Everywhere was glittering with various activities, the wedding hall was grand, gilded in jade and gold, with hanging lanterns inscribed with cultivation runes flickering with soft spiritual light. It was the kind of venue reserved for the elite—clan heads, elders, and cultivators who shaped the very fabric of the city's hidden world.
And yet, the groom stood alone at one corner of the room,with a sullen look on his face.
Liu Feng adjusted the loose collar of his ill-fitting formal robes. They were borrowed,he could feel the faint Qi traces of another man woven into the threads. His hair was neatly tied up, his hands folded politely in front of him, but his posture was just stiff enough to betray his discomfort.
Then someone cough behind him,then a whisper loud enough for him to hear it.
"Is that really him? The groom?"
"He doesn't even have a cultivation base strong enough to guard a spirit well."
"I heard he used to be a street martial artist. A dojo instructor. No clan, no lineage, nothing,such a useless fellow..."
"He looked so haggard and unkept."
The words weren't loud, but they didn't have to be. Liu Feng heard them all. He just let out a bitter smiled.Slightly. Calmly. Almost like it didn't matter.
But deep inside, he was hurt.
He stood beneath the ceremonial Dragon Gate, surrounded by ancient carvings of the Jade Dragon Clan's ancestors—heroes, warriors, sages. They all stared down at him with cold stone eyes, as if judging this outsider who dared step onto sacred ground.
Then, she arrived.
Su Yao. The bride.His bride,but he couldn't dare think of her as his, because she is far above his league.
Graceful and poised, Su Yao wore a pale jade gown embroidered with the sigil of her clan—a coiling dragon wrapped around a glowing pearl. Her eyes were sharp as icicles, her lips barely curved into a ceremonial smile.
She walked forward, accompanied by a procession of spirit cultivators in green and silver. Behind her trailed two elder disciples, her cousins. Both radiated powerful Qi auras, their eyes locked on Liu Feng like guards watching a criminal.
When Su Yao reached him, she stopped exactly one pace short.
Neither spoke.
The elder officiator cleared his throat, sensing the tension. "By the will of the heavens and the harmony of spirit veins, the Jade Dragon Clan unites with Liu Feng through this sacred bond—"
"You mean political bond," someone muttered sarcastically.
Su Yao didn't flinch. Liu Feng didn't react.
But something inside his chest pulsed.
The officiator droned on through the ceremonial incantations. Liu Feng went through the motions—bowing, accepting the ritual jade talisman, and reciting the vows carved into spirit-silk scrolls. It was all for show. A public display. Everyone knew it.
Even the marriage itself had been arranged in haste. Rumours said Su Yao's father, the clan patriarch, owed a favor to someone deep in the underworld and had no choice but to honor a forgotten agreement. The result? A marriage to a commoner. A disgrace.
As the ceremony ended, Liu Feng took a single step forward to offer his hand.
Su Yao's fingers brushed his for the briefest second before she pulled away as if disgusted by him.
Then she turned and left.
He was alone again.
Liu Feng stood alone outside the hall, his cheap off-the-rack suit.The wedding ceremony was over. What little of it there had been.
No red carpets. No guests. No smile from the bride.
He glanced down at his trembling hands. The red silk ribbon tied around his wrist – a symbol of marriage in old tradition – was frayed and damp. Su Yao hadn't even held his hand during the ritual. She hadn't said a word since stepping into the room.
He couldn't blame her. After all, to the mighty Jade Dragon Clan, Liu Feng was nobody.
A nameless martial arts instructor. Fatherless. Broke. Lacking cultivation.
Trash.
Only one thing had brought him here: a political marriage arranged by the elders, meant to buy time and save face after a scandal involving Su Yao's ex-fiancé.
"Trash marrying a treasure," someone had muttered earlier, thinking he hadn't heard.
He had.
He always did.
The heavy doors creaked open behind him. A servant in white stepped out and bowed. "Young Master Liu, the ancestral rites are complete. You may now take your place in the groom's quarters."
"My place," Liu Feng repeated softly, following the servant. "Where might that be?"
The man hesitated. "Behind the east wing. In the old shed."
Of course.
As they walked, Liu Feng caught sight of Su Yao in the courtyard. She stood beneath the dragonstone pavilion, her jade-green robes rippling in the wind. She didn't look at him. Didn't move.
Her beauty was unreal, sculpted from frost and fire. Proud, cold, brilliant. Her eyes, emerald and glittering,she is the true definition of beauty.
Liu Feng bowed slightly. "Thank you for marrying me," he said, voice even.
She didn't answer.
Didn't even blink.
The servant tugged at his sleeve, ushering him past.
So this was the room they'd prepared for the groom.
A servant had led him past the main residence, past the guest wings, and into a side garden where a small, unused room stood beside an old storage shed.
"This was once used by outer sect disciples," the servant said with a sniff. "Don't get comfortable."
Liu Feng chuckled softly once the servant was gone. The room was tiny. One bedroll. One broken window. No spirit formations, no protection seals. A single candle flickered on the floor.
"Married into one of the five great clans," he said aloud, to no one. "And they put me in the doghouse."
He sat cross-legged, taking a deep breath. The air inside the compound was thick with spiritual energy flowed beneath the floor, feeding power to the clan's defenses and training grounds.
But in this room? Nothing. It was like sitting in a spiritual dead zone.
That suited him just fine.
He unwrapped a bundle of cloth from his robes. Inside was a palm-sized jade shard, cracked down the center, its surface etched with ancient script that pulsed faintly in the dark.
The Heaven-Eating Scripture.
He'd found it when he was sixteen—buried beneath rubble after an underground spirit explosion had destroyed half his neighborhood dojo. Everyone else had fled, afraid of the Qi rot. But Liu Feng had been drawn to it. The shard had spoken to him—not in words, but in hunger.
Liu Feng sat on the cot and let out a long breath.
From beneath his damp collar, a faint blue rune flared for a moment, invisible to the naked eye. It pulsed… slowly… rhythmically. Like a heart.
He closed his eyes.
"Still alive after all these years, huh?"
Liu Feng lay down, staring at the wooden beams above. Lightning flashed—and in its white blaze, for just a heartbeat, a strange shadow flickered across the ceiling.
He smiled faintly.
They think I'm trash. Let them.
They married a broken man…
But I wonder who will be broken first.