# Chapter 1: The Cowardly Prince and the God of War
To say that Li Xuan was afraid of death would be a monumental understatement.
He was absolutely, fundamentally, and pathologically terrified of it.
In his previous life, he had been an ordinary food delivery driver in a sprawling, smog-choked metropolis. He worked fourteen hours a day, dodging erratic taxis, weaving through jaywalkers, and battling the ticking clock of delivery apps just to afford rent in a closet-sized apartment. He had survived sheer exhaustion, angry customers, and the crushing weight of modern capitalism. He had thought he was a survivor.
Then, on a rainy Tuesday evening, a sixteen-wheeler ran a red light.
Li Xuan remembered the glaring headlights, the deafening blare of the horn, and the sickening crunch of metal as his electric scooter was pulverized. But worst of all, he remembered the agonizing, terrifying void that followed. The coldness of death. The absolute, inescapable end of his existence.
When he opened his eyes again, he found himself in the opulent, gilded crib of the Great Qian Dynasty's Imperial Palace. He had been reincarnated as Li Xuan, the Ninth Prince of a sprawling, ancient cultivation empire.
For a brief, fleeting moment as a baby, he had thought he had hit the jackpot. He was royalty! He would have servants, wealth, and a life of absolute luxury.
That illusion shattered on his second birthday when his wet nurse tasted a spoonful of his lotus seed porridge, coughed up black blood, and melted into a puddle of corrosive sludge right in front of his crib.
The Great Qian Dynasty was not a fairy tale. It was a brutal, blood-soaked meat grinder governed by the laws of cultivation, where strength meant everything and human life was cheaper than dirt. The Emperor, Li Jianxing, was a terrifying figure who had slaughtered his own brothers to seize the throne. Now, his sons—Li Xuan's older half-brothers—were gearing up to do the exact same thing.
From that day forward, Li Xuan made a solemn vow: *He would never, ever die again. Whatever it took, no matter how humiliating, he would survive.*
For sixteen years, Li Xuan had meticulously crafted his public persona. He was the "Trash Prince." The "Mud that Cannot Support a Wall." The "Embarrassment of the Imperial Bloodline."
While his brothers were out subjugating demonic beast tides, mastering supreme sword arts, and forming factions among the court ministers, Li Xuan spent his days pretending to be terrified of loud noises, sleeping until noon, and failing spectacularly at even the most basic Body Tempering exercises. He cultivated a reputation so utterly pathetic that his brothers didn't even consider him a stepping stone, let alone a threat. To assassinate Li Xuan would be a waste of a good poison.
### The Paranoia of the Ninth Prince
Sunlight filtered through the intricately carved sandalwood window lattices of the Ninth Prince's modest estate, located in the farthest, least desirable corner of the Imperial Capital.
Inside his bedchamber, the air was entirely still.
To an outside observer, the room looked like typical royal quarters, if a bit neglected. But to anyone with a discerning eye, it was a fortified bunker.
Beneath the heavy silk blankets of the massive canopy bed, there were only plumped pillows. The real Li Xuan was sleeping inside a hollowed-out compartment beneath the floorboards, wrapped in a sound-dampening, Qi-concealing blanket woven from the silk of a Tier-2 Phantom Spider.
At exactly 7:00 AM, Li Xuan's internal clock woke him. He did not move immediately.
He lay in the dark, regulating his breathing, extending his meager senses outward. He listened for the familiar sounds of his courtyard: the sweeping of brooms, the distant chatter of the kitchen maids, the chirping of the morning spirit-sparrows.
*No disrupted air currents. No scent of faint incense. No metallic tang of blood.*
Slowly, agonizingly, he pushed the hidden latch. The floorboard slid open without a single creak—he oiled the hinges personally every three days. Li Xuan crawled out, a handsome youth of sixteen with pale skin, dark hair, and dark bags under his eyes born from years of hyper-vigilance.
He dusted off his robes and began his morning routine.
First, he inspected the nine invisible tripwires made of spirit-silk strung across the room's entry points. None were broken.
