by Catofdreams
"Stop talking and focus! They're right on our tails!", the man leading them scolded the guy carrying Lang Jie. They were close to their destination, but they couldn't bear to be complacent since the members of the Purple Lotus Clan didn't seem to be giving up anytime soon. There were only six of them in the squad that was handling the mission, yet they were chased by what seemed to be the entire Purple Lotus Clan.
"Give the others the signal to prepare the trap array! We need to get rid of our pursuers before we get on the ship!", the leader shouted his command. Another member threw a talisman towards the skies, which lit up and covered the sky with an intense red light for a short time.
"The more members we get with the trap array, the better. They'll soon taste the consequences of messing with the Heavenly Duan Sect!", the leader felt satisfied, thinking that he was about to exact revenge.
Moments later, the seaport was now within their sight. The leader looked back and saw that their pursuers didn't seem to drop in terms of numbers, which made him grin.
"As soon as I give the signal, activate the array.", the leader told the others, who all nodded in response.
The leader focused on their pursuers. As soon as he saw that they were close enough, he immediately gave the signal.
"Now!"
A yellow light covered an extremely large area, almost triple the size of the seaport. The Purple Lotus Clan members that were inside the array immediately realized that they fell for a trap. They tried to get out, but the light seemed to be impenetrable.
The leader of the squad who kidnapped Lang Jie couldn't help but laugh as he realized this would cause massive damage towards the Purple Lotus Clan.
"Now you all have learned not to offend the Heavenly Duan Sect! You should all put into practice what you'll learn today in the afterlife!", he exclaimed as the light that surrounded the area slowly shrunk, which made the members of the Purple Lotus Clan inside group up closer and closer.
As the people trapped started to lose hope, another ray of light pierced through the yellow light that trapped them, which significantly weakened its power. The Purple Lotus Clan members took advantage of the situation and started to pour their strength into attacking the yellow light.
"What's going on?!", the leader was confused as to what was happening. The Light Grid Array is an extremely high-level array. Not even the patriarch of the Heavenly Duan Sect could dispel it by himself, never mind forcibly breaking it.
Not long after, the people inside the array managed to break out.
"Not good! Let's move!", the leader shouted as he ran towards their ship as fast as he could, followed by the members of his squad.
They slowly started feeling relieved seeing that their ship was right before them, but their feeling of relief was immediately crushed.
A large beam of light came from the skies and descended onto their ship. The ship immediately broke into pieces as if it was made out of wood. Pieces of the ship scattered around them and a large majority of the ship sank onto the ocean floor. It looked as if heaven itself decided to smite the ship.
The six of them looked at their shattered ship in despair. There were a few members of the Heavenly Duan Sect in the ship, but there wasn't a single trace of them anywhere on ship's visible scattered remains.
As they racked their brains on how they were going to get out of the situation, they noticed that their pursuers had stopped a fair distance away from them. They were now just looking at them as if they didn't want to approach them.
The six of them had no idea what was going on. Moments later, a woman slowly descended from the heavens and landed in front of them. She had an extremely angry expression on her face as she saw Lang Jie hanging unconscious on a squad member's shoulder. The six of them immediately felt the woman's killing intent strangling them, making them feel suffocated. They were all filled with fear as their instincts screamed every fiber of their body to run away, except for their leader.
"Who are you?!", the leader of the squad bravely stood in front and faced the woman.
"Give him back.", she pointed towards Lang Jie, completely ignoring the leader's question.
"If you want him back, then listen to our commands, or else we'll kill him!", he pulled out a dagger and pointed it close to Lang Jie's face.
"You dare!"
The woman's angry voice echoed throughout the vicinity. Her sheer presence made the leader drop his dagger and kneel as he felt the strength in his knees leave his body. The rest of the squad followed suit.
"W-what exactly are you?", the leader once again asked the woman's identity. He was regarded as an extremely talented student in their sect. He did not pale in terms of strength compared to the other internal students, so he was far above the level of an average cultivator. He had encountered many powerful beasts, and he has also met their sect's patriarch, who was easily the most powerful person he has ever seen, but even their patriarch, who was already in the third stage of the Divine Realm, was like an ant compared to the woman's power.
The woman slowly approached them. The six of them tried their best to make their bodies move in order to run away, but their bodies just wouldn't listen. Even the woman's presence alone was enough to make them freeze up.
As the woman got closer and closer, they all accepted their fates. They knew that they were about to join their brethren, who were obliterated along with their ship. The woman kneeled down in front of the man who was carrying Lang Jie. She then reached out and took him away from his shoulder, carrying Lang Jie as if he was a princess.
"Darling, wake up…"
Lang Jie's eyes slowly started to open.
He slowly looked around as his vision slowly started adjusting to the surroundings. He noticed that they weren't in the hotel anymore. He saw the men who were dressed in traditional clothing back at the hotel were standing far away from them, watching them. He continued looking around and saw the six men kneeling. He then realized that he was being carried by his wife, who was surrounded by a thin layer of light.
