8: Chapter 8: Former Prodigy Marries into the Jiang Family

A heavy, ragged sound of gasping filled the main hall instantly.

The Lin Family Elders and disciples, who had previously feared Young Master Jiang Chen's aura, suddenly turned greedy.

They all crowded forward, necks stretched out, their bloodshot eyes fixed intently on the last few lines of large characters in the booklet. Their eyes were practically bulging out of their sockets, filled with greed and ecstatic joy.

A Low Grade Waste Spiritual Vein!

Even with the word "waste" attached to it, and no matter how thin the Spiritual Qi might be, it was still a Spiritual Vein. In a place like Jiangyuan City, a Spiritual Vein was the lifeblood of a Family's Legacy.

Even at its worst, it could produce at least a hundred Low-Grade Spirit Stones a year, which was equivalent to the entire income of the Lin Family from three years of operations.

With this Spiritual Vein, the Lin Family would no longer need to beg for help everywhere, nor would they have to endure the condescending attitudes of the Wang and Li Families just to pay expensive market rents.

This was enough to allow the Lin Family to catch its breath and cultivate a few outstanding junior Cultivators, not to mention those ten High Grade spirit gathering pills.

A single spirit gathering pill had long been inflated to the astronomical price of fifty Low-Grade Spirit Stones on the Jiangyuan City black market, and it was a case of having the money but nowhere to buy one.

Ten of them meant a full five hundred Spirit Stones. For the Lin Family, who currently couldn't even scrape together fifty Spirit Stones, this was a number they wouldn't even dare to imagine in their dreams.

It was a massive fortune that could allow the Family to soar to the skies and squeeze back into the ranks of the top cultivation families.

And all this just to marry a down-and-out, useless woman whose Spiritual Root had been destroyed and who had been sent back by the Qingyun Sect.

The Jiang Family's Second Master, a man with one foot in the grave, had casually thrown out such a shocking, astronomical bride price.

The Lin Family's Grand Elder's eyes turned red, his breathing ragged. His mouth stretched wide to his ears, revealing a mouthful of yellow teeth. He grabbed Third Master Lin Changqing's arm, trembling with excitement.

"Third Master!"

"What are you still standing there for? Agree! Hurry up and agree to Young Master Jiang Chen!"

"This is a massive blessing that Yue Yao has cultivated! For a useless person like her to be traded for so many things—it's worth it, absolutely worth it!"

The Second Elder also rushed forward impatiently, the face he had just shown the Jiang Family vanishing without a trace.

Replaced by a face full of fawning, he wished he could bend his waist to the ground, nodding and bowing repeatedly to Young Master Jiang Chen.

"Exactly, exactly."

"To be noticed by the Jiang Family's Second Master, the ancestral graves of Yue Yao must be smoking with good fortune."

"Young Master Jiang Chen, please go back and report to the Second Master that our Lin Family is ten thousand times willing."

"Never mind just marrying Yue Yao, if the Jiang Family is willing, take that girl Lin Qingxue along too. As a bed-warming maid to serve the Second Master tea, pour water, and make the bed, we wouldn't have a single word of objection."

Lin Qingxue, who was slumped on the ground, rolled her eyes upon hearing this and fainted from pure rage, but not a single person present spared her a glance.

For these resources that were enough to change the destiny of the Family, in the face of absolute profit, Family bonds and the dignity of a former Prodigy were all worthless.

Third Master Lin Changqing gripped the bride price booklet tightly, his knuckles turning white from the excessive force, his heart tearing with pain.

On one side was his own daughter's lifelong happiness and remaining dignity; on the other, a heaven-sent opportunity for the entire Lin Family to defy fate and rise again. This immense temptation pressed heavily on his spine.

He realized he had absolutely no room to refuse. If he dared say even half a word of refusal, he wouldn't even need Young Master Jiang Chen to act; the red-eyed clansmen behind him would tear him apart alive.

He took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the shock and struggle in his heart, and spoke to Young Master Jiang Chen with a hoarse voice, struggling to get the words out.

"Young Master Jiang."

"This matter concerns my daughter's entire life."

"As her father, I must personally go to the backyard and ask for her own wishes."

"That is only natural."

Young Master Jiang Chen nodded slightly, but the smile on his face did not reach his eyes, revealing a condescending coldness. His tone was filled with an unquestionable dominance and hardness.

"However, my Second Master is advanced in years, so his temperament is inevitably a bit impatient."

"He doesn't have much patience to wait for you Lin Family to deliberate slowly."

"I will only give you one day to consider."

"At this time tomorrow, I will return to the Lin Family with the bridal sedan."

"I hope that by then, Third Master Lin can give me an answer that will satisfy the Second Master, otherwise..."

Young Master Jiang Chen's gaze swept over the corpse of Lin Hu on the ground, and he sneered, "Weigh the consequences for yourselves."

As his voice fell.

Young Master Jiang Chen flicked his sleeves sharply, making a crisp sound. He turned and left with the Jiang Family guards, his posture upright and his aura imposing, completely disregarding this group of Lin Family clowns.

Not until the figures of Young Master Jiang Chen and his group completely disappeared outside the main gate did the oppressive Spiritual Qi pressure slowly dissipate. The Lin Family's main hall instantly erupted into chaos.

All the clansmen swarmed around Third Master Lin Changqing, bombarding him with chatter.

"Changqing, you must not be foolish. This is the only chance for our Lin Family to turn things around."

"Yue Yao is a useless person now; keeping her at home is just feeding a freeloader and wasting food."

