Wei Chen spat blood onto the cracked stone floor of the Sect's Punishment Hall.
The taste of copper filled his mouth. His left eye was swollen shut. His robes—once the fine silks of a clan heir, now rags stained with mud and old blood—clung to his ribs. Three of them were cracked. Maybe four. He'd lost count after Liu Feng's fifth kick.
"Still breathing?" sneered Liu Feng, the Sect Master's favored disciple.
He was beautiful in the way all top disciples were—sharp jaw, perfect skin, a smugness carved into his bones like a second cultivation base. His jade-white boots were immaculate. Not a speck of dirt. Not a single crease.
He crushed that boot onto Wei Chen's ribs.
Wei Chen's vision whited out. A wet crack echoed through the hall. Somewhere behind him, a few outer disciples winced. Most just watched. A handful were already leaving—this wasn't entertainment anymore, just a beating.
"I told you," Liu Feng continued, grinding his heel in slow circles. "A waste with a broken dantian doesn't deserve to step foot in the Spirit Garden. But you had to steal that Qi Gathering Grass, didn't you? For your little sister?"
Wei Chen's fingers dug into the dirt. The stone floor was cold. It was always cold in the Punishment Hall. They said it was built over a frozen vein deep underground, designed to sap the will of anyone forced to kneel here.
His sister, Wei Lian, lay in a fever back in their crumbling hut at the edge of the outer sect. Her meridians were collapsing—a curse she'd taken for him six years ago, when assassins came for their family. She'd been eight. He'd been ten. She'd stepped in front of the blade. He'd watched her fall.
The curse had no cure. Only delay.
The Qi Gathering Grass wasn't for cultivation. It wasn't for him at all. One stalk, boiled into tea, could buy three more days of her life.
"Please," Wei Chen whispered. His voice barely carried. "Just one stalk…"
Liu Feng laughed. It was a bright, musical sound. Practiced. The kind of laugh that had won him favor with elder after elder.
Around them, a crowd of inner disciples chuckled along. Some were former friends from before the fall of the Wei Clan. Most were strangers who'd learned that kicking the sect's weakest member was free entertainment, a way to prove they weren't at the bottom.
Then Liu Feng stopped laughing.
He lifted his boot. Wei Chen allowed himself half a breath of relief.
And Liu Feng stomped—not on his ribs this time, but on his right hand.
The crack echoed like a snapped branch. Wei Chen's scream came out as a strangled gasp. His fingers—already thin from months of hunger—bent at wrong angles. The small bones in his palm crunched.
"One stalk?" Liu Feng grinned, twisting his heel. The grinding of bone against stone was wet and terrible. "You can't even afford to beg, trash."
He spat on Wei Chen's face.
The crowd laughed again. Louder this time. A few disciples turned away, uncomfortable, but no one stepped forward. No one ever stepped forward.
Darkness swam at the edges of Wei Chen's vision. The pain was immense—a red ocean drowning out thought, memory, hope. But behind it, deep in his chest, something else flickered. A cold, familiar rage that didn't feel like his own. It was older. Hungrier. It remembered thrones and battles and women weeping at funerals.
"Host detected… Ancient soul resonance… 3%… 7%…"
A translucent screen blazed to life before his eyes. Blue-white characters hovered in the air, invisible to everyone else. Wei Chen blinked blood out of his lashes. He thought he was hallucinating. Dying men saw strange things.
[Nine Heavens Monarch System Activated.]
[Initializing Harem Bonding Protocol…]
[Warning: The first fated target is approaching.]
What?
The crowd suddenly parted. Not out of respect.
Out of terror.
She walked like winter given form. Snow-white robes embroidered with silver phoenixes, each stitch glowing faintly with spirit energy. Hair like a waterfall of ink, pinned with a single jade hairpin shaped like a frozen tear. Eyes the color of frozen lakes—so pale they were almost colorless, yet so sharp they could cut through lies and pretenses alike.