"What…? What's happening?", Lang Jie asked his wife, who smiled at him gently.
"Darling… I'm sorry for keeping it a secret…", Xue Yan responded.
"What do you mean?", Lang Jie asked with a worried expression on his face.
Xue Yan gathered all her courage as she tried to push out the words that she needed to say to her husband.
"I… I'm not a normal human. I'm actually a cultivator."
CHAPTER 15 – “THE RAINBOW AFTER THE RAIN”
Lang Jie's eyes opened wide. He looked at Xue Yan with a confused expression, thinking that he may have misheard whatever Xue Yan just said.
"H-honey, can you say that again? I might have heard you wrong.", Lang Jie tried to confirm it with Xue Yan.
"I-I'm a cultivator, darling…", Xue Yan told him once again. Lang Jie's eyes grew even wider. He felt extremely shocked as he heard what Xue Yan said.
"Cultivator? Like the ones in those wuxia novels and manhuas? The ones that can use powers?", Lang Jie asked again. He still wasn't quite sure if he heard her correctly. He thought that he might still have been a bit tipsy from the alcohol, making his sense of hearing a bit dull.
"Yes… the very same ones…", Xue Yan shyly responded. She wasn't quite sure how Lang Jie felt about it since his expression was hard to read. The only thing she could see from his face was shock.
"Really…? So… are you like, a normal one or a really strong one?", Lang Jie asked a question that Xue Yan didn't expect, so she wasn't quite sure if she should answer it.
"Uh… a strong one, I guess…?", Xue Yan hesitantly answered the question. She wasn't quite sure where the conversation was headed, but as she saw Lang Jie's reaction, she felt a bit of happiness in her heart.
Lang Jie's face lit up as he listened to his wife's response, feeling completely excited about actually meeting someone with real powers. Although it sounded completely unreasonable, Lang Jie was the type of man who would believe anything his wife sa
ys. If Xue Yan told him that she was an alien, he wouldn't even doubt it for a second since he knew that she had no reason to lie to him. The man was a complete fool that is blinded by love when it came to his wife.
"A strong one would be a complete understatement. You could call her the strongest one around…", a familiar voice came from behind Xue Yan. The two of them looked to see who it was and saw the Purple Lotus Clan's patriarch walking towards them.
"Really, Brother Cheng? Wait, how do you know that? Are you also a cultivator?", Lang Jie's expression turned into something similar to a child meeting a superhero he had always looked up to.
Wen Cheng nodded in response.
"Woah… that's so cool…", Lang Jie couldn't hide his amazement as he started to look at his wife and his boss in a different light, but then he realized that they were still in the middle of some place he didn't know about.
"H-honey, can you put me down first…?", Lang Jie asked his wife, who was still carrying him like a princess. Xue Yan completely forgot about it and slowly let him down. She was still quite surprised as to how Lang Jie reacted. She thought that he would at least feel a little bit afraid, or worse, he would start hating her for keeping such a secret from him, but Lang Jie reacted as if it was a good thing. She silently scolded herself for doubting her wonderful husband. She even made her husband worry about her. She felt that she had failed her duty of being a good wife.
As Lang Jie stood up on his own two feet, he examined the area around him. The area around them was littered with some kind of debris and a large piece of wreckage that was floating on the sea. He saw that the hotel staff that were wearing traditional clothing were just watching them from a distance. He also saw the six men who were kneeling beside them. They were all shivering in fear as they didn't dare to raise their heads in front of Xue Yan.
"What's wrong with them?", Lang Jie asked Xue Yan and Wen Cheng, who explained the entire situation to him, starting from when he went out to buy things for Xue Yan, up until how Xue Yan rescued him from them.
As they finished explaining everything to him, Lang Jie let out a sigh.
"Honey… all of this happened because I drank alcohol… I swear I'll never do it again!", Lang Jie apologized to Xue Yan. If he didn't go drinking in the first place, he would have saved them all the trouble they went through, but as he thought about it, he realized that because of everything that happened, Xue Yan looked as if a great weight has been lifted off her shoulders.
"Ah, honey… is this what you were feeling down about?", Lang Jie asked Xue Yan, whose face immediately turned red. She looked extremely flustered as she shyly nodded in response.
Lang Jie immediately reached out to her and hugged her tight.
"Honey… even if you were a demon, I would still accept you. After all, you're my wife!", Lang Jie told her as he tightly held Xue Yan in his embrace.
Xue Yan felt all her worries wash away. Those were the words she wanted to hear from her husband. As she basked in Lang Jie's warmth, she solemnly vowed to herself that she would never again hide anything from her husband.
"I'm sorry for making you worried, darling. Because of me, you were put in a dangerous situation…", Xue Yan apologized to Lang Jie.
