First arrival in Wutan City

Nalan Yanran still wanted to live. She nodded like a pestle pounding garlic, making little sounds of agreement.

"Mm-hmm, mm-hmm!"

"But my grandfather arranged that marriage while I was still in my mother's womb. My fiancé is Xiao Yan of the Xiao Clan. I heard he's an incredible genius."

After a pause, Nalan Yanran added timidly, "Actually, I'm against this sort of arranged marriage too.

"It's just that I was still in my mother's womb at the time, so I couldn't voice my objections."

To make her story convincing, Nalan Yanran spoke with a righteous fury.

"Since you don't like arranged marriages, why not just go and break off the engagement?"

Chen Yang earnestly explained what he had come for.

Nalan Yanran: "...!"

You beast! Nalan Yanran shrieked inwardly.

Seeing the strange look on her face, Chen Yang grew puzzled and asked, "Once you break off the engagement, you'll be free.

"If you decide to marry someday, your master and I will keep an eye out and find a talented young man worthy of you."

Nalan Yanran: "???"

Nalan Yanran was dumbstruck, her mind buzzing.

She was so embarrassed that she could have clawed out a three-bedroom apartment with her toes.

After spending all that time trembling in fear, it turned out she had misunderstood, thinking Chen Yang had taken a fancy to her and wanted to add her to his harem too!

Along with her embarrassment, Nalan Yanran wished she could find a crack in the ground and crawl into it.

To twist even this into something dirty—was her head full of nothing but filthy rubbish?

"Yanran is still young!" Nalan Yanran said timidly, implying that she had not yet reached marriageable age.

Well... well...!

Nalan Yanran was indeed still young, not yet of an age to marry. He had overlooked that.

Besides, most cultivators with profound cultivation kept their hearts tranquil and their desires few. There was no need to insist on finding a partner.

So Chen Yang followed her lead and gave Nalan Yanran a way to save face.

"That's true. We can talk about it when you're older."

"Life is so long. Sooner or later, you'll meet the right person."

"Come on. Your grandmaster will take you to the Xiao Clan to break off the engagement right now."

With that, Chen Yang grabbed Nalan Yanran by the scruff of her neck and tore open the space before him with his bare hand. He tapped above and below with his finger, and a Spatial Bridge materialized out of thin air.

The Spatial Bridge stretched endlessly toward unknown depths within the void.

Only when the Spatial Bridge reached the other end did Chen Yang take Nalan Yanran onto it.

It was Nalan Yanran's first time setting foot on a Spatial Bridge, and she found it wonderfully novel.

She stamped hard a few times to test whether the Spatial Bridge was sturdy, wondering whether she might fall through while walking and be smashed to pieces.

When it came to anything that threatened her safety, Nalan Yanran would not permit the slightest carelessness.

Nalan Yanran followed close behind Chen Yang, peering about.

All around them and beneath their feet was empty darkness, a frightening sight.

"Grandmaster, do we really have to break off the engagement?" With everything around them so quiet, Nalan Yanran gently tugged at the hem of Chen Yang's robe. Her large, limpid eyes fixed on him as she asked curiously, "Wouldn't that be improper?"

If my grandfather finds out I went to the Xiao Clan to break off the engagement without permission, won't he break my damn legs?

Just imagining her legs being broken filled Nalan Yanran with terror.

"What's improper about it? What age are we living in, still practicing arranged marriages? There's nothing wrong with pursuing your own happiness." Chen Yang was unconcerned. "Besides, your status is special now. You're no longer merely the sect master's disciple, but the Tenth-Generation Sect Master of the Misty Cloud Sect. You represent the Misty Cloud Sect."

For the system mission and his own plans, even something improper could be made proper.

In any case, whether something was proper or not was decided by a word from the strong.

Morality?

Hah!

Nothing but a toy used to restrain the weak.

Nalan Yanran thought it over and found that reasonable.

Life was so long, and she still wanted to play her way through it, not carry the title of someone's fiancée before she had even finished growing.

Directly above Wutan City, a surge of powerful energy suddenly descended from the previously clear, boundless sky. Then the surrounding void began to convulse violently.

Amid those violent convulsions, the entire sky seemed about to collapse.

Such a disturbance immediately caught the attention of Wutan City's inhabitants.

Just as the people thought the sky could no longer hold and was about to collapse, space suddenly shattered. A pitch-black Spatial Rift split open in the air, spreading outward at a speed visible to the naked eye.

In the blink of an eye, the fist-sized Spatial Rift widened into a massive opening with a radius of two meters.

A completely transparent Spatial Bridge extended from the hole in space, hanging high in the heavens.

Such a spectacular entrance terrified everyone in Wutan City, from ordinary people with no cultivation to cultivators.

Believing a god had descended, they immediately bowed in worship, begging the deity to forgive their ignorance and bless their land with favorable winds, timely rains, and good fortune.

Everyone in Wutan City knelt and worshipped the deity in the sky. Only Gu Xun'er and Ling Ying, who protected her from the shadows, kept their brows tightly furrowed.

"A Dou Zun expert?!" Xiao Xun'er gazed with her beautiful eyes at the Spatial Bridge that had appeared in the sky above the city gates, murmuring to herself.

As someone from the Gu Clan, one of the Ancient Eight Clans, she possessed extraordinary knowledge and knew there were no gods in this world.

Upon reaching Dou Zong, one could wield spatial power and create a Space Lock.

After reaching Dou Zun, one's understanding of spatial power deepened, allowing one to hide within Spatial Rifts through that understanding.

One could also travel through space while crystallizing Dou Qi to create a Spatial Passage.

Upon reaching Dou Sheng, one stood at the very apex of the Dou Qi Continent's pyramid.

Such heaven-reaching experts could topple mountains, rend the earth, and shatter space with a mere gesture, nearly rivaling heaven and earth.

They could even carve out a habitable realm within the Void Space through their own power alone.

The current situation looked very much like a Dou Zun expert creating a Spatial Passage to show off before the weak, posing as a god and enjoying the pleasure of being worshipped by the masses.

There was just one thing Gu Xun'er could not understand: why would a Dou Zun expert come to a backwater like Wutan City, where even birds would not bother to shit?!

Could it be someone from the Soul Clan?

Could the Soul Clan have discovered the whereabouts of the Tuoshe Ancient Emperor Jade Fragment, and found that it might be in Wutan City?!

If that were true, wouldn't it mean the Soul Clan had also discovered that the Xiao Clan was hiding here?

Had they sent a Dou Zun expert here to wipe out the remaining members of the Xiao Clan once and for all?

If that were really the case, her Brother Xiao Yan would be doomed today!

At the thought of Brother Xiao Yan being in danger, a fierce hostility flashed in Xiao Xun'er's eyes. She had always been protective of her man.

She would never let anyone hurt her Brother Xiao Yan.

Whoever dared touch her Brother Xiao Yan, she would kill!