Chapter 621: Zhang Yaqian: Husband, who is that?
'Don't kill him yet!' Shen Anyu's voice transmission drifted into Bai Bing's ears.
Bai Bing was confused and puzzled. Zhang Zhiyun had repeatedly tried to attack Shen Anyu, so why not kill him? She didn't believe Shen Anyu was soft-hearted. Was there another scheme?
Bai Bing was originally determined to kill Zhang Zhiyun because Zhang Zhiyun had repeatedly tried to deal with the man she recognized, but when Shen Anyu's voice transmission came, Bai Bing didn't hesitate at all. Even if it concerned her and Wu Shenyun's victory and bet, Bai Bing still didn't hesitate in the slightest, and her movements paused slightly.
'Good opportunity!' A flash of delirious joy ignited in Zhang Zhiyun's eyes. He felt the infinitesimal hesitation in Bai Bing's assault, a split-second gift from Shen Anyu's arrival. The chilling longsword was already buried an inch deep in his back, right over his heart. Blood erupted in a hot spray. A vicious storm of Sword Qi raged through his meridians, a tempest of icy needles threatening to shred him from the inside out. The agony was blinding, a white-hot scream that threatened to overwhelm his senses.
But Zhang Zhiyun was a survivor. He clung to that sliver of a chance, that moment of slackened intent. With a surge of adrenaline that ignored the tearing muscle and grinding bone, he threw himself into a desperate, undignified scramble. He executed a lazy donkey roll, a textbook maneuver for escaping certain death, kicking up clods of earth and grass as he tumbled away from the lethal blade.
He came to a stop, sprawled on the ground, gasping for air. His face, smeared with dirt and his own blood, was a mask of ecstatic relief. The wild joy of a man who had stared into the abyss and been pulled back from the brink lit up his features.
He survived!
His heart was a mere two inches from his back, a gap of perhaps five, maybe seven centimeters. That freezing sword had pierced a full inch, its tip so close to the vital organ he could have sworn he felt its frigid touch. He thought he was dead. He was absolutely certain his life was over.
He never expected that his nemesis, Shen Anyu, would be the one to inadvertently save his life. The irony was so thick it was almost suffocating. This realization filled Zhang Zhiyun with a savage glee, and a sneer twisted his lips. In a twisted way, he even had to thank the man.
These thoughts blazed through his mind in a fraction of a second. Zhang Zhiyun knew the danger hadn't passed. Bai Bing and Wu Shenyun were monstrously powerful, terrifying entities he couldn't possibly face in his current wounded state. Bai Bing alone was a lethal threat. If Wu Shenyun were to stop suppressing her cultivation and unleash the full might of her Land Immortal cultivation, he wouldn't even have a corpse left to bury.
He scrambled to his feet, performing several more consecutive lazy donkey rolls, a chaotic and desperate retreat. He could feel Bai Bing's pursuit behind him, but it lacked its earlier murderous conviction. She was clearly slacking off on purpose, following her master's orders. He reached the perimeter wall of the No. 1 Villa, his muscles coiling as he prepared to leap over it and vanish into the night.
As for Shen Anyu… he would come back to kill him later!
'As long as the green hills are there, there will be no shortage of firewood,' he thought, the ancient proverb a balm to his shattered pride. With the Yin Corpse Devil Swordplay, his future was limitless. His strength would one day surpass that of a Land Immortal; he could even slay a Martial God! Even without wielding the insane Yin Corpse Devil Sword itself, simply mastering its swordplay would grant him terrifying power. It would just take a little more time. A searing hatred burned in his heart. He would return. He swore it.
Just as his feet were about to leave the ground, a clear, magnetic voice suddenly sliced through the night air.
"Zhang Yaqian, my home is quite big. You're welcome to come and play. If you get tired, just sleep, no problem!"
