Chapter 63: Wedding?
"I want us to have a proper wedding."
The words hung in the bedroom, echoing with a sincerity that completely shattered that lingering tension.
Bai Qingyue froze. Her delicate fingers, which had been gently intertwined with Lin Yuan’s, suddenly went completely still. She stared at him, her beautiful eyes widening as if she had just been struck by a bolt of lightning.
For a long moment, the only sound in the room was the hollowing of the wind.
Then, her lower lip began to tremble. A fresh wave of tears, completely different from the tears of terror she had wept earlier, rapidly pooled in her eyes and spilled over her cheeks.
"A... a proper wedding?" Qingyue whispered, her voice incredibly fragile, as if she feared speaking too loudly would shatter the beautiful illusion.
She looked down at her own legs, entirely paralyzed and useless beneath the fabric of her simple dress. She thought of her shattered meridians, and her status as a crippled exile. In the city, a Nascent Soul expert was a living god. They commanded power, lived for a millennium, and took peerless fairies and saintesses as their Dao Companions. Yet here he was, a Nascent Soul Expert, asking to formally bind his fate to a crippled mortal before the eyes of the heavens.
"Lin Yuan..." Qingyue choked out, her hands trembling violently as she raised them to cover her mouth. "I... I am just a cripple. I have nothing to offer you. The Bai clan stripped me of my status. Are you truly willing to stand before the entire province and declare me as your wife? To endure the whispers and the mockery?"
Lin Yuan’s eyes did not waver. The conviction in his gaze only deepened. He reached up, gently pulling her trembling hands away from her face, and kissed her knuckles.
"Let them whisper," Lin Yuan replied. " You are Bai Qingyue. And I only care about you. I want the heavens and the earth to witness our union properly."
Overwhelmed by sheer happiness, Qingyue let out a joyful sob and nodded her head vigorously. "Yes. Yes, Lin Yuan! I want that more than anything."
Standing near the doorway, Bai Chen let out a cheer.
"Haha! Excellent! Peerless!" the young man clapped his hands together, his face flushed with excitement. He stepped further into the room, beaming at his cousin. "Cousin Qingyue, you shouldn’t have a single concern in your heart! You deserve the world, and Lord Lin is exactly the man to give it to you! This calls for a celebration of epic proportions!"
But then, Bai Chen’s enthusiastic clapping slowly came to a halt. The young man looked around the damp bedroom. He noted the cracked floorboards, the drafty windows, and the porch just outside the main hall.
Bai Chen’s joyful expression turned into a deep, and troubled frown.
"However..." Bai Chen began, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. He made his concern known, his tone turning highly practical. "Lord Lin... with all due respect to the humble beginnings we share here, I simply do not see this house fitting for a Nascent Soul expert to hold a wedding in. The roof leaks when it rains, and half the courtyard is currently a crater! The grandest wedding in the province cannot take place in an outer-city slum!"
Hearing her cousin’s critique, Qingyue immediately injected, her tone carrying a gentle reprimand.
"Bai Chen, do not be greedy," Qingyue said, quickly trying to bring a sense of contentment to the conversation. She looked around the small room with profound affection. "This house is perfectly okay. It is where Lin Yuan took me in when I had nowhere else to go. I do not need a jade palace or a grand pavilion. As long as he is beside me, I would marry him in a dirt cave and be completely happy."
Lin Yuan smiled at her humility, his heart swelling with affection. But, he turned his gaze to Bai Chen and nodded in agreement.
"Your cousin’s heart is pure, but you are right, Bai Chen," Lin Yuan stated. "A Nascent Soul Expert’s Dao Companion will not be wed in a ruined shack. Which brings me to that matter. Bai Chen, does the Wang family not possess numerous luxury estates scattered across the Zhao province?"
Bai Chen’s eyes lit up with recognition, completely validating the query. "Yes, they absolutely do! The Wang family are essentially the wealthiest family in all of Azure Cloud City. They control over sixty percent of the prime estates and spiritual mountains in the region."
