Free Web NovelChapter 34: Chapter 34—Forced Marriage {*}
Chapter 34—Forced Marriage
Lei Cheng pressed both Mo Ming’s and Xiao Ming’s palms together in his hands and fixed Mo Ming with a stern look.
"You truly want to marry her—wholeheartedly?"
Mo Ming nodded so fast his head was almost a blur. "Yes, Father. I do."
Lei Cheng’s lips curled with quiet cunning. He recalled what Hua Mingyue had told him about breaking the fox groom mark—that the marriage had to be genuine and freely given, or it would not take hold. He suspected Xiao Ming’s Bizarre Rule worked by a similar principle. ’Xiao Ming cannot force a marked groom to marry her.’ He turned this over in his mind as he watched her. ’If she could have, she would have simply seized me from the start, instead of going through the charade of taking over the real Xiao Ming’s place and engineering an entire wedding ceremony.’
Xiao Ming’s free fist clenched behind her back—hard, almost piercing her nails into flesh. A faint tremor ran through her arm.
"How," she said, her voice rising with forced indignation, "are we supposed to hold a proper wedding in this rubble? This broken courtyard... I..."
Mo Ming answered before she had even finished the sentence, his voice bright with barely suppressed excitement. "It doesn’t matter. The Lei family had already prepared everything before they arrived. We just need to follow the ceremony."
He reached into his pouch and pulled out two small white threads.
Xiao Ming stared at them.
"You prepared everything?" she asked desperately.
Mo Ming smiled. "Indeed. I was worried that brat Lei Cheng might flee or ruin the ceremony on his way here. So I carried these myself."
Lei Cheng nodded along, not noticing how Xiao Ming’s expression darkened with each word exchanged. Even if he had, he would not have cared.
"Then what are you waiting for?" Hua Mingyue’s voice rose from the side. She stepped forward toward them, fanning herself with a white rose-patterned hand fan—luxurious and delicate, clearly different from the one she had been carrying before.
Lei Cheng noticed. ’Did she change her fan?’ He glanced at it for half a second, then decided it didn’t matter. She was full of unexplained things, and he had stopped questioning the details long ago.
"I’ll be the priest." Hua Mingyue announced. Both Mo Ming and Xiao Ming glanced at her with raised brows.
Lei Cheng was making a quiet bet. He had managed to trick Mo Ming into genuine willingness. But Xiao Ming—he was openly coercing her. He did not know whether that would be enough to complete the Bizarre Rule and form the domain. The rules of the fox mark had required sincerity. Perhaps he would fail. He would find out either way. But noticing the open unwillingness carved into Xiao Ming’s face, he felt somehow that it would still work.
"Let’s begin," Lei Cheng declared.
Mo Ming immediately snapped out of the daydream he had drifted into while staring at Hua Mingyue. Lei Cheng had caught the look and kicked him in the shin before it could develop further.
"Idiot. Look at your wife—not at others."
Even Hua Mingyue paused briefly before continuing to fan herself.
Mo Ming rubbed the back of his head and smiled sheepishly. "Of course, Father. I won’t do it again."
’Just wait until I’m emperor,’ he thought privately, his lips curling. ’Then all beauties will be mine.’
"Now clean the area." Lei Cheng ordered, fixing his gaze on Xiao Ming. She did not budge. She remained perfectly still.
Several minutes passed under Lei Cheng’s unblinking stare. Just when he raised his palm, Xiao Ming walked forward onto what remained of the sparring podium. She exhaled once—and exploded.
Her Bizarre golden qi erupted outward in a shockwave, blasting every fragment of debris, every cloud of dust, every piece of broken wood and shattered stone outward from the center. The podium itself was swept aside. A clear, clean circle approximately a hundred meters in radius opened up around her, pristine and dust-free against the surrounding wreckage.
The pressure was immense. The air itself seemed to grow heavier.
Mo Ming was sent flying—hurled several hundred meters through the air before slamming down on his back, coughing blood.
Lei Cheng, who had locked his grip around Hua Mingyue’s arm the moment he sensed what was coming, held on. He muttered under his breath, "Damn it."
Xiao Ming stood in the center of the cleared space, her expression carrying the precise blend of bitter grimace and killing intent she had been wearing since this entire ordeal began. "Well," she said lightly. "I wanted a clean area."
Lei Cheng had to go retrieve Mo Ming—who had fainted again on impact—inject Life Intent to heal him, and drag him back to the front.
Mo Ming blinked his way back to consciousness, thoroughly confused about whether any of this was real or a continuation of the illusion.
’It wasn’t a dream,’ he told himself.
Hua Mingyue stepped forward and positioned herself before the two of them, her fan moving in slow, graceful arcs. She pointed to Lei Cheng in his disguised form.
"Bow. Nine times."
Mo Ming and Xiao Ming both dropped to their knees and bowed their heads to the ground, nine times in succession. Xiao Ming bit her lower lip so hard between each bow that blood seeped from the wound. Her jaw ached from clenching it for so long. Mo Ming’s smile never left his face, his forehead touching the ground each time with cheerful enthusiasm.
After the ninth bow, Mo Ming straightened and looked up at the disguised Lei Cheng with shining eyes. "Father—I plead with you to accept this woman as my wife and your daughter-in-law."
"Good," Lei Cheng replied warmly, nodding with great parental satisfaction. "She is a wonderful daughter-in-law, son."
