A Wedding That Started as Pretend but Became Real

Lu Yanchen's cultivation level was not particularly high, but Ye Xuan was on the brink of death from severe injuries right now, completely incapable of putting up any resistance at all.

Every single punch and kick Lu Yanchen threw was driven with full force, deliberately targeting Ye Xuan's existing wounds and his face.

Blood splattered everywhere. Several of Ye Xuan's ribs were broken, and his already caved-in face was now reduced to a gory, unrecognizable mess too harrowing to look at.

And yet.

No matter how hard Lu Yanchen struck, no matter how crisp the sound of snapping bones rang out.

Ye Xuan never let out a single scream of pain.

His body twitched instinctively under the overwhelming agony, but his eyes remained fixed coldly on Lu Yanchen, a mocking smirk never fading from the corner of his mouth.

After beating Ye Xuan nonstop for a full half hour, Lu Yanchen himself was left gasping for breath, his hands soaked through with Ye Xuan's blood.

He stopped, heaving heavily as he stared down at Ye Xuan, who was slumped on the ground like a shapeless pile of mud.

"Had your fun?"

Ye Xuan spat out a mouthful of blood-tinged saliva, his tone still as calm as still water. "If not, go right ahead."

"Madman... you are a complete, utter lunatic!"

Lu Yanchen felt on the verge of breaking down. Not only had he gained no psychological upper hand at all, he was being driven nearly mad by Ye Xuan's utter indifference.

He spat viciously at Ye Xuan, then turned and fled the dungeon like he was running for his life.

The cell door slammed shut with a loud bang.

In the darkness, Ye Xuan lay motionless in the pool of his own blood, his expression impassive.

The days that followed.

Lu Yanchen fell into a strange, obsessive frenzy.

He came to the dungeon every single day, using every cruel method he could think of to torture Ye Xuan.

As he tormented Ye Xuan relentlessly, he rambled on and on, stabbing at him with the most vicious, hurtful words he could conjure up.

"Qing Xuanyin tried on her wedding robes today! You have no idea how stunning she looked, that figure, that look in her eyes, tsk tsk..."

Crack! The whip lashed hard across Ye Xuan's body.

"She's mine now! The entire Qing clan is strung with lanterns and decorations for the celebration. You have no idea how much I'm looking forward to our wedding night. I'm going to make her submit to me like a dog! And I'm going to make her do it right in front of you, so she can never hold her head high again!"

Sizzle! A red-hot branding iron was pressed to Ye Xuan's chest, sending up wispy curls of acrid, burnt smoke.

And yet, no matter how Lu Yanchen tortured him, no matter how lewd and insulting his remarks about Qing Xuanyin grew.

Ye Xuan only ever gave him that one, same line.

He did not even bother to lift his eyelids, his tone forever unruffled and detached. "I don't care."

Those three words became an inescapable nightmare Lu Yanchen could never get past.

The harder Lu Yanchen tried to provoke Ye Xuan, the calmer Ye Xuan remained.

Eventually, Lu Yanchen began to feel like he was the one being tortured, not Ye Xuan!

"Why aren't you angry?! Why don't you lose your temper?!" Lu Yanchen grabbed Ye Xuan by the collar and shrieked at him, his eyes bloodshot.

Ye Xuan gave him a look of pity, and said faintly, "Because you are not worth it. And neither is she."

Lu Yanchen flew into an even greater rage. He acted like a wild beast that had lost all reason, launching into an even more frenzied wave of torture against Ye Xuan.

He even took a knife and sliced through Ye Xuan's flesh, inch by inch.

But Ye Xuan still did not care in the slightest.

Gradually, fear began to creep into Lu Yanchen's bones.

He no longer dared to look into Ye Xuan's cold, hollow eyes. He hastily cut the torture short, fled the dungeon in a state of utter disarray, and threw himself headlong into the bustling, chaotic wedding preparations going on outside.

At the same time.

Out in the Qing clan's grounds, the entire compound was strung with red lanterns and festive decorations, draped in an air of joy and celebration.

Beneath that bright, cheerful facade, however, strange, undercurrents of unrest were quietly swirling.

Qing Xuanyin stood in the most resplendent Nine Heavens Goddess Pavilion of the Qing Clan.

Right before her lay a peerless wedding gown, shimmering with flowing light, woven from Nine Heavens ice silk and divine phoenix fire feathers.

