Hearing those words, Yun Jingfei felt a small flame of hope arise in her heart. Yet, her optimism was fleeting at best. So many times since the incident, cruel reality had crushed her hopes. She had lost all faith that her situation would turn around.

Still, she was once proud and arrogant. It simply wasn’t in her nature to bend the knee and accept other’s pity and mocking condescension. While Qin Yun was genuine in his offer for redemption, Yun Jingfei was much too deep in her pit of self-loathing to even consider that a man such as him could alleviate her fate.

In her anger, she gritted her teeth so hard that Qin Yun could hear them grind against each other. Her tiny fists were clenched so tightly that they lost all blood flow, turning pale white. Her nails dug into her palm, drawing blood, which fell and echoed as the beads impacted the wooden floor, breaking the uneasy silence.

The unsteady lotus hovering above her head rotated faster as her emotion mounted, producing a slightly stronger heat, yet Qin Yun could only shake his head. If she continued this foolishness, her lotus would be bound to fall apart, and then, not even Qin Yun could help her reshape her Spiritual Roots.

The blazing lotus wobbled slightly as it spun off-axis. Dark blackened lines were strewn upon the leaves' surface as they spewed incandescent flames, threatening to reduce the feeble lotus to ash.

Despite all this, Yun Jingfei felt she had nothing to lose. Her negative emotions were so overwhelming that she discarded everything in a last attempt to reach the peak once again.

She attempted to stimulate her lotus using the last of her Qi in a last-ditch effort to reach the realm that once eluded her, the Void Core Realm. While doing so in her condition was akin to suicide, she felt she had no other choice if she wished to regain her independence.

Unfortunately, her struggles were futile, as the lotus couldn't bear the pressure of her breakthrough. It trembled slightly, as if on the verge of collapse, while the Qi pathways all over her body burned as the unpure Qi, spewed out from her broken Spiritual Roots, flowed through them.

An intense pain assaulted her every nerve, and try as she might, she couldn't muffle the scream of agony which escaped her lips. Her Qi stopped and reversed, flowing backwards through her pathways as if upstream toward its origin. She was on the verge of entering Qi Deviation. If she were to do so in her current condition, Qin Yun had no doubts she couldn't survive the outcome.

Qin Yun simply couldn't watch his newlywed wife self-destruct on their wedding night. He clenched his fist, putting a small amount of Innate Qi in his hand before he flicked his finger. The sudden acceleration of his finger created a wave of compressed air that was propelled forward fast enough to break the sound barrier.

A large bang resonated in the room as the shock wave picked up speed, aiming for the rotating lotus. While the lotus was merely a projection of a cultivator's Qi Centre as they mobilized their energy, any interference with it would resonate with the mobilized Qi in a phenomenon that Qin Yun would liken to Quantum Entanglement.

As the blazing lotus was on the verge of collapse and flames wrapped its surface, attempting to burn it to cinder, the mass of air collided with it, dissipating the projection. Yun Jingfei felt the recoil of this impact deep within her Qi Centre. Fortunately, it came just in time to avoid its collapse. Any further, and her Core Qi would have ignited and burnt her from the inside out.

She collapsed on the floor on her hands and knees, gasping for air as she felt an intense burning sensation in her abdomen. While her foolish attempt had resulted in even further damage to her Spiritual Roots, she was still alive.

Still, Yun Jingfei didn’t know if such a thing was good for her as she refused to waste away the rest of her life as a cripple. She would have much preferred to perish in an attempt to further her cultivation than to live in such disgrace. Still, Qin Yun had other plans for her.

The strong blast of wind created by Qin Yun’s strike had blown the red veil from Yun Jingfei’s head, revealing her features. Qin Yun’s expression didn’t change much as he gazed upon her, for he had already expected such an outcome.

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Over half of her face showed signs of deep, unhealed burns. Large craters filled with pus and dead, charred skin were evidence of the ordeal she faced from the backlash of her failed breakthrough. Most of her hair was gone as only a few strands remained on the few intact areas of her scalp. Qin Yun could even see the white bones of her cheek protruding beyond her damaged skin, while most of the fat on her lips and eyebrows was nonexistent.

She was hideous, to say the least, yet Qin Yun showed no disgust or pity. His gaze remained calm as still water as he examined her condition from afar. Still, he felt pity in his heart, as he could feel her lost beauty solely from the remains of her facial bone structure. He felt it was a shame for such a fine woman to be reduced to this state.

He understood why she had always kept this veil, never revealing her face. Still, Qin Yun knew it probably came from her family since they didn't want to reveal their shame. Even as the woman rose after she had calmed down, she did not attempt to hide herself and looked straight at Qin Yun without shame.

