The silver light of a flying sword tore through the peaceful sky above the Azure Sword Sect.
Ye Chen stood at the tip of his blade, his silver-lined robes whipping in the wind. His handsome face was twisted into a mask of pure, righteous fury. Beneath his feet, the Frost Vein in his body pulsed with freezing, unstable Qi.
He was angry. He was humiliated. But most of all, he was utterly convinced that he was the hero of this story.
That garbage, Yan Shuo, Ye Chen thought, his teeth grinding together. He is a fifteen-year-old cripple with shattered meridians. A worm crawling in the mud. There is absolutely no way the majestic, pure Saintess would willingly bind her soul to someone like him! He must have found a demonic artifact! He must have poisoned her mind!
It was the only logical explanation his arrogant brain could accept. The Heavenly Cloud Pill—his pill, his glorious future—had been stolen by a demonic trickster.
If Ye Chen rushed in right now and exposed the boy's vile methods, the spell would break. The Saintess would wake up from her delusion, realize how deeply she had been violated by this trash, and strike him down. Then, she would look at Ye Chen, the brave Number One Disciple who had risked his life to save her, and reward him with heavenly treasures.
Perhaps she would even look upon him with favor.
A greedy, arrogant smile touched the corner of Ye Chen's lips. Yes. This wasn't a tragedy. This was his chance to become a legend.
He broke through the thin layer of clouds and spotted the luxurious jade estate of the Cloudsoaring Peak.
He didn't politely ask for permission to land. He didn't send a sound transmission to announce his arrival. Ye Chen drove his flying sword directly toward the front courtyard, channeling his Late Foundation Establishment aura to maximum capacity. He wanted his grand entrance to be as intimidating and heroic as possible.
"Yan Shuo!" Ye Chen roared, his voice amplified by freezing Qi, echoing like thunder across the quiet mountain. "You demonic rat! Come out and face justice!"
---
Inside the courtyard, beneath the shade of the sprawling peach tree, Yan Shuo slowly opened his eyes.
He had just finished fully stabilizing the golden liquid in his dantian. The breakthrough to the Foundation Establishment Realm was completely flawless. He was feeling incredibly peaceful, refreshed, and entirely too comfortable.
Then, the loud, obnoxious shouting shattered the quiet afternoon.
Crack.
The exquisite jade teacup in Tantai Zhi's hand instantly shattered into fine dust.
Yan Shuo didn't even flinch. He just watched as the air around his beautiful wife visibly warped. The sweet, docile woman who had just been happily feeding him grapes vanished in a fraction of a second.
Her golden eyes went completely, terrifyingly dead. A suffocating, bloody darkness spilled from her form, freezing the leaves on the peach tree solid.
"Another bug," Tantai Zhi whispered. Her voice wasn't loud, but it carried a demonic resonance that made the ground tremble. "He dared to shout your name. He dared to ruin our peaceful afternoon."
She stood up slowly, her crimson robes flowing around her like a river of blood. She casually reached her pale hand into the empty space beside her, gripping the hilt of a sword that materialized from pure killing intent.
"I will peel his skin off while he watches," she stated calmly. "I will turn his bones into a chair for Husband to sit on."
Yan Shuo sighed. He reached up and gently wrapped his hand around her wrist.
Instantly, the world-ending pressure vanished. Tantai Zhi stopped, her murderous gaze melting into a soft, confused look as she turned to her husband.
"Wife, we just got this courtyard cleaned," Yan Shuo said reasonably, pointing at the spotless white jade tiles. "If you peel him here, the blood will get into the cracks. It's very hard to wash out. Let me handle this one. I need to stretch my legs after the breakthrough anyway."
Tantai Zhi's eyes immediately sparkled with pure adoration. Her terrifying killing intent vanished, replaced by the eager excitement of a cheerleader.
"Of course, Husband!" she beamed, clapping her hands together. "You are so strong and handsome! Show that ugly bug your flawless foundation!"
