Lin Wan was sobbing.

  It was a beautiful, tragic weeping—the kind that usually made ancient poets write lengthy, depressing verses about shattered jade and fallen blossoms.

  Lin Jue was not a poet. He was a guy on a very tight schedule who had just had his internal organs temporarily liquefied.

  "Tears are a depreciating asset, girl," Lin Jue said, tapping his boot impatiently against the shattered banquet table. "Spirit stones, however, hold their value. The deed. The compensation. Now."

  "Jue'er... I mean, Lin Jue," she choked out, her perfectly painted face streaked with mascara. "I was forced! The Wang family threatened my father! I didn't want to poison you!"

  'Ah, the classic shifting of blame,' Lin Jue thought coldly. 'Next she's going to say the poison slipped into the tea by accident.'

  "Ten," Lin Jue started counting.

  "What?" Lin Wan blinked through her tears.

  "Nine. Eight. Seven."

  [From Lin Wan's extreme distress, +300!]

  "You can't do this!" she shrieked, backing away until she hit the wall. "You're still my husband!"

  "Six. Five." Lin Jue took a step forward, his shadow falling over her. He didn't raise a hand, but the sheer, dense weight of his Iron-Ox physique radiated a suffocating physical pressure. "Four. I accept payment in precious metals, Qi-gathering pills, or bearer bonds."

  Terrified that he was going to punch her nose into the back of her skull like he had just done to Wang Teng, Lin Wan scrambled to her feet.

  With shaking hands, she pulled a golden deed from her sleeve and unclipped a small, silken Spatial Pouch from her waist.

  She thrust them at him as if they were burning.

  Lin Jue snatched them smoothly, tucking them into his grey cloak. "Pleasure doing business. I'll send you the finalized divorce papers in the morning. Assuming you survive the night."

  [Main Quest Completed!

  Description: RUIN THE WANG FAMILY WEDDING AND RECOVER THE ORIGINAL BODY'S DIGNITY!]

  Before Lin Jue could ask what that meant, the temperature in the banquet hall vanished.

  Not dropped. Vanished.

  The air itself grew so heavy that the remaining wooden tables splintered under the sheer atmospheric pressure.

  The hairs on the back of Lin Jue's neck stood straight up. Every survival instinct forged in the monster-infested slums of Earth screamed at him to run.

  BOOM!

  The entire wooden roof of the banquet hall exploded outward in a shower of tiles and splinters.

  Floating in the night sky, bathed in a terrifying, oceanic aura of azure Qi, was an old man in luxurious blue robes. His eyes burned like miniature suns.

  "Who dares cripple my son?!" the old man roared, his voice echoing like thunder across the compound.

  'Foundation Establishment,' ARIA's voice chimed in his head, entirely devoid of panic. 'A true cultivator. Your Iron-Ox body can deflect swords, Host. It cannot deflect a localized natural disaster.'

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  Lin Jue glanced at the timer in his vision.

  [Intiating the transfer...!]

  [Time Remaining: 00:04]

  The Wang Patriarch looked down through the ruined roof. His blazing eyes locked onto the unconscious, bleeding form of Wang Teng lying in the roasted duck, and then snapped to Lin Jue.

  "You!" The Patriarch's fury was palpable. The spiritual pressure alone forced Lin Wan to her knees, coughing up blood. "A mortal ant! I will grind your soul into ash!"

  The Patriarch raised his hand. The ambient Qi in the courtyard rushed toward his palm, forming a massive, ten-foot-wide ethereal hand made of solid blue energy.

  It descended toward Lin Jue with the force of a falling meteor.

  Three seconds.

  A normal person would have braced for impact. A hero would have shouted a defiant last word.

  Lin Jue was neither.

  He dropped to a crouch, grabbed Wang Teng's limp hand, and violently yanked the expensive-looking jade spatial ring right off the unconscious Young Master's thumb.

  Two seconds.

  Lin Jue stood back up, slipping the stolen ring onto his own finger. He looked up at the descending giant glowing hand, and then directly into the eyes of the furious Patriarch.

  "Your son's face broke my knuckles," Lin Jue yelled over the roaring wind. "Consider this medical compensation! Worst wedding ever! Zero stars!"

