“I’m not being modest, but this is your private matter, Fairy. As an outsider who knows nothing, it’s not appropriate for me to interfere…”
Hua Jian repeatedly declined.
Ji Caiyue persevered, her invitation so sincere that it could rival the historical accounts of a great lord’s persistence in recruiting a strategist.
Even if Hua Jian was just a mediocre advisor, she was still an advisor, wasn’t she?
“As long as you help me get through this hurdle, little sister, I will… I’ll give you whatever you want!”
“Well, that sounds good—wait, I’m not lacking Spirit Stones right now.” Hearing that there would be a reward, Hua Jian had instinctively nodded.
But a moment later, she realized she wasn’t poor anymore. She was a little wealthy woman now; there was no need to bend her back for a few scraps of food!
“You two need to resolve this quickly. Someone over there has spotted you.” Shiqi reminded them from the side.
Not far away, some onlookers had already noticed the two people pulling at each other.
Those with sharp eyes had already begun shouting, and the dense crowd looked as if it were about to charge over.
Hearing this, Ji Caiyue quickly let go of Hua Jian’s hand. “Sigh, since you aren’t willing to help me, little sister, you should leave quickly. If those people see you standing with me, they probably won’t let you go.”
‘This Fairy Caiyue is actually a good person?’ Hua Jian looked at Ji Caiyue in surprise. She had thought Ji Caiyue would keep pestering her until they were surrounded by the crowd, forcing her to agree.
She hadn’t expected Ji Caiyue to let go so decisively and even thoughtfully tell her and Shiqi to leave, not wanting them to get into trouble because of her.
It was no wonder her popularity was so high. It seemed it wasn’t entirely based on an empty reputation.
“Alright, may our paths cross again. Shiqi, let’s go!” Hua Jian cupped her fists toward Ji Caiyue and immediately prepared to flee with Shiqi.
Did you think she would be moved and stay to help Ji Caiyue solve her problem? Stop joking; she was Hua Jian!
Ji Caiyue hadn’t given her any money, and she couldn’t even enjoy the beauty’s charms. So why help? What was the point?
Unfortunately, while she wanted to leave, someone else didn’t want her to.
Before she could even fly into the sky, a roar of anger came from not far away. “Thinking of running? Stop her for me!”
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Four streaks of light flew straight toward Hua Jian, forming a square and surrounding her in the center.
A powerful aura was released from the four individuals, pressing down on Hua Jian. These were actually four Ling Kings!
‘Heh.’ Hua Jian was genuinely puzzled. She hadn’t stayed in the Outer City for very long; how did she end up surrounded by four Ling Kings?
“What do you want? Don’t think I’m afraid of you just because you’re Ling Kings.” Hua Jian wasn’t afraid.
They were just four ordinary Ling Kings. She could call out A Meng, who was at the peak of the Lingwang Boundary, to wipe them out at any time.
“Hmph, Ji Caiyue, I didn’t expect you to be such a graceless shrew. What, are you already so guilty that you want to run before even seeing me?”
The voice that had ordered her to be stopped rang out again, this time much closer to Hua Jian.
Turning her head, Hua Jian saw a Young Master who was glittering with Golden Light. His outfit practically screamed ‘I am a nouveau riche’ across his forehead.
And what left Hua Jian most speechless was that this person’s eyesight wasn’t very good.
‘Please, your fiancée is on the ground. Go find her! What are you doing with me?’
Scanning the surroundings, she saw the crowd of onlookers who loved drama already forming a wall of people. Hua Jian let out a resigned sigh.
Well, what was meant to come couldn’t be avoided. It seemed she had to help with this situation after all.
Taking a deep breath, Hua Jian shouted at the flashy Young Master: “Are you blind! Am I Fairy Caiyue?!”
The crowd of onlookers buzzed with discussion. The Young Master didn’t know what Fairy Caiyue looked like, but they did.
The one standing in the middle of the street holding a small pastry box was Fairy Caiyue.
This fiancé’s eyesight wasn’t just poor; he probably had no idea what Fairy Caiyue looked like at all.
“Open your eyes and look! Your fiancée is standing on the ground!” Hua Jian pointed at the speechless Ji Caiyue.
Ji Caiyue also hadn’t expected the fiancé to misidentify someone. Had he really come to seek revenge without collecting any intelligence?
“This… if you aren’t Ji Caiyue, why were you running?” The Young Master’s face turned red. He hadn’t expected such a blunder either.
