“This is where they’re keeping Sister Tun?” Nana Toki stood before a grand golden hall, her face still as a pond at dawn. “Figures the Immortal Realm. To shackle a Hollow Void–stage beast, they even spun an array at this tier.”

She’d studied this craft; without it, she’d miss the snare under the snow. The hall looked ordinary, but immortal mist pooled thicker here like fog in a valley. Spirit Energy stacked in layers, several times denser than elsewhere, like millstones pressing the sea flat. To others, nothing seemed odd; in Nana’s eyes, it was a sky-wide net, a prison array built to cage a heartbeat. Stoking high-density Spirit Energy inside a boundary lays the foundation for great formations, like tinder feeding a bonfire. The array buried under this gilded hall was no exception, a dragon coiled beneath tiles.

“Inside or not, she carries the Seven-Color Sky-Devouring Divine Python bloodline,” the System sighed behind her, voice like a bell in mist. “Even head-on, making her submit would make these Immortal Realm types choke.”

“Talk later,” she said, heat first, breath next, and lifted the black battle-axe like a storm lifting a tree. “We get Sister Tun out. Then we go settle with that idiot, Tianqi Yu.” She strode for the golden doors, killing intent like a winter wind cutting reeds. Today, she’d stir the Immortal Realm like a stick through a hornets’ nest, and teach them she wasn’t prey but thunder.

Meanwhile, in the Immortal Realm, at Yue Lao Temple.

“Hidden Sword Manor! High Immortal of the Spirit Sword, Zhou Yan, arrives! Congratulations to Young Master Yu on his wedding day!” The voice rolled like a copper drum.

“Clearheart Pavilion! Fairy Ruxin arrives! Congratulations to Young Master Yu on his wedding day!” The names fell like petals, many and bright.

“Bright Moon Tower! Moonshaker Half-Immortal, Yue Xinhe, arrives! Congratulations to Young Master Yu on his wedding day!” The call echoed like cranes over water.

…

One after another, big names cut across the sky above the temple, flying like comets and coming to roost. Some were True Lords, some Half-Immortals, and now and then a High Immortal flashed like a sunray. Not because Tianqi Yu’s face could move mountains, but because the imperial decree had fallen like a jade seal: on Yu’s wedding day, all under heaven rejoice. That meant even cloud-wandering loose immortals had to box gifts and come knocking, like leaves drawn by a river’s pull.

The one who ordered it was the Emperor Immortal. His face was the sky; these cultivators had to give it.

“The auspicious hour has arrived—!” When most guests had taken their seats, the host’s low horn blew, Spirit Energy pouring in like thunder into a conch. The blast boomed out around Yue Lao Temple, and the white clouds overhead shredded like thin silk.

“That’s… a High Immortal artifact?” A knowledgeable True Lord couldn’t help blurting, shock flaring like lightning. This was nearly the pomp from when the Emperor Immortal took the throne. Tianqi Yu was stealing the scene like a peacock in snow.

Before the words cooled, gongs and drums burst around the temple, pearls on a jade plate. The temple’s great doors flew open with a clap, and under a hundred gazes, Tianqi Yu in crimson robes and Blue Magpie under a red bridal veil stepped out like a flame and its shadow.

Tianqi Yu always carried a wicked air, like night wind under eaves; paired with regalia and paint, it drew gasps from several fairies like birds startled from reeds. The veiled bride’s face was hidden, but her curving, elegant figure stirred imaginations like wine warming the blood.

Behind them, men and women split into two lines as groomsmen and bridesmaids, a procession like twin rivers following a boat.

Drums thundered, the scene lively as a marketplace at spring festival. Many who loved bustle surged forward, circling Tianqi Yu and Blue Magpie with song and dance like fireflies around a lantern. Tianqi Yu left Yue Lao Temple’s doors, guiding Blue Magpie along a cobbled path like a stream of round stones. He kept a slight smile, a mild sun in late winter, warming every eye that fell on him.

“Congratulations to Young Master Yu on his wedding!” Blessings swept in waves, a tide of voices filling Yue Lao Temple. Some rough, some smooth, but they gave him face like banners in the wind.

Tianqi Yu said nothing. He nodded, smiled, and let his gaze skim each guest like a hawk tracing a field. It settled far off, where the horizon blurred like smoke. The woman in his memory still hadn’t appeared; his heart wouldn’t lie still, a fish under ice. The head of the Immortal Realm had told him Azure An was dead without doubt; yet without her corpse, he couldn’t believe, a thorn under the nail.

“Bride and groom, enter the rites!” When they reached Yue Lao’s Tree of Bonds, the host hefting a High Immortal artifact raised his voice, clear as a bell through rain.

