In the days that followed, Lu Yanchen became even more outrageous, claiming to have been poisoned one day and assassinated the next.
Qing Xuanyin, as always, was manipulated by him until she was completely wrapped around his finger. She became extremely cold toward Ye Xuan, even taking the cultivation resources meant for him and giving them to Lu Yanchen to help him recover.
But Ye Xuan no longer cared.
He immersed himself in cultivation, using excruciating pain to temper his Dao heart as he attempted to break through the shackles of the Spirit Transformation stage.
Until one day, Lu Yanchen came to him of his own accord.
This time, he was not pretending to be ill. He stood with his hands behind his back, a victor’s arrogant smile spread across his face.
“Brother Ye, it seems that losing a kidney has made you much more obedient.”
Lu Yanchen sneered at Ye Xuan, who was sitting cross-legged. “I came today to inform you of something. Xuanyin is destined to belong to me. You’d better know your place and leave the Qing clan on your own.”
Ye Xuan slowly opened his eyes and looked at Lu Yanchen with utter disdain. “You’re thinking too much. Xuanyin has never belonged to you.”
“How dare you look down on me?”
Lu Yanchen roared, his face twisting viciously. “She does whatever I say now. I’m the only one she loves. You’re nothing but a worthless cripple whose usefulness has been completely drained!”
Ye Xuan shook his head, a self-mocking smile curling at the corner of his lips. “Lu Yanchen, even now, you still haven’t seen the truth?”
“She doesn’t love you. She doesn’t love me either. The only person she has ever loved is herself.”
Ye Xuan rose to his feet, his eyes filled with mockery. “The reason she has helped you so much and obeyed your every command isn’t because she loves you. It’s only because she wants to eliminate the inner demon formed from killing her own elder sister.”
“You’re nothing more than a tool she uses to stabilize her Dao heart on the path of cultivation.”
“For the sake of this tool, she could sacrifice me, her fiancé, without the slightest hesitation. So one day, when your existence begins to obstruct her path to the Great Dao…”
“She was willing to sacrifice me, her childhood companion and fiancé. Do you really think she wouldn’t sacrifice you?”
Every word struck at the deepest part of Lu Yanchen’s heart, like a sharp blade piercing through his most secret fear.
But Lu Yanchen quickly suppressed the unease stirring within him. He scoffed contemptuously and sneered, “You’re just refusing to admit defeat! She’s madly in love with me! Still, since you’re so unwilling to accept this, why don’t we make a bet?”
“What kind of bet?” Ye Xuan asked expressionlessly.
Lu Yanchen gave a sinister laugh. “I’ve secretly spent a fortune hiring a Tribulation Transcendence-stage demonic cultivator who is being hunted by all the major sects. Tomorrow, he’ll infiltrate the Qing clan, capture both of us, and take us to a forbidden land. He’ll give Qing Xuanyin enough time to save only one person.”
“Who do you think she’ll save when it comes down to life and death?”
Ye Xuan froze for a moment.
Looking at Lu Yanchen’s nearly crazed, gambler-like expression, Ye Xuan found the whole thing absurd. But after a moment, he slowly nodded.
“Fine.”
He decided to make one last attempt. Not to prove that Qing Xuanyin loved him, but to sever the final trace of foolish attachment buried deep within his heart—so faint that it was almost imperceptible.
The next day, everything suddenly changed.
A black demonic hand, vast enough to blot out the sky and sun, descended upon the rear mountain of the Qing clan. Before anyone could react, it seized both Ye Xuan and Lu Yanchen and carried them away.
At a sheer cliff tens of thousands of miles away, Ye Xuan and Lu Yanchen were bound tightly by black demonic energy at the edge of the precipice. Below the cliff raged the Nine Nether Astral Winds, capable of devouring every living creature.
“You audacious fiend!”
Less than half an incense stick of time later, an enraged female shout rang out across the sky.
Qing Xuanyin held the Supreme Azure Heaven Sword in her hand. Like a divine being enraged, she tore through the void and descended above the cliff.
“Heh heh heh… The young lady of the Supreme Qing clan certainly arrived quickly.”
The Tribulation Transcendence-stage demonic cultivator, concealed within a cloud of black mist, let out a shrill laugh. In his hand, he held two chains of demonic energy connected to the life force of Ye Xuan and Lu Yanchen.
“This seat has no patience to waste on you. Now, this seat will throw them both into the Nine Nether Astral Winds. You have only enough time to save one of them. The other will undoubtedly die!”
“Don’t you dare!” Qing Xuanyin shouted, her eyes nearly splitting with rage as sword qi surged into the heavens around her.
“Let’s see whether this seat dares!”
The demonic cultivator sneered and abruptly loosened the chains in his hand.
Ye Xuan and Lu Yanchen plummeted simultaneously into the terrifying abyss below, its depths impossible to see.
