Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

Chapter 134: Chapter 134: Ye Feng

Ye Feng leaned against the rough bark of a spirit-rose bush, the garden shears heavy in his hand.

To any observer from the Jiang-Shen family, he was a man lost in a daze of mortal stupidity. But behind his dull, glazed-over eyes, a mind from a different world was racing with a mixture of irony and annoyance.

He was not the original ”trash” husband.

That Ye Feng—a man of spineless devotion and tragic fragility—was dead, and he was the one who took over his body, a soul of a man from another world.

In his previous life, he live on a planet called Earth, and he had been just an ordinary salaryman, a guy who lived for weekend beers and dreaded Monday mornings.

His luck had been so cosmically abyssal that he was struck by lightning three times in a single afternoon, mind you, the sky was perfectly clear! With no clouds whatsoever!

The first bolt paralysed him, the second bolt burned him, and the third bolt hadn’t just killed him; it had blasted his soul across the dimensional veil and into this body.

He had arrived a week ago, precisely at the moment the original Ye Feng’s heart had stopped from sheer exhaustion when his ”demonic” mother-in-law, Shen Xiu, had forced the mortal to work in the high-gravity cultivation chambers—a place meant for practitioners—simply to clean the floors until his organs literally collapsed under the pressure.

When the new Ye Feng took over and inherited the memories of the original, he couldn’t help but feel a wave of utter disdain.

Seven years! Seven years of marriage to a woman who looked like a goddess carved from starlight and moonbeams, and the most intimate thing the original Ye Feng had ever done was hold her hand once.

And that was only because the Seer had forced them to link fingers during the wedding to facilitate the curse transfer!

’What a waste,’ Ye Feng thought, wiping sweat from his brow.

However, back then, his disdain was quickly followed by a cold, numbing despair.

After all, he realized that he had transmigrated into a mortal body that couldn’t cultivate in a world where your ”Qi” was your status, your law, and your life.

In this realm, if you couldn’t cultivate, you weren’t even a second-class citizen; you were a toy to be played around and tossed and destroyed once they are bored.

Sigh. Was there anyone in the history of transmigration more pitiful than him? He wasn’t the ”reborn emperor” or the ”hidden genius.”

He was just the human trash can used to house a demonic curse so a pretty girl could go play at being a supreme.

Thankfully, the ”Transmigrator’s Package” hadn’t forgotten him, and on his first day, he had awakened a Sign-In System.

The premise was simple: wake up, press a button in his mind, and receive a reward.

Unfortunately, most of the rewards he’d received over the last seven days—the ”Heavenly Essence Pills,” the ”Star-Refining Sutra,” the ”Dragon-Blood Elixir”—were useless to him.

After all, they required a Spirit Circuits and a foundation of Qi to even swallow, otherwise, they would explode in his mortal gut.

Thankfully, this seven-day consecutive award just came at a perfect time! With his curse now cured, he can now take advantage of everything that he received from the system!

He can finally become a cultivator! He can kick young masters’ ass, and smack an emperor’s head, all the while embracing beauties in both his arms.

’Wait...’ Ye Feng paused. ’If they find out I can cultivate, wouldn’t they kick me out?’

He realized the precariousness of his situation. The only reason he was still allowed to live in the luxury of the Jiang-Shen mansion, eating spirit rice and sleeping on silk, was because Shen Xinye felt a deep, crushing debt of gratitude toward him.

She viewed him as a sacrificial lamb who had given up his life for hers, and she wanted him to live out his short mortal years in absolute comfort.

If he suddenly became a cultivator, he wouldn’t be ”helpless” anymore, he can take care of himself, and his mother-in-law would use it as the perfect excuse to toss him into the streets.

And once he was gone? Shen Xiu would surely find some other men to marry Xinye off to.

’As a man, how could I allow that?!’ Ye Feng’s eyes narrowed.

He hadn’t even gotten a kiss yet! He’d be damned if he let some random ”Jade Prince” swoop in and take his wife while he was left to rot in a gutter.

But, if he stayed here, hiding his talent snd Cultivation, he will have to continue the charade of the ”licking dog”—the subservient, pathetic husband who endures the humiliation and verbal abuse of his mother-in-law without a single word of complaint.

After all, that was how the original Ye Feng had survived, and if he acted differently, the Shen Clan’s experts might suspect a soul-possession.

