Chapter 098: A Heart Sealed in Cement

In just two short days, Qin Xuanxi had already become so wildly popular in the mortal world that her fame was rivaling that of a top-tier superstar.

Countless animated films and live-action movies based on Qin Xuanxi as a character prototype had already begun entering the planning stage. After all, plenty of investors wanted to cash in on the craze.

Many players were eagerly hoping that the Xuanying Continent would reopen for logins soon, so they could behold Qin Xuanxi’s breathtaking beauty in a world that felt truly real.

Of course, there were also plenty of levelheaded players who said, “If the game ever does reopen for logins, you’d better pray to every god and Buddha out there that you don’t run into Qin Xuanxi. Remember, she’s a blood-soaked demoness. If you meet her, you’re dead right from the start.”

“As the saying goes, the more beautiful a woman is, the more dangerous she is.”

After all, the death penalties in the Xuanying world were severe. If a player died for the first time after logging in, they would be locked inside a Resurrection Palace for a full month. A second death would double the punishment, requiring three months in the palace. A third would mean a full year. And after that, each death would bring an even harsher penalty.

So most players were only running their mouths. If they really did log in, none of them would want to run into the game’s chief villain right away, only to be sent straight into the Resurrection Palace.

Soon, a careful netizen discovered that a new section had quietly appeared on Qin Xuanxi’s character profile page: “Romantic History.”

It should be remembered that before this, the demoness’s background page had indeed contained no such entry.

After all, her image had always been that of a ruthless killer, cold and merciless. Anyone bold enough to look her in the eye would have their ashes scattered by her hand.

The newly added entry read: “Romantic History: due to an unexpected incident, she has begun a relationship with [ ? ] whose future course cannot be predicted.”

The man’s name was not written out clearly; only a question mark was used in its place. As a result, countless netizens began speculating about what kind of divine being had managed to make an iron tree bloom, and to start a relationship with a demoness who had been single for more than three hundred years and whose heart had long since been sealed in concrete.

Naturally, many male netizens felt a stab of heartbreak. “Which damned bastard stole my demon sovereign goddess’s first taste of love?”

“Was it that somewhat roguishly handsome Hundred Bones Demon Sovereign? Or that disgustingly greasy-looking Cold Moon Demon Sovereign?”

Some even said, “Why not be bolder? Don’t lock in the gender so early. Maybe the Xuanyuan Demon Sovereign likes women?”

Though every one of these netizens was a talent in his own right, eloquent and learned, with minds full of bold ideas, not one of them could have guessed that the one willing to risk everything and have a romance with the demoness was actually the player Song Ye, still stranded within the Xuanying Continent.

And at this very moment, Song Ye was on the verge of holding his grand wedding with that demoness.

...

Xuanying Continent, Yan City of the Li Kingdom, inside the Xiang Prince’s residence.

Before all the guests had arrived and taken their seats, Qin Xuanxi, as the bride, would not appear.

Song Ye, the prospective son-in-law, was standing in for the ailing Xiang Prince and receiving guests in the front courtyard.

Today, almost all the notable figures in the city had arrived, along with officials of every rank from all over the city. The commanders, deputy commanders, and associate commanders from the Military Commissioner’s Office had come early, as had the prefect, assistant prefect, associate prefect, and even Constable Zhao Zhigao from the Prefectural Yamen.

Zhao Zhigao had been invited mainly because he was the groom’s good buddy.

As for the guests from the immortal sects, the envoy from the Xuanqing Palace was Su Xiqiu, and Zhang Zixuan had come along too, though only after pleading with Su Xiqiu for a long time before she was granted permission.

The envoy from the Moon-Embracing Sect was the female wine-obsessed Gu Xi, who had come together with her three beloved disciples: Zhou Nongshan, Duan Ling, and Chen Huaiyin.

Song Ye already knew all of these people. Beyond them, however, he knew almost none of the other congratulatory envoys sent by the various sects.

When Su Xiqiu saw Song Ye standing there in a luxurious wedding robe, she let a meaningful smile play across her face and inwardly mocked him: no wonder this brat had been unwilling to take her as his master at first. So he had not wanted to suffer the hardships of cultivation at all, but instead had another way to rise to prominence overnight.

Su Xiqiu naturally disdained such fawning opportunism.

However, she had never examined Song Ye’s aura up close. From his bearing alone, she had assumed his foundation was good and that he was suited for cultivation.

If she had taken the trouble to inspect his aura carefully, she would have discovered that Song Ye actually had no spiritual root whatsoever and could not cultivate at all. It was only because people without spiritual roots were truly rare that Su Xiqiu had overlooked the matter.

Had the two of them come into physical contact, or even simply stood close to one another, Su Xiqiu would have noticed it at once. It was just that no such opportunity had ever arisen.

If she had known that Song Ye had no spiritual root, then she would have understood him just as Li Xiuling did. For someone like Song Ye, with nothing to his name and no ability to cultivate, the only way to stand out in the world was indeed to take this shortcut of clinging to the powerful.

At that moment, someone suddenly called out, “The people from the Scribe Sect have arrived too.”

In the direction of everyone’s gaze appeared two figures dressed like scholars, one male and one female. The man looked to be in his thirties, while the woman appeared to be only around ten, small and delicate.

Both of them carried cases on their backs, containing brush, ink, paper, and inkstone, the four treasures of the study.

From their appearance and dress, they were clearly scribes from the Scribe Sect.

Scribes possessed an extraordinary ability to draw quickly, but that skill was generally only put to use when their magical power was exhausted.

Under normal circumstances, when scribes recorded events, they would use scene-imprinting techniques to capture real-time images and seal them into a Mind-Image Disc. In the modern world, it would be called “photography.”

However, using magical power to imprint scenes from live events consumed a tremendous amount of energy. Usually, an ordinary scribe could only preserve what happened within a quarter of an hour.

Once fifteen minutes had passed and their power was exhausted, they could only fall back on ordinary methods and record things with brush and ink.

Scribes did not belong to either the immortal or demon faction. They were responsible only for recording, and never interfered in the struggles between immortals and demons.

During the Fifth Immortal-Demon War, several thousand scribes had entered the battlefield in person one after another, recording many precious scenes. Many of them, however, had also unfortunately died there.

Scribes generally appeared only at major events in the cultivation world, or in the context of some especially significant incident.

The reason two scribes had appeared here today was chiefly because the heroine of this wedding was Su Qingyu, the direct disciple of the Lonely Jade Sect.

As a rule, female disciples of the Lonely Jade Sect married below the mountain in utmost secrecy. After marrying and giving birth to a daughter, they would quietly bring the daughter back to the Lonely Jade Sect.

Never before had there been a female disciple of the Lonely Jade Sect who held such a high-profile wedding as Su Qingyu.

So this was a rare occasion indeed, and the scribes naturally would not miss it.