The Idle One’s Rise to Power

The first time they met, she was a little beggar, filthy from head to toe, eating a dirty steamed bun with her head bowed.

Holding a feather fan over his nose, he looked at her with undisguised disgust and said, “You stink.”

The second time they met, she was a woman cast out by her husband’s family, working in the fields and caked in mud.

He wiped his spotless, snow-white sleeve with a handkerchief and said disdainfully, “You’re filthy.”

The third time they met, she was the lowest-ranking servant in an immortal sect, covered in dust and grime.

Dressed in gorgeous, colorful robes, he looked at her with contempt and said, “Don’t you know how to take care of yourself?”

She stared at him in confusion, thinking he would leave just as he had the first two times.

She had no idea that he would take her with him, revealing a vast and wondrous world before her, little by little.