The bouquet had cost Han Feng three months of back-breaking labor at the docks. He had skipped meals, walked miles to save on bus fare, and endured the mockery of his coworkers—all for a bundle of white lilies and a modest gold band that now felt like a lead weight in his pocket.
Now, those lilies were just mulch in a shredder.
Han Feng stood in the center of the Mu Group's penthouse office, the air-conditioning humming a clinical, uncaring tune. His cheap suit, a thrift-store find he'd hoped looked professional, was dripping onto the Italian marble floor. Each drop sounded like a ticking clock, marking the end of his life as he knew it.
Across the sprawling mahogany desk, his fiancé—the "Ice Queen" CEO Mu Rong—didn't even bother to adjust her silk skirt. She stayed exactly where she was: perched on the lap of Young Master Zhao, the heir to the Zhao Clan and Han Feng's primary tormentor since childhood.
The sight was a physical blow. Mu Rong, who had always claimed she was practicing a "Purity Art" that forbade physical contact until marriage, was currently leaning into Zhao's chest with a softness Han Feng had never seen.
"Rong'er... what is this?" Han Feng's voice was a pathetic rasp, a ghost of the pride he once held.
Mu Rong didn't flinch. Her eyes, beautiful and cold as glacial ice, swept over him with a lack of interest that hurt worse than a blade. She reached out, picked a stray white petal off Zhao's expensive silk sleeve, and blew it toward the floor. It fluttered down, landing in the puddle of rainwater at Han Feng's feet.
"It's an eviction notice, Han Feng," she said, her voice smooth and devoid of any tremor. "From the company, from this penthouse, and from my life."
"I gave you the Han family scrolls," he choked out, his fists trembling so hard the veins in his forearms threatened to pop. "I worked three jobs while you built this empire. I stayed in the shadows so the board wouldn't see you were marrying a 'trash' disciple. You said we were a team. You said you loved me."
Zhao laughed. It was a wet, arrogant sound that filled the room, echoing off the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the glowing skyline of the Azure Capital. He squeezed Mu Rong's waist, his fingers digging into the expensive fabric of her dress, asserting his dominance.
"A team?" Zhao mocked, his eyes gleaming with sadistic pleasure. "Han Feng, look at yourself. Your dantian is cracked. Your meridians are clogged. You're a battery, kid. A disposable one. Mu Rong needed the Han scrolls to bypass her bottleneck, and you were the only one pathetic enough to hand them over for a smile and a lie."
The betrayal settled in Han Feng's stomach like hot lead. He looked at Mu Rong, searching for a spark of regret, a hint of the woman he thought he knew. There was nothing.
"Rong... please," he whispered, a final, desperate plea.
"Don't call me that," she snapped, her coldness finally sharpening into irritation. "You've served your purpose. The Han scrolls have been integrated into the Mu Group's private library. My cultivation has stabilized. I no longer have any use for a 'limp' commoner who can't even circulate Qi."
Zhao didn't even bother to stand up. He just flicked a finger, his movements casual and condescending. A bolt of golden, high-tier Qi erupted from his fingertip, slamming into Han Feng's chest like a runaway freight train.
Crack.
The sound of his ribs shattering was sickeningly loud in the quiet office.
Han Feng flew backward. His body shattered the glass partitions that divided the executive wing, the shards cutting into his skin like a thousand razors. He tumbled into the hallway, his world spinning, and landed in a heap, coughing up dark, metallic-tasting blood.
Through the jagged, sparkling hole in the glass, he saw Mu Rong stand up. She didn't rush to help him. She didn't look away. She walked over slowly, her stiletto heels clicking a rhythmic death march on the marble.
She stopped an inch from his face as he lay gasping for air. She leaned down, the scent of her expensive perfume mixing with the copper tang of his blood. Then, she spat.
The saliva hit his cheek, cold and final.
"The scrolls are mine now. The company is mine. You?" She glanced at the security guards hovering nearby, men who had once bowed to Han Feng out of obligation but now wore grins of contempt. "Throw this trash into the rain. He's hurting my eyes."