Hua Mingyue smiled playfully. "Do you both willingly accept one another as husband and wife—to stand together through sorrow and joy, hardship and prosperity, and to cherish, support, and remain faithful to each other for the rest of your lives?"
Mo Ming turned to Xiao Ming immediately and nodded. Xiao Ming did not move.
Lei Cheng’s palm lit up—green Life Intent energy glowing softly in his hand, raised just enough to be clearly visible.
Xiao Ming snapped her head forward and nodded rapidly. "Yes—I do."
"Good." Hua Mingyue’s tone remained calm and unhurried. "Now—exchange your soul threads."
Xiao Ming took one of the two white threads from Mo Ming’s hand and tied it around his right wrist. The moment the knot was complete, the thread pulsed—glowing white for a single breath before absorbing something invisible from Xiao Ming’s body. Then it dissolved entirely, sinking into Mo Ming’s skin and disappearing.
Mo Ming took the remaining thread and tied it around Xiao Ming’s wrist in return. It did the same—drinking in a faint energy from Mo Ming’s body before vanishing into her.
Lei Cheng watched the threads intently, his brow furrowing. "What kind of energy is that? It feels familiar somehow."
"Soul essence," Hua Mingyue replied without looking away from the couple. "It allows the spouses to sense one another—whether they are alive or dead. There are many other functions tied to it as well."
Lei Cheng’s eyes widened slightly. ’Even marriage carries power in this world.’ He filed the knowledge away with the genuine impression.
"We don’t have much time." Hua Mingyue clapped her hands once and pointed upward. "Take the Heavenly Vow."
Mo Ming and Xiao Ming looked at each other. One face was twisted with seething hatred. The other was grinning from ear to ear. Neither of them could have looked more different.
Mo Ming noticed Xiao Ming’s expression and recognized that it had been there for quite some time. He did not care in the slightest. ’Just wait,’ he thought. ’I’ll make sure you become as devoted as you were in the vision.’
"Do it now," Lei Cheng snapped. "Don’t waste time."
Both of them drew a breath together and vowed in unison:
"I, Mo Ming, and I, Xiao Ming, take each other as husband and wife. We vow to walk through pain and happiness, bitterness and joy together, caring for and supporting one another for the rest of our lives."
The moment the last syllable left their lips, a strange pressure swept across the area as a column of blue light descended from the sky and fell directly over both of them. The soul threads on their wrists reappeared—glowing brilliant blue—then sank back into their bodies for the final time.
Mo Ming immediately rubbed his hands together. "I can’t wait for tonight." He licked his lips—and then his face fell as he glanced up and found the sun still well above the horizon. He looked mournfully at the sky.
"I now officially declare you married."
Hua Mingyue’s announcement carried a distinct note of amusement.
She then calmly reached out and took Lei Cheng’s arm, pulling him many meters back from the couple.
Xiao Ming burst into loud laughter.
"Idiotic—utterly idiotic!" She pressed a hand to her face, her shoulders shaking. "I lost an enormous amount of power—but you, you fool, you made me marry someone while I was still under the Bizarre Rule!" She laughed again, genuinely this time, a bitter edge beneath the mirth.
For the first time since her capture, genuine relief appeared on her face.
"What—what’s happening?!" Mo Ming yelled.
He felt it before he could name it—a massive surge of energy flooding through his body from the inside out. In the next moment, his entire frame ignited, golden cracks splitting open across his skin and radiating brilliant light.
Lei Cheng dropped the disguise. His appearance rippled and returned to his own face.
"You—you brat—!" Mo Ming screamed—and collapsed to his knees, his body shaking uncontrollably under the force of the energy tearing through him. His face slowly turned pale. "I... was... fooled..."
Xiao Ming’s body exploded as well—an insane volume of golden light erupting from her in a pillar that drove upward deep into the sky. The shockwave ripped outward from them both. Lei Cheng locked both hands onto Hua Mingyue’s arm and held on as everything around them—every fragment of remaining debris, every drifting particle of dust—was blown away by the force.
Three seconds.
Then the energy vanished. Completely, all at once, as though it had never existed.
Lei Cheng tilted his head. "What just happened?"
Hua Mingyue answered without any particular urgency. "It’s because of luck. Mo Ming’s luck is too weak—it cannot sustain or amplify a domain to any significant size. The power was too little." frёeωebɳovel.com
’So that is how luck determines the domain.’ Lei Cheng nodded quietly to himself.
Then Xiao Ming’s body began to glow—a softer light this time, silver instead of gold. The temperature dropped noticeably. Silver energy spread outward from her slowly and steadily, extending in every direction until it had claimed a dome roughly fifty meters in radius and fifty meters high, rising like a half-sphere of shimmering light over the area. The surrounding sounds became strangely distant.
Lei Cheng stood just within its edge, watching it take shape. Hua Mingyue pulled him back as the boundary began to form.
After a few moments, the silver shine faded. The dome seemed to disappear entirely.
Lei Cheng frowned. "Where did it go?"
He walked forward and raised his palm slowly, reaching toward where the edge of the dome had been.
"It didn’t disappear," Hua Mingyue said. "It simply isn’t visible to the human eye."
"Is that so?" Lei Cheng lowered his palm and looked out over the courtyard. The broken debris and surrounding structures had been flung far into the distance by the shockwave, leaving a flat, empty stretch of land in their place. He reached his palm toward the invisible boundary—and watched it disappear at the wrist, cut cleanly from view. "So it does exist," he murmured.
He smiled lightly. "Let’s go in. I want to see what’s on the inside."
He couldn’t wait to check it out.
