Chapter 527: The Cautious Son of Destiny Snaps, His Mentality Shattered!
[Ding! Child of Destiny Wu Ming's mentality has shattered, plundering +9999 Destiny Points!]
[Ding! Child of Destiny Wu Ming's mind has been shaken, plundering +9999 Destiny Points!]
[Ding! Child of Destiny Wu Ming's Dao Heart has suffered a severe blow, plundering +800,000 Destiny Points!]
… …
"Shen Anyu, you've gone too far!!!"
Wu Ming's composure finally exploded. The phone in his hand groaned under the pressure, the screen spiderwebbing with fractures before imploding into a shower of glass and plastic shards. Even with his famously calm and steady demeanor, a trait he had painstakingly cultivated since his rebirth, he was now consumed by a volcanic fury. His eyes burned crimson, raw veins of anger tracing across the whites. A torrent of spiritual energy, unstable and chaotic, lashed out from his body, causing the air in his small, hidden room to ripple with uncontrolled force.
How could he not recognize that voice? It was the voice of Yang Qiuchan. His cherished goddess, the white moonlight of his past life, the woman he had pursued with all his heart for so many years. The very sound of it, now laced with a seductive, breathless surrender meant for another man, was a poisoned dagger twisting in his soul.
Worse, Wu Ming's mind, a tool he prided himself on, now betrayed him, conjuring vivid, torturous images of what was undoubtedly happening at that very moment. The thought that his goddess, Yang Qiuchan, would not only be with his nemesis but would willingly offer him everything—her body, her devotion, her future—made Wu Ming's heart seize. A searing pain, sharp and visceral as if a blade were tearing through his chest, radiated through him. His guts twisted into agonizing knots, and a coppery taste of blood filled his mouth.
He forced his gaze back to the email, to the photograph attached. It was Yang Qiuchan, her skin flawless and radiant, her beauty not just restored but elevated to a celestial level. She was more stunning than ever before, a devastating beauty capable of toppling nations with a single smile. Looking at that face, the face that had once been the sole focus of his world, Wu Ming felt a wrenching, hollow agony. The fury was so intense it felt like a physical blow, a tremor that shook him to his very core.
Even after his rebirth, he had made a conscious, painful decision to stay away from her. He knew the timeline. He knew that getting involved with Yang Qiuchan was the first step on the path to being utterly crushed by Shen Anyu. He had vowed to avoid repeating the tragic fate he had suffered before his second chance at life.
And yet… hearing his goddess's soft pleas for his rival, seeing her impossibly beautiful and achingly familiar face, he still felt the impact of a sledgehammer to his soul. The blow was so profound, so spiritually damaging, that his flawless Dao Heart—the very foundation of his cultivation, fortified by the wisdom of a second life—developed a tiny, terrifying fracture. A spiderweb of darkness crept across its pristine surface, a flaw that could fester and destroy him from within.
The email was a masterpiece of psychological warfare. In addition to the soul-crushing recording and the maddeningly beautiful photograph, there was a single line of text. An address: Hilton Hotel, top-floor suite, Room One.
Wu Ming's face was a canvas of warring emotions as he stared at the address, his features shifting in the flickering light of his computer monitor. A desperate, primal urge to rush there, to confront them, to tear Shen Anyu limb from limb, warred with the cold, hard-won caution of his new life. For a long, agonizing moment, the struggle was visible in his eyes. Then, with a deep, shuddering breath, he forced the rage down, burying it under layers of icy analysis. He regained his composure, his mind clicking back into its familiar, calculating rhythm.
'Having been reborn, I already avoided Yang Qiuchan completely. Why is Shen Anyu still targeting me?' he thought, his mind racing. 'Did he target me before this? Impossible. If he had known about me before, with his methods, he would have made a move long ago. I would already be dead or captured.'
A cold dread began to seep into his bones, far more terrifying than the initial burst of rage.
'It must be that he recently discovered something… something unusual about me. He sensed my existence.'
