Did it even count as a wedding if the groom didn't kiss the bride?
Did rich women not deserve to save face?
Did being a pretty boy mean you could get away with breaking your word?
Lu Ya was a pretty boy with professional integrity. Now that he'd taken the money and joined the ranks of the immortals, and the rich woman had even built him a house, he had to provide the full service. How could he cut corners?
He'd sooner sacrifice his first kiss than fail to contribute to the sect!
Even if he had to suffer a thousand arrows piercing his heart or be struck down by heavenly tribulation, he couldn't back out!
That was the most basic quality a professional pretty boy needed.
Sigh. For the sake of a carefree life, I've had to sell my looks and force myself to kiss an old woman three thousand years older than me.
My life is so hard!
Liu Xuanye's eyes widened. Her sword-bright gaze froze in the candlelight.
She stared straight at Lu Ya.
Strangely, the sword intent within her showed no reaction, yet she couldn't detect Lu Ya's spiritual pressure or any seal on him.
Even at such close range, she still couldn't glimpse the slightest thing about Lu Ya. It was as if she were a tiny boat on a calm sea: she could see neither the sea's horizon nor the abyss beneath its surface.
All she could sense was a faint warmth at Lu Ya's lips.
She didn't blush, and didn't even know she was supposed to close her eyes.
Stars flickered in her gaze.
In an instant, they became a painting.
This was the first immortal wedding ceremony the immortal commoners below had ever attended.
To the guests from afar, Lu Ya's actions were nothing more than a simple kiss between bride and groom.
The move was unconventional, the pose domineering, and the atmosphere romantic. But perhaps that was simply the immortals' way.
Swept up in the lively wedding feast, the women gradually let go of their sorrowful pasts. They drank immortal beer and wine, ate meat, clapped, and cheered.
But the local immortal commoners were suddenly stunned.
Only now did they realize that this man hadn't been tricked into coming up the mountain by Lord Tiger Immortal. He really had caught the sect leader's wedding ball.
Could the fated immortal couple of legend actually be real?
They had witnessed a miracle and a destiny.
They had seen light and hope.
They had pretended to make merry in their despair. Now that they'd glimpsed a ray of light, they had fallen strangely quiet, and even felt like crying.
For more than a thousand years, the sect leader's tale of how her husbands met their ends had passed from one generation to the next. They had thought it would end in destruction, but now they had suddenly seen a glimmer of hope...
It was as if this moment were eternity itself.
Far from the Bamboo Platform, on a giant gourd hovering beside the cliff,
Wine Fox Immortal sat cross-legged with her eyes closed, watching Liu Xuanye being kissed through her divine sense.
With no bamboo sliver to protect her, her divine sense suddenly recoiled, and blood poured from her seven orifices.
Filled with envy, jealousy, and boundless hatred for Lu Ya, she tumbled off the Hanging Gourd and landed flat on her back.
Her beautiful face was left in a most undignified state.
In her life, whoever she met was sure to suffer misfortune.
The only time she'd met Liu Xuanye, she'd been the one to suffer.
"After all these years, it's still the same damn mess..."
Wine Fox Immortal sighed and closed her eyes.
Everyone's attention was on the Bamboo Platform, so no one bothered with her after she fell from the Hanging Gourd.
Muyu Feifei took the opportunity to step on her towering snowy peaks and leap onto the giant gourd.
One sat at the gourd's head, the other at its tail.
They happily usurped the nest and climbed high to enjoy the view together.
Watching Lu Ya's domineering kiss on the Bamboo Platform, the two little girls couldn't help sighing.
"Humans sure have a lot of positions..."
On the Bamboo Platform,
Ning Zhongzi stood frozen with shock, while the heavy stone in her heart finally settled.
She'd let Lu Ya do as he pleased, but she hadn't expected a man who'd always lived such a health-conscious life to go this far for the sect and its leader!
Even if they were fated, who would dare defy the heavens?
Ning Zhongzi furrowed her brows and looked up at the night sky.
Dust swirled.
Winds swept the clouds together.
A bloody gash split open in the pitch-black sky.
A spatial rift!
Ning Zhongzi froze in shock. She was about to warn them, but in an instant she lost control of her body, as if the Gods and Devils had seized her Immortal Platform.
A withered, pitch-black arm reached out from the bloody rift, stretching down without end toward the Bamboo Platform.
Looking closer, one saw that its palm had split open, revealing countless densely packed white eyes!
Carrying the desolation of the Primordial Era and an immense, silent pressure, the countless white eyes opened and closed in an eerie rhythm, as if countless universes were being born and destroyed at once.
This surpassed the limits of Ning Zhongzi's understanding.
She couldn't feel any pressure at all.
But she knew very well that it was reaching for Lu Ya.
She was powerless to help.
At that moment,
Lu Ya, busy tending to Liu Xuanye, felt a chill run down his back.
A giant hand that seemed capable of tearing the universe apart was ripping at his Immortal Platform from afar. Thick, indistinct, uncanny syllables rang out like a bell struck by the Gods and Devils, pounding his soul again and again.
Pulling away from Liu Xuanye's red lips, Lu Ya looked up at the night sky.
He looked at the bloody gash, as if it had torn through infinite space and time.