Second, he checked the small dish of water by the window sill. If anyone had blown a gaseous poison through a bamboo tube during the night, the water's pH would shift, turning a faint pink. The water was crystal clear.
Only then did Li Xuan let out a long breath and stretch his stiff limbs.
"Surviving another night in the Imperial Palace," Li Xuan muttered to himself, pouring a cup of cold tea and testing it with a silver needle, a piece of Jade Purity Stone, and a low-grade poison-detecting talisman before taking a sip. "A commendable achievement. Truly, I am a master of longevity."
He walked over to a bronze mirror and studied his reflection. He practiced his expression. He let his shoulders slump, slightly parted his lips to look slightly vacant, and forced his eyes to dart around nervously. He practiced his "startled flinch," ensuring it looked entirely natural.
Today was his sixteenth birthday. In the Great Qian Dynasty, this was the day a prince was considered an adult. It was the day they were granted a fiefdom and officially thrown into the political meat grinder.
Li Xuan's plan for today was simple: beg his Imperial Father for the poorest, most barren, spirit-energy-deprived patch of dirt in the mortal realm. He wanted a fiefdom so useless that bandits wouldn't even bother robbing it. There, he would hide for the next hundred years, growing cabbages and dying of old age.
"Your Highness?" a soft voice called from outside the reinforced oak door. It was Xiaohong, his personal maid.
Li Xuan knew for a fact that Xiaohong was a spy planted by his eldest brother, the Crown Prince. He also suspected she was sleeping with a guard who was secretly loyal to the Third Prince. He kept her around because a known spy was infinitely safer than an unknown one.
"I-I'm awake!" Li Xuan stammered, injecting exactly the right amount of grogginess and anxiety into his voice. "C-come in! Just... don't open the door too fast! You startled me yesterday!"
The heavy door creaked open. Xiaohong entered, carrying a bronze basin of hot water and fresh towels. Her eyes briefly swept the room, noting the messy canopy bed (which Li Xuan had meticulously ruffled to look slept in) and the nervous prince cowering slightly by the mirror. A faint glimmer of disguised contempt flashed in her eyes.
Li Xuan saw the contempt and rejoiced internally. *Yes, look down on me. Despise me. Forget I exist.*
"Happy sixteenth birthday, Your Highness," Xiaohong said, bowing gracefully. "The Imperial Eunuch is on his way to your courtyard. He brings an Imperial Decree from His Majesty."
Li Xuan's heart skipped a beat, but he forced a dopey smile. "An Imperial Decree? For me? Oh, Xiaohong, do you think Father is giving me a fiefdom? I hope it's somewhere safe. Like... really far south. By the sea. Where nothing happens."
Xiaohong kept her head bowed, hiding her smirk. "I am sure His Majesty has made the perfect arrangement for Your Highness."
### The Decree of Doom
Fifteen minutes later, the courtyard of the Ninth Prince's estate was filled with the oppressive aura of the Imperial Guards. Standing at the forefront was Eunuch Wei, a man whose cultivation base was unfathomable to Li Xuan. The Eunuch held a scroll woven from golden silk and imbued with the terrifying, suffocating Qi of the Emperor himself.
Li Xuan knelt on the stone pavement, his forehead pressed against the cold ground. He was shivering. This wasn't entirely an act; the ambient pressure of the guards was genuinely terrifying to his weak Body Tempering stage body.
"The Emperor's Will is absolute," Eunuch Wei began, his voice echoing with spiritual power that made the roof tiles rattle. "Li Xuan, the Ninth Prince, having reached his sixteenth year, has come of age."
*Give me the barren swamp. Give me the barren swamp,* Li Xuan prayed to whatever gods governed this ridiculous world.
"In recognition of his... unique disposition," Eunuch Wei continued, reading the scroll, his tone completely flat, "We hereby grant him a marriage of supreme importance. Li Xuan shall wed Mu Qingxue, the daughter of the Grand General of the North. The wedding shall take place within the month. Respect this."
Silence descended upon the courtyard.
It wasn't a respectful silence. It was the kind of deafening, suffocating silence that follows a localized natural disaster. Even the hardened Imperial Guards subtly exchanged glances of pure shock. Xiaohong, kneeling behind Li Xuan, accidentally gasped out loud.
