The air inside the Azure Sky Matchmaking Hall was a suffocating blend of expensive sandalwood incense and the arrogance of those who could afford it. For most, this hall was a place of hope and union. For Qin Feng, it felt like a marketplace where he was the only one with an empty wallet.
He stood at the very back of the line, keeping his head low. His boots were caked with the grey, metallic dust of the Spirit Stone mines, a stain that no amount of scrubbing could ever truly remove. Every time a young master in silken robes walked past, they would fan the air in front of their noses, looking at Qin Feng as if he were a piece of refuse that had accidentally drifted into a palace.
"Next! Qin Feng, Third Layer of Qi Refining!" the matchmaker's voice shrieked, echoing off the mahogany walls.
The hall fell into a sudden, mocking silence. Qin Feng stepped forward, his heart thumping against his ribs like a trapped bird. Behind the massive desk sat Madame Hua, a woman whose triple chin was adorned with more jade jewelry than Qin Feng would earn in three lifetimes.
"Name: Qin Feng. Age: 20. Occupation: Low-level spirit miner. Cultivation: Trash-tier," Madame Hua droned, her quill scratching loudly on a piece of high-grade parchment. She finally looked up, her eyes narrowing with cold amusement. "Budget for the Bride Price?"
Qin Feng cleared his throat, his voice raspy from years of breathing in mine dust. "I have saved twelve low-grade Spirit Stones. And I own a small shack in the Outer Slums."
A roar of laughter erupted from the front of the line. A young man dressed in vibrant azure silk, Li Wei, stepped forward, leaning against the desk with a smirk. "Twelve stones? Is this a joke? I spend twelve stones on a single bottle of Spirit Wine at the Immortal Pavilion! Kid, the cheapest bride in this hall, even a mortal woman with zero cultivation talent, costs at least two hundred stones. Plus a dowry of three enchanted artifacts just to show you aren't a beggar."
Madame Hua sighed, tapping her quill. "Li Wei is right. You are wasting my time, boy. You earn two stones a month. It would take you a decade just to afford a blind date with a kitchen maid. In this city, marriage isn't about love; it's a strategic alliance for dual cultivation. Why would any woman tie her fate to a man who will likely die in a mine collapse before he even reaches the Fourth Layer?"
Qin Feng felt the familiar, burning heat of shame crawling up his neck. He wasn't just poor; in a world where power was the only currency, he was a ghost. A non-entity. But he couldn't leave. He was desperate.
"Is there... no other way?" Qin Feng asked, his voice barely a whisper. "I need a partner for dual cultivation. My meridians are clogged with Pill Poison from the cheap, impure supplements I have to take to survive the mining shifts. If I don't find someone to help circulate and purify my Qi, the toxins will turn my veins to stone within a year."
The laughter died down, replaced by a cruel, clinical curiosity. Pill Poison was the silent killer of the poor. It was the mark of a "corporate slave" of the cultivation world, someone who burned their future just to survive the present.
Madame Hua paused. She glanced at a gold-embossed scroll sitting on the far corner of her desk, a scroll that had been rejected by every noble family and rising genius in the city for the past week. A predatory smile slowly spread across her face.
"There is one," she said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial silkiness. "But she isn't a 'bride' in the traditional sense. She is a 'Political Sinner.' A gift from the City Lord's office to anyone brave, or stupid, enough to take her."
Li Wei's eyes widened. "You don't mean... the traitor from the North?"
"Yes," Madame Hua continued, enjoying the shock in the room. "The sole survivor of the Fallen Moon Sect. The 'Cold Moon Empress' Ye Chen. She was branded a traitor to the Empire, her cultivation shattered by the Forbidden Bone-Piercing Nails. Her family is dust. Her sect is a graveyard."
She pushed the scroll toward Qin Feng. "The City Lord wants her humiliated. He wants her married off to the lowest, most insignificant man possible so that every time people see her, they remember the price of rebellion. If you marry her, there is no Bride Price. In fact, the City Hall will pay you a bounty of five Spirit Stones just to sign the contract and take her out of their sight."