He looked at the withered black arm, which seemed capable of stretching without end.
He looked at the countless densely packed, terrifying white eyes, as if countless universes were being born and destroyed in their depths.
Lu Ya was very familiar with the Nether's somewhat Cthulhu-inspired setting in the game.
In the game Ancient Immortal Court, demons and monsters were forbidden for policy reasons, so the immortals' natural enemies had been set as—
The Nether.
The Nether was a high-ranking member of the Devil Race with no fixed form, the Cthulhu of the immortal-cultivation and Primordial Era worlds.
That was the game developer's explanation.
But according to a hidden setting Lu Ya had casually unlocked after reaching max level, the Nether might be a fallen race of gods, a kind of Great Old One in a sense—an entity that could be killed only to be reborn, and could never be wiped out completely.
Lu Ya wasn't interested in solving the mystery.
He'd devoted himself to grinding until he became invincible. Once he was invincible, all so-called secrets were just smoke and mirrors.
The Nether combined the sorrow of the Primordial Era with the unknowable nature of Cthulhu. It was deeply unnerving at first sight.
During his first two years in the game, Lu Ya had suffered plenty at the Nether's hands. He'd even fallen to a female human-shaped Nether.
But after reaching max level, the Nether was nothing more than a juicy experience pack.
It was like this—
At first: When you stared into the abyss, the abyss stared back.
Later: When the abyss stared at you, you stared back.
Now: You couldn't even be bothered to pick up the experience pack...
Just as Lu Ya had guessed, the seal inside Liu Xuanye had indeed come from a high-ranking Nether.
As for why, Lu Ya didn't care. As long as you didn't get in the way of his carefree life, Nether, do whatever you wanted.
At that moment,
His gaze was warm and calm, tinged with an indescribable languor.
He looked at the countless white eyes, but none were reflected in his own.
His eyes still reflected the starry light in Liu Xuanye's sword-bright gaze, painting it like a scene from a picture.
Even though he wasn't looking at her anymore...
Suddenly, the withered black arm stretching downward stopped.
In that instant,
All the countless white eyes in its palm reflected the starlight in Lu Ya's eyes—the starlight from Liu Xuanye's sword-bright gaze.
Countless stars flickered and faded, like a brilliant galaxy.
The unknowable abyss suddenly became impossibly poetic!
The withered black arm froze. If it stretched down even one more inch, it would lose itself, lose the abyss, and be dragged into a pair of eyes from which there was no return.
For the first time, a human had seen through the abyss.
The countless white eyes suddenly went wide with terror. They shuddered for an instant and let out a silent shriek, as if their souls were being torn apart.
The unknowable black arm suddenly became as nimble as a loach. With a twitch, it shot back into the blood-red spatial rift.
Lu Ya thought, Don't go! But the rift snapped shut and vanished from the night sky, as if nothing had happened.
The worst thing was when the air suddenly went silent.
Lu Ya had only wanted to have a little fun and see who'd placed the seal on Liu Xuanye. Instead, he'd scared them off...
I barely did anything!
Of course, if the Nether had been able to flee the moment it encountered Lu Ya, that proved it had been one of the Nether's powerful ones.
At the same time,
Liu Xuanye's slender, graceful body trembled faintly. Beneath the night sky, she had seen the stars, and she had seen herself.
For a moment, she had the following mistaken impression—
Perhaps this man wasn't her fated immortal partner. Perhaps he was simply so powerful that he could suppress the seal within her.
He hadn't merely emerged unscathed from the Nether's strange manifestation; one look from him had scared away a Nether from the Primordial Era!
I'm overthinking it.
Perhaps his constitution was the mirror image of hers.
Perhaps in his previous life he had been a powerful being feared even by the Nether.
Perhaps this was fate.
Ning Zhongzi regained control of her body. When she looked at Lu Ya again, she too began to believe in fate. There was no other explanation.
The guests from afar continued to cheer and applaud.
The local immortal commoners still stood dumbstruck and silent.
They had no idea what had happened in the sky.
Muyu Feifei and Lu Ya looked up at the pitch-black sky together, thinking they'd seen things.
"Why do I feel like I saw countless pairs of the sect leader's eyes?"
"I think I saw a black loach..."
"Did you sneak a drink?"
"You're the one who drank."
Wine Fox Immortal was still unconscious. Four footprints remained on her snowy peaks.
Only then did Liu Xuanye realize that Lu Ya was still holding her in his arms like a princess.
At last, she felt a trace of embarrassment.
In the wavering candlelight, a faint blush flashed across her painting-like cheeks.
She raised a hand, and three thousand sword shadows descended from the sky, enveloping them both.
The sword shadows revolved around them, growing dimmer and dimmer until they quickly faded away.
Lu Ya and Liu Xuanye vanished from the Bamboo Platform along with them.
And thanks to the brothers who tipped last week!
Gui Tianxing -10,000 (Helmsman)
LDG Flower Demon -5,000
Youxiong Clan -1,000
Dongchen Xuan Star Soul -1,000
Gentleman TM -1,000
Holy Gold Mushroom -588 (QQ Reading)
Zhongyong Dagen Jun --500
Qiu -100 (QQ Reading)
Infinite Passerby A -100
Loli Alliance Leader -100
Moon Yeye -100
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