Chapter 71: The Fiancée in the Broken Engagement Revenge Story…

In the previous world, Xie Hui still had a smile on his face even as he lay dying. Xie Ting’s child had also made something of himself—in fact, when Xie Hui was on his hospital bed, about to leave that world, the child handed him a university admission letter from the same school his father had attended.

This time, when Xie Hui returned to the system space, the client hadn’t left yet. Instead, he bowed deeply and respectfully thanked him.

“Thank you. Now, even if I go down below, I’ll have the face to meet Brother Xie.”

The client had always spoken humbly, claiming he wasn’t as good as Xie Ting’s father. But in truth, when Xie Hui was packing things up and saw the medals the man had collected, he had even more than Xie Ting’s father.

Part of that was because the client had served longer than Xie Ting’s father, but there was no doubt that the man was outstanding. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have made it to this place—or had the chance to meet Xie Hui.

“No need to thank me. This is what I should do.”

Xie Hui saluted him in return. After the client left, he sat on the bench, his heart unable to settle for a long while.

Rather than for the meager rewards, Xie Hui took on these missions to temper his own mindset.

In the last world, he had felt the deep allure of patriotism—its burning faith, and the willingness to give everything.

“Host, for the next world, would you like to go to ancient times or the interstellar age?”

“Ancient.”

“Would you like to meet the client?”

“Sure.”

At first, Xie Hui hadn’t liked getting too involved with the clients. After all, their relationship was purely transactional—once the mission ended, they’d have no more contact.

But at some point, he’d become inexplicably curious about the clients’ stories.

Everything in life was multifaceted. People standing in different positions saw different truths and thought from different angles.

“You’re the one who can help this old man fulfill his wish?”

The one who entered was an old man in a dark red robe, with a long, flowing beard.

“Yes. Please tell me your wish.”

“This old man doesn’t understand. I only annulled an inappropriate engagement for my daughter, so why did she end up being condemned by everyone?”

Xie Hui picked up a book and flipped through it briefly. He understood right away. This old man was from a “useless protagonist gets revenge after a broken engagement” kind of world, and his daughter was the arrogant young lady who insisted on breaking off the engagement after the male lead became a “waste.”

“But the engagement had already been arranged. Didn’t breaking it violate the original agreement?”

Though the old man before him was the client, Xie Hui still felt that his actions were a bit improper. No matter the situation, betrayal of trust was never appealing.

“Violate the agreement? What a joke! The engagement was arranged between my daughter and the young master of the Li family! When Li Qing had his accident and became a waste, wasn’t it the Li family who first stripped him of his status as young master?”

“If you look at it the other way around, if my daughter had the accident and became a useless cultivator, would their brilliant genius of a young master still want such a waste for a fiancée?”

“Besides, if you can’t cultivate, your lifespan is only about a hundred years. Based on my daughter’s talent and current cultivation, she can live for three thousand years! Once Li Qing dies of old age, is my daughter supposed to spend the rest of her life living with a memorial tablet?”

When the old man said the words “violate the agreement,” his emotions clearly spiked, and he grew more and more agitated as he spoke.

“In the cultivation world, the strong devour the weak. After becoming a waste, Li Qing spent his days drinking. One day, I even saw him dead drunk, sleeping in a doghouse! Forget that he was a waste—just the constant drinking, beating his servants when drunk, and sleeping with the dogs… How could I possibly entrust my daughter to someone like that!”

When the engagement was first arranged, Li Qing hadn’t even been considered a top-tier genius. He’d only earned the title of young master because of the engagement to the old man’s daughter.

“I liked his good temperament at the time! Thought that even if he wasn’t talented, I could refine pills—find rare herbs and use alchemy to improve his constitution.”

“There are rumors saying Li Qing became a waste to save my daughter! But my daughter was already at the Golden Core stage, and Li Qing was just a Foundation Establishment cultivator. She needed his help?”