In this world, ”soul-searching” was a standard procedure, and it usually left the victim a vegetable, or worse, dead.

”Right! System, can you hide the fact that I am cultivating? Can you make me look like the same talentless trash as before?”

[Ding! Host, the System can perfectly camouflage your aura. Even a Supreme Emperor will only see a mortal with empty meridians.]

”Do it. Hide everything.”

For now, he would be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. He would sign in, accumulate power in the dead of night, and act as the ”hero saving the beauty” when the inevitable ”young master from a rival clan” came to cause trouble for Xinye.

After all, that’s how it always goes, right?

Just then, a gentle breeze, smelling of mountain orchids and cold iron, swept through the garden and a flash of silver and gold appeared in his peripheral vision.

Shen Xinye suddenly appeared and stood there, her short hair caught in the wind, her expression as unreadable as a frozen lake.

Ye Feng’s heart skipped a beat.

No matter how many times he saw her, the ”modern man” in him couldn’t help but be fascinated.

She was beautiful in a way that rendered Earth’s celebrities and filters obsolete. She possessed a regal, sharp grace that made even the most stunning cashier or counter-girl he’d ever met look like a thumb.

”Wife!” Ye Feng stood up immediately, dropping the shears and putting on a bright, slightly pathetic smile—the trademark of the original Ye Feng.

Shen Xinye stared at him for a long, quiet moment, her silver eyes held a trace of pity that made the new Ye Feng’s skin crawl, finding it uncomfortable, though he kept the smile plastered on his face.

She sighed, a sound that seemed to carry the weight of thier seven years of loveless marriage.

”Ye Feng... forgive my mother,” she said softly. ”She was harsh in the hall today. She... she doesn’t mean it.”

’Fuck, what do you mean she doesn’t mean it?’ Ye Feng cursed inwardly. ’she’s treating me like a sub-human servant! She thinks I’m an immortal who doesn’t need sleep or a horse that doesn’t need a break!’

Aloud, however, he bowed his head with exaggerated humility. ”No, no, Wife. I must have done something to upset Mother-in-law. I was too slow with the tea, perhaps. Don’t worry about me. I will try my best to improve, and one day, I’m sure she will see my sincerity and approve of me as your husband.”

Shen Xinye sighed once more, the sound even heavier this time. ”Ye Feng, there is no need for you to try and please her. You must understand... no matter what you do, you cannot earn her recognition. Our worlds are too different.”

She stepped closer, her aura seemingly making the grass around her feet to sway and fall, as if they have been cut down. ”Just... just live comfortably. Enjoy the food, the sights, and the safety of this mansion. If you wish... you may find some other mortal girls in the city. Girls who can actually be a wife to you. If you have descendants, I promise you, I will protect them and care for them like my own. I will ensure they want for nothing.”

In the Shen Clan, there were millions of mortals who served the cultivators, however, unlike Ye Feng who really can’t cultivate, they were all at the Body Refining realm, the very base of the ladder, but even so, they still lived, loved, and died.

To Xinye, this was the most ”merciful” thing she could offer him: a chance at a real family that she could never provide.

”Wife,” Ye Feng said, his voice ”trembling” with devotion. ”No matter what, we are married. We bowed to the heavens and the earth. I will remain loyal to you until my last breath. I want no other women.”

Inside, his jaw nearly dropped. Is there such a good thing? My own wife is literally telling me to go find a side-piece? Is there any girl more generous in the universe?

Of course, he knew it was because she felt no romantic attraction to him—only a clinical sense of obligation.

But to a man with a ”Sign-In System” and the ambition to eventually dominate this world, her rejection was just the opening act, and he was sure that one day, he will conquer her, and then, it would be too late for her to regret it!

Shen Xinye stared at his ”devoted” face and shook her head, a cold loneliness flickering in her eyes as she turned around, her golden-blonde hair catching the sunlight.

”Think about what I said, Ye Feng. You and I... there is no possibility between us. We are the eagle and the ant. We may share a garden, but we will never share the sky.”

With a soft shimmer of spatial energy, she vanished, leaving him alone in the spirit-rose garden.

Ye Feng waited until the spatial ripples completely settled before his ”licking dog” smile vanished, replaced by a sharp, calculating grin.

He looked up at the vast, indigo sky of the Shen Clan Domain.

”An ant, huh?” he whispered, his voice finally his own. ”Maybe for now. But just wait until this ant signs in enough times to pull down the eagle.”