Among the people of Phoenix Manor, the youngest, Jason Cooper, let out a cry at the back.

The young lady really is going to be a widow!

Seeing them turning back, Henry Thompson said nervously, “Our village...”

The kindest of them, Kevin Cooper, said to Grace Cooper, “Young lady, let’s take them out of the city.”

Grace Cooper was in a foul mood, her temper flaring. Her gaze swept over Evan Carter and the other two, and she snapped, “Why should I care if they live or die?”

A moment later, she added, “Send the villagers to Ning’an Prefecture to settle.”

The girls responded and began the return journey, cursing quietly as they walked: “That wretch, he actually died!”

Chapter 5 Farewell From Here

After instructing them to take the villagers to Ning’an Prefecture for resettlement, Grace Cooper leapt away using lightness skill, the hem of her red palace dress flickering in the air before she disappeared from everyone’s sight.

The young lady’s mood was probably even worse than they imagined, to the point that she didn’t even want to walk this stretch of road with them.

“The young lady made a special trip to Minzhou City, but who would have thought it would end like this,” said Kevin Cooper.

“From now on, if the young lady wants to marry someone else, she won’t be able to marry any of the best ones,” said Jason Cooper.

Brian Cooper snorted coldly, “That dead man wasn’t all that great to begin with! His master was called Taoyuan-jun—have you ever heard that name in the martial world? Just an unknown nobody, what kind of good disciple could he have taught?”

Kevin Cooper sighed, “The person our manor lord chose for the young lady couldn’t have been bad. ‘Taoyuan-jun’ is a very reclusive name—maybe he was a hidden master. Unfortunately, this ‘rebellion’ implicated so many, even a hidden master couldn’t stay out of it. Otherwise, if Taoyuan-jun were still alive, how could he have disappeared for ten years?”

Evan Carter and his two companions followed them quietly, listening as the girls fretted over the young lady’s marriage, listing all the eligible young talents in the martial world, only to conclude: none of them were worthy of the young lady.

They were quite worried. Henry Thompson and Samuel Thompson also sighed a few times, but Evan Carter himself couldn’t really relate to this feeling.

First, he wasn’t very familiar with the customs of this world. In his previous understanding, having a dead husband wasn’t a shameful thing, let alone a betrothal to someone he’d never even met. Second, a girl who habitually threatened people with “skinning” and “shattering bones” was truly ruthless, and ruthless people were usually cold and unfeeling.

—But no matter what kind of person the young lady was, it had nothing to do with him anymore. He and the young lady were just passing acquaintances; from now on, they would probably never meet again. All he wanted now was to find a way to overcome his constitution and start cultivating.

Thinking of cultivation, he suddenly recalled his previous life.

Every night at midnight, he would meditate and enter a trance, practice swordsmanship at dawn, and pack his schoolbag at daybreak to go to school.

There were many people in the classroom. He always sat in the last corner, piling thick textbooks in front of him, as if to carve out a world where no one could disturb him.

One day, all those things were pushed to the floor.

A few people surrounded him, mocking and cursing him with words he could no longer remember—probably even more vicious than “psycho” or “mute”—while more people just watched.

He crouched down and picked up his things one by one, placing them back on the desk, only for them to be pushed off again.

He lowered his head and kept picking them up.

Apparently, bullying a fool wasn’t very interesting, and watching a fool get bullied wasn’t much fun either. After repeating it a few times, those people got bored and left.

That day, he went home and said to his master: I want to die.

The old man said: No, you have to practice swordsmanship. After you reach the Great Ascension, you’ll be able to roam the world freely. If you don’t want to deal with people, you don’t have to. Tsk, how carefree.

Evan Carter: Oh.

So he didn’t die, and kept practicing swordsmanship.

As he practiced, the years flowed by like water, and his master died.

His life didn’t change much. He practiced as usual, and even got into a university.

Later, as he was about to reach the Great Ascension, he had to undergo tribulation.

And then, he ended up here.

Aside from there being more cultivators and the absence of lightning rods—the root of all evil—the world wasn’t much different for Evan Carter.

How he lived in his previous life was how he lived in this one: just practice swordsmanship. For someone like him, to live comfortably, he either had to die or reach the Great Ascension.

It’s just that, trying to cultivate with this body of extremely poor aptitude was far too difficult.

He felt a bit lost, and his steps unconsciously slowed.

Brian Cooper urged him, “Hurry up!”

He gave himself a pep talk, then asked the fierce-looking Brian Cooper, “Are there a lot of people cultivating outside?”

“What,” Brian Cooper glanced at him, “you want to cultivate too?”

Evan Carter: “Yeah.”

“That’s easy,” Brian Cooper didn’t make things hard for him, “The Confucians like to say ‘education for all without discrimination,’ and our Daoist path is the same. As long as you have talent, anyone can cultivate.”