Chapter 2: On How to Prove My Wife Is My Wife

A short while later, the delicate maid ushered Xiao Yifeng to the top floor of the flying vessel.

The hall was expansive, and in the center, seated formally upon a throne of white jade, was the woman he knew better than his own soul.

Liu Hanyan.

Upon seeing them enter, a thoughtful expression flickered across her captivating, frost-kissed face. She waved a hand dismissively at the servant. “You may leave.”

The maid bowed low and retreated, the heavy doors closing with a soft thud. Liu Hanyan’s beautiful eyes swept over Xiao Yifeng, cold and sharp as daggers. His heart skipped a beat, a sudden wave of inexplicable panic rising in his chest.

“You are Xiao Yifeng, correct?” Her voice was clear and cold, like water striking ice. “Speak. How do you know my name? Who exactly are you? Are you a spy from the Demonic Sects?”

“Hanyan, of course I’m not a Demonic spy,” Xiao Yifeng explained hurriedly, his hands raised in a gesture of surrender. “I know this sounds unbelievable, but I have traveled back from the future. In the timeline I come from… I really am your husband.”

Liu Hanyan’s expression darkened instantly. Her slender fingers tightened around the armrest of her jade throne, the stone groaning under the pressure.

She was the Guanghan Fairy, the most dazzling figure in the cultivation world. True to her title, she was as aloof and unreachable as a celestial maiden from the Ninth Heaven—pure, unsullied, and solitary. She was the dream lover of countless cultivators, yet since the day she began her path, she had rejected every young talent who sought to bow beneath her skirts.

She despised men. Her heart was devoted solely to the Dao.

Now, a mere child—whom she had saved out of momentary pity from a wolf pack—was spouting such offensive filth?

“What nonsense are you talking about?”

Her aura flared, the temperature in the room plummeting. “Do not think that just because you are a child, I will not hold you accountable. If you continue this gibberish, I will kill you. Where did you learn my real name? Who sent you?”

Liu Hanyan frowned, her vermilion lips pressed into a thin, merciless line.

Having been her husband for decades, Xiao Yifeng knew that look. She wasn’t bluffing. She truly intended to kill him.

“Proving my wife is my wife… why is this so hard?” Xiao Yifeng put on a mournful face, racking his brain. “You told me your name yourself! You told me when you took me to visit your hometown in Liuzhou.”

He didn’t wait for her to retort; he needed to overload her with truth.

“Your favorite fruit is bananas. Your greatest fear is snakes. You hate cats and dogs because you were bitten by strays before you started cultivating. Your childhood nickname is ‘Yanyan,’ chosen by your father after he consulted a fortune teller…”

He poured the facts out like grain from a sack, listing intimate details that only someone close to her could possibly know.

Liu Hanyan’s expression shifted from anger to grave suspicion.

Bananas? Snakes? My childhood nickname?

These were trivial matters, but they were deeply private. It seemed there had been a spy lurking in her Feixue Hall for a long time. This child spoke of the Wentian Sect’s internal affairs as if he were listing his own family treasures.

Xiao Yifeng was speaking with increasing enthusiasm, failing to notice the killing intent coalescing around the throne.

Liu Hanyan stood up. She raised a jade-like hand.

Whoosh!

Xiao Yifeng felt a terrifying suction force grab him. He was dragged into mid-air, an invisible hand clamping around his throat. His legs kicked helplessly, dangling above the floor.

“You say you are my husband? You say you are from the future?” Liu Hanyan’s voice dripped with mockery. “Then tell me, what happens next? Do you really think I would believe such lies?”

“It… it’s all true!” Xiao Yifeng choked, his face turning purple. “You… you possess the innate Cold Ice Meridian! You cultivate the Ice Heart Art, not the Wentian Sect’s Nine Scrolls of Asking Heaven… Also… look at this!”

Struggling against the invisible grip, Xiao Yifeng used his small finger to trace lines in the air.

Spiritual Energy lingered where he pointed, forming a complex diagram.

Liu Hanyan’s pupils constricted.

It was the energy circulation map of the Ice Heart Art.

Shock crashed through her defenses. Her primary cultivation method was a secret known only to her and her master. If her previous killing intent had been a threat, it was now a necessity. This child knew too much.

Her grip tightened.

“I never expected you to know even that,” she said coldly. “It seems your organization has infiltrated Feixue Hall to the bone. Speak. Which of my disciples is your contact? I will grant you a swift death.”

“Ghh…!”

Xiao Yifeng’s vision began to darken. His limbs were going stiff; his eyes rolled back, showing whites. The darkness was closing in.

I’m going to die. I’m really going to die.

His hands twitched reflexively. He realized with grim irony that the mighty Demon Lord, reborn, was about to be strangled to death by his own wife.

He had to drop the nuclear bomb.