What was supposed to be a stern confrontation had suddenly changed its tone because of his actions. The aggressive momentum he had started with was cut in half by this interlude.
A single burst of courage is enough to start, but it fades with the second and vanishes with the third.
He had spent half the day blocking the Inn with his people—that was one. Leading the charge to catch someone was two.
Now that he had caught the wrong person, it would be impossible to regain that same momentum when he tried to settle scores with the correct target.
“Running? I saw there were too many people here and wanted to take a detour through the sky, and that counts as running? Also, why should I run? Do I know anyone here? Does anyone here know me?”
Hua Jian gave the four Ling Kings around her no face at all, pointing at their boss and cursing.
“I’ve only been in Ascension City for two days and I run into this annoying mess. Is it a crime to want to stay away? You bunch of idiots.”
With that, Hua Jian’s gaze swept over the four Ling Kings surrounding her. “And you four fools, do you think Ascension City is like the outside world, where you can do whatever you want just because you have the strength of a Ling King? Get down there!”
Cursed by Hua Jian, the four Ling Kings all showed expressions of rage.
But before their anger could flare up, a peak Lingwang Boundary aura suddenly erupted from Hua Jian’s body, slamming the four of them straight into the ground.
Hua Jian wasn’t asking them to go down; she was notifying them that it was time to descend.
The aura was released and withdrawn instantly, but everyone nearby felt the terrifying pressure. The way they looked at Hua Jian became filled with awe.
After swatting the four Ling Kings, Hua Jian pointed at the Young Master. “You too! Get down here!”
A Meng’s aura condensed into a line, pressing toward the Young Master.
But to Hua Jian’s surprise, the Young Master seemed to have some Treasure protecting him, allowing him to withstand the shock of her aura. He only swayed with a terrible complexion.
‘He’s got something.’ No wonder he dared to come looking for trouble with Ji Caiyue.
Hua Jian wanted to continue and slap him down, but Ji Caiyue, who had been watching the drama on the ground for a while, finally realized she was the main character of this spectacle and flew into the sky to confront the Young Master.
“Let me handle the rest. You’ve already helped me enough, little sister,” Ji Caiyue said softly to Hua Jian.
Thinking about how Hua Jian could have left peacefully but had been targeted because of her, she felt very ashamed.
And what made her even more ashamed was that she actually had such a fiancé!
If the two had a deep emotional foundation and Ji Caiyue had eventually abandoned her fiancé for her future and fled to Ascension City, then Ji Caiyue might have felt a bit guilty.
But what was the actual situation?
The marriage contract between the two was just empty words. Before this, she had only even heard of this fiancé’s existence, and the evaluations she had heard from others were bottom-tier.
A waste with no talent for cultivation and a local pest who terrorized the village—could Ji Caiyue force herself to marry such a person?
She had wanted to cancel the engagement, but her Father said it was a marriage set by the older generation, a promise her grandfather had made to the fiancé’s grandfather to repay a debt of life.
Ji Caiyue had to marry him whether she wanted to or not, otherwise the Ji family would disown her.
“This is actually the first time you and I have met, and you didn’t even know what I looked like. How could I possibly become a wife to someone like you!” Ji Caiyue said calmly and logically to her fiancé.
Fortunately, Hua Jian had prepared her beforehand, otherwise she truly wouldn’t have been able to state these reasons so directly.
“Heh, in the end, don’t you just look down on me…”
“No, you’re wrong. It doesn’t matter who you are. What matters is that I don’t want to be tied forever to someone I’ve never met.” Ji Caiyue shook her head in refutation.
“I am determined to seek the path of immortality. How could I allow such matters to hinder my steps?”
Ji Caiyue firmly remembered Hua Jian’s teaching, insisting that her flight was to pursue her dreams.
‘Who looks down on you? You’re being sentimental. I just think marriage has zero appeal compared to joining the Saint Sect.’
“No matter who you were, the choice I made at that time would not have changed. I would not marry you and confine myself to that tiny birdcage, becoming a canary meant only for others to admire!”
Ji Caiyue’s words sparked considerable enthusiasm among the onlookers. The thoughts of the Cultivators who had rushed to Ascension City were surely similar—everyone wanted to be recruited by the Saint Sect.
They could completely understand Ji Caiyue’s decision. Such an unreasonable marriage contract should be escaped!
