Chapter 1: The Senior Sister's Betrayal

Deep within the Shennongjia mountains.

Lin Yuan returned to the Daoist temple like a walking corpse, his eyes brimming with sorrow.

Because just this morning, as the sun rose, his master Dao Wuyai had passed away at the age of two hundred.

“Master is gone, Senior Sister hasn’t come back—what am I supposed to do now?”

“Master said, if she doesn’t return, I should take the marriage contract and go down the mountain.”

When he arrived at the temple, he heard noises coming from the bathhouse.

There, on the cabinet, lay the latest model of the Fruit phone, prettily wrapped in a pink case.

“Senior Sister is back?” Lin Yuan was overjoyed.

His senior, Lin Jing, was the light of his life. They had grown up together, childhood sweethearts.

For her sake, Lin Yuan had once given away all the precious herbs he’d painstakingly acquired, causing his own cultivation to stagnate for five years.

“Since she’s back, I won’t need to go down the mountain. I’ll choose a day and marry her.”

The thought made Lin Yuan’s heart race with excitement.

Seeing that Lin Jing was still bathing, he gently picked up her phone and lit up the screen.

The sight of the wallpaper stunned him; his face drained of color, and his heart felt as if it had been struck by a hammer, the pain suffocating.

In the photo, Lin Jing was holding her phone with one hand, cheek pressed intimately against a handsome young man, her lips pouting flirtatiously.

“Who said you could touch my phone?”

At that moment, Lin Jing emerged from the bath, her hair still damp, storming over and snatching the phone from his hand.

“Give that back!”

“Senior Sister, you owe me an explanation!” Lin Yuan’s expression darkened.

He had spent the past three years waiting for her return, enduring each day as if it were a year, only to be betrayed.

It was unbearable.

He and Lin Jing had grown up together, innocent and close, and he had always cherished and protected her. He never imagined it would come to this.

“He… he’s my boyfriend!” Lin Jing didn’t bother hiding it. Since she’d been found out, there was nothing left to conceal.

Lin Yuan had suspected it, but hearing her admit it was still hard to accept.

A chill spread through him. “I once went to Kunlun Mountain to find you a snow lotus, so you could break through your cultivation bottleneck.

I dove into the Mariana Trench to catch a strange fish for you, and cured your heart disease.

Because your favorite celebrity was kidnapped, I stormed into the bandits’ lair alone, risking my life to save him!

Because of you, my cultivation was stalled for five years. Because of you, I gave everything!

Have you forgotten all of that?”

Lin Yuan’s voice was hoarse, almost a scream.

Lin Jing scoffed and rolled her eyes. “I never asked you to do any of that. It was all your choice. If you were childish, who’s to blame but yourself?”

Lin Yuan sneered, “Seems you’ve seen a lot since going down the mountain, Senior Sister.”

Lin Jing tilted her chin arrogantly. “Of course. The world’s prosperity, its wealth and power, are things you’ll never experience. A low-level cultivator like you is a dime a dozen out there.”

“So now you look down on this country bumpkin?” Lin Yuan lowered his head, but a faint smile played at his lips.

She didn’t know that two years ago, his master had discovered an ancient cultivation technique in a stone chamber, left behind by a cultivator from antiquity.

His master had passed it on to him, and in just two years, he had risen to the peak of the Earth Tier.

Heaven, Earth, Black, Yellow—the four realms.

At the peak of the Earth Tier, few in this world could match him.

Lin Jing, meanwhile, was still at the early stage of the Black Tier.

“That’s right. You’re nothing compared to most, let alone to my man, Xu Fuzhou. He’s the clouds in the sky, you’re mud on the ground. He’s a wolf king; you’re a little puppy. Do you understand?”

Lin Jing had torn away the last veneer of affection, showing no regard for their shared past.

“Very well, Senior Sister. I only hope you won’t regret what you did today,” Lin Yuan said coldly, casting her one last glance before turning to his room.

“Tell me—where’s Master?” Lin Jing called from outside.

“He passed away,” Lin Yuan replied.

For a moment, sorrow flickered in Lin Jing’s eyes, and her lips parted softly. “That’s fine. Now I can marry him in peace. Farewell, Junior Brother.”

She packed her things, summoned her cultivation energy, and vanished into the distance.

Lin Yuan tidied his room, gathering some magical tools, clothes, and… a letter.

It was a marriage contract.

The contract stated that Lin Yuan, disciple of Dao Wuyai, was to marry Lin Shanshan, a third-generation woman of the Lin family, thus fulfilling an old promise.

“Lin Shanshan… Fine, since Master arranged it, I’ll marry you, albeit reluctantly.”

Taking the contract, Lin Yuan closed the temple’s doors behind him, bidding farewell to his old home as he made his way down the mountain.

Walking along the road in the small town below, Lin Yuan swore to himself:

From this day on, I will never grovel for love again!

Those who do, die miserable deaths!

“Help…”

Ahead, by the roadside, several thugs had surrounded a striking young woman, tugging her clothes up.

“Heh, this girl’s skin is so fair.”

“And that figure—perfection.”

“She even smells good…”

The gangsters groped the woman, making lewd remarks as they did.

Many passersby chose to look away, or worse, watched with lecherous grins, drinking in the sight of her exposed, delicate skin.