Li Xuan remained frozen, his forehead glued to the pavement. His brain, usually operating at a thousand miles a minute analyzing escape routes, completely blue-screened.
*Mu Qingxue?*
He knew that name. Everyone in the Great Qian Dynasty knew that name. She was known by many titles. The Crimson General. The Northern War God. The Asura of the Ice Wastes.
She was a monstrous, peerless genius who had reached the pinnacle of the Golden Core realm at the age of nineteen. She had spent the last five years on the northern borders, wading through rivers of blood, slaughtering demonic barbarians, and leading the Mu Family Vanguard. She was ruthless, brilliant, and held massive military authority.
And she was absolutely, unequivocally, the most dangerous woman in the empire.
Li Xuan's mind began to calculate the political ramifications at lightning speed.
*Why? Why me?* The Emperor feared the Mu family's growing military power. He needed to tie Mu Qingxue to the royal family to keep her in check. But if he married her to the Crown Prince, the First Prince would gain the northern army and overthrow the Emperor tomorrow. If he married her to the Third Prince, civil war would break out by the weekend.
So, the Emperor chose the ultimate insult. He tied the ferocious, heaven-defying female War God to the most pathetic, cowardly, useless prince in existence. It was a political masterstroke. It neutralized her in the royal succession war and humiliated the Mu family by legally binding their brightest star to a pile of royal trash.
For the Emperor, it was a brilliant move.
For Li Xuan, it was a death sentence.
*I am dead,* Li Xuan thought, his breath hitching. *I am so unimaginably dead.*
If he married Mu Qingxue, he would instantly become the target of every single one of her political enemies. Her suitors—arrogant young masters and powerful sect heirs—would tear him to pieces out of jealousy. His brothers, paranoid that Mu Qingxue might somehow propel him to the throne, would send assassins every hour on the hour. And that wasn't even factoring in Mu Qingxue herself, who would likely despise him, castrate him, or simply crush his skull by accident on their wedding night out of sheer frustration!
"Ninth Prince?" Eunuch Wei's voice cut through his panic. "Do you not intend to accept the decree?"
To refuse an Imperial Decree was treason. Treason meant immediate execution.
Li Xuan's survival instincts forcefully rebooted his brain. He raised his head. His eyes were wide, brimming with perfectly engineered tears of overwhelming (fake) joy and profound (very real) terror. He reached out with trembling hands.
"I... I accept! Thank His Majesty for this supreme grace! I am... I am so honored!" Li Xuan wailed, kowtowing three times so hard his forehead bruised.
Eunuch Wei looked down at the trembling boy, a flicker of genuine pity crossing his cold eyes. He handed the golden scroll to Li Xuan. "Prepare yourself, Your Highness. The Mu family's carriage will arrive in the capital in three weeks."
With a sweep of his robes, the Eunuch and the Imperial Guards departed, leaving Li Xuan kneeling in the courtyard, clutching the golden scroll like a ticking time bomb.
### The System Awakens
Later that night, Li Xuan sat alone in his fortified bedchamber. He had dismissed all the servants, feigning exhaustion from the excitement. He sat at his wooden table, staring blankly at the flickering flame of a spirit-candle.
He had run the simulations in his head over four hundred times. Every single scenario ended with his gruesome death.
"I need to run," he whispered to the empty room. "I need to shave my head, disguise myself as a wandering monk, and flee to the Southern Deserts. I'll live in a cave. I'll eat scorpions. It's better than being married to the Blood Asura."
But even as he said it, he knew it was impossible. The palace was locked down. The moment he tried to leave the capital, his brother's spies or the Emperor's secret guard would intercept him and execute him for attempting to flee an Imperial Decree.
He was trapped. A pawn on a board full of dragons.
Li Xuan buried his face in his hands, despair washing over him. Was this it? Had his sixteen years of meticulous cowardice been for nothing?
Just as a genuine tear of frustration formed in the corner of his eye, a mechanical, synthesized voice echoed directly inside his skull.
