Chapter 2

Chapter 2: The Marriage Is Annulled

Immortal Venerable Yun Ding’s brows furrowed, but he wasn’t alarmed.

Lin Zhao had been obedient for too many years. Even today’s defiance felt, to him, like a child’s tantrum—sharp noise that would fade once pressed down.

“Luo Luo is my personal disciple,” he said, voice cool. “Change the condition.”

His gaze slid over Lin Zhao with a disdain that stung more than any insult. “And think carefully. If you regret it later and want to rejoin Mount Yun Ding, it won’t be so easy.”

The disciples exhaled, relief loosening their shoulders. One after another, they joined in, smiling like benevolent elders.

“That’s right, Senior Sister. Just soften up.”

“You’ll still be our good Senior Sister.”

Soften up.

Lin Zhao’s lips curled, not into a smile but into something sharper.

“So I can keep being your Senior Sister for you vampires to drain?” she said, voice soft as frost.

She didn’t bother looking at the disciples again. From the corner of her eye she caught Yun Ding’s hand shifting, spiritual energy gathering—ready to strike the moment she crossed whatever invisible line he’d drawn.

Fine.

If he wanted obedience, she would give him a severing.

Lin Zhao flicked her wrist. A streak of cold light shot toward Yun Ding—not an attack, but the jade slip he had once given her when he took her in, returned like a slap.

Then she drew her sword across her palm.

Pain flashed bright and clean. Blood welled instantly.

She didn’t flinch.

With that blood—her spiritual blood—she wrote across a strip of white silk, each stroke burning crimson as it formed.

Her voice rang through the hall, steady enough to chill the air.

“This is the last time I call you Master.”

The silk trembled between her fingers, the characters glowing faintly as if Heaven itself were listening.

“You never fulfilled a master’s duty,” she said, “yet I cannot abandon a disciple’s responsibility. These are everything you gave me when you took me in.”

She lifted the silk higher.

“Today, this Spirit Blood Script becomes a Blood Pact. Imperial Heaven above, Earth Mother as witness—Lin Zhao and Mount Yun Ding are severed, forever.”

The moment the last word fell, a shock ran through the hall like thunder.

Gasps erupted. Some guests half-stood, unable to sit still beneath the sudden weight of what they’d just witnessed.

The Old Ancestor of the Chu Family, seated among the honored guests, leaned toward a middle-aged woman beside him—beautiful, composed, and watching with eyes too calm for gossip.

“Wasn’t it rumored she was timid?” he murmured. “All romance and feelings? This doesn’t match the rumor at all.”

The woman’s lips curved faintly. “The one who doesn’t match the rumor isn’t only Third Miss Lin. Immortal Venerable Yun Ding may not be as noble and spotless as outsiders claim, either.”

Not everyone’s surprise carried admiration.

An old man in green robes—representing a force close to Yao Chi Sacred Land—watched Lin Zhao stand straight-backed in the ruined wedding hall and sneered.

“The Holy Son Shen said he’d be back soon,” he said loudly, “yet you still cause this much trouble. You’ve truly lost all decorum.”

Others seized the cue like dogs catching scent.

“Yes. As a legitimate daughter of a noble house, she has no tolerance at all.”

“And the one in trouble is her junior sister. As the Senior Sister, she didn’t show concern at the first moment—fine. But she blocked them again and again. Even if the wedding had gone through, the Holy Son Shen wouldn’t have been kept by her.”

The voices layered, growing bolder with each echo.

Yun Ding didn’t suppress them.

He let the insults pile on Lin Zhao’s shoulders like stones, as if he wanted her to feel the weight of public judgment pressing her down.

Only when the murmurs swelled to their peak did Yun Ding speak again, voice cold with finality.

“Lin Zhao, this is your choice.” His eyes narrowed. “In the future, don’t come begging to rejoin Mount Yun Ding.”

He lifted his hand, sharp as an executioner.

“Men. Send Third Miss Lin of the Lin Family down the mountain.”

The hall shuddered.

The Old Ancestor of the Chu Family slammed his palm against his armrest. “The wedding is not yet complete. Holy Son Shen said he would return. To send her down the mountain now is to destroy the wedding entirely. Immortal Venerable Yun Ding’s actions are far too arbitrary!”

Yun Ding ignored him. He looked straight at Lin Zhao, a thin smile tugging at his lips—amusement and provocation tangled together.

“And you?” he asked, voice almost curious. “You still want to wait?”

Lin Zhao’s fist tightened beneath her sleeve.

Before she could answer, her Second Junior Brother stepped forward, expression twisted into something that might have been smugness if it hadn’t been so shameless.

“Senior Sister,” he said, voice sweet with malice, “why not cancel today’s banquet? Let’s go check on Junior Sister Luo Luo first. Another day we can discuss the marriage with Holy Son Shen.”

The other junior brothers’ eyes lit up. They rushed to echo him, piling on excuses like mud.

“That’s right, Senior Sister, we can’t wait here forever…”

“Anyway it’s not too late…”

Lin Zhao didn’t let them finish.

A gust of force erupted from her like a snapped bowstring.

The disciples were swept off their feet and slammed out of the hall, crashing onto the stone steps outside with bone-jarring force. Before any of them could even suck in a breath, Lin Zhao’s fist wind struck again—sharp, precise, vicious.

