Chapter Seventy-Three: The Bridesmaid's Sudden Awakening

Hanging up the phone, Li Yunfei no longer bothered to store his cell in the system’s package, instead slipping it directly into his pocket. Now that he had left the signal-less depths of the mountains, it was best to keep his phone close at hand.

He glanced around; during his call, the number of people in the courtyard had diminished. Only the middle-aged and elderly folks playing cards remained outside, while everyone else had gone indoors.

The noise from the house grew ever more raucous, laughter and boisterous shouts mingling together. From the sound of it, the guests were making a lively scene in the bridal chamber.

Li Yunfei grinned, stood up, and set his plastic stool back in place, then turned and walked toward the narrow path beside the house, intending to head for the back mountain.

Zhang Ziying's cultivation speed had put him on alert; this was no time to relax. He needed to seek out dungeons to clear and rapidly strengthen himself.

He had previously believed that, with his system, his life was set on cheat mode. Even in this era of spiritual resurgence, he thought he’d have no trouble outpacing most people.

But he hadn’t anticipated just how quickly those with exceptional talent could cultivate.

It was said that signs of spiritual energy’s return had first appeared just over two years ago. Over the following two years, the energy had thickened steadily, and those with ancient lineages had been the first to sense it.

They had set out on the path ahead of everyone else, already winning at the starting line.

Next had come those selected to form Zixiao. The state’s earliest acquired cultivation resources had been dedicated to this group in full.

They’d received the top legacies from every great sect, shared without reservation, and the collective wisdom of expert teams developing new techniques. Resources for cultivation were pooled and focused upon them.

The elders of Zixiao—there was no way their cultivation realms could be compared to mere Spirit Initiates.

This was no time to let down his guard!

Yet Li Yunfei had only taken a few steps and hadn’t even reached the narrow path before a commotion broke out behind him.

“Hey, what are you doing? Let Lingyue go! If you want to make mischief, go bother the bride and groom! Why pick on the bridesmaid?”

“Oh come on, it’s a joyous day, we’re just playing around! Why be so uptight?”

“Playing? This is harassment—you’ve gone too far!”

“Don’t exaggerate. Anyone coming here as a bridesmaid knows what to expect. It’s our local custom. Just stay out of it.”

Hearing these voices, Li Yunfei’s brow furrowed as he turned to look.

He saw four or five young men, their faces flushed with drink, blocking the way of two young women in light purple evening gowns—the bridesmaids.

The door to the house on the left was now open, and a crowd of young men were packed inside. From within came shrieks and furious shouting from women.

Li Yunfei’s expression darkened. He’d heard of such things before—people using wedding festivities as an excuse to harass or even assault bridesmaids. He hadn’t expected to witness it himself today.

After a moment’s thought, Li Yunfei slipped behind the right-hand house. With a flick of his wrist, a Concealment Talisman appeared in his hand; he slapped it to his chest and murmured, “Swift.”

His form vanished instantly. Anyone who’d witnessed it would have thought they’d seen a ghost.

Concealed, Li Yunfei strode toward the house on the left.

These scoundrels, though they might not deserve death, certainly merited a lesson.

But as he neared the entrance, his expression suddenly changed. He pushed off hard with his foot, flipping backwards cleanly over a card table, landing a good four or five meters away.

A chilling wind surged from within the door. Frost rapidly formed upon the ground and doorframe, spreading toward the walls.

The once-raucous room fell abruptly silent. Peering through the doorway, Li Yunfei saw that the entire space had become a world of ice and crystal.

The young men crowding the doorway had been turned into statues of ice.

Cracks formed, then with a crash, those frozen figures shattered into bloody shards of ice—smaller even than mahjong tiles, impossible to piece together again.

Those left in the courtyard paled in terror and scrambled away from the left-side house, the scene descending into chaos.

Hearing the shouts of “Murder!” from below, those upstairs—host and guests alike—rushed down to see what had happened.

Li Yunfei slipped aside, watching with shock from the edge of the crowd.

This was... Awakening?

He instantly understood what had transpired.

It was Lingyue, the bridesmaid. Subjected to humiliation and outrage, she had Awakened in a surge of anguish and fury.

A newly Awakened one could not control their abilities; in the resulting explosion, those who had tormented her had lost their lives—just retribution, Li Yunfei thought, feeling not the slightest pity.

He retreated to a secluded corner to observe.

Now that an Awakened had appeared, someone would surely call the authorities and Zixiao would send their people to handle the matter.

Since the victim had found her own power of self-preservation, there was no need for him to intervene.

By now, the crowd had retreated to the edge of the courtyard, those descending from upstairs gathering on the right side, well away from the left-hand house.

The cold had spread, leaving a three-inch-thick layer of ice on the curb at the doorway, but had stopped short of a full meter outward—had it spread further, who knows how many of the dozens of guests might have survived.

An elderly woman, grasping what had happened, collapsed to the ground in tears.

“My son...”

Her husband stood beside her, trembling, his eyes bloodshot.

The groom in a pink suit and the bride in white descended as well. Seeing the blood-tinged ice fragments scattered before the left-hand house, their faces turned deathly pale.

The sharp click of high heels upon ice sounded from within. A tall, graceful figure emerged from the door.

She wore a pale lavender bridesmaid dress, her figure slender and elegant, her beauty outshining even the bride’s.

Her long hair was in disarray, the left shoulder of her dress torn, terror stamped upon her exquisite features, making her all the more pitiable.

Yet no one dared approach. A cold blue aura of frost rose from her body.

With each step, a circle of ice formed beneath her feet.

The other bridesmaid, standing by the bride, stammered, “Lin—Lingyue, what’s happening to you?”

The bride, a mixture of shock, fear, and jealousy in her eyes, replied, “She’s Awakened.”

She knew her husband’s friends had gone too far—one of the bridesmaids had even come to them for help earlier. But her husband had insisted it was just local custom, that the boys wouldn’t cross any lines, so they’d paid it no mind.

Now, with all that had happened, they were clearly implicated.

“You killed my son! Give me back my son!” the weeping old woman suddenly shrieked, scrambling to her feet and charging at Lingyue like a madwoman.

Startled, Lingyue stumbled back, screaming, “Stay away... I don’t want to kill anyone...”

No one reacted in time—the old woman was just seven or eight meters from Lingyue, crossing the distance in a few steps. Her husband reached out instinctively to grab her, but missed.

Driven mad by grief, her eyes were bloodshot. She ignored Lingyue’s pleas, intent only on wrapping her hands around the girl’s throat.

But the moment her hands entered the cold blue aura radiating from Lingyue, she froze in place.

From her fingertips, frost spread rapidly, encasing her whole body in seconds.

In the blink of an eye, the old woman became a statue of ice—then, like the young men before her, shattered utterly, fragments scattering across the ground.

Lingyue let out a heart-wrenching scream, and the onlookers recoiled in horror, stumbling further back.