The Overbearing War Goddess and Her Runaway Darling Husband

Lu Qingchen had yet to return to Chengfeng Courtyard when he heard an earth-shaking commotion coming from inside.

Over the past few days, he had long since grown accustomed to the noises in his courtyard.

He felt he had been trained to remain as calm as still water.

But the sight that greeted him next slapped him hard across the face.

Ning Xiang, where on earth did you get another bird this ugly? Didn't you say there was only one of them in all heaven and earth?!

"Chirp, chirp!" Xiangxiang picked up the note hanging around Ugly Bird 2.0's neck in her beak and wriggled over to present it to Lu Qingchen.

As Lu Qingchen looked at the familiar handwriting, his temples throbbed fiercely. Ning Xiang, well done!

"Achoo-"

Ning Xiang rubbed her nose. Could cultivators catch colds too?

Never mind. She had come down the mountain to... sell her work to a bookseller!

Ning Xiang wasn't short on spirit stones. She wrote books because she refused to let her talent be buried! She would shine and burn bright in the literary world!

System: [Who was it that couldn't even squeeze out a ten-thousand-word paper?]

Ning Xiang said, "Excellent. You'll soon become cannon fodder in my book for the protagonist to slap in the face!"

Bickering all the way, the human and her system arrived at the town below the mountain.

Woodleaf Publishing House was the largest bookstore on the Tianyuan Continent, with countless branches across the continent. It had countless excellent authors under its banner, and almost all the wildly popular storybooks were written by its authors.

However, over the past two months, Woodleaf Publishing House seemed to have hit a bottleneck. It hadn't produced a runaway bestseller in quite some time.

When Ning Xiang arrived at Woodleaf Publishing House's Profound Heaven Sect branch, she saw a middle-aged man in purple brocade robes throw his arms toward the sky and shout-

"Heavens above, grant me an author who can soar to greatness in a single flight!!!"

Ning Xiang paused and told the system, "One look at this man tells you there's something wrong with his head. I must have come to the wrong place, right? Woodleaf Publishing House should be farther ahead."

The system wholeheartedly agreed.

Spotting Ning Xiang, the middle-aged man coughed lightly, stroked his little mustache, and asked, "Fairy, what brings you to my publishing house?"

Indeed, in the cultivation world, female cultivators from Qi Refining all the way up to spirit transformation could be addressed as fairies-even demonic cultivators and demon cultivators.

This man was only at the ninth level of Qi Refining. Presumably, he would make no further progress in cultivation.

Such was the cultivation world. Everyone had their own opportunities and fortunes. With little hope of attaining longevity, the middle-aged man had stopped forcing the matter.

For this trip down the mountain, Ning Xiang had suppressed her cultivation to the foundation establishment middle stage and changed into an ordinary jade-green dress, making herself look thoroughly unremarkable.

Even so, the middle-aged man dared not underestimate her.

When Ning Xiang remained silent, the middle-aged man said respectfully, "I am the manager of this branch. Whatever you need, Fairy, you need only give me your instructions."

Ning Xiang glanced at his gaudy, brightly colored robes and the seven large, gleaming rings on his right hand. Hmm, with your taste... you might not be able to appreciate my masterpiece for the ages.

But Ning Xiang would not attack someone else's aesthetic sensibilities. She tactfully said, "I have a storybook I'd like to submit, but when I reached your door, I suddenly realized how poorly written it was. I'd rather not invite humiliation. I'll visit another day."

"Please don't!" The middle-aged man hurriedly caught hold of Ning Xiang, his face wreathed in smiles. "Fairy, with such literary talent, why let it remain buried? Though I am no great talent myself, I have worked in this trade for twenty years. If you trust me, why not let me read your manuscript and offer a few comments?"

Ning Xiang thought, He has a point! I finally managed to write this peerless masterpiece. Someone absolutely has to behold it!

Seeing her expression soften, the middle-aged man gestured inward. "Fairy, let's talk inside."

As they walked, the middle-aged man introduced himself. His surname was Gao, and his full name was Gao Houlu.

Ning Xiang held nothing back either. She took her work out of her Spirit Bracelet. "Manager Gao, please don't hesitate to criticize it."

"Oh, not at all."

Gao Houlu glanced at the title on the cover, and the corner of his eye twitched violently. "Haha, Fairy, you truly are... one of a kind." He was beginning to regret inviting this female cultivator inside.

Still, as a businessman, he believed in welcoming guests and seeing them off courteously. Rather than immediately throwing Ning Xiang out, Gao Houlu opened the first page, intending to make a show of finding a few faults before politely rejecting her.

Yet after reading just three sentences, he could no longer stop.

Boohoo, the protagonist's life is so tragic!

His fiancée, his wife, and his parents-in-law are utterly despicable, aren't they?

The war goddess is so cool! She's here! She's riding seven-colored auspicious clouds to save the protagonist!!!

Where did this villain come from, daring to provoke the war goddess? She tore him to dust, didn't she?

How did the protagonist end up in danger again? Wow, the war goddess is here for another beauty-rescues-the-hero moment!

As Gao Houlu read with his blood surging, Ning Xiang spoke leisurely. "Well? Please offer me a few pointers, Manager Gao."

Gao Houlu couldn't bear to take his eyes off the storybook. He had a feeling this book would become a smash hit!

"Fairy, this book is exactly to my taste. However, isn't the title a little too blatant and vulgar? Perhaps we could change it? And the protagonist shares a name with True Lord Qingchen of the Profound Heaven Sect. If word reaches True Lord Qingchen, he might tear our publishing house apart..."

Ning Xiang refused. She had a writer's integrity!

However-

"If you agree to change the names, Fairy, I promise to give you seventy percent of this book's earnings."

Only a fool would turn down money!

Ning Xiang had fallen! Her soul had been corroded by the root of all evil-money!

"Deal!" Ning Xiang said decisively.

Ning Xiang had yet to finish the book. She handed all the manuscript pages she currently had to Gao Houlu, and they agreed on a deadline for the next submission.

Then the two signed a contract.

Ning Xiang returned to the Profound Heaven Sect in high spirits, while Gao Houlu immediately summoned his staff and ordered them to hurry with the printing.

Two days later, Ning Xiang received the first printed copy. At the sight of its title, she turned to stone-

"The Overbearing War Goddess and Her Runaway Darling Husband."

Ning Xiang: "..."

She recognized every single word, but put together... no matter how she looked at it, the title gave her the creeps.

A bookmark was tucked inside the book. It depicted a woman in robes redder than flame, her features cold and aloof, her bearing imposing. With a treasured sword in hand and auspicious clouds beneath her feet, she stood firmly protecting a frail man in white behind her.

On the back of the bookmark was a line in small print: "Heaven never ages; love cannot end. The heart is a net of paired silk threads, with a thousand, thousand knots within."

The system burst into merciless laughter: [Hahaha, overbearing war goddess, hahahaha, runaway...]

"Shut up!" Ning Xiang snapped.

Damn it, why had a perfectly good, satisfying female-led novel with no romantic pairing been packaged as a sugary romance?!

She was going to storm the publishing house with her sword right now and smash that rotten operation to pieces!!!

But before Ning Xiang could do so, Lu Qingchen summoned her with a Communication Talisman.

That fellow was busy compiling a work on cultivation. With no one to handle the odd jobs, he had simply decided to exploit poor little Ning Xiang.