiuhuang merely stood there, a single strand of True Immortal law circulating around her would be enough to reduce Xiao Honglian, a Flame Emperor in the Mahayana realm, to ashes.
What made Xiao Honglian feel even more desperate was this:
She had always believed herself to be breathtakingly beautiful, with few equals in the world.
Yet at this moment, as she looked at Ye Jiuhuang before her, she felt a deep sense of inferiority.
Ye Jiuhuang’s beauty was pure and immaculate, lofty and untouchable—a divine beauty. There was not the slightest trace of worldly vulgarity about her, as though she were a snow lotus blooming above the Ninth Heaven.
By comparison, although Xiao Honglian was likewise stunning, she had been stained by too much slaughter and obsession. Perhaps because she had once given herself to Xiao Huo, she carried an extra trace of worldly coarseness and the bitterness of a wronged wife.
She could not compare.
Whether it was strength, status, or the weight she carried in Ye Xuan’s heart, she had been crushed from every angle, ground into dust without a single blind spot.
“By the way, Junior Sister.”
Just as jealousy gnawed madly at Xiao Honglian’s heart, Ye Jiuhuang spoke again.
She smiled sweetly, as though chatting with a distant relative. “The wedding robes for the ceremony have already been commissioned. I ordered them to be made from the silkworm silk of the Star River of the Ninth Heaven, crafted day and night. But my husband has always been so particular. He insists that the color isn’t vivid enough and demands that I hunt a ninth-grade divine phoenix and use its true blood to dye them. Junior Sister, don’t you think he’s being a little overbearing?”
How was that a complaint?
It was plainly a display of Ye Xuan’s extreme favoritism toward her, flaunted before an old acquaintance!
Xiao Honglian’s mouth hung open like a fish pulled from water. She gasped desperately, yet could not make a sound.
Tears flowed silently down her face, blurring her vision completely.
Ye Xuan gently held Ye Jiuhuang in his arms. His cold gaze swept over Xiao Honglian, who was trembling on the ground like a sieve, and a trace of undisguised mockery entered his voice.
“Why tell her all this, my love? Junior Sister has spent all these years cultivating in a remote place like the Endless Flame Domain. How could she understand anything about the silkworm silk of the Star River of the Ninth Heaven? On the day of the wedding, all she needs to do is sit quietly among the ordinary guests and have a cup of wine.”
An ordinary guest.
Those two words completely severed the last sliver of hope in Xiao Honglian’s heart.
She was a guest—and not even one important enough to be seated among the honored guests. She was merely an ordinary attendee.
Ye Jiuhuang saw Xiao Honglian’s miserable state and knew that she had achieved the purpose of declaring her sovereignty.
A knowing cunning flashed through her ethereal eyes. Then she smiled with perfect consideration.
“My husband is right. I’ve talked too much and neglected Junior Sister.”
Ye Jiuhuang glanced at the sky. With practiced ease, she released Ye Xuan’s hand and said softly, “The Grand Elder of Internal Affairs should still be waiting for me to confirm the varieties of spirit wine for the banquet. The wedding preparations are so busy, with a thousand matters to handle, so I’ll be leaving first. My husband, be sure to entertain Junior Sister properly. Don’t neglect our guest.”
With that, Ye Jiuhuang rose gracefully onto her toes.
Under Xiao Honglian’s suddenly constricted gaze, so despairing it seemed blood might drip from it, Ye Jiuhuang and Ye Xuan kissed.
At that moment, Xiao Honglian heard the sound of her own heart shattering.
She closed her eyes, tears surging forth like a breached dam, while her body trembled uncontrollably.
A moment later, the two parted.
Ye Jiuhuang turned back and gave Xiao Honglian a smile worthy of the perfect hostess. “Junior Sister, I’ll take my leave. Be sure to have a few extra cups of wine on the day of the wedding.”
As her voice faded, Ye Jiuhuang transformed into a dazzling golden sword-light and shot into the heavens, vanishing into the depths of the sea of clouds and leaving behind only a refreshing fragrance.
With Ye Jiuhuang’s departure, the True Immortal pressure that had enveloped the heavens and earth also dispersed.
Yet Xiao Honglian felt that the air around her had become even colder, even more suffocating than before.
