Chapter 1: Fairy, I Really Am Your Husband!

Xiao Yifeng slowly opened his eyes, his mind a haze of confusion.

The first thing he saw was a sea of fire consuming the world. Flames raged across the mountains and fields, seemingly endless. The village—everything he knew—was burning. The pungent stench of smoke mixed with the charred scent of wolf corpses scattered across the ground, jolting him awake with a brutal clarity.

Standing before him was a woman.

She possessed skin as pure as ice and bones like jade, dressed in snowy white palace robes that fluttered amidst the inferno. In this hellish sea of fire, she looked like a celestial maiden descending from the Ninth Heaven, ethereal and untouched by the filth around her.

The woman’s peerlessly beautiful face wore a slight frown as she looked down at him with concern.

“I… I didn’t die?” Xiao Yifeng stammered, his eyes widening. “Hanyan? Why are you here? Did you save me? Oh, I love you to death…”

Seeing this stunning woman, Xiao Yifeng trembled violently. Disbelief washed over his face, quickly replaced by overwhelming ecstasy. Without a second thought, he scrambled up and dashed forward, throwing himself at her.

The woman in white was taken aback. She watched this boy wake up and immediately charge at her with open arms. For a moment, she was too stunned to react, allowing him to slam into her and wrap his arms tightly around her waist.

She stood there, stiff and at a loss.

“To think I actually survived! And to see you again… it’s wonderful,” Xiao Yifeng babbled, burying his face in her robes. “By the way, where is Qingyan? Is she safe? Hanyan, did you save her?”

He pulled back slightly, looking left and right, searching the burning ruins.

“How do you know my name?” The woman’s voice was crisp and cold. “What nonsense are you spouting? I don’t know you. Let go!”

She struggled anxiously, trying to pry Xiao Yifeng’s desperate clinging hands off her waist.

“Hanyan, it’s all my fault,” Xiao Yifeng cried, ignoring her resistance. “I didn’t know Qingyan was still alive! I only Self-Destructed to help her escape! I didn’t mean to break our promise on purpose… Huh?”

He paused, confused. He squeezed her waist again.

“Why have you grown so much taller?”

Xiao Yifeng assumed she was angry with him, so he hugged her even tighter to appease her. But then, a strange sense of dissonance struck him. He looked up at Liu Hanyan with a bewildered expression.

Only then did he realize the scale was wrong. This woman was towering over him; the top of his head barely reached her thigh.

Yet, this woman’s face was undeniably peerless. Her fair cheeks were flushed red with embarrassment and anger. Even her frown was as lovely as his wife’s, and that familiar, cold fragrance… who else could it be but his wife, Liu Hanyan?

“I don’t care who you are,” the woman in white said, her face frosted over with ice. “Don’t think I won’t strike you just because you’re a child. Let go immediately, or I won’t be polite.”

“Hanyan, don’t you recognize me?” Xiao Yifeng asked urgently, realizing she was genuinely furious. “I’m Yifeng! Your husband!”

That was the last straw.

The peerlessly beautiful woman reached her limit. A terrifyingly powerful aura burst forth from her body, exploding outward like a blooming ice lotus.

Bang!

Xiao Yifeng was blasted backward by the shockwave. He flew several meters through the air before crashing heavily onto the hard, rigid earth. Pain racked his entire body.

“Hanyan… you actually hit me?” He looked up at the woman in white, his eyes filled with disbelief and sorrow. “Are you trying to murder your own husband?! I told you, I didn’t mean to leave you alone!”

“Xiao Feng! What is wrong with you?”

A frantic voice shouted from the side. “What nonsense are you talking about? Hurry up and apologize to the Fairy! Fairy, please don’t blame him, he’s just… he’s been traumatized by the attack…”

Xiao Yifeng turned his head toward the voice.

Standing not far away was a boy. He was extremely handsome, though his face was smeared with blood and soot. Currently, that handsome face was twisted in sheer astonishment.

Xiao Yifeng’s eyes widened.

Ye Jiusi?

Why does he look like a child? What is going on?

Before he could process the thought, a sharp pain stabbed through his chest. Xiao Yifeng coughed violently, spat out a mouthful of fresh blood, and his vision went black.

Time lost its meaning.