Wu Ming's eyes were filled with a profound and heavy sense of dread, a deep-seated trepidation that chilled him to the marrow. Shen Anyu. This terrifying, monstrous enemy made even him, a reborn cultivator armed with a Portable Immortal Mansion and the inheritance of a higher plane, shudder with primal fear. It felt as if a colossal, unseen hand was moving pieces on a board he couldn't even see, its shadow falling over everything he did, grasping his destiny in its inescapable grip.
'I absolutely cannot go to that suite. The Hilton is a trap. It has to be. If I go, it's all over. My second chance, wasted.'
He clenched his fists, his knuckles white. The power of a third-level Qi Condensation cultivator flowed through his veins, a formidable force in the mortal world, yet he knew, with chilling certainty, that it was nothing.
'I am still no match for Shen Anyu. Not even close. He has too many trump cards, too many hidden depths. His power is simply… terrifying.'
His resolve hardened into adamantine conviction.
'Lie low. I must lie low! That is my path. That is the only way to win.'
'With my Portable Immortal Mansion, as long as I hide inside and cultivate, I can achieve true longevity. Time is on my side.'
'One hundred years from now, a thousand years from now, Shen Anyu and all his power will have turned to dust. His empire will be forgotten ashes. And I, Wu Ming, will still be here. I will still be alive.'
A grim, humorless smile touched his lips. 'At most, when that day comes, I'll find his grave and dance on it.'
'A truly long-lived person does not engage in petty disputes over fleeting moments. The one who lives to the end is the real winner. That is the ultimate victory.'
With his decision made, Wu Ming's movements became swift and decisive. He wiped his computer, destroyed the hard drive, and with a single thought, his physical body vanished from the room. He was gone, dissolving into the void to reappear within the secure, isolated space of his Portable Immortal Mansion.
… …
"Goodness, this Wu Ming is truly a patient one."
Shen Anyu's eyes flickered with amusement, a cold sneer touching his heart. He sat comfortably in a different suite, a glass of fine wine swirling in his hand.
In truth, the email he'd sent was more than just a psychological attack. He had embedded a sophisticated tracking virus within the attachments, a digital leash designed to pinpoint Wu Ming's physical location. The moment Wu Ming opened it, the program activated. Shen Anyu had immediately dispatched a team of his most capable agents to apprehend him, expecting to corner the rat in his nest. But they had found nothing. The room was empty, the trail cold. Wu Ming had already hidden himself away in that troublesome Portable Immortal Mansion and, to make matters worse, had likely already changed its anchor point in the physical world. Pinpointing him now was next to impossible.
Expecting Wu Ming to charge into a blatant trap and offer himself up was, as he had predicted, completely unrealistic.
The man was far too cautious, a turtle hiding in an unbreakable shell.
'It's unlikely I'll be able to take down Wu Ming in the short term,' Shen Anyu mused, taking a slow sip of wine. 'There are two paths. The first is to simply outlive him. The second is to wait until my own cultivation is so profound, my divine abilities so vast, that I can directly sense the spatial coordinates of his little mansion in the void, tear open space with my bare hands, and drag him out like a snail from its shell. For now, I won't waste any more thought on this guy. He's too good at hiding.'
His thoughts shifted effortlessly, his gaze softening as he turned his full attention to the present.
'Now… it's time to cherish this beautiful moment. To cherish the person right in front of me.'
Shen Anyu's appreciative gaze fell upon Yang Qiuchan.
"Qiuchan, you are truly beautiful."
He had already brought her to the Hilton Hotel, though not to the room number he'd sent to Wu Ming. Instead, he'd opened another top-floor suite—as it happened, right next to the one Zhou Luyao was staying in.
Following his instructions, Yang Qiuchan had changed into a stunning, floor-length evening gown the color of a midnight sky. The cut was elegant, subtly revealing the perfect curve of her shoulders and collarbones. Her figure, once hidden by simple clothes and marred by tragedy, was now displayed in all its graceful, exquisite glory. With just a light touch of makeup to accentuate her features, she was a devastating beauty, an existence that would halt any banquet and capture the undivided attention of every person in the room.