“First bow to Heaven and Earth!”

By the tree’s custom of three bows, they needed to turn to face the guests and salute Heaven and Earth with cupped hands. Tianqi Yu did it as easy as breathing. Blue Magpie froze like a deer in frost, hands lost, not knowing the next step, her body locked like a drawn bow.

The air turned strange. Guests watched with half-smiles, half-sighs, eyes like blades under sleeves. They’d given the Emperor Immortal face by coming, but they knew the tale’s spine. The phoenix-robed, veiled woman was the Azure Crow Fairy who once drove the Three Realms mad thousands of years ago, a moon once held by every river. Times change like seasons; the once-cherished prodigy had fallen into a dull-witted state, made a wedding sacrifice and handed to Tianqi Yu.

If Blue Magpie married as scripted, few would blink. The immortal path always held talk of seizing fortune through marriage, like grafting a branch to steal sap. A witless woman stripped of luck would be stripped; who would mind her past lives and former skies? Besides, the Emperor Immortal himself made the match; at most, tongues would wag in alleys.

But now it was different. On the wedding day, the witless bride refused to bow, and laughter sharpened like ice.

Luckily, Tianqi Yu didn’t cling to face like lacquer. He looked puzzled for a breath, then smoothed out like still water.

“Azure Crow Fairy, what are you doing?” From a little distance, Qinghe nearly choked on panic, words tumbling like beads. “Bend! Now!” With True Lords and High Immortals watching, this slapped Young Master Yu’s face like a wet cloth. How was he to stand?

“I…I…” Under the red veil, Blue Magpie’s delicate face twisted, pain first, breath later, like a flower in wind. She didn’t want strangers arranging her life, marrying her to a man she’d never known. And…

“I want to see my sister!”

Abrupt as a hawk’s dive, while many cultivators readied to watch the farce, Blue Magpie in phoenix robes yanked off her veil, red silk snapping like flame. A youthful, peerless face blossomed, still carrying a trace of girl’s dew.

High Immortal faces shifted like stormclouds. Chen Youxian reacted fastest, moving in an eye-blink like a shadow crossing water, and slapped her hard.

Pa—

The crisp sound cracked through the temple like a branch in frost. Even Tianqi Yu’s face chilled, ugly as iron in rain. It was his wedding. Slapping his bride before all was slapping him, palm to cheek.

“Don’t be ungrateful,” Chen Youxian snarled, eyes like knives on her bright pupils, voice venomous as winter wind. “The Emperor Immortal picked a mortal bearing great fortune to siphon your luck and let you die easy. That’s mercy as big as a mountain. Rave again, and don’t blame me for cutting deep.”

“Stop chanting about that mortal sister. She died under Immortal Realm hands long ago, like a candle in a gale. You’re alone in this world. And no one will love a broken-minded woman.”

This wedding’s success tied to his future; if Blue Magpie muddied it, his path ahead would turn to thorns and night.

“You’re lying!” Like a cat’s tail stepped on, Blue Magpie lifted her chin, palm-print burning on her cheek like a brand. “My sister won’t die! And I’m not someone no one likes.”

“You—”

“Chen Youxian, stand down.” A High Immortal frowned, voice clipped like a sword’s back. “This is the Emperor Immortal’s arrangement for Young Master Yu. Let him decide the will of it.”

“No matter,” Tianqi Yu said, looking at the gathered cultivators, a thin smile with a thread of cruelty, like a blade sheathed in silk. “If you’d like to discipline this woman for me, go ahead. I’m marrying by decree, nothing more. How she marries me isn’t my concern.”

“As long as she lives to the end of the rites, I can accept whatever shape she’s in.”

“She’s only a woman to use and throw away.”

Each word fell plain, but heavy as stones into a well. Under the Tree of Bonds, Blue Magpie clenched her hand until the knuckles blanched, not grasping all his meaning, but fear pooled hot in her chest like boiling rain.

“Didn’t you say Azure An wasn’t dead? Then where is she?” She met Tianqi Yu’s mocking eyes, and something twisted in her heart like a knife.

Maybe they were right. Maybe she was the kind no one would like.

Bang—splurt—

Like a ripe fruit bursting on stone, a black shadow streaked across their sight and punched into the ground. Blood sprayed like scattered petals, and the floor cracked in spiderweb lines.

Blue Magpie flinched, a bird shot at, then light returned to her eyes like stars relit.

Above Yue Lao Temple, a black-robed girl hung in the air with an axe, storm in her stance. Her cold, pretty face was stamped with savagery and shadow, like frost over fire.

“Who just cursed me dead again?”