After an intense and chaotic snowball fight that ended with snow in places snow was never meant to be, the farce finally concluded when Luo Chen admitted defeat and apologized. Qin Liangchen, though initially furious, didn’t take it to heart. He knew Luo Chen well enough to recognize a joke when he heard one, no real harm done.

However, after that little incident, Murong Qinglian never again brought up the idea of finding Luo Chen a Dao companion. It was clear she’d gotten the message. Luo Chen had used humor to tactfully, yet firmly, decline the suggestion. 

Later, in a private conversation with her husband, she sighed and said, “Little Luo is set on the Great Dao.”

And she wasn’t wrong.

In the days that followed, Luo Chen buried himself in work. He refined pills, cultivated diligently, and focused solely on progress. While it might have looked slow from the outside, the truth was very different, it all depended on what you compared it to. Compared to rogue cultivators without steady resources, Luo Chen’s cultivation speed was like that of an Adept-level sword cultivator flight speed.

His current pace meant that gaining just one progress point per...