CHAPTER I — The Ruined Betrothal: Airport Humiliation
1415 Words
The afternoon sun fractured into blinding shards against the glass façade of Terminal 1 at Jiangcheng International Airport. Air hung thick with the cloying sting of antiseptic, cheap perfume, and the weary sweat of long-haul travelers. A woman’s crisp announcement echoed ceaselessly over the PA, a monotonous counterpoint to the chaos.
Amid the surging crowd, one figure stood jarringly apart.
Qin Hao.
He wore a battered denim jacket, sleeves frayed at the cuffs, its indigo hue bleached pale by sun and time. Faded jeans clung to his legs, knees dusted with phantom traces of dried mud. On his feet: scuffed black canvas shoes. A worn, heavy knapsack dug into his shoulder, its fabric frayed at the seams by miles walked and burdens borne. To the airport’s gleaming sterility, he was a jagged stone tumbled from primordial mountains—unpolished, raw.
Well-dressed passengers veered away. Businessmen wheeled luggage aside, lips curled as if avoiding contagion. Fashionable women covered their noses, hastening past. Packs of youths eyed him with undisguised mockery, smirking behind cupped hands.
Qin Hao remained oblivious. His spine stood straight as ancient cedar, unyielding. His expression: still as mountain water, undisturbed. Only his eyes, scanning the crowd near arrivals, held a flicker of profound, weathered calm. He waited.
Until an arctic presence cut through the clamor.
A force so potent, so razor-edged, it froze the very air.
The crowd parted like the Red Sea before Moses. All attention shifted.
Shen Qingxue had arrived.
She moved as if under a spotlight. An immaculate ivory cashmere suit, tailored to blade-like precision, sculpted a figure both ethereal and formidable. Stiletto heels struck marble like icicles shattering glass. Oversized tortoiseshell sunglasses hid her eyes, revealing only a blade-sharp jaw and thin, unforgiving lips. Behind her: two black-suited bodyguards—twin obsidian monoliths amplifying her glacial authority.
The terminal hushed. Sneers aimed at Qin Hao dissolved into awed murmurs:
“Shen Qingxue! The Shen heiress—Jiangcheng’s martial prodigy!”
“Gods, it’s really her… Why is she here?”
“Who warrants her presence? Look at her expression—winter incarnate!”
Ignoring them all, Shen Qingxue’s gaze pierced through bodies, locking onto the figure in the frayed jacket. Behind those shaded lenses, her eyes were glaciers—pure, undiluted contempt.
She stopped before him. One step apart.
Cloud met mud. An obscene, blinding juxtaposition.
Her scent washed over him—snowmelt and razor edges.
Qin Hao met her stare, unflinching.
“You are Qin Hao?” Her voice was shattering ice: crystalline, lethal.
“I am,” he replied, tone bedrock-steady.
A crimson blur.
Her left hand—pale, strong, nails gleaming like frozen pearls—lashed out faster than sight.
*c***k!*
The slap detonated across the suddenly silent hall. A thunderclap. Coffee cups trembled in distant hands.
Qin Hao’s head snapped sideways.
On his left cheek, a perfect crimson handprint bloomed. Skin burned. Blood—coppery, warm—welled at the corner of his chapped lip.
A collective gasp swelled.
“She struck him!”
“The prodigy hit the peasant!”
“Did you see the blood? Savage!”
A thousand eyes swiveled: predatory, gleeful. Pity evaporated; scorn swelled.
Slowly, painfully slowly, Qin Hao turned his face forward. Fire raged beneath his skin. Blood pooled on his tongue. He did not wipe it.
Deep within his placid eyes, a slit of gold flared—brief as lightning—primal, annihilating. Ancient fury, shackled for millennia, roared against the bars of discipline.
Five years! Descend! Play the fool! Claim your bride!
His dying master’s command—heavier than sacred mountains—crushed the inferno back into darkness.
Shen Qingxue’s voice cut through the din, colder than knives, underscored by tearing paper.
“Trash crawled from the hills!” Her sneer was tangible frost, pinning him, piercing every onlooker. Her free hand now held a folded scroll—aged paper yellowed at the edges, corners curling with neglect.
A betrothal contract.
Vermilion paper, solemn ink—disrespected, deteriorating.
Eyes ablaze with glacial fire, Shen Qingxue seized the ancient pact between clans—and ripped.