**[Ding!]**
**[Host has reached sixteen years of age. Political conditions met. Survival intent maximized.]**
**[Initializing the "AFK Spouse-Dependent Cultivation System"...]**
**[Binding 10%... 50%... 100%.]**
**[Binding Complete!]**
Li Xuan froze. His eyes snapped open, darting around the shadows of his room. "Who's there?! I have poison! I have... I'll scream!"
**[Host, please remain calm. I am the AFK Spouse-Dependent Cultivation System. Bound to your soul to ensure your survival in a hostile world.]**
Li Xuan's jaw dropped. A System? A golden finger? Like the web novels he read in his past life while waiting for restaurant orders?
"A... System?" he whispered, his heart hammering against his ribs. Paranoia immediately kicked in. "What's the catch? Do you require my lifespan? Do I need to complete suicidal missions? Because if you're going to tell me to 'slap the Emperor's face' for a pill, you can unbind right now. I'd rather die."
**[Negative. This System requires no missions, no tasks, and no effort on the Host's part. It is completely automated (AFK). As a Host who values safety above all, this System is tailored to your philosophy.]**
Li Xuan blinked. "Okay... so what exactly do you do?"
A translucent blue screen materialized in the air before him.
**[System Core Directive:]**
*The Host is a fragile entity existing in a dangerous realm. To ensure absolute safety, the System will dynamically adjust the Host's cultivation base based on the primary spouse.*
**[Mechanic:]**
*The Host's cultivation base will permanently be locked to exactly **Two Major Realms** above the primary spouse's current highest cultivation level. This effect is passive, permanent, and requires no cultivation effort from the Host.*
Li Xuan stared at the floating blue text. He read it once. He read it twice. He rubbed his eyes and read it a third time.
"Two major realms?" he mumbled. "Two major realms *above* my wife?"
**[Correct.]**
"But... I haven't even married her yet. We are just betrothed by the decree."
**[The Imperial Edict has bound your fates through the Heavenly Dao of the Great Qian Dynasty. The System recognizes Mu Qingxue as your primary spouse.]**
Li Xuan's mind began to race, pulling up his extensive, secret knowledge of the world's cultivation hierarchy.
In this world, the path to immortality was divided into strict, unforgiving realms:
1. Body Tempering (Mortal limits)
2. Qi Condensation (Gathering energy)
3. Foundation Establishment (Solidifying the base)
4. Golden Core (Forming the core)
5. Nascent Soul (Birthing the inner spirit)
6. Soul Formation (Mastery over the soul)
7. Void Refinement (Touching the laws of space)
8. Dao Integration (Merging with the world)
9. Tribulation Crossing (Defying the heavens)
10. Mahayana (Mortal Immortal)
His betrothed, the terrifying General Mu Qingxue, was publicly known to be at the **Peak of the Golden Core Realm**, standing at the threshold of Nascent Soul. She was nineteen, making her a monstrous talent.
If Mu Qingxue was at the Golden Core realm...
"Wait," Li Xuan gasped, his eyes widening in sheer horror and awe. "If she is Golden Core... two major realms above that would be..."
Golden Core -> Nascent Soul -> **Soul Formation**.
**[Ding! Scanning primary spouse Mu Qingxue's cultivation...]**
**[Target verified: Peak Golden Core Realm.]**
**[Calculating Host's required cultivation...]**
**[Adjusting Host's cultivation to: Peak Soul Formation Realm.]**
**[Initiating power transfer. Please brace yourself.]**
"Wait, brace myse—"
Before Li Xuan could finish his sentence, the universe exploded inside him.
### The Silent Ascension
If a normal cultivator were to jump from the Body Tempering realm to the Peak of the Soul Formation realm, they would literally explode. The sheer volume of spiritual energy would atomize their meridians, shatter their bones, and obliterate their soul.
But the System's power was gentle, absolute, and utterly heaven-defying.
A torrent of pure, unadulterated cosmic energy flooded into Li Xuan's body. He felt his frail, mortal meridians expand in an instant, transforming from muddy ditches into vast, roaring rivers of golden Qi. His internal organs were bathed in a mystical light, fortifying until they were harder than tempered steel.