Yan Shuo stood up, dusting off his pristine white robes. He casually strolled toward the entrance of the courtyard, his hands clasped behind his back, looking exactly like a wealthy, retired young master going for a walk.
BANG!
Ye Chen landed heavily in the center of the courtyard, his silver boots cracking the jade tiles. Frost spread out in a wide circle around him, chilling the air.
He pointed his longsword directly at Yan Shuo, his eyes burning with righteous fury.
"You!" Ye Chen sneered, his handsome face twisting with contempt. "I knew it! You are nothing but a filthy rat hiding behind a stolen estate! Where is the Saintess?! What vile, demonic poison did you feed her to make her hand over my Heavenly Cloud Pill?!"
Yan Shuo stopped ten paces away. He didn't draw a weapon. He didn't summon his aura. He just looked at Ye Chen with the mild, exhausted annoyance of an old man dealing with a loud child.
"Your pill?" Yan Shuo asked, raising an eyebrow. "I wasn't aware my wife needed your permission to open the Sect Treasury."
"She is not your wife!" Ye Chen roared, stepping forward. His Frost Vein flared, whipping his robes around him. "You are the trash of the Outer Sect! A cripple! A joke! I don't know what dirty trick you used to deceive her, but I am the Number One Disciple of the Azure Sword Sect! Today, I will strip away your disguise, cripple your limbs, and hang you from the sect gates so everyone can see the fraud you truly are!"
Yan Shuo just sighed.
A hundred years ago, arrogant young masters used to shout these exact same lines at him before he buried them. It seemed the cultivation world never actually changed; they just printed new copies of the same idiots.
"Cripple my limbs?" Yan Shuo repeated softly.
"Yes! And when the Saintess wakes up from your demonic spell, she will thank me!" Ye Chen declared proudly.
Yan Shuo didn't bother arguing. Arguing with idiots was a waste of breath. Instead, he simply decided to show him reality.
Yan Shuo unclasped his hands from behind his back.
He didn't take a fighting stance. He merely let a single, tiny fraction of his newly formed Foundation Establishment aura leak out of his perfect dantian.
BOOM.
It wasn't a loud noise, but a heavy, spiritual shockwave that swept across the courtyard.
The freezing frost radiating from Ye Chen's body was instantly shattered, blown away like cheap dust in a hurricane. The pure, golden, unimaginably dense spiritual pressure of a flawless foundation pressed down on the courtyard.
Ye Chen froze. His eyes widened so far they nearly popped out of his skull.
He stared at the fifteen-year-old boy in front of him, his brain completely shutting down.
Foundation Establishment?
Not just Foundation Establishment. The Qi radiating from Yan Shuo was so thick, so pure, and so impossibly perfect that Ye Chen's own "genius" Frost Vein physically recoiled in terror. Ye Chen was in the Late Stage, and Yan Shuo was only in the Early Stage, but the difference in quality was like comparing a muddy puddle to a crystal-clear ocean.
"Impossible," Ye Chen gasped, taking a stumbling step backward. His sword hand began to tremble. "You... you were a cripple yesterday! Your meridians were shattered! How did you... the pill... you actually absorbed the Supreme-Grade pill?!"
Even a genius needed a week to absorb that pill safely! Yan Shuo had swallowed it an hour ago!
"You're very loud," Yan Shuo said calmly, taking a slow step forward. "And your foundation is incredibly loose. You rely entirely on the cold attribute of your Frost Vein to hide the fact that your core is completely unstable. You call yourself a genius?"
"Shut up!" Ye Chen shrieked.
His pride shattered. The humiliation of being lectured by the sect's biggest trash drove him completely over the edge. Ye Chen tightened his grip on his sword, channeling every drop of his Late Stage Qi into a single, desperate, freezing strike.
"Glacial Dragon Slash!"
A massive, roaring dragon made of pure, jagged ice erupted from Ye Chen's blade, tearing across the courtyard directly toward Yan Shuo's chest. It was a strike meant to kill.
