After Being Forced to Marry the Icy Beauty, I Faked My Death and Disappeared

[Main story complete, full revision in progress. Please add my upcoming novel, The Sickly Beauty Refuses to Become Everyone's Darling After Being Widowed, to your reading list!]

The fiend Yin Qingci was surrounded and attacked by the immortal sects. He never dreamed that his sworn enemy, Han Shixu, would come to his rescue. Even more astonishing, Han Shixu, the leader of all the immortal sects, forced him into marriage, carrying him to the wedding hall in a bridal sedan.

Yin Qingci: ? Has Han Shixu finally cultivated himself into a lunatic with that heartless path?

But nothing happened on their wedding night. It turned out Han Shixu was playing out the classic "first step to ascension: kill your fated one" routine! Yin Qingci was nothing but a stepping stone for Han Shixu's ascension!

A System appeared out of nowhere, pairing Yin Qingci and Han Shixu to clear secret realms. Yin Qingci had to help Han Shixu reach the threshold of enlightenment, then be run through by his sword.

Yin Qingci: Do I look like a pushover to you?

System: Complete every mission, and the System will help you fake your death. Also, the more your health bar drops, the more combat power you gain.

So Yin Qingci dragged his sickly body along, spitting blood as he supported Han Shixu.

After enduring humiliation all the way to the secret realm's exit, he heard the System announce: Welcome to [The Secret Realm You Cannot Clear Without Dual Cultivation].

Yin Qingci: ?

The secret realm's gates opened, revealing all of Yin Qingci's old enemies gathered outside. Han Shixu stood in front of him, while Yin Qingci very much wished he were dead.

His enemies denounced him, calling him evil by nature, a teacher-killer and a patricide. They begged Han Shixu to kill his wife and prove his Dao.

But Han Shixu, the aloof paragon who had always followed the rules, seemed to have lost his mind. He declared that the world was too foolish to tell good from evil and said he would fight his way out with Yin Qingci.

Don't bother!

Yin Qingci simply and decisively threw himself onto the tip of Han Shixu's sword.

After Yin Qingci died, Han Shixu gave up on ascending. Day and night, he knelt before the Chongguang Mirror, willing to endure the pain of backlash to reverse yin and yang and search for the remnant soul of Yin Qingci.

When his enemies learned the truth about what had happened, they finally understood the injustice Yin Qingci had suffered and were consumed with regret.

After faking his death, Yin Qingci gained a new identity. Hearing a young demon under his command recount how everyone had gone mad over him, he said, "So what?"

Back at the height of his power, Yin Qingci went to challenge Han Shixu. But even as Han Shixu was beaten until he coughed blood, he refused to fight back, wanting only to die and see his late wife, Yin Qingci.

Yin Qingci: Enough! Stop pining for Yin Qingci!

He nearly panicked himself into revealing his secret identity.

A saintly, aloof top x a sickly, haughty villain bottom

Please add my upcoming novel, The Sickly Beauty Refuses to Become Everyone's Darling After Being Widowed, to your reading list!

To repel calamity, Shen Yingxue spent all his cultivation. When ordered to kill the Demon Venerable, his powers were completely gone, leaving him with no choice but to find another way.

He entered the game himself, marrying the Demon Venerable who had long coveted him.

But all the world saw was him riding in the Demon Venerable's war sedan as it invaded the human realm, reveling in pleasure with the Demon Venerable.

The aloof, exalted immortal lord lost his good name overnight.

Even when he and the Demon Venerable finally fell together into the Demon Abyss, his sacrifice was dismissed as nothing more than a tragic love affair in which they died together.

Shen Wangyou's spiritual meridians were severed and he lost all his memories. A medicine cultivator found him and took him in as a living test subject.

A faint mark of a Dao companion contract lay between his fingers. It meant his Dao companion had died, and he had to remain a widower.

Shen Wangyou already found humans strange and frightening. He preferred being alone, and was willing to remain in mourning.

So he told every admirer who pursued him, "I'm in mourning."

Then someone discovered that he looked exactly like Shen Yingxue.

Powerful figures from sects far and wide, drawn by his reputation, shattered his peaceful life.

They fought over him, made him recall an unfamiliar past, called him Shen Yingxue, and spoke to him of their hatred.

In the end, they would insist he wasn't Shen Yingxue, only a substitute.

But hadn't those people hated Shen Yingxue?

So why did they all want to tear off his clothes?

After regaining his memories, Shen Wangyou confirmed that he was Shen Yingxue's reincarnation.

The truth of what happened back then also came to light, and at last he was vindicated.

With public opinion on his side, no one dared imprison him or deny him his freedom.

He went into seclusion in the mountains, sleeping, reading, and waiting to die.

People who had come to beg his forgiveness filled the woods beyond his home, snow piling over their shoulders.

The only person now allowed near him was the disciple he had personally raised in his previous life. The boy had grown into a young man, but still nestled in his arms as he had in childhood.

He ran a hand over his disciple's head as the coals crackled beside them.

For a while, he didn't notice the Dao companion contract between his fingers glowing once more.

At the same time, amid the chaos of the Demon Abyss, a pair of blood-red eyes slowly opened.

His dead Dao companion had come back to life.

A cold, decisive killer in his previous life, a socially anxious, slow-moving sickly beauty in this one

[Love rivals and regretful exes]

Theme: Cherish the present