The Empress's No.1 Lackey - Chapter 20: I offer the knife to you

“I WILL MAKE THEM ALL REGRET THE DAY THEY MET ME! I WILL MAKE THEM WISH THEY WERE NEVER BORN! AND I WILL MAKE THEM HATE THE DAY THEY THOUGHT OF BETRAYING ME!”“You will, Sweetie. And I'll help you with that...”Those were the last words Avery spoke and heard before passing out in her bloody red wedding gown, on the same day she was supposed to marry her boyfriend from senior high school.~~Avery McCallum, the sole heiress and president of the McCallum Group of Companies, had her whole family wiped out on her wedding day. Framed for her grandfather's murder and stripped of her position, Avery vows to take revenge on those who wronged her. But her powerless state seems to mock her determination.Enter Archibald Donovan. She used to hate the devilishly hot and narcissistic chairman of the A² Corp who also happened to be her older brother's best friend, but when consumed with the need to take revenge, she begged him to marry her in return for fulfilling a long list of conditions. Archie agrees, and a month later, Avery re-emerges as Ava Donovan, a rising actress and the wife of the most powerful man in the country.With her newfound status, Avery systematically destroys her adversaries, uncovering dark secrets and hidden agendas along the way. But as she navigates the treacherous landscape of her new life, she must confront the truth about her family's past and at the end of it all, come back to him.She owed him after all...EXCERPTArchie's eyes darkened when he saw her stumbling out of the wine cellar, a bottle of wine in one hand and her night robe, in the other. She was literally half naked.“Hey...” her greeting came out in a slur, and that was all he needed to know she was drunk. Very drunk, at that.“Why?” he asked simply, knowing she would interpret his question as she usually did.“I...I visited them today. The flowers on their stones were already wilted and...and...it broke me. I wanted to be happy and at the same time, I wanted to cry,” Avery replied, inhaling short wisps of air before she continued, “Then I found the cellar.”“Did it work?”She shook her head slowly in reply, lifting her head up in time to see a mischievous smirk curl on his lips.“Don't be sad, Baby girl. I happen to know a way to make you cry and keep you excited at the same time,” he said.“Really?”“Wanna try it, Mama?”Avery nodded, slowly but firmly as he closed the distance between them.As he promised, she did cry...in pleasure.

Loose cultivator Shi Lang gradually found himself in the realm of invincibility. However, when he finally tried to ascend to the higher realm, the spirit of the world was nearly exhausted.

So, between his ascension to a new world or the well-being of his home, he chose the latter and sacrificed his life to save the world.

Nobody knew what he gave up for the world, and he told no one.

Although his sacrifice had gone unsung, there was still someone who witnessed everything. A treasured artifact he carried on his body preserved his soul and let it escape a tragic end.

Eons passed.

The human race stepped out from the age of cultivation into an age of stellar conquest.

The spirit energy in the world was now scarce, but humans found other means to excel.

In this highly-advanced time, Shi Lang's soul has found a chance to be reborn.

What happens when an ancient cultivator that neared the level of a deity before his first death gets a second chance at life in the space age?

Starting from today, I am retired. But what should I be doing? I neither have the skills, nor the mind to do business, my only advantage is this pair of hands which have taken this world. What a headache…

Note: The usage of the term “retired” here doesn’t mean retiring from old age, work etc. It’s a specific term to refer to not involving oneself in the affairs of a certain society.

This year, Ji Jingqiu is 16 years old.To survive, he envisions the Fire House Buddha Prison, plants a bodhi treasure tree, and embarks on the path of martial arts.Many years later,A brilliant light arises, illuminating endless darkness.A towering ancient tree, with emerald green leaves and a canopy like a pavilion, rises with glass-like clarity into the sky, supporting a divine realm of pure land, spanning countless ages, illuminating the three realms and ten directions.On this day,All martial artists under heaven look up to it, like mayflies seeing the blue sky.......“Within there is a bodhi tree, which I planted when I set foot in martial arts, and now it has grown to provide a canopy.”“I see everything in the world, and nothing is like me.”“That year, I scoured history books, this history without era, I looked horizontally and vertically, and saw those characters – ‘The world’s storms come from us.’”...— Excerpt from the autobiography of Ji Jingqiu, the proud sun of the martial arts world of today.