“What’s more, I’d loaded Yin’er up with protective treasures. Even a Nascent Soul cultivator wouldn’t have been able to harm her.”

Xie Hui didn’t interrupt, seeing how the old man was on a roll. Instead, he poured him a glass of water and handed it over.

“I even gave him many pills that could help recover his spiritual roots when I annulled the engagement. But Li Qing never mentioned that—he just accused me of bullying him into breaking it off!”

The old man took the tea, sipped, and leaned back in the chair. It seemed the tea helped calm him down as he continued in a slower tone.

“It’s true that I spent too much time on cultivation and neglected to teach Yin’er properly. That child really is a bit too arrogant. I’m asking you—please guide her well. Help her temper that extreme personality of hers.”

To be fair, Yin’er wasn’t without fault. After Li Qing regained his cultivation and had others by his side, she tried to chase after him again, unhappy with what she’d lost.

The mistake had been made, and as a father, he naturally wanted to protect his daughter.

In the original timeline, it was because one of Li Qing’s female confidants was injured and came to ask the old man for alchemy. But she acted all high and mighty—she even expected him to supply the ingredients.

The old man was a miser. His treasures were for his daughter only—no one else. Especially not those rare herbs that he’d risked his life to acquire, which he’d intended to use to make life-saving pills for Yin’er.

Li Qing wanted to get something for nothing.

When the old man refused, Li Qing tried to kill him. And unfortunately, he had underestimated Li Qing’s true strength. With a single strike, Li Qing fatally wounded Yin’er, who had stepped in to shield her father.

Even now, remembering that scene made the old man’s eyes bloodshot with hatred.

“I want you to cultivate well—don’t end up like me, wasting most of your life on alchemy. And I want Li Qing to never even come close to catching up to Yin’er for the rest of his life!”

“Alright.”

Xie Hui nodded and stood up, entering the mission world.

After his experience in the previous mission—where he had time-traveled to after the child had already grown up—Xie Hui had stopped placing any hope on luck.

There was a time during his missions when he had been a top-tier alchemy cultivator. Give him a broken teapot and he could still refine pills, so no matter what point he crossed into, he was confident he could turn the tide even in desperate situations.

But unexpectedly, this time when he opened his eyes, he was met with the helpless gaze of a little girl.

She was sitting on a small stool, propping up her chin under her messy bird’s-nest hairdo, staring at him full of grievance.

“Dad, do you even know how to braid someone’s hair?”

This Xie Hui hadn’t actually learned that skill either. Holding a wooden comb, he tried to help her tidy her hair, but the moment he combed it a little, the little girl clutched her head and cried out in pain.

“Dad, are you doing my hair or plucking my feathers?!”

She had been sitting there for nearly half an hour and had completely run out of patience. After getting yanked painfully, she stood up in a huff and turned to leave.

From the client’s memories, Xie Hui recalled that it was exactly because of this—her going out with a bird’s-nest hairdo and being seen by the client’s lifelong rival—that the incident got widely spread and utterly embarrassed the client.

So the client had taken the opportunity to use secluded cultivation as an excuse and entrusted the girl to the sect leader’s care.

Alchemy cultivators held a different status from regular cultivators in the cultivation world. In any sect, they were revered guests—let alone someone like the client, who was close to the level of a divine-grade alchemist.

Thus, after the client went into seclusion, the sect leader practically treated his daughter like a precious pearl, spoiling her rotten. Over time, this raised her to be a little willful.

After going through the client’s explanation, Xie Hui found himself agreeing with the decision to break off the engagement. However… this little girl had gone and called off the engagement herself, only to see Li Qing with someone else and then stubbornly try to worm her way back in—like a discarded toy unwilling to be picked up by another.

That part, Xie Hui found improper.

Based on his experiences across so many worlds, he knew that raising a child was best done personally.

So he quickly followed after her, calling the little girl with the messy hair back.

“Dad, should I just go boil some hot water instead?”

