I Ruined the Long Ao Tian Script
Chapter 116

The End of the Dream

As the carriage trundled along, Young Master Cheng found himself thoroughly bored. Having devoured countless tales of romance and adventure, he had already constructed an entire backstory for Xu Shoulou in his mind—her familiarity with horses suggested she came from a family of horse breeders beyond the Great Wall. Perhaps some tragedy had befallen her household, forcing her into a brothel, from which she had now escaped with her sisters.

To spare her any distress, he even instructed his attendants not to pry into their past.

The last time Xu Shulou had been treated like a fragile porcelain doll was when she had been shrunk in size and carried around by her junior sister Bai Roushuang. Though Young Master Cheng and his entourage weren’t quite that exaggerated, they still spoke to her with cautious gentleness, as if afraid of touching upon some hidden sorrow.

By evening, a light drizzle began to fall. When they stopped to take shelter in a cave and light a fire, Xu Shulou turned to Bai Roushuang and said, "The atmosphere feels a bit odd. Maybe I should just reveal my true identity to them."

Bai Roushuang rested her chin in her hand. "Would it really make a difference? If they knew you were the infamous Xu Shulou of the cultivation world, they’d still tread carefully around you."

Xu Shulou chuckled. "My notoriety hasn’t quite reached the mortal realm yet."

Even so, she didn’t dwell on the matter. Just then, the fire was lit, and Young Master Cheng beckoned them over to warm themselves. The two joined the group around the flames, where the attendant handed out cups of hot tea to ward off the chill.

Outside, the drizzle soon turned into a downpour, relentless and heavy, casting a misty veil over the ground. The distant mountains and trees blurred into the haze, and wildflowers beyond the cave were battered into disarray.

Young Master Cheng, lost in melancholy, recited a line of poetry: "Half a life adrift like duckweed on the water, a night of cold rain buries the famed blossoms—am I not like those flowers, soon to be broken by the storm?"

Everyone present stiffened, struck speechless by his dramatic lament.

Bai Roushuang leaned toward her senior sister and whispered, "Our dear nephew is quite the sentimental soul."

Having delivered his mournful verse, Young Master Cheng turned to the group, clearly expecting consolation. The nearest to him, Xu Shulou silently extended her teacup. "Drink some hot tea."

"..."

After a long pause, one of the guards by the fire broke the silence. "I miss my wife."

The melancholic mood shattered instantly. Young Master Cheng sipped his tea and muttered something before retiring for the night.

Xu Shulou volunteered to keep watch, and Bai Roushuang, yawning, insisted on staying with her.

Xu Shulou let her rest her head on her lap as they chatted idly.

"When I was little, I loved rainy days," Xu Shulou murmured, gazing at the curtain of rain. "My father used to say there are two kinds of people who enjoy the rain: farmers during a drought, and idle rich folk like me, who don’t have to toil in the downpour."

"Your father sounds... quite perceptive."

"Perceptive, yes. But that doesn’t mean he acted on it."

Xu Shulou stretched out her hand, catching raindrops until a tiny pool formed in her palm.

Bai Roushuang glanced up at her. "Do you still like it now?"

"Of course. Spring thunder, winter snow, summer rain, autumn wind—I adore them all," Xu Shulou smiled. "Perhaps Young Master Cheng’s sentimentality has rubbed off on me today."

Bai Roushuang soon drifted to sleep to the rhythm of the rain and her sister’s soothing voice, dreaming of warm red curtains and rain pattering on withered lotus leaves.

By dawn, the clouds had parted, and the air was fresh with the scent of rain. Bai Roushuang awoke well-rested, stretching contentedly before helping the others pack up for the journey ahead.

Xu Shoulou, having kept watch all night, was urged to rest in the carriage. She accepted their kindness and soon dozed off amid the jostling ride.

She dreamed again—or rather, the continuation of a previous dream.

It felt as though she had skipped many scenes, arriving straight at the dream’s conclusion.

The phrasing might sound convoluted, but she saw herself clad in festive red robes, standing beside Lu Beichen. Beneath their feet stretched a crimson carpet, the air alive with celebratory music and voices chiming, "Congratulations, Sect Leader!"

The grand hall of the Lingxiao Sect was awash in red—scarlet silks draped from the beams, red candles flickering on tables, lanterns hanging before the dais. It was unmistakably a wedding hall.

Was this a marriage? Was she marrying Lu Beichen? But... where was Bai Roushuang?

"Sect Leader"? Had the dream version of Xu Shulou seized control of the Lingxiao Sect and forcibly taken Lu Beichen as her consort? That didn’t seem right...

She soon realized she was overthinking it.

In the next moment, two more women in bridal attire were escorted in by matchmakers, their faces veiled in red—a rarity in the cultivation world. Odd, but then again, this was a dream. Here, Lu Beichen could flout conventions, maintaining multiple wives and concubines without consequence.

As the brides entered, the dream version of Xu Shulou stepped back, bowing her head to yield her place.

So this was... a group wedding? Multiple couples marrying at once?

Only when the matchmaker began reciting blessings did the truth dawn on her. This wasn’t several couples—Lu Beichen was taking two equal wives at once. And she, the concubine, was merely an afterthought. While Lu Beichen and his brides bowed to heaven and earth, she knelt behind them, kowtowing a few times before being acknowledged as part of the household.

The absurdity of it all nearly made her laugh aloud.

Then she spotted Bai Roushuang at the forefront of the guests and understood. These two brides didn’t even include Bai Roushuang—she was already the primary wife, not a coequal. Behind her stood over a dozen beauties: Princess Xiao Ya, Luo Fusheng of the Hehuan Sect, two little fox spirits, and other familiar faces. Each was radiant in delicate pastel silks, their fragrant presence impossible to ignore as they chirped congratulations in sweet voices.

