The air in the highest garden of the Black Dragon Citadel was perfumed with night-blooming spirit flowers, their petals glowing with soft, ethereal light. It was a place of impossible beauty, a cage crafted to make its inhabitants forget the bars. Here, under a canopy of woven starlight and shimmering qi, the wedding of the Eternal Ancestor to his third wife was to take place.
Wang Xia stood at the center of the garden, a vision of tragic fragility made sublime. She was no longer the comatose girl wasting away in a sunlit room. Under the constant, subtle infusion of Su Wan's Phoenix energy—guided and amplified by the Ancestor's will flowing through the fake nascent soul—her spirit had been anchored, her body nursed back from the brink. The pallor of her skin had been replaced by a luminous, pearlescent glow. Her eyes, once closed to the world, were now open, wide and deep as forest pools, but they held a docile, distant light, as if she were dreaming while awake.
She was dressed in a gown of living jade and silver-threaded willow leaves, a masterpiece that seemed to have grown around her. It symbolized her Verdant Empress Body, now stabilized but utterly tamed. She looked like a nymph from an ancient tale, a spirit of nature who had willingly stepped into a gilded snare.
Across from her stood the Ancestor, Lu Tian, in robes of simple, profound black. And beside him, beaming with a joy that was both genuine and horrifyingly manipulated, was Su Wan, the Phoenix Empress. She looked at Wang Xia not with jealousy, but with tearful rapture. The Ancestor's lie had taken root too deeply; she saw only her long-lost sister, finally whole, finally home.
There were no other guests. No clamoring courtiers. This was a private sacrament for the burgeoning dynasty.
"The threads of destiny, once torn, are now rewoven," the Ancestor began, his voice a soft chant that seemed to harmonize with the garden itself. He took Wang Xia's delicate hand in his. Her fingers were cool and pliant. "A soul, once scattered, is made whole. A family, once broken, is reunited."
He looked to Su Wan, his gaze overflowing with manufactured tenderness. "My dawn," he said to her, then turned to Wang Xia, "my twilight. The two halves of my eternal sky."
He placed Su Wan's hand over his and Wang Xia's, binding them together. "Today, we make it official. Today, the Withering Lily takes her place in the garden, not as a guest, but as a root."
He turned his full attention to Wang Xia. His glowing green eyes held hers, and in their depths, she saw not a man, but the source of her salvation, the reason for her existence. Her gratitude was absolute, engineered, and all-consuming.
"Wang Xia," he intoned. "Do you vow to bind your soul to mine? To tend this garden we are building? To offer your life, your spirit, and your body to the growth of our eternal dynasty?"
Wang Xia's voice was a soft, melodic chime, devoid of hesitation or independent thought. "I vow it with all that I am, and all I will ever be. My life is yours to cultivate, Master."
"And do you," he said, his voice dropping to a intimate whisper, "vow to love me?"
A beatific smile touched her lips, the most beautiful and empty expression imaginable. "I am but a leaf that thrives in your sun. My love is not a choice; it is my nature, now and forever."
The words were a perfect echo of the conditioning she had received, a reflection of the energy Su Wan had poured into her, which was itself a reflection of the Ancestor's will. It was a closed loop of devotion.
Su Wan wept happy tears, squeezing their joined hands. "Sister," she whispered.
The Ancestor produced a simple band of dark, living wood, carved from the heart of a ancient Spirit Willow. He slid it onto Wang Xia's finger. It was not a cold metal ring, but a band that seemed to pulse with gentle life, a symbol of her nature, now bound to his.
"With this ring, I bind not just your hand, but your spirit," he declared. "You are now my wife. My third. My precious Lily."
As the vow was sealed, the System chimed in his mind.
[Ding! Marriage to High-Value Breeder 'Wang Xia' (Verdant Empress Body) confirmed.]
[Reward: Cultivation Base Boost! Host's comprehension of the 'Dao of Life' significantly enhanced.] [Host Cultivation Base: Peak Full-Step Soul Transformation Realm -> Pinnacle of Full-Step Soul Transformation Realm. Progression towards 'Ascendant Soul Realm' initiated.]
[New Title: 'Husband of the Verdant Empress'. Passive effect: Spiritual plants and herbs within a 100-li radius grow 300% faster and possess 50% greater potency.]
Power, vast and serene, flooded him once more. He felt the very essence of life around him, the growth of every plant, the pulse of every spirit herb in his garden. He was now just a hair's breadth from the next major realm.
He leaned in and kissed Wang Xia. It was not a kiss of passion, but of consumption, of tasting the unique life-force she embodied. She received it with placid grace.
He then turned and kissed Su Wan, a deeper, more familiar kiss, rewarding his chief architect for her role in delivering this new prize. Su Wan melted into it, her heart full.
The ceremony was over. The Ancestor now had his third wife. His collection was growing.
He looked at the two women beside him—one a fiery Phoenix remade into an Empress, the other a gentle Lily bent to his will. They were the perfect balance: destruction and creation, war and nurture, all orbiting his dark sun.
He led them both from the garden, a hand for each. The Eternal Dynasty had gained a new pillar. And the Ancestor's path to ultimate power, built on the bodies and souls of the women he collected, grew ever brighter. The Withering Lily had bloomed, but only in the direction her gardener demanded.