Deep within his dantian, a Foundation was instantly built, flawless and radiant. Seconds later, it condensed into a brilliant, nine-aperture Golden Core. The Core pulsed, cracked, and birthed a Nascent Soul—a miniature, glowing version of Li Xuan.
But it didn't stop there. The Nascent Soul opened its eyes, projecting its divine sense outward, harmonizing with the very fabric of reality. His soul expanded, touching the profound mysteries of heaven and earth.
*Peak Soul Formation.*
In the Great Qian Dynasty, a Golden Core expert was a general. A Nascent Soul expert was a sect patriarch or a royal ancestor.
A Soul Formation expert? They were strategic nuclear deterrents. They were old monsters who secluded themselves in forbidden mountains, waking only when the dynasty faced total annihilation. There were perhaps less than ten Soul Formation experts in the entire empire.
And Li Xuan, the cowardly sixteen-year-old Trash Prince, had just become one of them while sitting in his pajamas.
The physical sensation was euphoric, a feeling of absolute, intoxicating omnipotence. For a fraction of a second, the overwhelming power threatened to leak out of him. If the aura of a Peak Soul Formation expert erupted in the capital, it would shatter the Imperial Palace wards and alert every old monster within ten thousand miles.
But Li Xuan's paranoia, honed over sixteen years of terror, overrode his euphoria.
*Hide! Conceal! Suppress!* his brain screamed.
He slammed his hands on the table, forcefully restricting every single drop of his new Qi deep into his dantian. The System aided him, casting an impenetrable veil over his aura. To the outside world, he remained the pathetic, weak, useless Body Tempering weakling he had always been.
Li Xuan sat there panting, drenched in sweat. He raised a trembling hand. He focused a microscopic fraction of his will. The heavy bronze mirror across the room silently disintegrated into fine metallic dust. No sound. No light. Just pure, localized destruction.
He stared at the pile of dust.
"I'm... invincible," he whispered.
For the first time in two lifetimes, Li Xuan felt a sensation he had never experienced before. Safety.
But then, the paranoia flooded back in.
*No,* he corrected himself rapidly. *I am not invincible. I am Soul Formation. What if there is a Void Refinement ancestor hiding in the Imperial Tombs? What if a Dao Integration alien descends from the higher realms? What if I accidentally offend someone with a heaven-defying artifact?*
His mind raced. *Moreover, if I reveal my strength, the Emperor will force me to fight on the front lines! My brothers will ally together to kill me! The Mu family will use me as a weapon! The higher you stand, the harder the wind blows. The nail that sticks out gets hammered.*
Li Xuan's eyes narrowed, a cold, calculating light replacing the terror.
"The rule of survival remains unchanged," Li Xuan muttered to himself, forming a terrifying philosophy in that very moment. "Just because I have a nuclear bomb doesn't mean I should parade it around. I will remain the Trash Prince. I will hide behind my terrifying wife. Let her take the spotlight, let her draw the aggro. I will cheer for her from the back lines while drinking tea."
He established his core principles right then and there:
1. **Never reveal his cultivation.**
2. **Never trust anyone, not even his wife.** 3. **If forced to fight, only fight enemies who are *at least* two major realms below him.** (A Soul Formation expert fighting a Foundation Establishment cultivator was perfectly safe. Fighting a Nascent Soul? Too risky. They might have a self-destruct mechanism or a hidden talisman).
3. **If he must kill, do it from behind the scenes, leave absolutely no traces, and obliterate the soul so they cannot reincarnate for revenge.**
### The First Rule in Practice
Just as Li Xuan was solidifying his cowardly but ruthless Dao, his newly awakened Soul Formation divine sense—which passively covered a radius of ten miles—twitched.
Someone was awake in his courtyard.
It was late, past midnight. Through the walls, through the darkness, Li Xuan's divine sense mapped the intruder perfectly. It was Xiaohong, his maid.
She was standing in the shadowy corner of the courtyard, holding a small, silver cage. Inside the cage was a Sound-Transmission Spirit Sparrow, a rare breed used by spies to send encrypted voice messages across the capital.
