Chapter 2

The wedding ceremony went remarkably smoothly, leaving both the flustered, anxious members of the Chu family and the furious members of the Ling family somewhat bewildered.

Chu family: That notoriously bad-tempered eldest young lady of the Ling family… actually accepted everything just like that?

Ling family: ??? Why isn’t our young lady throwing a tantrum? Could she be so angry that she’s gone completely numb?

Chu Chaoyue escorted Ling Ling into the bridal chamber. Just as she was about to leave, someone caught hold of her hand.

“Could you stay and talk with me for a while?” Ling Ling asked.

Chu Chaoyue stopped and turned to look at her.

Ling Ling had already lowered the fan concealing her face. Her naturally radiant beauty looked even more exquisite beneath the elaborate bridal headdress.

The Chu family was clearly at fault for what had happened today. Now that Ling Ling had married into the Chu family, she was her younger brother’s wife. It was only right that she keep her company. With that thought, Chu Chaoyue sat down beside her.

A faint, delicate fragrance drifted straight into Ling Ling’s nose. No wonder she’d kept catching traces of a barely perceptible scent during the wedding banquet. So it had been coming from Chu Chaoyue all along.

Ling Ling was so absorbed in the fragrance that she forgot to speak, while Chu Chaoyue had no idea how to start a conversation. The two ended up sitting together in silence for quite some time.

In the end, it was Ling Ling who remembered the ring she had brought.

This was a cheat ability! If she didn’t put it to use soon, what if it somehow stolen content grew legs and ran straight back to Chu Fan?

Ling Ling immediately turned to look at Chu Chaoyue beside her. “Are you close to Chu Fan?”

Although Chu Chaoyue was Chu Fan’s older sister in the original novel and existed as a foil to the male lead, the two were still related by blood.

What if Chu Chaoyue actually had a good relationship with Chu Fan?

Chu Chaoyue hadn’t expected Ling Ling’s first question to be about this. She seriously considered it for a moment. After discovering her exceptional aptitude, the Chu family had poured resources into cultivating her, hoping to use her talents to gain a foothold in the Divine Continent of the Central Lands.

However, this also meant she had undergone extremely rigorous training. Most of the people she interacted with were the elders of the Chu family, and her relationships with the younger generation… were generally rather distant.

Chu Fan was her second uncle’s only son. Although her second uncle was an unreasonable troublemaker, he cared deeply about Chu Fan. That was why the marriage alliance with the Ling family had fallen to him.

With this marriage, even if Chu Fan lacked the spiritual roots and aptitude needed for cultivation, he could still live a lifetime of wealth and comfort.

Who would have thought that Chu Fan would actually run away from his own wedding?

Now, the eldest young lady of the Ling family, who had just married into their household, was asking whether she and Chu Fan were close. What exactly was she considering?

Chu Chaoyue shook her head and answered honestly, “Not particularly.”

Ling Ling understood. Hidden within her wide sleeve, her hand tightened around the small box containing the golden ring.

Good. It was better that they weren’t stolen contentclose. However, she still needed to find a way to bind Chu Chaoyue to her. Otherwise, she wouldn’t feel comfortable handing over such an incredible cheat ability.

Tsk. Why not just destroy the cheat ability outright? At worst, she could make the one in her eye perish along with it.

The golden ring inside the brocade box frantically sent out one desperate thought after another. ‘Ah! Young Lady, have mercy! I have a way! The other dragon pupil and I possess a symbiotic power. If I activate it and bind it to both of you, your lives will be linked from then on, and you’ll even be able to share each other’s power!’

Ling Ling sensed the fierce will to survive within that faint consciousness. She also checked with the consciousness inside her own eye to confirm that it was telling the truth. Only then did she temporarily abandon the idea of making them perish together.

After all, these cheat abilities were powerful enough to transform a good-for-nothing male protagonist into a genius. If she couldn’t use them herself, she might as well destroy them.

Now that the cheat ability was offering to let them share power, with the added condition that their lives would be bound together, things couldn’t be better. This way, if anything happened to her, Chu Chaoyue wouldn’t survive either.

Ling Ling lifted the tassels covering her face with one hand and took out the brocade box with the other, opening it.

“Give me your hand,” she said to Chu Chaoyue, taking out the ring.

Chu Chaoyue’s gaze fell upon it, and she was somewhat surprised. Wasn’t this one of the two wedding rings from the Ling family? She had heard that it was a spatial storage ring that would accompany the eldest young lady of the Ling family as part of her dowry.

“This should…” Chu Chaoyue wanted to explain that the ring should rightfully be given to Chu Fan.