Eventually, Xiao Yifeng jolted awake. He sat up abruptly, gasping for air, his hands trembling uncontrollably.

“Hanyan!!!”

Before waking, his mind had been a chaotic whirlwind of his past life. His time with Qingyan, the brutal power struggles in the Starry Sky Sacred Hall, and the love-hate entanglement with Liu Hanyan.

The nightmare ended with his fight against Qingyan. He had opened the stone door, only to find the person behind it… was himself.

The bizarre and fantastical scenes shattered as reality set in.

He steadied his breathing and looked around. He was in an ordinary side room with two small windows. The furnishings were simple and clean—pine tables and chairs, a water pot, and a few cups. It looked like a guest room in an inn, or perhaps a dormitory for disciples.

He was lying on the only bed. Nearby, several young boys sat around the table, chatting in low voices.

Ye Jiusi was sitting by the bed, guarding him. A faint shadow of worry hung between his brows.

Seeing Xiao Yifeng wake up, Ye Jiusi’s expression softened. “Xiao Fan, are you alright? Who is ‘Hanyan’? Why did you suddenly go crazy and cling to the Fairy who saved our lives?”

Ye Jiusi’s handsome little face fell, sadness overtaking his relief. He paused, then whispered, “I know… apart from the two of us, no one from our village survived. I know you’re sad. I am too. But please, don’t scare me like that.”

Xiao Yifeng opened his mouth, a thousand questions swirling in his heart. But when they reached his lips, they died in silence.

The village is gone?

Xiao Yifeng stared blankly at Ye Jiusi for a long moment before the realization hit him like a thunderclap.

He hurriedly held up his hands.

They weren’t small hands, exactly, and they bore the calluses of a poor child who worked the fields. But compared to the hands he remembered—hands scarred by countless battles, stained with blood and hardened by centuries of war—these hands were tender. They were young.

He tore open his left sleeve. There, on his forearm, was a deep scar stitched up with coarse thread, crawling across his skin like a centipede.

It was an injury from a farming accident when he was a child. In his past life, this scar had disappeared after his body was cleansed by cultivation.

I’ve returned.

I’ve gone back to the past!

This was the aftermath of the wolf pack attack. He was 10 years old. He and Ye Jiusi had just been saved by Liu Hanyan. They were currently on the flying ship, heading toward the Wentian Sect.

Knock, knock.

The door opened, and a delicate, beautiful maid walked in.

“Which one is Xiao Yifeng?” she asked. “Our Hall Master wants to see you. Follow me.”

Ye Jiusi tensed, looking at Xiao Yifeng with panic.

Xiao Yifeng forced a reassuring smile. “It’s alright. I was just… overwhelmed earlier. I went a little mad. I’m going to apologize to the Fairy. I’ll be back soon.”

Under Ye Jiusi’s worried gaze, Xiao Yifeng followed the maid out of the room.

Stepping into the corridor, he saw the structure of the vessel. It was a three-story flying ship, structurally similar to a massive river junk, but it was soaring steadily through the clouds. There was no swaying, no turbulence—just the smooth glide of a high-level artifact.

Xiao Yifeng’s mind raced as he walked.

I died and traveled back in time. At this point in the timeline, Liu Hanyan doesn’t know me yet.

The safest play would be to pretend he had gone temporarily insane from the trauma of the fire. But there was a problem: he had called her “Hanyan.”

That was hard to explain away.

To the outside world, Liu Hanyan was known only by her Daoist title, the “Guanghan Fairy.” Very few people knew her real name, especially not a dirt-poor village kid.

Furthermore, he remembered his past life all too well.

If he didn’t change the trajectory now, he would be dumped off the ship or sent to the Outer Sect to become a lowly Novice disciple—a servant. Ye Jiusi, thanks to his exceptional talent, would be whisked away to become a True Disciple immediately.

In his previous life, Xiao Yifeng had struggled in the mud as a servant for years. He barely managed to scrape his way into the desolate Wuya Hall as an ordinary disciple, and it took decades of blood and sweat to finally become a True Disciple.

I don’t have that kind of time anymore.

He couldn’t afford to cultivate slowly. He needed power, and he needed it fast.

Since I’ve already called out her name, I have to commit. I must make Liu Hanyan believe me, or at least intrigue her enough to keep me.