Azure Creek City, Han Family Estate.
Han Feng stood tall in his vibrant crimson wedding robes, feeling a strange warmth spreading across his chest. His eyes drifted over the boisterous crowd of guests before settling on the woman beside him. She was draped in a phoenix crown and an intricately embroidered silk robe, looking every bit the celebrated beauty she was known to be.
Mu Yan.
She was the most famous beauty in Azure Creek City, his childhood companion, and his promised bride.
Yet, something felt fractured in her demeanor today. Her smile was brittle and forced, and her gaze flickered repeatedly toward her father, Mu Qing.
"The celestial hour has arrived!" the master of ceremonies announced in a piercing, high pitched tone that cut through the chatter.
"First bow to the Heavens and Earth."
"Second bow to the honored parents."
"Husband and wife, bow to one another..."
Just as Han Feng shifted his weight to complete the final rite of their union, a thunderous explosion rocked the estate. The heavy silence that followed lasted only a heartbeat before it was replaced by the frantic clashing of steel and the guttural screams of a slaughter in progress.
The grand hall, once filled with laughter, dissolved into pure terror. Han Feng's instincts flared, and he immediately reached out to pull Mu Yan behind his protective frame.
However, as he turned toward her, he did not find a frightened bride. Instead, he met the glacial, hollow stare of a woman whose mask had finally shattered.
A sickening squelch echoed in his ears.
A jagged dagger had slid from her wide sleeve. Without a moment of hesitation, she drove the blade deep into Han Feng's back, angled upward until it pierced his very heart.
The agony was instantaneous and white hot.
Han Feng looked down with stiff movements, watching the crimson tip of the blade poke through the front of his chest. The blood staining his robes was even more vibrant than the wedding silk itself.
"Why... why would you..."
Mu Yan yanked the dagger back with a violent twist, letting the blood spray across the floor as she retreated toward the entrance.
The heavy gates of the Han Estate were kicked into splinters. Mu Qing, the head of the Mu family, stepped inside alongside Zhao Wei, the leader of the Zhao clan. Behind them stood a smug, arrogant youth named Zhao Yan, who wasted no time pulling Mu Yan into a possessive embrace.
"Yan'er, you did exactly as we planned," Zhao Yan said with a smirk.
"Brother Zhao Yan..." Mu Yan murmured, leaning into him with a soft expression that she had never once shown Han Feng.
"Mu Qing!" Han Feng's father, Han Zhen, roared with eyes that had turned a terrifying shade of blood red. "My Han family has treated yours with nothing but kindness and respect for decades!"
"The victor writes the history, and the loser is forgotten. It is as simple as that," Mu Qing sneered.
Han Feng kept his gaze fixed on Mu Yan, using the final embers of his strength to ask one last time. "Why?"
This time, Mu Yan answered him, her voice dripping with pure disdain.
"Why?" She let out a sharp, mocking laugh. "The only person I have ever loved is Brother Zhao Yan. He is a true favorite of the heavens and a prestigious Disciple of the Rising Cloud Academy. And you? You are a piece of useless trash who cannot even glimpse the academy's threshold. Did you truly believe you were worthy of me?"
Every syllable felt like a boot treading on his soul.
"Kill them all! Leave no one from the Han bloodline alive!"
The massacre began in earnest.
"Feng'er, run!" His father screamed, burning his very essence to create a barrier of fire. He roared as he held back the tide of attackers. "Take the secret path through the back mountains! You must live to avenge us!"
A Zhao Family Elder grinned like a predator, bypassing the main conflict to strike at the dying Han Feng with a lethal palm technique.
"No!"
A gentle, familiar figure threw herself in front of him. It was his mother. She coughed up a spray of gore as the strike landed, using her final moments to shield her son from the killing blow. She collapsed slowly, her eyes still fixed on him with a mother's love.
"Young Lord, flee now!"
The remaining guards formed a wall of flesh, only to be cut down like wheat in a field.
With tears and blood blurring his vision, Han Feng carried a heart full of boundless hatred into the darkness of the mountain passage.
He ran until his legs gave out, collapsing finally by a small, quiet stream. As his consciousness began to flicker like a dying candle, he thought he saw the face of a young, stern girl.
"Young Miss, this man has been struck by the poison of a Black Fiend Scorpion..."
"His life is the priority. Save him."
When he eventually woke, he found himself in a modest pharmacy. The woman who had rescued him was Ye Ling'er, a daughter from a small branch of the Ye Family in Gale City.
Han Feng kept his past a secret, adopting the persona of a wandering rogue cultivator. He became her silent shadow, her most loyal protector.
The seasons turned and three years passed by in a blur of training and silence. He buried his rage deep within his bones, cultivating with a desperate ferocity that turned his heart cold and hard.
Then, the world broke again. Internal war tore through the main Ye Family, and Ye Ling'er's branch was caught in the crossfire. They were ordered to leave Gale City in disgrace.
As the saying goes, when the tree falls, the monkeys scatter. The servants and fair weather relatives vanished overnight.
Ye Ling'er stood in the center of her empty courtyard, her shoulders shaking. She finally turned to look at the man who had stood behind her for three long years.
"Han Feng, you... you should go as well," she whispered, her voice cracking.