“Hanyan…!” he wheezed, forcing the words out through a crushed windpipe. “I know… I know about the red birthmark at the root of your thigh… shaped like a teardrop! And on your right chest… a blue lotus mark… formed by the Ice Heart Art!”

Liu Hanyan froze, but she didn’t let go.

“That Art…” Xiao Yifeng screamed mentally, pouring his last ounce of strength into his voice. “It’s a Furnace Cauldron technique! Before the Mahayana stage, if your purity is broken, all your cultivation flows to the other party! Your master… he made you cultivate it so he could sell you! He wanted to trade you for spirit pills to extend his life! You found out… and you killed him!”

“Your first menstruation was at 15, before Foundation Establishment! You didn’t understand… you ran to your master crying… thinking you were dying! Hanyan… let go… I’m dead…”

Silence.

The invisible grip vanished.

Thud.

Xiao Yifeng collapsed onto the cold floor, gasping for air like a beached fish. He coughed violently, his lungs burning as they expanded.

“Cough… cough… Now do you believe me?” he rasped, rubbing his bruised neck. “These things… cough… you told me yourself. Heaven knows, Earth knows, you know, and I know. No third person exists. And your body… I’m the only one who has seen it. Unless you think a spy was hiding in your bathwater?”

“Impossible…”

Liu Hanyan stumbled back, her face pale as death. She collapsed onto the jade chair, looking as though her soul had been ripped away.

“How can this be? How could you know?” she muttered, her eyes unfocused.

The calming effects of the Ice Heart Art shattered. Her mind was in chaos.

The details about her body were damning enough, but the matter of her master…

Patricide.

She had ascended to her position by killing her teacher. It was the darkest secret of her life, a stain she had buried deep in her heart. She would never tell a soul. Not a spy. Not a disciple.

And the intimate details… could this brat really be her husband?

Impossible. I despise men. I killed my master to escape being used by men. How could I ever marry?

Liu Hanyan frantically circulated her Spiritual Energy, forcing a sliver of clarity back into her mind. She stared at the boy. “Since you claim to be from the future, tell me the trajectory of the world. Who are you? Why are you here?”

Xiao Yifeng saw the shift in her eyes. She believed him—or at least, she could no longer dismiss him.

He took a deep breath, his own expression turning solemn as memories of the apocalypse flooded back.

“The next few centuries will be an era of chaos unseen in a millennium,” he began, his voice sounding ancient coming from a child’s throat.

“Fifty years from now, the Second Great War between the Righteous and Demonic paths will erupt. Countless will die. In the three hundred years that follow, the Third and Fourth Great Wars will break out in succession. The fires of war will never cease across the Divine Land.”

He looked her in the eye.

“The Chixiao Sect will defect to the Demonic Path. The Luoshu Sect will become a hollow shell, its master slain in battle. The Palace Master of Xuanyue Palace will perish alongside the two Holy Envoys of the Starry Sky Sacred Hall. The two Divine Monks of Wuxiang Temple, Huixin and Huiming, will achieve Perfection in death.”

Liu Hanyan listened, her breath held.

“And the Wentian Sect…” Xiao Yifeng’s voice dropped. “Four of our halls will be destroyed. Wuya Hall will burn due to internal strife. Changsheng Hall, Chiyun Hall, and Rufeng Hall will be razed. And Guangwei Zhenren of the Qiankun Hall? He is a traitor in league with the Demon Sect. He is already at the Mahayana Perfection realm.”

“As for me…” Xiao Yifeng sighed. “I started as a lowly menial disciple. I struggled for years to become a True Disciple of Wuya Hall. But before I could enjoy thirty years of peace, I was framed for killing my master. I fled the world and eventually became a member of the Starry Sky Sacred Hall…”

“Wait!”

Liu Hanyan sat up straight, shock overriding her composure. “You are a member of the Starry Sky Sacred Hall?!”

“I was forced!” Xiao Yifeng said quickly, raising his hands. “I had no choice! I never did anything heinous, I swear. Just listen.”

He continued, urgency in his voice. “In the coming centuries, the Starry Sky Sacred Hall will nearly unify the Demonic Sects. With the Chixiao Sect acting as a mole, they will coordinate attacks from inside and out, devastating the Righteous Path.”

“After the Fourth Great War, I wanted to retire. I wanted to live in seclusion with you on the outskirts of the Wentian Sect. But then Qingyan…”

He froze. A cold sweat broke out on his back.

Crap. I slipped.

“Uh… I mean, an enemy!” he corrected frantically. “An enemy found us. We perished together. Then, muddle-headedly, I woke up here.”

He hurried to cover his mistake. “I discovered that for hundreds of years, a mastermind has been manipulating both the Righteous and Demonic paths. You, me… we were all just pawns on his chessboard.”