Bai Roushuang wore a perfectly serene smile, as though genuinely delighted by her husband’s new marriages.

Xu Shulou suddenly found the whole affair tiresome. This dream had begun as a tale of Lu Beichen and Bai Roushuang’s unwavering love triumphing over her, the villainous senior sister. How had it devolved into a harem fantasy?

And why was she part of it? Hadn’t Lu Beichen despised her? How had the story leapt to this point? How much time had passed?

The crowd fawned over the groom, showering him with flattery. They hailed "Sect Leader Lu" as the youngest cultivator to reach the Tribulation Transcendence stage in their era, praising his peerless beauty and talent—no wonder fair maidens threw themselves at him.

Lu Beichen basked in the praise, though he feigned modesty with murmured demurrals.

"Sect Leader Lu"?

Leader of the Lingxiao Sect? If he could hold a wedding in its main hall, he must have claimed the title.

Had Ling Li passed the position to Wei Xuandao, who then yielded it to him?

Lu Beichen held the hands of his two newly wedded co-wives, accepting congratulations from the crowd, while Xu Shulou was left standing awkwardly in the hall, wearing a strained smile, unsure of what to do with herself.

As Xiao Ya passed by, she glanced at Xu Shulou before striding away without a word. It was quite ironic—both the princess of the Xu clan and the imperial daughter of the Xiao family had entered the backyard of Sect Master Lu’s household.

Bai Roushuang, however, spared her a look—one mixed with mockery and pity. "Senior Sister," she said, "you took advantage of our husband being under the influence of a love potion to force yourself on him, nearly dying in the process of 'detoxifying' him. Only then did he relent and take you in as a concubine, despite your... tainted reputation. Are you satisfied now?"

...Fine.

Dreams, after all, didn’t need to make sense.

And as for stories—well, there were good ones and bad ones.

In the crowd, Xu Shulou spotted many faces she recognized from reality—fellow disciples, people she had killed, and those she had saved.

In this dream, the one thing they all had in common was their shared disdain for her, as if she were some filthy, unspeakable thing unworthy of even a glance.

Her gaze lingered on Shen Zhuang’s face. This man, who conducted monstrous experiments fusing humans and beasts beneath the fighting arenas, now sat among the guests, laughing and drinking like any normal person. No one knew his true nature. Her sixth junior brother, Ji Ci, sat beside him, chatting and laughing as if they were close friends.

Then there was the fake master of Black Tortoise Tower. His eyes swept over Luo Fusheng, nestled among Lu Beichen’s wives and concubines, before he turned away with a wild, triumphant grin. Xu Shulou noticed the signature on his congratulatory gift: "Gao Zhuo, Master of Black Tortoise Tower, subordinate to Lingxiao Sect."

At the main table sat Fan Yang and Fan Zhi, Lu Beichen’s senior mentors, basking in the crowd’s flattery.

And then... Feng Jiuyou and Qi Wutong. One was dashingly handsome, the other radiant with a charming smile—a perfect, fairy-tale couple.

This was truly a despairing dream.

Qi Wutong looped her arm through Bai Roushuang’s. "Madame Bai, Sect Master Lu is a man of great capability. No woman could ever truly hold him down. What does it matter if he takes three wives or four concubines? No matter how many beauties enter his household, you’ll always be his favorite. Don’t take it to heart."

Bai Roushuang’s expression darkened as she glanced at Feng Jiuyou, who had once sworn undying loyalty to Qi Wutong alone. Whether she cursed Qi’s hypocrisy in her heart or not, she managed a polite nod.

In the dream, Xu Shulou trailed behind Lu Beichen and his two co-wives, mimicking their every move. When someone toasted the newlyweds, she mindlessly raised her cup and drank along.

"What a pathetic creature," someone in the crowd muttered. "No refinement, no cultivation—utterly worthless. But that face of hers is exquisite, and she’s so blindly devoted. She’d make for a fun plaything, at least."

"..."

Time in the dream blurred, spanning years in moments. It seemed no one remembered that Xu Shulou had once been a prodigious talent in cultivation. Now, the title of this generation’s greatest belonged to Lu Beichen—could only belong to Lu Beichen.

A young genius, renowned far and wide. Master of Lingxiao Sect, revered by all under heaven.

Lu Beichen stood atop the white jade steps outside the grand hall of Lingxiao Sect, surrounded by a dozen wives and concubines, beauty in his arms and power at his fingertips, basking in the adulation of the world’s heroes. Truly, he was at the pinnacle of glory.

The vivid scene froze at this moment. The faces of the crowd gradually blurred, dissolving into lines of text, until the entire world melted into a pool of ink, obscuring everything within.

It was then that Xu Shulou awoke.

After ​​‌‌​‌‌​​​‌‌‌​​​​​‌‌​‌​​​‌‌​​‌​‌​​‌‌​​‌‌​‌‌​​‌​​​‌‌​​‌​‌​‌‌​​​‌‌​​‌‌‌​​‌​‌‌​​‌‌​​​‌‌​​​‌​​‌‌​​​‌​​‌‌​​​‌​‌‌​​‌​‌​​‌‌​​​‌​​‌‌​​​​​​‌‌​​​​​‌‌​​​​‌​‌‌​​​​‌​‌‌​​‌​‌​​‌‌​‌​‌​​‌‌‌​​​​​‌‌​​​‌​‌‌​​‌‌​‍shaking off the dream, all that remained was a sigh.

If this was the true ending of the story, then it was truly a disappointing one.

Search the lightnovelworld.cc website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.