Green Tea Man

Qing Xuanyin stared daggers at Ye Xuan, her entire body trembling violently, her face as pale as paper. Those words, so utterly humiliating, had touched the final boundary—and the deepest taboo—of a heaven’s-pride genius like her.

“Smack!”

It was the heaviest, most vicious slap ever delivered!

Accompanied by a bone-chilling crack, Ye Xuan was sent flying dozens of yards like a cannonball.

He spewed a large mouthful of blood mixed with shattered teeth in midair before crashing into a rockery and burying himself beneath the rubble.

Half the bones in his face had been completely crushed. His left eye was nearly obscured by blood, and even his breathing had become as ragged as a broken bellows.

“Guards!”

Qing Xuanyin looked down from above at Ye Xuan in the ruins, shaking with fury. Not a trace of emotion remained in her voice.

“Ye Xuan has uttered filthy words and disgraced my reputation! Strip him of his status as my fiancé immediately and send him to the Ice Cave at the back of the mountain to reflect on his mistakes for three days! Without my order, no one is to visit him!”

Several Qing Clan disciples from the enforcement hall rushed forward like ravenous wolves. They dragged Ye Xuan, who was gravely wounded and on the verge of death, from the ruins like a dead dog.

This time, Ye Xuan did not struggle or beg for mercy. He did not even utter a cry of pain.

He allowed the enforcement disciples’ chains to pierce through his pipa bones, allowing his blood to spill across the ground.

As he was dragged past Qing Xuanyin, Ye Xuan slightly turned his head. With the only eye he could still open—the right one—he gave Qing Xuanyin a deep look.

There was no anger in that gaze.

No sorrow.

No love.

Only a deathly silence, like ten-thousand-year-old ice capable of freezing the soul itself.

Qing Xuanyin’s heart suddenly clenched. For some inexplicable reason, she felt a nameless terror, as though something immensely important—something precious beyond measure in her life—had completely and forever left her at that very moment.

But she forcibly suppressed that fear, snorted coldly, and swept away with a flick of her sleeve.

In the Ice Cave at the back of the Qing Clan’s mountain, biting cold pierced the air.

The chill radiating from the ten-thousand-year-old profound ice was almost enough to freeze a person’s soul.

Ye Xuan was fastened to an ice pillar with thick chains of cold-forged iron.

His pipa bones had been pierced, half the bones in his face had collapsed, and his cultivation at the Divine Transformation stage was utterly incapable of resisting the bone-deep agony brought on by the extreme cold.

Blood dripped from his wounds, freezing into scarlet ice beads before it could even reach the ground.

Yet under torture severe enough to make even high-level cultivators weep, Ye Xuan was strangely calm.

He did not circulate his energy to heal himself. He merely lowered his head in silence, allowing the cold to seep into every limb and bone.

In his mind, scenes from the past hundred years flashed by like passing glimpses.

The amazement of their first meeting, the tenderness they had shared, the resolve with which he had risked life and limb for her…

And finally, the coldness and disgust that had appeared after Lu Yanchen arrived, followed by slap after merciless slap.

So this was the truth.

Before so-called “repayment of a debt,” a lifetime of wholehearted devotion was worth less than nothing.

Ye Xuan slowly raised his head. Upon that face of mangled flesh, an eerie and icy curve suddenly appeared.

In the darkness of the ice cave, a faint whisper rang out, filled with endless mockery and cruelty:

“Indeed… she really is a scumbag.”

That night in the Ice Cave froze the last trace of warmth in Ye Xuan’s heart.

When his three-day confinement ended and Ye Xuan was released, he had changed completely.

He no longer asked about Qing Xuanyin’s whereabouts. He no longer lingered outside Lu Yanchen’s residence. Even when Qing Xuanyin took the initiative to speak with him, he merely nodded perfunctorily.

However, although he stopped looking for trouble, trouble came looking for him.

Half a month later, the Qing Clan held a gathering for its core disciples beside Bluewave Lake.

As the former “prospective son-in-law,” Ye Xuan had not wanted to attend, but the Qing Clan’s patriarch personally ordered him to go, leaving him no choice.

At the gathering, zithers and flutes played while cups of wine passed from hand to hand. Qing Xuanyin sat in the principal seat, surrounded by admirers like the moon amid stars. Lu Yanchen sat naturally at her side, acting every inch the master of the household.