This was a custom piece Lu Yanchen had somehow secured at a staggering price from a top-tier chamber of commerce.

Logically, any woman who laid eyes on such a breathtakingly beautiful wedding gown would be brimming with joy.

Yet as Qing Xuanyin gazed at the gown, her expression was impossibly complex, even faintly tinged with revulsion and disgust.

"Goddess Xuanyin, does this gown fit to your liking? Young Master Lu poured tremendous effort into it," a maid at her side flattered cautiously.

"Leave me," Qing Xuanyin waved her off, her tone laced with unmasked exhaustion and irritation.

Once the maid had withdrawn, the pavilion was left with Qing Xuanyin all alone.

She stepped slowly toward the gown, extending her white, jade-smooth fingers to brush gently over its intricate golden patterns.

"Sister... everything I'm doing, I do it for you."

Qing Xuanyin closed her eyes, silently weaving excuses for herself in her mind, trying time and again to soothe her own frayed nerves.

"I promised my sister I would take good care of Yanchen. He says never getting to hold a proper wedding with my sister is the greatest regret of his life. I'm just standing in for her, going through the motions. I'm nothing more than a stand-in, this isn't my real wedding at all."

She snapped her eyes open, a self-hypnotic resolve flashing across her face.

"That's right! I only have eyes for Ye Xuan!"

"Once this wedding is over, once Yanchen's regret is mended, my inner demon will vanish completely. My Supreme Azure Heavenly Dao Physique will break through its final bottleneck!"

"After that, I'll send Lu Yanchen away without a second thought. Then I'll go down to the dungeon myself, and bring Ye Xuan out."

The moment she thought of Ye Xuan, a sharp, unaccountable twinge of pain lanced through Qing Xuanyin's heart.

She remembered the unsparing slap she had struck him with, the cold, unfeeling resolve she had shown when she threw him into the death cell.

"He must hate me now..."

Qing Xuanyin bit her lip, but soon she lifted her chin once more, regaining her lofty, untouchable goddess poise.

"No, he won't. He loves me too much."

Qing Xuanyin thought with unshakable certainty in her heart. "He loves me so deeply he would give up his life for me. As soon as I explain my hardships to him, as soon as I tell him I am still untouched, that he is the only one in my heart, he will forgive me."

I will spend the rest of my long, immortal life making it up to him. I will make him the most envied man under the heavens.

She kept building this perfect, flawless lie in her mind, trying to use it to suppress the rising unease gnawing at the depths of her soul.

But.

Why?

Why is my heart beating so fast?

Why, when I look at this bright red wedding gown, do I feel like I am standing right on the edge of a cliff?

Qing Xuanyin clapped a hand to her chest, where waves of unaccountable palpitations and hollow emptiness surged.

It felt as if something more precious to her than her own life, more precious than the Great Dao itself, was slipping away from her completely, in a way she could never take back.

She remembered the last look Ye Xuan had given her in the dungeon.

It was not anger, nor was it sorrow.

It was the look of someone gazing at a corpse.

"No... he can't leave me. He can't have truly let me go!"

Qing Xuanyin shook her head frantically, her breath coming in quick, ragged gasps.

Right at this moment, the voice of a Qing Family elder came from outside the door, delivering an urgent report:

"Goddess Xuanyin! Young Master Lu... Young Master Lu has acted entirely on his own, secretly sending out invitations to every sacred land and top-tier sect across Central Province!"

"As of now, envoys from the Supreme Unity Sacred Land, Myriad Sword Immortal Sect, and Jasper Lake Immortal Palace, and even several monstrous powerhouses at the old ancestor level, have all arrived outside our Qing Family mountain gate bearing generous gifts!"

"What?"

Qing Xuanyin felt as if she had been struck by a thunderclap, and her entire body froze in place instantly.

Her complexion drained of all color, turning deathly pale in the blink of an eye.

She had originally assumed this would be nothing more than a secret ritual known only to a handful of her most trusted confidants, a mere formality to fob Lu Yanchen off.

But now, every top-tier force in Central Province had turned up!

If she stood before the eyes of the entire cultivation world, dressed in this bridal gown, and performed the marriage rites with Lu Yanchen...

What was supposed to be a fake would become irrevocably real!

The entire world would know that she, Qing Xuanyin, was Lu Yanchen's wife!

And Ye Xuan, the fiancé she had locked away in the death prison, who had silently guarded her for a hundred years, would become the laughingstock of the entire realm!