Lady Xuanhe's gaze was steady, her presence lit with celestial clarity.
"Then there is nothing more to discuss," she said, her voice like fate remembering itself. "Welcome, Yūxiǎn Huīlìng—and the rest of you—to Heaven, the divine realm where power and story entwine."
The gods gathered. Light bowed. Karmic strands shimmered in acknowledgement.
"We welcome you," they said—immortal voices ringing across the edges of creation.
As Ren practised, his gaze lingered on Fairy Jin. She'd seen his true face—the one behind the mask—and said nothing.
Lady Yueh, the sect leader, followed suit. Her silence was heavier. Older. As if guarding not a secret, but a fate.
Even Liáng Xu and Fei Yan said nothing. But theirs wasn't quietude—it was fear. Ren regretted showing them his killing intent. Letting that shadow of blood coil free had shattered his carefully curated background character mode.
Now five cultivators knew the truth.
And the gods did too.
He hadn't planned on this. He chose this realm as a sandbox, a script where he could play out a cultivation novel fantasy—eat pills, sit cross-legged, be respectfully unremarkable.
But something in him slipped.
And now the narrative was folding around him, myth forming where casual anonymity once stood.
"Forget it," he thought. Everything was still going well enough.
Venya had attained godhood—her cultivation flowering into divinity within Mìngjiè Xiānlù.
He thought of the rest. Wondered how their paths were unfolding in this realm, where mountains breathed and karma pulsed beneath the soil. It had already been two years since they'd arrived—two years stitched with pills, power, and silence.
And then came the memories.
Earth.
The ones who hadn't crossed over: Nara, his ever-faithful chauffeur. The descendants of Whitedragon. And countless others whose names flickered in his mind like half-forgotten mantras.
They were still there. Still living. Still real.
While he drifted further from anonymity—deep into a story that was never meant to be his.
Ren sat in his room—a warm chamber nestled within a lovely building far from the heartlands of the Glass Lotus Sect. Mianmian lay curled on his shoulder, munching acorns with serene indifference. Outside, snow fell in elegant silence, softening the edges of the foreign land they now called theirs.
He had reached early Step Twenty-Three.
The path to power had been merciless. With Fairy Jin, Lady Yueh, Liáng Xu, and Fei Yan at his side, they had swept through territories beyond their sect's reach, slaying beasts, aberrations, and rival cultivators alike. Sects fell. Lands were claimed. Borders were rewritten in blood and jade.
Cultivation was never gentle.
It did not reward innocence. It demanded sacrifice, cunning, and the quiet will to do what others could not. To ascend was to defy heaven's script—mortality's mandate.
As the snow painted the world in fleeting purity, Ren's thoughts drifted.
To Yuki Chibana.
They should have married. The intention had lived between them like a flame not yet kindled. But they had agreed to wait. She, ever devoted, had chosen duty. As a general of the Eternal Empire, her path was war, strategy, and expansion. She wanted to prove herself—to give more before taking something as personal as love.
And Ren… he let her go, just for now.
Then, without warning, the snowfall turned fierce. Wind howled through the courtyard, twisting flakes into blinding spirals. The storm came suddenly—as if summoned by thought, not weather.
And through its heart, a voice emerged. Beautiful. Serene. Resonant with celestial detachment.
"I met your wives and lovers," it said. "Shen Wuyin, you have excellent taste in women."
Ren blinked once, then smiled faintly.
"Well, that makes sense," he replied, brushing snow off his shoulder. "I agreed to be your disciple, didn't I? You're my type, too."
Lady Xuanhe appeared.
No ceremony. No trumpet of qi or divine invocation—just sudden presence, quiet and absolute, like snow settling on the bones of the world.
Outside, the snowstorm raged. Cultivators and mortals huddled beneath awnings, pressed against temple walls, trying to make sense of the unnatural cold and the pulse of something older than heaven.
They looked toward Ren's building.
And they understood.