But Bai Chen’s expression quickly soured. "However, those bastards are incredibly greedy! They clutch their wealth tighter than a dragon hoards gold. They will be extremely reluctant to release their prime possessions. In fact, knowing them, they are probably already plotting to covertly seize the Xu clan properties now that the Xu clan is crippled!"
"Let them try," Lin Yuan said impartially, "And Talking of the Xu clan," Lin Yuan continued, his tone turning incredibly serious. "I have a karmic debt to settle. I have to do exactly as I said to Xu Canghai before I erased his soul. Tomorrow, I will go to their grand estate to retrieve the Barrier Token and do the rest."
Lin Yuan stood up from the edge of the bed, his elegant black-and-white Daoist robes fluttering slightly. "While I am out, I will also make direct stops at the main estates of the Wang family and the Bai family. I will issue a supreme decree: neither of their clans is permitted to step within a hundred miles of the Xu clan’s estate, nor are they allowed to plunder them. If they dare attempt to shift the balance of power and reap the benefits of the Xu clan’s fall, they will face my absolute wrath."
He paused, looking back at Bai Chen. "And while I am at the Wang family, I will personally ’purchase’ a grand home from them for the wedding. I am sure they will be quite accommodating once they feel the weight of my aura."
Sitting on the bed, Bai Qingyue’s breath hitched the moment she heard the words ’Bai family’.
A complex flurry of emotions filled her heart. The main estate of the Bai clan was a place of profound trauma for her. It was where her father had coldly stripped her of her status, where her supposed family had spat on her, and where she had been thrown out like garbage. A sudden, and desperate urge rose in her throat to tell Lin Yuan not to go there, to avoid those toxic people entirely, and to spare himself the annoyance of dealing with their arrogance.
But she bit her lower lip and held herself back. She knew Lin Yuan was a man of his word. He had made a promise to Xu Canghai to maintain the balance of power in the city. She did not want to come between Lin Yuan’s act to settle the karma between him and the Xu clan. His Dao Heart was paramount, and she refused to be a hindrance.
Pushing the thoughts of her former family aside, her brilliant mind latched onto the other critical phrase he had just mentioned.
"Wait..." Qingyue spoke up, her eyes flashing with a sudden curiosity. "Lin Yuan, did you just say... a Barrier Token?"
She leaned forward. "Is that token the legendary artifact that allows one to safely enter the fragmented Barrier Realm?"
Lin Yuan turned back to her, a warm smile spreading across his face. He agreed with a nod. "Yes, it is. The Xu clan possessed the only token in the entire city."
Lin Yuan stepped closer, his eyes locking onto hers with an unwavering promise. "The Barrier Realm, when it opens, it acts as a massive maelstrom, drawing countless supreme treasures across the starry domain into its space. It is one of the most dangerous places in heaven and earth, but also the most rewarding."
He reached out, gently cupping her cheek. "There, within that starry domain, I will find the supreme treasure required. I will find exactly what is needed to completely shatter that Soul Transformation restriction inside your body and free you from your chains."
With that, Bai Chen’s jaw dropped. The young man stood frozen for a second before he quickly pumped his fist into the air. "Yes! Yes! Do you hear that, Cousin?! You are going to cultivate again!" Bai Chen immediately became overjoyed, bouncing on his heels.
But Bai Qingyue simply sat there, an expression of sheer surprise completely paralyzing her delicate features.
Her mind went entirely blank. She didn’t know what to say. Her lips parted, but no sound came out. Was he truly saying what she thought he was saying? That he could heal her? That she could cultivate again?
For months, she had resigned herself to a life of a crippled mortal. She had accepted that she would grow old and die while Lin Yuan remained young and immortal. But now, he was standing before her, promising to retrieve a cure for her shattered meridians. He was telling her that she could reclaim her power, reclaim her dignity, and reclaim her rightful place among the brightest stars of the Nine Provinces!
The sheer magnitude of hope was too much for her heart to contain.
Without a single word, Bai Qingyue threw her upper body forward. She wrapped her arms securely around Lin Yuan’s waist, burying her face into his chest, holding onto him as tightly as her fragile strength would allow, weeping tears of absolute gratitude into his robes