Yan Shuo didn't dodge. He didn't even blink.
He simply raised his right hand, extending his index and middle fingers.
Clang!
The massive ice dragon didn't explode. It didn't push him back.
Yan Shuo casually caught the tip of Ye Chen's glowing, high-grade spiritual sword directly between his two bare fingers.
The roaring ice dragon instantly shattered into a million harmless snowflakes, drifting lazily to the ground. The entire courtyard went dead silent.
Ye Chen stood frozen, leaning all of his weight into his sword. He pushed with all his might, his face turning purple from the strain, but the blade wouldn't budge a single millimeter. It was as if his sword was wedged inside a solid mountain of divine iron.
"Too slow," Yan Shuo said mildly. "Too much wasted movement. You focus on making it look pretty for the junior sisters, but there is absolutely no killing intent in your blade."
Yan Shuo lightly flicked his wrist.
CRACK.
The high-grade spiritual sword, the prized treasure of the Number One Disciple, violently snapped into three pieces.
The backlash of the broken sword intent slammed directly into Ye Chen's chest. Ye Chen screamed, vomiting a massive mouthful of blood as he was blown backward. He tumbled wildly across the jade tiles, finally coming to a stop near the entrance of the courtyard, clutching his chest in agony.
His Frost Vein was completely suppressed. His pride was entirely broken. The trash of the sect had defeated him with two fingers, without even taking a step back.
Yan Shuo dusted off his fingers and sighed. "Well, that was disappointing."
"Husband is too gentle," Tantai Zhi's sweet voice drifted over.
She walked up beside Yan Shuo, her arm naturally wrapping around his waist. She looked down at the bleeding, groveling Ye Chen with a gaze so cold it could freeze fire.
"He drew a weapon on you, Husband," Tantai Zhi whispered, her golden eyes flashing dangerously. "By sect rules, that is a challenge to the death. Let me turn him into fertilizer for the peach tree."
Ye Chen looked up, blood dripping from his chin. He finally saw the way the majestic, untouchable Saintess was clinging to Yan Shuo's side. There was no demonic spell. There was no poison. The absolute devotion and obsessive love in her eyes were entirely, terrifyingly real.
The realization broke him far worse than the physical blow.
"S-Saintess..." Ye Chen choked out, tears of humiliation mixing with the blood on his face.
"Do not speak to me, bug," Tantai Zhi commanded, not even bothering to look at him. "My husband is the only one allowed to hear my voice."
Yan Shuo chuckled, patting her waist. "No need for fertilizer, Wife. If he dies here, the Sect Master will just send someone else to cry at our door. Let him live."
He looked down at Ye Chen, his pragmatic veteran eyes completely devoid of pity.
"Listen carefully, 'Number One Genius'," Yan Shuo said, his voice dropping an octave, carrying the heavy, ancient authority of the warlord he used to be. "Go back to your little junior sisters. Tell them you tripped. If you ever come to this peak again, or if you ever say my wife's name out loud... I won't use two fingers next time. I'll just let her have you."
Ye Chen didn't say a word. He couldn't. He scrambled to his hands and knees, dragging his broken, bleeding body out of the courtyard and down the mountain stairs. He didn't even take the pieces of his broken sword with him.
Yan Shuo watched him crawl away and let out a relaxed sigh.
"Now that the morning exercise is over," Yan Shuo smiled, turning to his beautiful, overpowered wife. "I believe you promised to feed me some more of those spiritual grapes?"
Tantai Zhi's terrifying aura vanished instantly. She giggled, her cheeks flushing pink as she hugged his arm tightly.
"Of course, Husband! I'll even peel them with my mouth if you want!"
Yan Shuo paused, calculating the absolute shamelessness of the offer.
"You know," he nodded sagely, entirely abandoning any remaining dignity he had as a former Demon Lord. "I think I would like that very much."