Han Feng looked at her reddened eyes and remembered the day the world had turned its back on him. He did not offer a grand speech. He simply stepped forward and stood at her side.
"I will stay with you."
Those four words were heavier than any vow he had ever taken.
The life of an exile was brutal. Ye Ling'er's father eventually succumbed to illness on the road. Before his humble grave, the two of them bowed three times to the Heavens and became husband and wife. There was no feast and no guests to witness it. But wherever she stood, that was where his home was.
Years turned into decades. They settled in the distant Panyan City, where Han Feng finally broke through to the Spirit Origin Realm and founded a new Han Family. Five years after that, Ye Ling'er gave birth to a son they named Han Bao.
As he held the infant in his arms and watched his wife laugh in the sun drenched courtyard, the hatred in his heart finally began to gather dust. He thought he had found peace.
But he had forgotten a bitter truth: the happiness of the weak is a fragile thing.
His talent was mediocre at best, and his progress stalled at the Third Level of the Spirit Origin Realm. The rising influence of his small family became an eyesore for the established powers of Panyan City.
A coordinated ambush struck in the dead of night.
History was repeating itself with cruel precision.
The Han Estate became a slaughterhouse once more. Han Feng fought until his spiritual energy was a dry well, his body covered in wounds. In the chaos, a poisoned arrow hissed through the air, aimed directly for his back. He tried to dodge, but he was pinned down by three enemies at once.
"Husband!"
Ye Ling'er's scream pierced the night. He felt a warm body collide with his, shoving him violently out of the path of the projectile.
There was a dull thud.
He turned to see the black fletched arrow buried in his wife's chest. Dark, poisoned blood leaked from her lips, but she kept a small, lingering smile on her face as she slumped to the ground.
"No..."
Han Feng's mind went numb. The sounds of battle faded into a dull hum.
"Ling'er!"
He let out a scream that sounded more like a wounded beast than a man. The final thread of his sanity snapped. He burned his very Foundation, transforming into a living asura of blood and rage. Holding his wife's cooling body in one arm and his terrified son in the other, he carved a path through the sea of enemies.
The Han Family was gone for a second time.
For five years, he lived like a ghost, hiding Han Bao in caves and slums. Old wounds rotted his vitality, and his cultivation never moved another inch. By the time he was forty, his hair was as white as ash and his body was a mere skeleton of skin and bone.
One morning, he left his meager belongings beside his sleeping son.
"Bao'er, your father is going to settle the debt. You must find a way to live on."
Revenge for his wife was impossible in this life, but for the blood debt of his entire clan, he would gladly spill his last drop of life on the doorsteps of his enemies.
Half a month later, at the Mu Estate in Azure Creek City.
Zhao Yan and Mu Yan were enjoying a lavish banquet, surrounded by music and fine wine. A white haired figure burst through the doors like a vengeful spirit.
"Mu Qing! Zhao Yan! Mu Yan! I, Han Feng... have returned to collect what is owed!"
He ignited the last of his life force. Wherever his blade swung, the banquet hall turned into a vision of hell. But it was not enough. Deep within the Mu Family compound, a presence far more powerful than his own surged forth.
"Insolent fool!"
An Elder appeared and delivered a single, crushing palm strike to the crown of his head.
His skull fractured.
As he fell, his vision clouded by a veil of red, he saw the disgusted and slightly shaken faces of Zhao Yan and Mu Yan.
In the end, he had changed nothing. His consciousness began to drift into the endless void.
An eternity seemed to pass. Just as he thought he would vanish forever, a cold, mechanical voice resonated in his mind.
[Host Soul detected. Reincarnation System binding... Binding successful.]
Han Feng realized he still existed. He could "see" a vast, empty space with a glowing blue screen floating before him.
[First life trajectory scan complete.]
[Starting evaluation...]
[Name: Han Feng]
[Identity: Young Lord of the Azure Creek City Han Family (Exterminated), Head of the Panyan City Han Family (Destroyed)]
[Cultivation: Spirit Origin Realm Third Level]
[Main Experiences: Clan exterminated, betrayed by first love, exiled, married a devoted wife, established a family, destroyed again, tragic death of wife, failed revenge, death and end of the Dao.]
[Comprehensive Evaluation: White Grade Three Stars.]
[Based on the experiences of the first life, rewarding Host with: 25 Reincarnation Points.]
The screen flickered, revealing new options.
[Aptitude: 0 (+)]
[Family Background: 0 (+)]
[Comprehension Ability: 0 (+)]
[Luck: 0 (+)]
A miracle? A golden finger?
Han Feng's soul trembled with a violent surge of the hatred he had carried through two lifetimes.
Aptitude. It all came down to talent. If he had been a peerless genius, why would he have spent twenty years stuck in the Spirit Origin Realm? Why would his mother and his wife have had to die to protect a weakling?
The desire for vengeance drowned out everything else. With a soul fueled by pure determination, he poured his points into the screen.
"Aptitude, add 10 points!"
"Family Background, add 7 points!"
"Comprehension Ability, add 5 points!"
"Luck, add 3 points!"
As the points hit zero, a massive, irresistible force pulled at his soul. His consciousness began to fade once more as he tumbled toward a new beginning.