Listening to Shen Anyu's sincere praise, a charming blush crept up Yang Qiuchan's perfect face, making her look shy and impossibly lovely. Her star-like eyes, however, held no trace of reservation. They gazed at Shen Anyu with an overflowing tenderness, a liquid affection that was both worship and desire.
"My beauty blossoms only for you, Brother Shen," she whispered, her voice husky. "Why aren't you starting yet?"
With an invitation like that, spoken with such earnest devotion, could Shen Anyu possibly hold back?
What followed was an indescribably wonderful time.
It wasn't until the afternoon of the third day, after Shen Anyu's thorough 'treatment,' that Yang Qiuchan finally returned home.
Yang's Hotpot Restaurant.
The moment Yang Qiuchan stepped through the door, she captivated everyone inside.
A young man in the middle of a spicy hotpot challenge directly scooped a spoonful of pure wasabi into his mouth, his eyes wide and unblinking, his mind so captivated he didn't even register the taste until his nose nearly started bleeding.
It wasn't just him. Every diner, man and woman alike, was stunned into silence, their chopsticks frozen mid-air.
Even Yang Qiuchan's own parents stared blankly at their daughter, their minds struggling to process the vision before them. They couldn't believe that this breathtakingly stunning woman, a peerless beauty that could topple nations, was their own child. She was even more beautiful than before the fire, possessing a newfound radiance that seemed to come from her very soul.
"Mom and Dad, what's wrong? Don't you recognize your daughter?"
Yang Qiuchan gave a little twirl in her skirt, her smile sweet and bright.
"Qiuchan, you're… you're healed? How did you become like this?"
Her father asked, his voice trembling with shock and disbelief.
Old Zhang, a middle-aged deliveryman who was a regular, also looked at Yang Qiuchan in utter astonishment, a flicker of recognition in his otherwise plain eyes.
Yang Qiuchan's beautiful face was filled with a happiness and sweetness that was impossible to fake as she said with a bright smile:
"Brother Shen helped me heal. As for how he healed me, I can't say. It's a secret."
Although Shen Anyu hadn't explicitly instructed her to keep quiet, Yang Qiuchan instinctively knew she must protect her man's secrets at all costs.
"Brother Shen?"
Yang Father and Yang Mother were stunned again, exchanging a bewildered look.
Yang Qiuchan's face flushed a delicate shade of pink. She bit her lower lip shyly and said:
"It's that handsome man who took me away before. We're… we're already together."
Yang Father and Yang Mother were immediately overjoyed. They rushed forward, telling Yang Qiuchan she must ask Shen Anyu to come over for a proper meal another day.
Their family, which had been trapped in a fog of despair, had been saved entirely because of Shen Anyu. As parents, they had been keenly aware of their daughter's deep depression and sadness after her disfigurement. To see her now, with all those shadows banished, replaced by such radiant joy, was more than they could have ever hoped for.
They were more than satisfied with Shen Anyu as their future son-in-law.
Meanwhile, Old Zhang, the middle-aged man who had just delivered a package, looked at Yang Qiuchan, his eyes flickering with an unreadable light, his heart churning with a profound shock that no one could see.
'Boss Yang's daughter, Yang Qiuchan, actually possesses a Heavenly Sound Charming Body. I never noticed before… it seems she only awakened it in the last two days.'
'If a peerless physique like this were to join my Tianshi Sect, she would definitely become a Heavenly Master within ten years. Furthermore, the man she is with would benefit endlessly. His cultivation speed would double, and his mind would be constantly cleansed and purified, preventing the birth of any inner demons.'
He felt a brief impulse, a flicker of ambition, but then extinguished it with a heavy sigh.
'However, this has nothing to do with me, Zhang Tianen.'
Zhang Tianen shook his head, the sharp, intelligent glint in his eyes fading away, instantly replaced by the unassuming appearance of an ordinary, unremarkable deliveryman.
The first half of his life was spent abandoning his wife and daughter for the sake of cultivation. The second half was solely for atonement, for quietly watching his daughter, Ji Xiaolin, grow up safe and well…
[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!]