Ye Xuan sat alone in a corner, pouring himself drink after drink as though none of this had anything to do with him.

Just then, Lu Yanchen walked toward him with a wine cup in hand.

He stopped before Ye Xuan and spoke in a voice only the two of them could hear, his tone brimming with provocation.

“Brother Ye, drinking alone is so dull. It must be difficult watching your fiancée fuss over me, isn’t it?”

Ye Xuan did not even lift his eyelids.

“Get lost.”

A sinister glint flashed through Lu Yanchen’s eyes. Suddenly, his body tilted, and he fell straight backward.

“Splash!”

Water flew in every direction as Lu Yanchen crashed heavily into the unfathomably deep Bluewave Lake behind him.

The next moment, his terrified screams rang out from the lake.

“Help! Xuanyin, save me! My spiritual power has been sealed… Cough, cough!”

The sudden turn of events instantly drew everyone’s attention.

“Yanchen!”

Qing Xuanyin’s expression changed dramatically. In nearly the same instant, she transformed into a streak of light and rushed to the lakeside.

With a wave of her jade-like hand, a gentle azure radiance lifted Lu Yanchen from the lake. His clothes were soaked through, and he was coughing up water.

Lu Yanchen collapsed into Qing Xuanyin’s arms, trembling from the cold, his face deathly pale.

He feebly raised a hand and pointed at Ye Xuan, who sat not far away with a calm expression. His voice trembled as he accused him.

“Xuanyin… it was Brother Ye… I came to offer him a drink out of goodwill, but he suddenly shoved me into the lake… He even secretly sealed my meridians…”

The entire gathering erupted in an uproar!

Everyone turned toward Ye Xuan with contempt and fury in their eyes.

Ye Xuan slowly lowered his wine cup and stood. His tone remained calm as he explained, “I didn’t push him. He jumped in himself. I never touched his meridians.”

“You still dare to deny it!”

Qing Xuanyin whipped around, blazing fury burning in her beautiful eyes.

She looked at Ye Xuan as though he were a hopeless piece of trash.

“Lu Yanchen’s health has always been poor. What reason would he have to jump into this freezing lake on his own?”

“Ye Xuan, you’re petty beyond belief! Just because Yanchen was sitting beside me, you grew jealous and committed such a vicious act?”

“I told you, I didn’t push him.” Ye Xuan looked at her quietly. There was no anger in his eyes, only sorrow.

“You refuse to admit it? Fine!”

Qing Xuanyin laughed in fury. She abruptly raised her hand, and the terrifying pressure of the Tribulation Transcendence stage instantly enveloped Ye Xuan.

“Since you enjoy pushing people into the water, go into the lake yourself and clear your head!”

As Qing Xuanyin spoke those cold, merciless words, an irresistible force slammed into Ye Xuan’s back.

“Boom!”

Ye Xuan was sent plunging straight into Bluewave Lake. Freezing water immediately flooded his nose and mouth.

Bluewave Lake was no ordinary body of water. It was a spirit lake containing an extreme chill, and the cold pierced straight into his bones.

Ye Xuan struggled desperately toward the surface. Just as he managed to raise his head above the water and draw a great breath of air, Qing Xuanyin stood on the shore, her gaze icy.

She pressed down with her jade-like hand once more.

A tremendous force crashed down, forcing Ye Xuan’s head beneath the water.

“Gurgle…”

Ye Xuan struggled desperately in the water as the air was slowly forced from his lungs. The agony of suffocation made his eyes roll back.

Just as he was about to lose consciousness, the force finally loosened slightly. Acting on instinct, Ye Xuan burst through the surface and began coughing violently, hacking up nothing but lake water streaked with blood.

Yet before he could catch his breath, Qing Xuanyin’s hand pressed him down again.

Once, twice, three times…

In full view of the entire Qing family, Qing Xuanyin was like a merciless executioner, repeatedly forcing her own fiancé into the icy lake to torment him.

Only when Ye Xuan’s body had gone limp, nearly lifeless, floating on the surface like a torn rag, did Lu Yanchen seize Qing Xuanyin by the sleeve.

“Xuanyin… that’s enough…”