It hit their dantians from afar.

Four bodies convulsed.

Blood sprayed.

Their faces went gray as their cultivation foundation shattered with a sound only cultivators could feel: a rupture deep inside, clean and irreversible.

Lin Zhao stepped to the threshold, eyes cold as steel.

Her voice carried, calm and merciless.

“This punch is for what you’ve looted and stolen over the years—the resources you snatched from my hands and other disciples’ hands while I was still the number one disciple of Mount Yun Ding.”

She took another step.

“This punch is for how I led you onto the path, and once you gained cultivation, you didn’t strive forward. You plotted, schemed, and played dirty instead.”

And a third.

“This punch is for today. On my wedding day, you showed no fellowship at all—opening your mouths only to force me into injustice.”

The four disciples lay choking on blood, barely able to breathe.

They had reached late Foundation Establishment only by being stuffed with resources. In true strength, Lin Zhao—alone at mid Foundation Establishment—could have beaten all four within ten moves even without this.

They had forgotten that.

They had mistaken her endurance for weakness.

Immortal Venerable Yun Ding reacted at last, fury exploding across his features. Spiritual energy surged as he lunged forward, but it was too late.

He dropped to his knees beside his disciples, probing their dantians. His face darkened to something almost feral.

“You ruined their dantians!”

To destroy a Foundation Establishment cultivator’s dantian was to cut off the road to Golden Core. It was more than injury—it was a sentence.

Lin Zhao’s expression didn’t flicker.

“I’m only taking back what I gave them,” she said.

In Yun Ding’s eyes, she had shattered their dantians.

In truth, she had done worse—she had cracked the deepest roots of their spiritual foundations. Within half a year, their cultivation would rot away completely, leaving them crippled in a world that devoured the weak.

Lin Zhao couldn’t kill Yun Ding yet. She couldn’t reach Chen Luo Luo yet. Not with her current strength, not with the Lin Family bleeding behind her.

But these ungrateful beasts?

These little ghosts?

They could pay now.

Yun Ding’s killing intent surged, thick enough to make the air taste like iron.

“What a Lin Zhao!” he roared, eyes blazing. “You dared injure my disciples to this extent—then pay with your life!”

He struck straight for her vital point, a killing blow delivered without hesitation.

The Lin Family Old Ancestor shifted, ready to move—

A fat monk in gray robes stepped into his path with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

Wan Le, Joy Buddha Venerable, Yun Ding’s close friend.

“Old friend,” Wan Le said mildly, blocking him with ease. “Let them settle their own matters.”

Inside the hall, Lin Zhao didn’t retreat a single step.

She faced Yun Ding’s killing strike head-on, eyes bright with cold certainty.

She was betting on something.

On someone.

“Yun Ding,” a woman’s voice cut in, elegant and calm. “That’s enough.”

A gentle yellow glow bloomed between them like dawn. Yun Ding’s killing intent dissolved as if washed clean by light.

A woman in palace robes rose from the groom’s elder seat, her gaze steady, her presence heavy with Spirit Transformation power.

Immortal Venerable Ling Yao.

She was the sister of Shen Yu Han’s mother, the one who had raised him, the one sitting here as his elder representative.

By emotion and by reason, she could not let Lin Zhao die in this hall.

Ling Yao’s gaze swept over the blood, the shattered ceremony, the young woman in red who refused to bow.

“This time,” she said quietly, “my Yao Chi Sacred Land wronged you, girl.”

She paused, then softened just a fraction.

“But can you wait a little longer? Give Aunt Ling some face—three days at most.” Her eyes sharpened. “If that brat doesn’t return, you may leave as you wish. And Yao Chi Sacred Land will ensure the Lin Family stays safe from your feud with Mount Yun Ding.”

The words landed like chains and shelter all at once.

Lin Zhao’s throat tightened. “Annul the engagement” rose to her tongue, hot and immediate.

She swallowed it.

With Ling Yao speaking to this extent, refusing would be tantamount to slapping Yao Chi Sacred Land in public again—and the Lin Family could not endure another storm.

If she had to wait, then she would at least wring something from it.

Lin Zhao closed her eyes. Drew a slow breath. Opened them again.

Then she nodded once.

The Lin Family Old Ancestor let out a heavy sigh, shoulders sagging with the weight of what he now owed Ling Yao.

Yun Ding’s narrow, vengeful nature meant Lin Zhao had made an enemy today who would never forget. She had dragged the Lin Family into that hatred as well.

Ling Yao’s promise was a shield.

A temporary one.

But shields mattered.

Day turned to night.

Night to day.

Three times over.

When the last sunrise climbed above Mount Yun Ding, the patience of those who loved to see the Lin Family bleed snapped like rotten rope.

Laughter burst from the crowd, sharp and cruel.

“Ha! I told you Lin Zhao got abandoned. Three days and three nights, and her new husband still hasn’t returned. Who knows—maybe he’s already become husband and wife with that junior sister.”

“Haha. A good background won’t save you if you’re stupid. She got her man stolen by an illegitimate girl, cut off her master-disciple bond with Immortal Venerable Yun Ding, and still thinks she has dignity. Other than Mount Yun Ding, who would even want her?”

“Stubborn and unreasonable. She deserves it.”

The voices piled, eager and gleeful.

And Lin Zhao stood beneath the rising sun, listening, her face unreadable.