The hall erupted again, this time with hushed, shocked whispers. To marry a traitor was to become a social pariah. Qin Feng would be watched by the City Guard. He would be barred from ever joining a decent sect. He would be the husband of a "fallen bird" whose wings had been brutally clipped.
But Qin Feng looked at his shaking hands, feeling the dull, rhythmic ache of the Pill Poison thumping in his chest. He was already a pariah. He was already dying.
"What's the catch?" Qin Feng asked.
"The catch?" Madame Hua laughed. "The catch is that you'll be sleeping next to a woman who was once a Saint Realm expert. If she ever recovers even a fraction of her power, she might kill you in your sleep just for looking at her. Or the Empire might decide to finish the job and execute both of you. You aren't buying a wife, Qin Feng. You're buying a death warrant."
Qin Feng stared at the scroll. He thought about the mines. He thought about the cold, lonely shack. He thought about the "Heavens" that had decided he was worth nothing.
"I'll take her," he said, his voice firming up. "I'll marry Ye Chen."
"Sign here," Madame Hua said, pushing a blood-contract towards him.
Qin Feng bit his finger, letting a drop of dark, toxin-filled blood fall onto the parchment. The paper flared with a sickly purple light before turning cold and grey.
"Take this to the Black Prison in the North District," Madame Hua sneered, tossing a rusted iron medallion at him. "Collect your 'prize' before sunset. And Qin Feng? Don't bother coming back here. You've officially reached the bottom of the world."
The walk to the North District took hours. As the sun began to dip below the horizon, painting the sky in shades of bruised purple and blood orange, Qin Feng reached the jagged stone walls of the Black Prison. It was a place where hope went to rot.
After enduring the mockery of the guards, he was led deep underground. The air was damp and smelled of salt and old blood. In the very last cell, behind bars reinforced with Qi-suppressing runes, sat a woman.
She was dressed in rags that might have once been white silk. Her hair, long and black as a starless night, fell over her face, obscuring her features. But even sitting on a pile of moldy straw, her back was as straight as a spear. Despite the filth, there was an aura around her, a lingering coldness that made the moisture on the walls turn to frost.
"Hey, prisoner!" the guard yelled, banging his spear against the bars. "Wake up. Your new master is here. Try not to kill him on the first night."
The woman slowly lifted her head.
Qin Feng caught his breath. Her face was pale, almost translucent, but her eyes... they weren't the eyes of a broken prisoner. They were deep, icy pools of violet that seemed to pierce right through his soul. She looked at his tattered clothes, his dusty face, and his calloused hands.
"So," she said, her voice sounding like cracked crystal. "This is the final insult. A miner who can barely hold his Qi together. They truly want me to rot in the mud."
Qin Feng looked her in the eyes, refusing to flinch. "I'm the only one who came for you. In this city, they call me trash. They call you a sinner. It seems to me we're a perfect match."
Ye Chen stood up. Every movement looked like it cost her a mountain of pain, yet she didn't make a sound. She walked to the edge of the bars, her gaze locked on his.
"Very well, miner," she whispered, her breath visible in the cold air. "But remember this: I am a 'sinner' because I refused to bow to a corrupt god. If you take my hand, the Heavens themselves will become your enemy. Are you still willing?"
Qin Feng didn't hesitate. He reached his hand through the bars, offering his palm. "The Heavens have never done me any favors anyway. I'd rather fight them with you than die alone in a hole."
As their fingers touched, a jolt of electricity, pure, frigid, and ancient, shot through Qin Feng's arm. For a split second, the Pill Poison in his veins vanished, suppressed by a power so vast it felt like a silent ocean.
Ye Chen's eyes widened slightly. She felt it too. Something in this "trash" miner's body had just reacted to her shattered soul. It wasn't just synergy; it was a resonance that defied the laws of cultivation.
The guard grunted, unlocking the door. "Get going. You have until the gates close."
As they walked out of the prison into the fading light of the sunset, the world saw a beggar leading a broken queen. But under the surface, the wheels of fate, frozen for centuries, began to turn with a thunderous roar.