While Qin Yun knew this was an act as he could see her tiny fist trembled as he laid eyes on her, he couldn't help but be attracted to her steadfast character. Indeed, it would be a shame to let her waste away in obscurity.

“Now, do you feel like listening to what I have to say?" Qin Yun said with raised eyebrows, looking deeply into her dark pupils while slowly sipping his warm tea. He motioned for her to sit across from him and even pushed back the chair with the air pressure from the wave of his hand.

Seeing this, Yun Jingfei frowned slightly, and Qin Yun couldn't help but find that it further removed the last traces of beauty left on her ruined visage. Still, he kept those thoughts in his heart and never mentioned it. To antagonize her at this point would be counter-productive.

She observed Qin Yun for quite a while, trying to find the depths of his means. Yet, all she could glean was only superficial and irrelevant things. With no other choice in her current situation, she relented and sat beside him, taking in the slightly bitter aroma of the tea before her.

She felt a sense of peace emit from the cup as if its scent alone could cleanse her heart from all its impurities and flaws. Hesitantly, she raised her cup and brought it to her chapped lips, moistening her dried throat. For the first time in months, she finally felt serene and content, as if all she had endured since her accident were but irrelevant matters of the flesh. She could feel her Dao Heart, which was once on the verge of collapse, grow slightly stronger.

A slight silence lingered between the two as Yun Jingfei relished this new feeling embracing her heart. Qin Yun didn’t push her and let her immerse herself in the glow of this serene tranquillity. After a slight moment, Yun Jingfei put the empty teacup back onto the table and let out a long sigh.

"Can you really help me? Why would you?" she asked, unconvinced. Even if he possessed the means, as he claimed. Why would a stranger like himself put so much effort into a broken woman like her when even her family had given up?

As if knowing what was hidden in the depths of her heart, Qin Yun replied softly, "While you may not think so, you are my wife as of this day. It is only natural, as a husband, to help you."

"We are husband and wife in name only," she said, slightly dejected. "Our marriage is nothing more than a ploy to join our two families together. Furthermore, this relationship is shaky at best and could crumble at any time. Besides, we never had a choice in the matter."

Qin Yun took another sip of his tea, not taking her words to heart. His calm expression didn’t deviate a millimetre.

“While you may not have a choice in the matter, the same doesn’t hold true for me,” Qin Yun said with a slight smile, looking her straight in the eyes. “I always had a choice. My family could never force me to do something against my will. While you may think your present appearance will deter me, you obviously have no idea who you are dealing with. Besides, it isn’t something irreversible. Giving you back your beauty is quite feasible.”

Hearing this, Yun Jingfei couldn't help but let her mouth hang slightly open. While cultivators might delude themselves into thinking that only strength mattered and physical traits such as beauty were irrelevant, not many women could bear to live in such an ugly state. Of course, Yun Jingfei would wish to regain her former beauty if she had a choice. In fact, she would do almost anything for it. She could even give up her cultivation for it to come true. This was how much it meant to her.

That didn't mean she was vain, in the least. Few were those unaffected by the desires of the flesh. After all, they were made of flesh and blood and were bound by their desires. Still, some believed that breaking free from them was the true path to transcendence. Many would choose to discard those feelings as they reached higher on the path of cultivation.

Yun Jingfei was once one of those, standing aloof on the peak with only Dao in her heart. Yet, she still failed in her breakthrough and fell prematurely. Such happenstance rocked her worldview and shook her Dao Heart. She didn't know whether the path she had treaded thus far was the right one.

Since her fall, she had lived as a mortal, feeling the anguish that came with her own impending mortality. She had felt the ridicule of those who were once her peers. She also felt the ugliness of her own heart, which she didn't know existed in the first place.

She had once thought she was unsoiled by the filth of the mortal world, pure of heart and spirit. Yet, she came to the cruel realization that she was no different from those she had once scorned. She was ugly, petty, and filthy, just as everyone she knew was. Even her family wasn't spared.

When she was still the genius high above the clouds, she thought her family to be paragons of righteousness, beacons of morality and goodness. But now, as her perspective shifted, she could see the repulsive oppressiveness her family exuded as they lorded over those they deemed their lesser.

Still, her family wasn't unique in any way. It was simply human nature. Despite all their grandiose ideals, cultivators were still humans to begin with and couldn't escape the flaws of their species so easily.

Yun Jingfei closed her eyes, thinking back to her life up to this point. All the glory she had known and all the despair she had felt since she had lost it all. All that remained, after all, was a stout determination to change her fate. She clenched her fist and steeled her mind as she asked the most fundamental question.

“What do you seek from me in return?”