Her beauty was the kind that made men forget to breathe—and then remember to run.
Leng Bingxue. The Sect's number one genius. Core Formation at nineteen. The youngest disciple ever to enter the Frozen Palace trials. And the coldest woman on the entire Azure Sky continent.
She didn't look at Liu Feng. She looked at Wei Chen.
"Move," she said.
Her voice was soft. Quiet. It didn't need volume. The air temperature dropped ten degrees. Frost spiderwebbed across the stone floor from her footsteps.
Liu Feng's smirk faltered. "Senior Sister Leng, this trash—"
A flick of her sleeve sent him flying.
He crashed into a stone pillar thirty feet away. The impact cracked the pillar from base to capital. Liu Feng slid down, coughing blood, his immaculate robes now torn and dusted with rubble. His eyes were wide. His mouth hung open.
No one spoke. No one moved.
Leng Bingxue knelt beside Wei Chen. The movement was graceful—impossibly so, like a snowflake deciding where to land. Her jade-like fingers touched his broken hand.
Cold spread through his palm. But it wasn't the cold of injury. It was the cold of healing. Ice formed a perfect lattice over his fingers, realigning bones, sealing torn ligaments, knitting flesh. When the frost melted a moment later, his hand was whole. Not even a scar remained.
"Why?" Wei Chen croaked.
She leaned close. Her hair brushed his cheek. Her scent was cool mint and ancient frost—the smell of a mountain peak no human had ever climbed.
"Because the stars told me," she whispered, "that you will become the strongest sovereign in ten thousand years. And I refuse to share the dawn with a broken man."
[Ding! Fated Bond (1/9) Established: Leng Bingxue – The Frost Phoenix Princess.]
[Reward: Heavenly Shattered Meridian Reconstruction Art + Phoenix Essence Drop (1st refinement).]
[Quest Update: Awaken your cultivation. Impress your first bond. Avoid being killed by the other eight jealous fated targets who are already watching from the shadows.]
Wei Chen's breath caught.
He looked up slowly. Past Leng Bingxue's shoulder. Past the groaning Liu Feng. Past the frozen crowd.
On the rooftops: a woman in crimson robes, her lips painted blood-red, her tail—fox tail, white as snow—curling lazily behind her. She smiled when their eyes met. Winked.
In the shadow of an ancient pine: a sword saint in training, her blade half-drawn, her silver eyes unreadable. She wasn't smiling. She was measuring him. Weighing him.
Through the window of the Sect Leader's pavilion: a young woman in emerald silks, her hand pressed against the glass. The Sect Leader's own daughter. Her knuckles were white around the hilt of a hidden dagger. Her expression was caught between fury and something far more dangerous.
Eight pairs of eyes. Some in shadows. Some in plain sight. All fixed on him.
Wei Chen swallowed.
"System," he thought desperately. "Why do they all want to kill me… or marry me?"
[Because you are the Heaven-Defying Trash, Host. And trash that defies heaven always collects the most beautiful thorns.]
Leng Bingxue helped him to his feet. Her hand was cool and steady on his arm. She didn't let go.
Liu Feng was still groaning against the pillar. His followers had scattered. The crowd had gone silent—not the silence of disinterest, but the silence of prey watching a new predator rise.
For the first time in six years, Wei Chen smiled.
"Alright," he said. "Let's defy some heaven."
[Hidden Quest Triggered: Survive the Night.]
[Your broken dantian has begun repairing itself. This will take 12 hours. During this time, your spiritual aura will leak uncontrollably—attracting every beast, bandit, and jealous rival within ten miles.]
[Recommendation: Do not sleep.]
Wei Chen's smile froze.
Leng Bingxue looked at him. One perfect eyebrow rose.
"Problems?" she asked.
"I'm going to be fine," Wei Chen said, mostly to himself. "Totally fine. What's twelve hours?"
Somewhere in the distance, a demonic beast howled.