Severing Time & Space

Wu Meiying's Instruction, Part II

While nobody had any proof, he and Wu Meiying had always believed the Ming Family had cheated by bribing the other participants, the judges, or both. Of course, they could not say anything. Aside from the fact that they lacked evidence to support their claims, the tournament was hosted by a family well-known for its neutrality. This family also happened to be more powerful than anyone in Zhan City. Accusing them of accepting bribes was akin to slapping them in the face.

Such accusations would not end well.

The family who ran the tournament was called the Zhou Clan. Wu Jian didn’t know much about them, other than the fact that they had a lot of money and owned the auction house. The reason they hosted the tournament was due in large part to their impartiality. Accusing someone from their clan of accepting bribes without evidence was akin to spitting in their faces.

Wu Meiying had always hated Ming Shen ever since the moment they met, but it wasn’t like Wu Jian didn’t understand her feelings. Ming Shen had proposed to her the moment they were introduced. Of course, he called it a proposal, but it was more like he demanded she become his, and when she refused him, he had gotten angry and tried to force the issue.

Wu Meiying hated pushy men like that, so of course she was going to hate him.

Wu Jian probably could have forgiven Ming Shen if he had given up gracefully, but the boy kept coming back, again and again. For the first six months after the tournament, he would send Wu Meiying love letters, flowers, and even resources used by cultivators. Wu Meiying had burned the letters, buried the flowers, and destroyed the resources without mercy. They thought that would be the end of it, but then Ming Shen began arriving at the clan compound, asking if he could see her. She refused, of course, and he had stopped coming after being consistently rejected for two whole months.

For a time, they thought he had given up.

They had been wrong.

About a month after his last unsuccessful attempt to see her, Ming Shen’s father and the head of the Ming Family, Ming Han, had shown up and offered a rather extravagant dowry for Wu Meiying’s hand in marriage: Middle-grade cultivation pills.

Cultivation pills were, specifically, alchemy pills that could increase a cultivator’s power just by consuming them. Pills were like tiny pellets filled with chi that cultivators could absorb. This would help cultivators break through to the next subrealm of whatever realm they were at. They were divided into three categories: low, middle, and high. Low-grade cultivation pills were used by people in the Hunger and Anima realms, while middle-grade ones were traditionally used by cultivators at the Asura and Human Limit Realms. If a lower realm cultivator were to take a middle-grade cultivation pill, it could boost their cultivation by several subrealms. Ming Han had offered one dozen of them, more than enough for Father to break through to the Asura Realm with ease.

Father had refused.

By that point in time, Wu Meiying’s powers had become well-known to Father and the clan elders. They had used her occasional glimpses into the future to predict the market in Zahn City, increase their finances, and find several powerful medicinal plants that benefited the clan as a whole. Thanks to her insight, Father had broken through to the Asura Realm without the pills, though he was still only at the first subrealm. Even so, her value far exceeded those pills.

Ming Han had been incensed. But he still didn’t give up. Every so often, he and Ming Shen would come by and ask for Wu Meiying’s hand in marriage. It was practically tradition by this point.

Hou Jingshu listened to them talk, sipping her oolong tea with the kind of refined elegance expected of a princess. She had changed into a beautiful hanfu made of white and pink silk. It presented a lovely contrast to Wu Meiying’s light blue and white hanfu. With her hair styled into soft braids that hung from her head in loops, she did indeed possess a royal bearing.

Unlike the Shang Kingdom’s princess, Wu Meiying had let her hair down. Long tresses descended from her back in what Wu Jian could only describe as an elegant mess. They reminded him of waves. The dark hair framed her face and highlighted her jade-like skin and vibrant eyes. As she reached over to grab a rice ball, her eyes met his, and she grinned at him as though she knew he was admiring her.

Wu Jian merely smiled back.

“It sounds like you two hold a grudge against this Ming Shen,” she said at last, unaware of the byplay between the two.

“Like you wouldn’t believe. I can’t stand that jerk,” Wu Jian admitted. He smacked his left fist into his right hand. “The tournament is coming up in a few months, and when it does, I am going to have him groveling before me and begging for mercy. He’s going to be calling me his honored grandfather by the time I’m through with him.”

Wu Jian was a very tolerant person and would always let minor infractions slide even now, but there were a few things he could no longer abide by. Anyone who slighted Wu Meiying or tried to take her away from him was his enemy. He would happily disgrace them in front of the entire world, and he would do it with a smile on his face.

“Hmph. That is only if you get to him before me.” Wu Meiying wore a vicious smile and her eyes glinted with a s******c light. “If I fight him before you, I will teach that disgusting little cretin a lesson about how to respect women that he will never forget.”

“I guess we’ll see who gets to beat him in the tournament.”

“Seems like it.”

“Heh heh heh…”

“Uhuhuhu…”

Hou Jingshu eyed her two chuckling companions, who were exuding auras that caused her skin to crawl, and slowly scooted away from them.