  [From the Wang Patriarch's absolute mind-break, +999!]

  The ethereal palm slammed into the dais, vaporizing the floor, the tables, and the stone foundation in a blinding flash of blue light.

  But Lin Jue wasn't there to feel it.

  One second.

  Zero.

  The transition was violent.

  The suffocating pressure of Foundation Establishment Qi vanished, instantly replaced by the smell of cheap industrial floor cleaner and stale urine.

  Lin Jue stumbled forward, his boots slipping on wet porcelain tiles. He caught himself on a chrome sink.

  He was back. The Jiangnan Third High restroom.

  He stared into the cracked mirror above the sink. His grey cloak and bloody wedding robes were gone, replaced by his standard-issue, threadbare school uniform.

  'Did it happen? Was it real?'

  Lin Jue looked down at his hands.

  Sitting on his right thumb was a smooth, glowing jade ring.

  Tucked safely inside his uniform pocket, he could feel the heavy weight of the silk Spatial Pouch and the folded parchment deed to a spirit mine that didn't exist in this universe.

  And deeper than that—in his bones, his blood, his very marrow—hummed the terrifying, dense power of the Iron-Ox Foundation. He gripped the edge of the chrome sink. The metal warped instantly under his fingers, buckling like wet cardboard.

  He had zero Star Constellations. He was a magical null.

  But he could punch a hole through a tank.

  [Side Quest 'The Groom's Revenge' Complete.]

  [Total Points Harvested: 4,549.]

  [Welcome back to Earth, Host. I trust the outsourcing of your education was satisfactory?]

  A genuinely terrifying, unhinged smile spread across Lin Jue's face.

  Before he could answer ARIA, the heavy restroom door was kicked completely off its hinges. It clattered loudly against the tiled floor.

  "You rat! Where ar eyou hiding?"

  Gao Hao stood in the doorway, his arms crossed, a smug, triumphant smirk plastered across his face. Beside him stood the School Disciplinary Officer.

  The Officer wasn't a Mage. He was military muscle. He wore a bulky, matte-black Federal Exo-Suit. The hydraulic servos whirred and hissed with compressed air as he stepped into the restroom.

  "There he is," Gao Hao sneered, pointing at Lin Jue. "Vandalizing the Awakening Stone, insulting an instructor, and now he's hiding in the bathroom. Typical trash."

  The Officer's visor locked onto Lin Jue.

  "Lin Jue," the Officer barked, his voice amplified by the suit's external speakers. "You are under arrest for insubordination and destruction of Federal property. Put your hands behind your back."

  Lin Jue didn't move. He looked at the whirring servos of the exo-suit. He looked at Gao Hao's smug, punchable face.

  'Exo-suits,' Lin Jue thought, his smile widening slightly. 'How OP.'

  "I said, hands behind your back!" The Officer didn't wait for compliance. He lunged forward, his mechanical arm reaching out with enough servo-assisted torque to bend steel bars.

  The heavy, metal-plated hand clamped down hard on Lin Jue's left shoulder, intending to violently spin him around and slam him into the tiled wall.

  The hydraulic pistons hissed. The motors whined, applying maximum torque.

  Lin Jue didn't budge.

  He didn't even sway.

  The Officer frowned behind his visor. He increased the suit's output to eighty percent. The gears ground loudly.

  The tiled floor under the Officer's boots actually cracked from the leverage he was applying.

  Lin Jue stood perfectly still, looking mildly bored.

  "Is this suit under warranty?" Lin Jue asked casually, brushing some invisible dust off his uniform collar. "Because I think your servos are busted, Officer. You're lacking... kinetic output."

  Gao Hao's smirk vanished.

  [From Gao Hao's sudden confusion, +150!]

  [From the Disciplinary Officer's rising panic, +200!]

  The Officer deactivated the grip and took a step back, staring at his mechanical hand as if it had betrayed him.

  He looked at Lin Jue—a scrawny, F-Grade kid who hadn't even awakened a single Star Constellation—and then back at his suit's power gauge. It was maxed out.

  "What... what are you?" the Officer breathed.