The Imperial Capital, Qianfeng Merchant Association.
Shang Qingzhi sat by a third-floor window, looking up at the towering statue of a god that soared into the clouds in the square outside the association.
The statue had been commissioned by the association and carved by the Imperial Capital's most renowned craftsman. It contained an array and was so lifelike it seemed real.
Whenever she looked through the window and saw that familiar, chiseled face on the statue, Shang Qingzhi's heart couldn't help but flutter.
That man was perfect in every way.
The only thing Shang Qingzhi regretted was that he didn't love her.
Her talent for martial arts was decent, but compared with that man, she was as far apart as clouds and mud. Over the years, even with his support and the vast resources she'd earned through the association, along with her own diligence and hard work, Shang Qingzhi had only managed to reach the Grandmaster Realm.
A Grandmaster in her early thirties was by no means weak among the human race of the Nine Provinces.
In some small or mid-sized lineages, she could even be groomed as the successor.
Yet gazing at that familiar face on the statue, Shang Qingzhi's heart was filled with complicated emotions.
Half of her was happy for him—and for herself. The other half was consumed by endless loneliness.
He had become a god, quelled demons across the Nine Provinces, swept the world clean, and lifted the human race's ten-thousand-year calamity. She was sincerely happy for him.
Even after becoming a god, he hadn't forgotten the promise he'd made back then. Once he returned to the Imperial Capital, he had asked the Imperial Court to investigate the case in which her father had been falsely convicted. Shang Qingzhi was deeply grateful to him for that.