------------------------------
The alleyway smelled of piss, wet asphalt, and the rot of a city that had no room for losers.
Han Feng lay in the gutter, the freezing rain washing the blood from his face only to replace it with the filth of the street. His breath came in shallow, agonized hitches; every movement caused his shattered ribs to grate against each other.
His dantian—the core of his power—was a smoldering ruin. Zhao's strike hadn't just broken his body; it had extinguished the last flicker of his cultivation.
I'm dying. The thought was cold and remarkably clear. I'm dying in the mud for a woman who used my soul as a stepping stone.
He thought of his father, who had died in disgrace to protect those scrolls. He thought of the years he'd spent scrubbing floors and fighting in underground pits just to keep Mu Rong's dreams alive. The rage began to simmer, a dark, oily heat deep within his marrow.
His hand, twitching in the muck, brushed against something in his inner coat pocket. It was a scrap of ancient, yellowed parchment—the final "useless" page of the Han scrolls. He had kept it because he couldn't translate the symbols, thinking it was a flawed appendix.
As his blood, thick and dark with the "Filthy Blood" curse of his ancestors, soaked into the dry fibers of the parchment, the paper didn't turn soggy.
It got hot. White-hot.
[DING!]
A voice, sharp as a razor and cold as the void, sliced through his fading consciousness.
[COMPATIBLE HOST DETECTED: HAN FENG.]
[BLOODLINE ANALYSIS: 'PRIMAL PLUNDERER'—AWAKENED BY EXTREME HUMILIATION.]
[SYSTEM STARTING: THE SUPREME ERO-SYSTEM.]
The agony in his chest didn't vanish—it transformed. It became a thrumming, violent heat that radiated from the base of his spine to the crown of his head. He felt his broken ribs knit together with the speed of a closing zipper. His lungs expanded, drawing in the damp air with a hunger he'd never known.
[TARGET DETECTED: MU RONG (PURE YIN BODY / 99% UNCORRUPTED).]
[CURRENT RELATIONSHIP: BETRAYER / FIANCÉ.]
[STATUS: STOLEN PROPERTY HELD (HAN FAMILY SCROLLS).]
[MISSION GENERATED: THE CEO'S CORRECTION.]
[OBJECTIVE: RECLAIM YOUR LEGACY. BREAK THE ICE QUEEN'S PRIDE.]
[REWARD: 'GOD-TIER LENGTH' UPGRADE, QI SIPHON, & FOUNDATION REPAIR.]
Han Feng pushed himself up. His bones snapped back into place with sickening, wet pops. The rain didn't feel cold anymore. It hissed as it hit his skin, turning to steam. He felt a secondary pulse beating between his legs—a heavy, throbbing power that the System called the Primal Rod.
He looked at his hands. The grime of the alley was being pushed away by a faint, predatory violet light emanating from his pores.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: YOUR 'FILTHY BLOOD' IS THE ULTIMATE POISON TO 'PURE QI'. EVERY ENCOUNTER WILL DRAIN THEIR POWER AND INCREASE YOURS.]
Han Feng looked up at the towering obsidian monolith of the Mu Group. The blue neon sign at the top mocked him, flickering against the storm clouds. Inside that building, Mu Rong was likely celebrating her "freedom" with Zhao.
A jagged, blood-stained grin stretched across Han Feng's face. It wasn't the grin of the man who had walked in with lilies. It was the grin of a predator that had finally found its teeth.
"You called me a battery, Rong'er," he whispered, his voice vibrating with a new, dangerous frequency. "You're right. I'm going to drain you until there's nothing left but the hollow shell of a Goddess."
He didn't head for the hospital. He didn't run for cover. He turned back toward the skyscraper, his footsteps leaving steaming prints in the cold puddles of the alleyway.
The Ice Queen wanted a world of power? He was going to give her a throne—and then he was going to make her beg for mercy on it.