Someone had angered a goddess.
It was not rage that stirred Lady Xuanhe's arrival—it was something colder. Disappointment. Perhaps curiosity. Or worse… amusement.
And Ren, in his warm room with Mianmian still nibbling on an acorn, looked up from his thoughts.
The storm was no longer outside. It had stepped into the room.
Mianmian leapt from Ren's shoulder in a blur of fur and indignation, landing squarely between him and the goddess.
Snow froze mid-fall.
The little spirit beast flared with qi far too ancient for her size, tail arched like a battle banner. Her eyes locked onto Lady Xuanhe's, unblinking.
The look she gave was unmistakable.
Come then.
Give me all you've got.
Petty, jealous little goddess.
I protect him. He is my great benefactor.
Power trembled in the room—not from Lady Xuanhe's divine presence, but from the audacity of the challenge—a beast of acorns and loyalty, standing against the cold divine.
Even Lady Xuanhe tilted her head, not in offence… but in intrigue.
"How dare you?" Lady Xuanhe's voice, once serene, sharpened to diamond clarity.
"You're not even his proper spirit beast. And yet you challenge me—a goddess?" Her words curled with frost.
"You don't even know your station," she continued, eyes narrowing. "Your cultivation is a flicker compared to mine. I could erase Step Twenty-Three with a sigh."
She paused.
"If it were Shen Wuyin himself… that would be different.
Mianmian leapt forward, eyes blazing, fur bristling with righteous indignation. Without hesitation, she extended her paw in a gesture most uncultivated—one rarely seen in polite sect diplomacy.
Then she spun, slapped her backside, and sneered:
"Get it, bitch. I'm not afraid of you."
The room fell silent.
Lady Xuanhe blinked once.
Mianmian had shown open disrespect to one of the Six Legendary Figures of Mìngjiè Xiānlù. Not merely a goddess—but a figure revered across realms. The frost in the chamber shimmered, uncertain whether to react or recoil.
But Mianmian didn't care.
She had been with Shen Wuyin since the day he first arrived at the Glass Lotus Sect—back when she was just an ordinary squirrel chasing fallen seeds and avoiding large feet. Through cultivation, loyalty, and countless shared battles, she had risen. She was no longer a creature of fur and instinct.
She was a cultivator.
And someday, she would walk as a person among the sects—thanks to him. Her benefactor. Her master. The one whose karmic resonance wasn't just powerful, but rare. Sacred. Unclassifiable.
Because Shen Wuyin wasn't just special.
He was inevitable.
So Mianmian did what only a soul bound by truth dares to do: she defied a goddess without fear.
Lady Xuanhe's gaze narrowed.
"I've seen your future, little rodent," she said, voice soaked in both derision and eerie fondness. "Fortunate, aren't you? A spark of luck wrapped in fur and arrogance."
Snow curled around her words.
"I should end you for your insolence. Flick you from the tapestry of fate like a flawed thread."
She stepped closer, and for a moment even the acorns in Mianmian's satchel seemed to shiver.
"But I won't."
Her eyes glinted—not with mercy, but calculation.
"I grant you this reprieve not because you deserve it. But because Shen Wuyin does."
Then she tilted her head, expression unreadable.
"For him… I'll allow you to keep scampering."
"Mianmian, come here," Ren said warmly. "Lie back on my shoulder."
She hopped up without hesitation, curling into him like she belonged there—which, of course, she did. He cuddled her gently, eyes still sparkling with mischief.
"How could you be so mean to her?" he said, not to Lady Xuanhe, but to the storm itself. His smile was insolent. Familiar.
Mianmian turned, kissed Ren on the cheek with zero ceremony, and stared down the goddess as though issuing judgment from a throne of acorns.
"You see that?" her expression said. "I earned my place in his arms. I get to kiss him. You think he'll come to you?"
She scoffed, tail flicking like a war banner.
"No, sweetheart. You go to him."