Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Severed limbs and broken weapons littered the ground after the brutal battle. Li Yanlai lay among the corpses, an arrow buried in his chest, his breath fading.

He stared up at the sky.

After the rain, the dark clouds dispersed to reveal a piercing sun. A young immortal boy dressed in white hopped over and crouched beside Li Yanlai, shouting to the man in green behind him, “Master, there’s a survivor!”

The man in green was named Cui Guan, a cultivator. He claimed Li Yanlai possessed a Spiritual Root and could pursue immortality, so he brought him back to the Cultivation World.

Li Yanlai had thought his luck was finally turning around, and that he would surely rise from the ashes. He hadn’t expected that when Cui Guan said he had a Spiritual Root, he meant it in the most literal sense.

He did have one, but it was utterly mediocre. He could cultivate, but he had no future.

Yet, for reasons unknown, Cui Guan took him in as a Direct Disciple.

In a Cultivation World where the strong were revered, this was considered a scandalous case of someone’s status far exceeding their merit.

Because of this, Li Yanlai was ostracized.

The illustrious title of “Sect Loser” was welded onto his head. Everyone mocked him, and to make matters worse, he never lived up to expectations, consistently ranking last in every assessment.

Now, the Sect disciples were undergoing their Love Tribulations. While everyone else was paired with a celestial beauty, his partner was an old woman.

Even though he lived in a Cultivation World where people were easily hundreds or thousands of years old, he himself was a genuine young man in his early twenties.

An age gap of five hundred years was acceptable, but fifty years was not.

Damn this fate!

Li Yanlai was jolted awake by his anger once again.

Song Xiaotao sat by the bed, staring at him fiercely. “The vegetable patch you crushed, the hot water I just fed you, and the room you’re sleeping in right now-adding those three together, you owe me two taels of silver.”

She was an evil old woman, too!

Li Yanlai fished a ten-tael silver ingot out of his Storage Ring and handed it to Song Xiaotao. “Keep the change.”

Song Xiaotao’s eyes dazzled at the sight of the silver. Her expression shifted instantly into a delighted beam as she asked if he wanted some brown sugar eggs; she could boil a bowl to help him recover his strength.

“A big lad like you shouldn’t be this weak.”

Li Yanlai nearly ground his teeth to dust, but he couldn’t bring himself to argue with an old woman about whether or not he was “weak.”

He wasn’t thick-skinned enough. How could he know that an old woman who had survived seventy years in the mortal world had seen everything except money and ghosts? She wasn’t ashamed of anything she said.

Li Yanlai said resentfully, “I’m not eating.”

Song Xiaotao smiled broadly. “Oh, alright then. I’ll just have to eat a bowl myself.”