“You’re the one who married me into this family. If I say I’m giving it to you, then it’s yours.” As Ling Ling spoke, she had barely placed the ring in Chu Chaoyue’s palm when, before she could even tell her to smear it with blood to claim ownership, the damned ring lit up and shot straight into Chu Chaoyue’s left eye.

A faint, almost imperceptible connection spread between the two of them. Ling Ling sensed the symbiotic power being activated, but damn it, this stupid ring was such a shameless bootlicker! It had acknowledged Chu Chaoyue as its master without even asking for a drop of blood?

Then what had been the bailiantales.compoint of cutting her own finger to draw blood? Had her finger just been itching for a cut?

A brief stab of pain shot through Chu Chaoyue’s left eye. She felt an enormous amount of mysterious information flood into her mind.

Suppressing her dizziness, she absorbed the information.

Illusion-Piercing Dragon Pupil!

The dragon pupil possessed its own innate abilities, allowing its wielder to see through all falsehoods, disguises, cultivation levels, and illusions.

Chu Chaoyue abruptly turned to Ling Ling. “How could you give me something like this!? How can I return it to you?”

Not only was Ling Ling surprised, but even the dragon pupil was utterly baffled. Instead of keeping such a treasure hidden away, this woman actually wanted to give it back? Was she an idiot?

“There’s no need to return it. Just use it yourself. But let me make one thing clear. Now that you’ve accepted this, our lives are bound together. We live and die together, so you’re not allowed to abandon me,” Ling Ling said.

Chu Chaoyue gazed deeply at Ling Ling, looking at her again and again.

Ling Ling felt a little awkward. Why wasn’t this woman saying anything? She hurriedly changed the subject. “Um, I’m going to take off my makeup and get some rest.”

As Ling Ling began removing her bridal headdress, she suddenly remembered something and said to Chu Chaoyue, “Oh, right. Don’t tell anyone about this, including your family.”

“After all, you wouldn’t want us both to die, would you?” A strand of hair had become tangled in the bridal headdress, pulling painfully at Ling Ling’s scalp. Her voice even wavered from the pain, but she still hadn’t forgotten to warn Chu Chaoyue.

Chu Chaoyue suddenly leaned closer, reaching out to gently untangle Ling Ling’s [unauthorized copy]hair and remove her bridal headdress. “You know this is a priceless treasure. Why would you still give it to me?”

Ling Ling answered with complete seriousness, “It’s part of my dowry. Whoever marries me should receive it.” After all, wasn’t Chu Chaoyue the one who had married her today?!

Chu Chaoyue pressed her lips together and spoke hesitantly, almost timidly. “I… I’ve never thought about… having a Dao companion.” Much less a woman.

The jingling of the tassels as they knocked against one another completely drowned out Chu Chaoyue’s murmured words, leaving Ling Ling unable to hear her clearly. “What did you say?”

Chu Chaoyue replied, “Nothing.”

“Then sleep with me tonight.” Ling Ling had carefully questioned both dragon pupils and learned that they could strengthen a person’s physique and spiritual roots, and could even allow someone born without spiritual roots to develop them.

When the two dragon pupils were together, their effects would be even stronger.

However, one of them was currently at a low cultivation realm, while the other hadn’t even begun cultivating. As a result, the two dragon pupils could only produce a relatively powerful effect when their wielders were close to each other.

The original Ling Ling, despite being the eldest young lady of the family, had been born without spiritual roots. That was precisely why the Ling family had sent her off to form a marriage alliance.

In the original novel, she had relied on the compensation the Chu family offered as an apology, a Spirit-Root Awakening Pill. After taking it, she developed spiritual roots and was finally able to embark on the path of cultivation.

The ridiculous part was that this Spirit-Root Awakening Pill had actually been obtained through Chu Chaoyue’s efforts.

Meanwhile, the male protagonist had simply possessed the dragon pupil and effortlessly developed an extraordinarily powerful dark spiritual root without suffering any pain. But what about the original Ling Ling? After taking the Spirit-Root Awakening Pill, she had endured agony that felt as though her entire body were being crushed to pieces before finally developing spiritual roots.

Now that Ling Ling possessed a dragon pupil herself and could share the power of the other stolen contentone, she was determined to develop spiritual roots without suffering any pain and embark on the path of cultivation.

She’d already come all the way to a world of immortal cultivation. How could she possibly justify not trying to cultivate immortality herself?

She’d always dreamed of being able to fly.

So Chu Chaoyue had better not leave. She needed to stay close to her.

A little closer.

Then even closer.