"Mmm, husband, Zhang Yaqian is also very curious about husband's home. I didn't expect it to be Jinxiu Mountain Villa No. 1 Villa. People often speculate about the owner behind Jinxiu Mountain Villa No. 1 Villa. I didn't expect it to be you, husband."
Shen Anyu and Zhang Yaqian walked into the war-torn courtyard, their fingers intertwined. She leaned against his shoulder, her body language shy yet utterly intimate. The form of address had shifted seamlessly from 'Master Shen' to 'husband.' Her pure and heart-stoppingly beautiful face was overflowing with a joy so radiant it seemed to illuminate the night. After experiencing the nourishment of love, this number one socialite of Hangzhou, once hailed as an untouchable elven princess, had become even more vibrant, a flower in full, glorious bloom. The elegant, serene woman of yesterday was gone, replaced by one completely and blissfully submerged in the throes of passionate love.
"Zhang Yaqian!!!!"
Zhang Zhiyun's leap froze mid-air. His body, defying gravity for a moment, crashed back down to earth with a heavy thud. He looked up, his gaze locking onto Zhang Yaqian, onto her exquisite, innocent face. He couldn't believe what his eyes were showing him. The scene was so surreal, so utterly impossible, that he thought the blood loss had finally made him hallucinate.
He had seen recent photos of her, intel he'd acquired from Zhou Yunhu, the head of the Yunhu Association. It wasn't difficult; Zhang Yaqian's fame in Hangzhou's upper echelons was immense. He knew what his little sister looked like after all these years. She had blossomed into a graceful, pure, and moving beauty, lauded as Hangzhou's premiere socialite, pursued by countless admirers.
He also knew that she had a well-matched fiancé, Zhao Tao. A man who, just this afternoon, had been accidentally beaten to death by a Yunhu Association thug during a street conflict. He had even felt a pang of worry, wondering if his little sister would be devastated by her fiancé's death, if she might somehow blame him for the chaos he brought to the city.
But now… what in the seven hells was this?
Seeing Zhang Yaqian, his precious little sister, holding hands with his sworn enemy, Shen Anyu, her face a portrait of happiness and sweet affection, hearing her call that monster her husband… Zhang Zhiyun's mind fractured. His brain simply crashed, the logic of his world shattering into a million pieces.
He had never, not even in his most fevered nightmares, imagined a scene like this. He could have stomached anything else. If Shen Anyu had brought his fiancée, Ji Xiaolin—the woman Zhang Zhiyun had fallen for at first sight—and paraded her around intimately, he would have grit his teeth and fled without a second thought. He knew Ji Xiaolin had already become Shen Anyu's woman; that was a bitter pill he had been forced to swallow.
But this? His own sister? With Shen Anyu?
A cataclysmic storm erupted in his heart, a tsunami of disbelief so powerful it wiped away all other thoughts. Zhang Zhiyun completely forgot about escaping. He just stood there, staring blankly at the couple, his eyes wide and unseeing, as if his soul had been ripped from his body.
[Ding! Child of Destiny Zhang Zhiyun's mind is shaken, plundering +66666 destiny value!]
[Ding! Child of Destiny Zhang Zhiyun doubts life, plundering +66666 destiny value!]
…
"Heh!"
"Hmph!"
The moment Bai Bing and Wu Shenyun saw Shen Anyu return with another little beauty clinging to his arm, looking so sickeningly sweet, they both snorted in perfect, icy unison. The tense, battle-ready atmosphere that had filled the courtyard instantly evaporated, replaced by a frigid hostility directed squarely at Shen Anyu. Their glares were sharp enough to cut steel.
'He brought another woman back,' Bai Bing seethed internally, her silver eyes flashing dangerously. The killing intent she had reined in moments before was now leaking out, chilling the air around her. 'As I expected. I should just capture the stinky master, imprison him, and put him in shackles! A cheating cat! A cheating cat! A cheating cat!' Her fists clenched at her sides, and the raw desire to grow stronger, strong enough to control everything and everyone, nearly burst from her chest.