*RRIIP!*
The sound shredded the air. Tendons stood stark on her porcelain hands.
The scroll tore like desiccated leaf.
*RRIIP! RRIIP! RRIIP!*
Methodical. Cruel. A sacrament defiled.
In three vicious motions, she shredded the relic into crimson confetti. Scraps fluttered down like cursed petals, catching on her immaculate sleeves. She flung the largest fragments at Qin Hao’s chest.
“See this, mountain refuse?” Contempt radiated from behind her shades. “You think this scrap entitles you to touch my name? Lunacy!”
The crowd’s malice crystallized. Where condescension had lingered, now only n***d revulsion remained. Qin Hao was sewage, befouling their pristine world.
“Toad craving swan flesh!”
“No wonder he’s dressed for scrap—he is scrap!”
“Shen Qingxue? He’s insect to her! Disgusting!”
“Send the trash back to his ditch!”
Poisoned whispers pierced him like needles.
Qin Hao’s chest heaved. Hidden in jacket pockets, his fists whitened knuckle-deep. Mountains of power coiled within muscle and bone—restrained, crushed back into silence by an iron will. He lowered his eyelids, veiling eyes that burned with cosmic fire.
“Our elders forged the pledge,” he stated, voice flat, dead. A block of ice dropped into boiling chaos. “You and I—strangers.”
“Strangers?” Shen Qingxue’s laugh was venom. “Must I know vermin? You? A broken backwater waste, reeking of poverty? Qin Hao—your shadow defiles my sight! Your tongue profanes the word ‘vow’!”
She stepped closer. Her frigid perfume choked him. “This—” she gestured at scarlet scraps, "—ends your delusion. Let your master rot in his grave knowing it. My future is the celestial martial path! Peering down upon ants like you! Your place? Groveling mud—too worthless even to tread upon!”
Her chin lifted, lips curling cruel beneath her glasses. “Fade back into your mountains, Qin Hao. Never show your filth in Jiangcheng again!”
She turned. Her hair whipped the air—a blade unsheathed. The bodyguards pivoted, carving her path through the parting crowd. Stares followed her exit: admiration, terror, lingering scorn thrown at the man she left behind.
Shredded promise littered the floor. Crimson stains of shame.
Qin Hao stood utterly alone.
Scorn crashed upon him. Louder now, unconstrained. Stones of malice pelted him.
He bent.
Slowly. Deliberately.
Calloused fingers—labor-hardened, thick-knuckled—began gathering the scattered red fragments. He plucked them from polished tiles, dirt gathering under his nails. To the spectators, it was surrender.
“Look! The fool salvages trash!”
“No pride left? Pathetic!”
“Country fool clinging to rags! Shen Qingxue’s verdict is clear: WORTHLESS!”
He ignored them. Amid the ruin beside his knee, his eye caught it: a small white plastic bottle—plain, unlabeled. Dropped unseen from her purse during her violent outburst.
Standard prescription bottle. A printed generic label:
*Captopril... Furosemide... Digoxin (High Dose)...*
The names struck his mind like bullets. Only one condition demanded this cocktail:
*Acute Cardiogenic Pulmonary Edema. Heart Failure Crisis.*
And the patient name:
*SHEN YUESHAN.*
Shen Qingxue’s grandfather. Patriarch of the Shen Clan.
Qin Hao’s finger stilled, microscopic. Intelligence processed at light-speed: The Patriarch was dying. Critically. Now. Carrying such emergency meds meant catastrophe loomed. Her arrogance here, tearing their betrothal? Either she was ignorant of his state… or the Shen Clan hid the truth.
This bottle screamed of impending clan collapse. Its presence screamed: Shen Yuehan may not live to see dusk.
And deeper still: His master’s dying roar—“Five years! Descend! Play the fool! Claim your bride!”
Did “bride” truly mean this vicious heiress? Or… another? With the Patriarch’s fall… would the pact even endure?
His hesitation vanished as quickly as breath. He collected the fragment, absorbing the implication as he palmed it.
Head lowered, posture feigning defeat, his fingers closed over a plain bronze ring on his hand. Within its hidden depths, ancient dragon engravings ignited—primal rage incarnate. Embers of ancient shame and molten fury surged, hammering the dam of five years’ endurance. Deep within the stifled darkness, fissures raced silently through stone.
- Writer