"Honey… I actually feel so relieved right now…", Lang Jie looked at his wife with a large smile on his face.
"I thought that you weren't happy with me anymore... I thought that you saw that I wasn't good enough for you, especially after I heard what the man at the beach said…", Lang Jie continued. Xue Yan clearly saw Lang Jie's hurt expression as he talked about his insecurities, which made her feel extremely guilty. She cursed herself as she thought about how her actions made her husband feel that way.
"Don't worry darling! You're the only one that could make me happy in the entire world!", Xue Yan hugged Lang Jie back, embracing him tightly.
"Honey! I love you so much!"
"Oh, darling!"
The two continued to flirt, completely disregarding the people around them. The first few seconds of the scene made the people around them feel touched. They felt as if they were satisfied at how everything ended, but not long after, the married couple started to make everyone feel annoyed, even the ones who were kneeling beside them, and even Wen Cheng. Most of the people around them were single, and even the ones with lovers felt irked since it made them miss their partners a lot.
"You two should get a room!", Wen Cheng shouted at them in annoyance. The other members of the Purple Lotus Clan jeered at them as they let out their frustration of not having a woman by their side, but as Xue Yan shot them all a glare, they immediately shut their mouths. All of them seemed to have forgotten that the woman who looked like a fool in love was an immortal cultivator.
As the situation started to settle down, the Purple Lotus Clan members swooped in the scene and arrested the members of the Heavenly Duan Sect who dared to cause a ruckus in their territory.
"How did you manage to get such a powerful person on your side?", the leader of the six-man squad asked Wen Cheng, who simply sighed in response.
"Since I'm her husband's friend, I immediately became her ally…", Wen Cheng told the man.
"But it's really not worth the risk. The Purple Lotus Clan almost got exterminated because of a few misunderstandings…", Wen Cheng shook his head as he remembered Xue Yan's overprotectiveness towards her husband.
As Lang Jie watched the clean-up, he thought that even though they were all cultivators, everything looked as if it was the police cleaning up a crime scene. He expected people to be flying everywhere and using their powers to quickly move around, but contrary to what he expected, everyone was just walking around normally and manually doing the labor.
Xue Yan looked at her husband's disappointed face and immediately understood what he was thinking while he was watching the others.
"Darling, do you want to see something cool?", Xue Yan happily told Lang Jie as she extended her hand towards him.
"What is it?", Lang Jie grabbed her hand. Xue Yan immediately pulled him closer and wrapped an arm around him.
"Hold tight, darling! We're going back to the hotel.", Xue Yan told her husband as she started to disperse her qi, which made it looked like a smoke-like light that was oozing out of her. Even though the qi was completely irrelevant to what she was about to do, she wanted to make it look a bit cooler for her husband.
Lang Jie immediately realized what was about to happen. The excitement he felt could clearly be seen from his face.
"Aiyaa… what's this couple doing, now?", Wen Cheng looked at the two of them. As he watched how the two of them act, Lang Jie looked like a child that was being spoiled by his mother. He thought that it seemed appropriate, given the massive age gap between the two. Lang Jie was only a mortal after all, and since Xue Yan was an extremely powerful cultivator, she should have lived an extremely long life.
Xue Yan, who felt Wen Cheng think about something rude, shot a glare towards the old man, who immediately averted his gaze and started whistling, acting as if he wasn't thinking of anything at all.
"Hold on tight, darling…", Xue Yan was about to use her Fluttering Ghost Steps, but before she took off, Lang Jie interrupted her.
"Are you going to summon a flying sword that we'll ride on, just like those ancient Chinese heroes?!", Lang Jie's excitement shot through the roof as he thought that he'll be able to ride on one of those cool-looking giant swords as if it was a skateboard.
Wen Cheng once again watched the couple in front of him and sighed.
"A married couple? More like a mother and her son…", he silently grumbled. Even though he knew that Xue Yan could hear him with her heightened senses, he still wanted to piss her off. Although she was an all-powerful cultivator, Wen Cheng still felt that that didn't give her the right to flirt with her lover in front of so many single people, including himself.
Xue Yan decided to ignore his words. What they thought of didn't matter to her as long as she was with her husband. As she tho
ught about how they talk to each other and how they go out to have fun, it really did seem more like she was Lang Jie's mother, with the exception of the deeds that a husband and wife do together in private. But even if that was the case, she was happy with their relationship, and her husband seemed to think the same.
She raised her hand up into the air, which was a completely useless motion that she added just to make herself look even cooler. The qi from her body slowly left her palm and condensed into a large sword that floated above them. As soon as the gigantic sword was fully formed, it slowly descended and laid down flat on the floor.
"Let's go, darling!", Xue Yan slowly escorted Lang Jie onto the giant sword. Wen Cheng looked at them with a shocked expression.
"Oh Venerable One… I thought you were a cultivator who didn't want to use weapo-"