Seeing the little girl, Xie Yin, dressed in a goose-yellow dress, pouting helplessly with her bird’s-nest hair while suggesting to boil water, Xie Hui couldn’t help but let the corners of his lips twitch upward.

“What? Is my daughter a pig? Needs boiling in hot water?”

Xie Yin only talked to her father like this when she was unhappy. Hearing her dad actually go along with the joke, she crossed her arms and squatted down angrily.

“I’m ignoring you!”

“It’s Dad’s fault. Come here, Yin’er. This time, I promise I’ll do your hair properly.”

After a mountain of coaxing and sweet-talking, Xie Hui finally got the little ancestor to sit back down on the small stool, then carefully and gently helped her comb out her hair.

He tied a simple bun, picked out a hairpin from the original host’s spatial pouch, and stuck it in her bun. Looking at the cute little girl, he chuckled and praised:

“As expected of my daughter—so pretty.”

Xie Yin let out a light snort. Her scalp was still sore from the earlier tugging, and she really wasn’t in the mood to talk to her dad.

One of the hairpins had tassels that chimed pleasantly as the girl bounced around happily.

Hands clasped behind his back, Xie Hui watched as the little girl ran under a peach blossom tree, nimbly climbed onto the swing below it, and began swinging with joy.

Just then, a disciple dressed in dark blue robes walked over and bowed toward Xie Hui.

“Greetings, Elder. The Sect Leader says the Li family’s token of engagement has already been delivered.”

Xie Hui had arrived late. The engagement between the two families had already been settled, and their tokens exchanged. It would clearly be inappropriate to cancel the arrangement immediately—it was best to wait a bit.

Once Xie Yin got a little older, they could use the excuse that she was focused on cultivation and didn’t wish to marry. With a better attitude, the engagement could be canceled more gracefully, without causing too much friction.

As for how the engagement was arranged—it was a mutually beneficial matter between the sect and the Li family. The Li family had a spiritual vein, but lacked the ability to mine it. Coincidentally, Yongchang Sect was short on cultivation resources.

In the cultivation world, it was generally accepted that marrying into a family made you one of them. After the engagement was established, Yongchang Sect was allowed to mine the Li family’s spiritual vein in a 60–40 split: 60 for Li, 40 for Yongchang.

Yongchang Sect provided protection in return, to guard against others coveting the spiritual vein—those who might destroy it out of jealousy.

The sect leader and the other elders had no suitable offspring. Among the newly recruited direct disciples, some were of appropriate age, but their backgrounds were slightly lacking.

After considering all the options, only Elder Xie’s only daughter had both the right age and status, and so the engagement was arranged.

Xie Hui accepted the token but, unlike the original story, he didn’t hand it over to Xie Yin for safekeeping. Instead, he casually put it away in a box—after all, it wasn’t going to last long.

Once the Li family’s vein had been fully mined, the engagement would naturally be over.

After storing the token, Xie Hui turned to the little girl who had finished swinging and grown bored, chasing butterflies—only to get stung on the face by a bee. With a sigh, he reached out and caught her in his arms.

“Let’s see if you still dare to be naughty next time.”

Then he pulled out some ointment and gently applied it on her face. As he spread it evenly, he turned to the disciple who was still standing there and said in a low voice:

“Go inform the Sect Leader—when Yongchang Sect recruits disciples this year, have them keep an eye out for any with wood-type spiritual roots suitable for alchemy cultivation.”

“Most of the other elders’ disciples outnumber even the janitors on my peak. If there’s no one suitable among the new disciples, then gather the unattached ones and let me pick.”

The disciple clearly froze for a second upon hearing this. When he snapped out of it, he was overjoyed. Barely restraining his excitement, he bowed deeply.

“Yes, Elder!”

After replying, he turned and rushed away from Elder Xie’s peak. In his excitement, he even forgot he could fly on a sword and sprinted all the way to the sect’s main hall, shouting:

“Elder Xie wants to take a disciple!!”

“Elder Xie wants to take a personal disciple!!”