“You… running away is looking down on me! It’s an insult to my father and my grandfather!” Veins popped on the Young Master’s face.
This was completely different from the scenario he had imagined.
In his imagination, having now made a comeback, he would appear before Ji Caiyue with these subordinates who had been attracted by his personal charm.
Ji Caiyue was supposed to be questioned and broken by him in a state of exasperation.
Then he would ruthlessly expose Ji Caiyue’s true face, letting everyone know what a disgusting woman she was.
As for that marriage contract, his goal this time was to divorce Ji Caiyue in front of everyone. The current him had a far better lover than Ji Caiyue!
“I admit, the choice to run away was indeed inappropriate, but at that time, I only had that one choice.” Ji Caiyue remained very calm, easily deflecting the Young Master’s attacks.
“But I never had the intention of insulting your father or grandfather. I have taken all the blame for running away myself; it was the best way.”
“How can you be so shameless? Do you treat your elders as a joke as well!”
“I have indeed failed them, but for the sake of my dream, I am willing to bear those curses.”
The two went back and forth, one attacking and one defending.
The Young Master’s words grew increasingly sharp, almost to the point of throwing a tantrum on the ground, accusing her of stepping on his face by rejecting the marriage.
But Ji Caiyue remained as light as a breeze, unmoved no matter how the Young Master attacked, always centering her argument on “I ran away because I wanted to pursue a brighter future.”
To the surrounding people, the right and wrong of this debate were already clear.
Running away from a marriage was certainly problematic, but if you did it to come to Ascension City for the Ascension Gathering, everyone would think you ran away for a good reason.
No one could strip a Cultivator of the right to participate in the Ascension Gathering.
If anyone dared to obstruct a Cultivator from coming to participate, the Saint Sect would give them a very hard time once they found out.
Some things were insignificant when kept quiet, but once brought into the light, they carried immense weight.
‘You don’t want people to participate in the Ascension Gathering? Do you have some grievance against the Saint Sect?’
As long as Ji Caiyue tied her flight to the Ascension Gathering, she was the most “correct” person present.
Let’s see if this Young Master dared to say Ji Caiyue should have given up the gathering for the marriage contract.
“He’ll die if he dares to say it,” Hua Jian whispered. She had already quietly landed on the ground, wanting to find a small path to escape this place while everyone’s attention was on the sky.
Unfortunately, there were simply too many people watching the drama, and they had blocked the vicinity completely.
She couldn’t find a way out that wouldn’t attract attention.
“Hua Jian, I think there’s something wrong with that man.” Shiqi, holding her sword, looked up at the Young Master who was arguing with Ji Caiyue, her brows slightly furrowed.
Although there was no clear correlation, generally speaking, the personalities of geniuses were usually decent.
Even arrogant geniuses wouldn’t be as easily triggered as the Young Master up there.
How had such a person made a comeback in just a few years and even gained several Ling Kings as subordinates?
It was truly difficult to understand.
“Now that you mention it, he really isn’t normal. He’s very different from the ‘don’t bully the poor young man’ protagonists I imagined.” Hua Jian nodded and glanced at the faces of the Ling Kings.
Those Ling Kings who had been swatted down by her were acting as if it were none of their business, not even looking toward the sky. They didn’t look like servants at all.
It was more like… they were just putting on a show to fool the Young Master.
‘Hoh, now this is interesting.’
At that moment, the debate in the sky finally drew to a close. The Young Master, unable to win the argument or stand on firm ground, forcibly pushed forward with his plan in a fit of rage.
He wrote a Divorce Letter in front of everyone and loudly declared that Ji Caiyue would pay the price for running away.
Without giving Ji Caiyue a chance to retort, he turned and left the scene.
The Ling Kings quickly followed. The nearby Cultivators didn’t dare chase after them for questions, only waiting on the spot to see how Ji Caiyue would react.
Ji Caiyue did not disappoint, still displaying the grace a Fairy should have. She cupped her hands toward the crowd and apologized loudly.
“I’ve let everyone see something embarrassing. It’s just a meaningless trifle. Please disperse.”
After speaking, she landed on the ground and cupped her hands toward Hua Jian again.
“This little sister was also implicated by me. Would you be willing to accompany me to the Inn to discuss how I can compensate you?”
As she spoke, she winked at Hua Jian.
‘Little sister, as you can see, you won’t find it easy to leave right now.’
Hua Jian let out a sigh. “The Fairy invites us; we wouldn’t dare refuse.”