'So unfaithful!' Wu Shenyun's regal composure didn't crack, but her phoenix eyes narrowed into sharp, disdainful slits. A powerful, oppressive aura, that of a true ruler, pulsed around her. 'But who told me I can't leave him in this life? I need to find a way to make a comeback, to seize control and become the empress of this household. Then I'll discipline these little sluts like Bai Bing properly.' As a former overlord of the Southern Border, her ambition was a raging fire. How could she ever be content as a mere female slave? The thousands of dream-space reincarnations, the countless scenarios she had endured, had hammered one truth into her soul: she could never leave Shen Anyu. The only question was one of power—who held the dominant position. When she was defeated, she could only submit and become a slave. It was a state of exquisite pain and obvious pleasure.
A comeback.
She had to make a comeback!
…
"Eh? Eh??"
Zhang Zhiyun's agonized shout startled Zhang Yaqian out of her blissful bubble. Her luminous, starry eyes shifted, landing on the man covered in blood, his right arm gruesomely severed at the shoulder. His face was a mess of grime and gore, but his bloodshot eyes were fixed on her with a terrifying intensity. Her delicate brows furrowed slightly. She felt a flicker of confusion.
Who was this man? And why was he looking at her like that?
Her thoughts were immediately interrupted by the two sharp, feminine snorts. Zhang Yaqian's gaze slid past the wounded man to the two peerless beauties standing nearby. One had an expression as cold as a winter glacier, the other a look of haughty disdain.
Why were these two stunning women in Shen Anyu's villa? And why were they directing such resentment and hostility towards her and Shen Anyu? Though the two women were masters of controlling their expressions, Zhang Yaqian, with the keen intuition of a woman in love, detected the unmistakable scent of jealousy in the air.
This was instinct.
Alarm bells screamed in Zhang Yaqian's mind. She instantly forgot about the one-armed man. She paid no mind to the cratered, scorched earth of the courtyard, which looked as though it had been bombarded by a hundred rounds of artillery. She tightened her grip on Shen Anyu's arm, pressing herself closer, and asked in a voice dripping with honeyed sweetness and a touch of flirtatious whine:
"Husband~ Who are these two big sisters? Are they husband's relatives~"
Her voice stretched the words, the tone impossibly sweet and charming.
A bit 'tea-like'.
[Akarin's Note: "Tea-like" (茶里茶气, chá lǐ chá qì) is a modern Chinese internet slang for a "green tea bitch" (绿茶婊). It describes someone, usually a woman, who presents a pure, innocent, and harmless facade while being manipulative, calculating, and passive-aggressive, especially when competing for male attention.]
Shen Anyu chuckled inwardly, offering his silent assessment.
[Ding! Child of Destiny Zhang Zhiyun's mindset explodes, plundering +9999 destiny value!]
…
Zhang Zhiyun watched the last pure, sacred memory in his world—his little sister, Zhang Yaqian—acting coquettishly towards Shen Anyu, clinging to him like a little bird. His eyes turned completely bloodshot. He was going insane.
"Shen Anyu! What did you do to Zhang Yaqian!!!"
Zhang Zhiyun roared and pounced towards Shen Anyu...
[Akarin's Note:
Enjoying the story? Dropping a quick review, comment, or Power Stone means the world to me and keeps these daily updates flowing!
Want to read 50 chapters ahead or just want to help keep a shameless translator alive? (My livelihood actually depends on this, haha 😭). You can support me directly here:
(P.S. Just remove the brackets and replace the [.] with a regular dot . to use the links!)
✨ Patreon (50 Advanced Chapters): patreon[.]com/AkarinTL
☕ Ko-fi (Support / Sponsor): ko-fi[.]com/AkarinTL
🔗 All My Links: linktr[.]ee/AkarinTL
Thank you so much for reading and keeping this project alive!]