I married Xie Wangyan, the Venerable Swordmaster of Qingwei, for three years. I was the mortal wife everyone in the immortal sect looked down on.
I lived in a drafty west courtyard, wore faded blue cotton jackets, and spent every day working an abacus to cover the sect's deficits. Even the scars on my wrists, left by cutting myself to save him, earned his disdain. He called me vulgar and uncouth, nothing like his junior sister, whose skin was as smooth as ice and whose bones were as graceful as jade.
Then, at his Core Formation ceremony, he publicly divorced me and demanded that I hand over the Shen family's ancestral spirit-vein of warm jade for his junior sister to manage.
I looked at the divorce agreement, whose ink had dried long ago, and finally gave up on him. That very night, I sealed the ancestral hall's grand formation and withdrew the spirit vein that sustained the entire immortal mountain, along with the source spiritual blood I had given him over the past three years.
At first, Xie Wangyan thought I was just playing hard to get. He sneered and declared, "Without my protection, let's see how long she can keep up that attitude while looking after a few dozen dirt-poor herbal farmers at the foot of the mountain!"
Later, I reworked my cultivation and cornered the market in the trading district. My spiritual bones awakened, and I reached Foundation Establishment in a single step. Even elders from the upper sect had to wait in line to buy the finest spirit herbs from me.
Meanwhile, the supreme swordsmanship Xie Wangyan took pride in began to turn on him. The sect ran out of food and went bankrupt, while his junior sister stole a sword manual and piled up a debt to the black market's King of Hell.
On a night when heavy snow sealed off the mountain, he finally uncovered the truth about what happened three years ago at the bottom of Blackwind Ravine.
The once aloof and exalted Venerable Swordmaster stood red-eyed outside the Shen Trading House, having smashed his sword and turned himself into a snowman. All he wanted was for me to give him a bowl of hot ginger soup.
"Sect Master Xie, I'm not interested in reminiscing. First, pay back the six hundred and fifty spirit stones my family lent you over the past three years, with interest. Otherwise, tomorrow I'll take a crew up the mountain and pull down the sign of your Qingwei Sect to use as firewood!"