On the vast expanse of clouds in the void, only Ye Xuan and Xiao Honglian remained.
The atmosphere instantly plunged from its earlier tenderness into an abyss of ice that seemed to have endured for ten thousand years.
The warmth on Ye Xuan’s face vanished the instant Ye Jiuhuang disappeared. With his hands clasped behind his back, he looked down at Xiao Honglian, who had collapsed on the clouds. His gaze was as cold as if he were looking at a lifeless stone.
Xiao Honglian stared blankly at him.
The kiss that had seared her eyes kept replaying in her mind, as did the look in Ye Xuan’s eyes whenever he gazed at Ye Jiuhuang.
Sourness, despair, unwillingness, jealousy…
Countless emotions fermented and exploded wildly in her chest.
Trembling, she forced herself upright. The blow had been so devastating that she could not even stand. She could only kneel on the clouds in an utterly humiliating and submissive posture.
She raised her head. Her breathtaking face was streaked with tears and blood. In a voice hoarse to the extreme, as though her throat were filled with shards of glass, she asked forlornly, “You… you really are going to marry her?”
How ridiculous. How tragic.
Her wedding robes were already being made, and the invitations had already been sent out.
And yet she still refused to give up. She still wanted to hear him say it himself.
Ye Xuan lowered his head to look at her. Without the slightest hesitation, he nodded decisively.
“Yes.”
That single word completely shattered her hopes.
Xiao Honglian’s body lurched, and tears of despair once again burst from her eyes.
She bit down hard on her lip, clutching the hem of her skirt with both hands. Summoning the last trace of strength in her body, she asked the question whose answer she feared most, yet which she had to ask like a moth throwing itself into a flame.
“Do… do you love her?”
The moment she asked, Xiao Honglian even stopped breathing.
She stared fixedly into Ye Xuan’s eyes, afraid she might miss even the slightest change in his expression.
If Ye Xuan said that he loved her, then Xiao Honglian’s regret over the past several thousand years, all her obsession, would truly become a complete and utter joke!
Hearing the question, Ye Xuan did not answer immediately.
He frowned slightly, as though seriously considering it.
The wind swept through the void, lifting Ye Xuan’s white robes.
An unreadable light flickered in his deep black eyes.
A moment later, under Xiao Honglian’s tense gaze—so tense that her heart seemed ready to leap from her throat—Ye Xuan slowly shook his head. His expression remained calm, and in an utterly objective tone, he said four words:
“Not very much.”
The instant those words were spoken, it was as though lightning had struck Xiao Honglian’s mind!
In the eyes that had already fallen completely silent, that had already descended into the depths of despair, an incredible, wildly ecstatic light suddenly erupted.
He did not love her!
He did not love Ye Jiuhuang very much!
That realization was like injecting the dying Xiao Honglian with the most powerful cardiac stimulant in existence.
Her entire body trembled with excitement, as though she had seized the only lifeline in the world. The confidence that Ye Jiuhuang had crushed to pieces miraculously rekindled from the ashes at that very moment!
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.
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”
rowess are unmatched, commanding a million-strong army! Yet, the Emperor wants to depose him for the sake of a false prince? Hold on, are you throwing me into some female-oriented romance plot? How can I tolerate this? With a grand wave of his hand—the Nine Clan Extraction Technique! Slander the Emperor? Very well, all of you shall die! ... The False Prince: "Although I am not the biological son, Father and Mother love me more. The throne should be mine!" The Female Lead: "Qin Xiao, you are the Emperor, and I am a commoner. If you wish to marry me, you must abdicate. Otherwise, you will never have me!" The Empress: "After we divorce, you must give me half the empire!" The Transmigrator Consort: "You worthless Emperor, why should I kneel to you? All men are equal—I advise you to be kind!" The Great General: "The enemy general is my childhood sweetheart. For her sake, I willingly abandon the frontier defenses!" The Retired Emperor: "Although Yu'er was adopted, I prefer him. Qin Xiao, you should abdicate and let him become Emperor!" ... Very well! So this is how you want to play? Facing this twisted world of female-oriented tropes, Qin Xiao grins and raises his hand to unleash—the Nine Clan Extraction Technique! I am the Emperor. Why would I bother reasoning with you? Seal the gates! Leave none alive!