"Being able to bear a child for the Jiang Family's Second Master in exchange for so many resources is the supreme glory for her as a descendant of the Lin Family. Even if she dies, she must die in the Jiang Family's bridal sedan."

Their words were filled with extreme desire and greed for that Waste Spiritual Vein and the spirit gathering pills. Not a single person cared about what kind of situation Lin Yueyao would face if she were married off.

Third Master Lin Changqing stood alone in the center of the crowd, gripping the bride price booklet tightly. He turned his head mechanically, looking at the faces around him, twisted and fanatical from greed. Only dead silence and sorrow remained in his heart.

The Lin Family had no right to refuse this marriage, and no one dared to refuse.

...

In the Lin Family's backyard, in a secluded and somewhat dilapidated blue stone courtyard.

A meditation cushion was spread out in the courtyard, and Lin Yueyao sat cross-legged. Her plain cloth dress was washed to a faded white, yet it could not hide her cold and aloof temperament.

Her fingertips quickly formed seals, attempting to draw in that trace of faint Spiritual Qi from heaven and earth. However, as soon as the Spiritual Qi entered her body and touched her already shattered Spiritual Root, it instantly dispersed, sending a heart-piercing pain through her Meridians.

"Ugh..."

Lin Yueyao's brows furrowed tightly, and she let out a muffled groan. Fine beads of cold sweat seeped from her forehead, and her face turned pale.

It had been two years.

Her Spiritual Root destroyed, her cultivation completely gone, she had fallen from being a high-and-mighty Qingyun Sect Prodigy to a useless person mocked by everyone in Jiangyuan City. But she had never given up even once. She was unwilling—unwilling to just be a useless person for the rest of her life.

With a creak, the dilapidated wooden door of the courtyard was pushed open.

Third Master Lin Changqing walked in with a hunched back and a staggering gait, appearing as if he had aged ten years in an instant. Lin Yueyao took a deep breath, gathered the chaotic Qi within her body, and slowly stood up.

"Father."

"There was such a big commotion in the front yard; have the people from the Jiang Family who came to propose marriage left?"

Lin Yueyao's voice was cold and clear, revealing a sense of composure.

Third Master Lin Changqing's expression was complex, his eye sockets red. He gripped the bride price booklet tightly in his hand, his hand trembling.

"They've left."

"Yue Yao, the target of the Jiang Family's marriage proposal is not Lin Qingxue; it is you."

Lin Yueyao was slightly stunned, a trace of surprise flashing in her cold eyes.

"Me?"

She was a useless person with a destroyed Spiritual Root, inferior even to a Mortal. How could the Jiang Family have taken a fancy to her?

Third Master Lin Changqing handed over the bride price booklet, his voice choked with sobs.

"The Jiang Family's Second Master, Jiang Feng, specifically named you. He said as long as you can bear children, that is enough."

"Young Master Jiang Chen led the team. To establish authority, he killed Lin Hu on the spot, and even the Family Head was injured."

Lin Yueyao took the booklet and opened it: one hundred bolts of Suzhou-embroidered Spirit Silk, ten chests of top-grade pearls and agates, ten loads of century-old spirit rice...

When she turned to the last page, her gaze suddenly tightened.

One Low Grade Waste Spiritual Vein.

Ten High Grade spirit gathering pills.

Lin Yueyao's fingers paused on the booklet, her fingertips turning slightly white.

She was once a Qingyun Sect Prodigy; her knowledge was far beyond that of the people in the Lin Family. She naturally understood what these two things meant for the current Lin Family.

It was enough to let the Lin Family turn things around, enough to make those clansmen who usually trampled on her father shut their mouths, or even crawl at her father's feet.

Third Master Lin Changqing's voice was hoarse, filled with humiliation and helplessness.

"The Jiang Family is powerful, and they gave too much."

"The clansmen in the front yard have already gone crazy."

"Father is useless; Father cannot protect you."

Third Master Lin Changqing covered his face, tears of an old man streaming down.

Lin Yueyao closed the booklet, neither crying nor complaining.

She just looked at the cover quietly, her brain working at high speed.

The Jiang Family's Second Master, Jiang Feng.

Sixty years old, Level 5 Qi Refining, his blood and Qi declining, his Lifespan nearing its end.

An old man with one foot in the grave suddenly making a big fuss about taking a concubine, specifically naming a useless person, and even going so far as to throw out a Spiritual Vein and ten High Grade spirit gathering pills.

This was too abnormal. When things are abnormal, there must be a demon.

Jiang Feng was definitely not doing a losing business deal, and the Jiang Family could not possibly let an old man fool around like this. The only explanation was that something earth-shattering had happened to Jiang Feng or within the Jiang Family that even the outside world didn't know about.

Marrying over to be a concubine might be an abyss, but staying in the Lin Family, she would forever be a useless person who burdened her father, forever unable to step back onto the path of immortality, and forever unable to take revenge on those enemies in the Qingyun Sect who destroyed her Spiritual Root.

Since the Jiang Family could afford such a move, did that mean the Jiang Family had a way or resources that could bring a glimmer of turning point to her dilapidated body?

Even if there was only a one in ten thousand chance, she had to take the gamble.

Lin Yueyao raised her head and looked at Third Master Lin Changqing, who was sobbing uncontrollably. In her previously dead-silent eyes, a scorching wildfire suddenly ignited. Her expression was calm, yet it revealed a resolute determination.

"Father, I will marry."