“Xuanyin! Save me! I don’t want to die!”
Lu Yanchen let out a shrill, desperate scream, snot and tears covering his face.
Ye Xuan, however, remained silent. He simply continued falling, his gaze piercing through the void as he stared fixedly at Qing Xuanyin above.
As Qing Xuanyin watched the two men fall, an expression of intense struggle and pain appeared on her face.
She looked at the silent Ye Xuan, then at the sobbing Lu Yanchen.
The tragic image of her elder sister’s blood-soaked body in her final moments exploded once more in her mind.
“I’m sorry, Ye Xuan…”
Qing Xuanyin bit through her lip and suddenly changed direction, shooting toward Lu Yanchen like a bolt of lightning.
At the edge of the abyss, she seized Lu Yanchen’s hand and hurled him forcefully toward the safety of the cliff above.
“Since you’ve chosen him, the other one is useless!”
The instant Qing Xuanyin saved Lu Yanchen, the demonic cultivator let out a cold laugh. He turned around and struck out with his palm, gathering terrifying destructive power from the Tribulation Transcendence stage before slamming it into Ye Xuan, who was still falling.
Boom!
Ye Xuan’s body was shattered in midair like a broken sack, most of it blown apart.
His sternum collapsed, his meridians were severed, and blood sprayed from his mouth as his entire body was sent crashing into a jutting section of the cliff face like a meteor. He lay there, his life hanging by a thread.
“Ye Xuan!”
Qing Xuanyin cried out in shock and tried to rush over to save him, but the demonic cultivator had already swung his demonic blade and engaged her in battle.
The two of them erupted into a devastating clash in midair.
Qing Xuanyin attacked in fury, unleashing the full power of the Supreme Azure Physique and forcing the demonic cultivator back again and again until he coughed up blood.
“As expected of the Qing clan’s prodigy. You truly are formidable! This seat has no intention of playing with you any longer!”
Seeing that the situation was turning against him, the demonic cultivator borrowed the force of their collision and flew backward.
But before fleeing, he suddenly turned around and looked toward Ye Xuan, who lay below, his fate unknown. Then he shouted loudly:
“Ye Xuan, kid! You spent a fortune hiring this seat to put on this little act, hoping to test this woman’s true feelings. It seems your plan has failed completely!”
“She didn’t choose you! That palm strike was this seat’s lesson to you. As for the remaining payment, this seat doesn’t want it either!”
With that, the demonic cultivator took a communication jade slip bearing Ye Xuan’s aura and a bag of top-grade spirit stones from his robes, then hurled them forcefully onto the cliff. He transformed into a mass of black mist and vanished completely into the horizon.
The cliff fell utterly silent.
Qing Xuanyin descended to the ground and picked up the communication jade slip and the spirit stones, her face ashen.
Ye Xuan’s spiritual energy clearly still lingered on the jade slip.
She turned and walked step by step toward Ye Xuan, who lay in a pool of blood. Every bone in his body was shattered, and he had barely a breath left.
Ye Xuan struggled to open his eyes, which were blurred by blood. He looked at Qing Xuanyin, his voice as faint as a thread.
“Xuanyin… why… why didn’t you choose me…?”
Qing Xuanyin, however, offered no explanation.
The concern and guilt in her eyes transformed into utter coldness, fury, and deep disgust the instant she saw the forged evidence.
“Why wouldn’t I choose you?”
Qing Xuanyin hurled the jade slip viciously into Ye Xuan’s face, trembling with rage. “Ye Xuan, how dare you even ask? Just because you were jealous, you actually went so far as to hire evil cultivators to stage this despicable ploy of playing the victim!”
“Do you have any idea what would have happened if I’d arrived even a moment later? Yanchen would have been torn to pieces by the Nine Nether Astral Wind! Do you really want him dead that badly?”
Ye Xuan tried to explain that it was all Lu Yanchen’s scheme, but the blood rising in his throat choked off his words.
Looking at the utter contempt in Qing Xuanyin’s eyes, he suddenly felt that any explanation would be meaningless.
“I’m completely disappointed in you.”
Qing Xuanyin took a deep breath, staring at him as though he were a pile of revolting trash. “Guards! Drag this vile, malicious beast back and throw him in the dungeon! Without my permission, no one is to treat him!”
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.”
grated, and just when he finally managed to get into an elite academy, he discovered that he actually had a system, and the way to earn rewards was extremely ridiculous. So for the sake of rewards, he had no choice but to start acting ridiculous as well. Su Cheng: "It's nothing but system quests after all." But later, what confused Su Cheng was that while he was already quite ridiculous, he never expected those serious characters to gradually become ridiculous too. And the way they looked at him became increasingly strange... (This synopsis doesn't do it justice, please read the full story)
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…