*Ah,* Li Xuan thought, his heart turning entirely cold. *She is reporting my reaction to the decree to the First Prince. She saw me panic. She saw me sweating. A minor detail to anyone else, but to the paranoid princes of the royal family, any data is dangerous.*
In the past, Li Xuan would have hidden under his bed and prayed she didn't realize he was awake.
Today, Li Xuan was a Peak Soul Formation expert.
In the courtyard, Xiaohong whispered into the sparrow's ear. "Report to the East Palace. The Ninth Prince is entirely broken by the news. He cried in the courtyard and locked himself in his room. He poses absolutely no threat. He is merely a sacrificial lamb for the Mu family."
She opened the cage door. The sparrow flapped its wings, preparing to take flight.
Suddenly, the ambient temperature in the courtyard plummeted to absolute zero.
Xiaohong gasped, a chill crawling up her spine. The shadows around her seemed to elongate, stretching like the grasping fingers of a demon. The wind died. The crickets went silent. The world itself felt like it had been paused.
She tried to move, to turn around, but found her body completely paralyzed. The meager Qi Condensation spiritual energy in her body was frozen solid by a pressure so vast, so unfathomable, that her mind couldn't even process it.
*What... what is this?!* Xiaohong screamed in her mind, her eyes wide with unadulterated terror. *An assassin? A supreme expert?! Why here?!*
From the absolute darkness, a figure stepped forward.
Xiaohong couldn't see his face. The shadows clung to him, hiding his features behind a veil of distorted space. But she recognized the height. She recognized the silhouette of the silk pajamas.
*The... The Ninth Prince?!* Her brain rejected the thought. *Impossible! He's trash! This entity is a god!*
Li Xuan stood ten feet away, his hands clasped behind his back. He looked at the trembling spy. He felt no anger, only the cold, mechanical calculus of survival.
"Xiaohong," Li Xuan's voice was distorted, echoing strangely in the frozen space, devoid of his usual stuttering timidity. "You served me tea for three years. I know you poisoned it twice with minor laxatives just to laugh at me. I forgave it, because surviving was more important than pride."
Xiaohong couldn't speak, but tears of absolute dread streamed down her face.
"But sending information about me? Making me a variable in the First Prince's calculations?" Li Xuan shook his head slowly. "That is a threat to my safety. And I am very, very afraid of death."
He didn't raise a hand. He didn't chant a spell. He simply willed it.
To ensure absolute safety, Li Xuan utilized ten percent of his Peak Soul Formation power against a lowly Qi Condensation maid. It was the equivalent of dropping an asteroid on a singular ant.
There was no sound. There was no explosion of blood.
Xiaohong simply ceased to exist.
The terrifying, compressed spatial pressure collapsed inward, atomizing her flesh, her bones, her clothes, and the silver cage. But Li Xuan wasn't done. He remembered his fourth rule. *Obliterate the soul.*
A wisp of spiritual fire, invisible to the naked eye, flared in the space where she had stood, burning the very remnants of her spiritual essence into absolute nothingness. She could not become a ghost. She could not enter the reincarnation cycle to harbor a grudge. Her existence was deleted from the server of reality.
The spirit sparrow fluttered its wings, utterly unharmed, falling toward the ground where the cage used to be. Li Xuan caught it gently in his hand. He stroked its feathers.
"Poor bird," he whispered. He applied a microscopic trace of Qi, scrambling the bird's memories of the last hour, before tossing it into the night sky. It flew away, happily oblivious.
Li Xuan turned and walked back into his bedroom. He meticulously closed his door, locked all nine locks, reset the spider-silk tripwires, and checked the poison-detecting water.
He crawled into his hidden floorboard compartment, wrapped himself in the sound-dampening blanket, and closed his eyes.
"One threat neutralized. Countless more to go," he murmured to himself in the dark. "Just you wait, my dear God of War wife. Once you arrive, you can do all the fighting. I will be right behind you. Way, way behind you."
For the first time since reincarnating sixteen years ago, Li Xuan fell into a deep, peaceful sleep. He had a lot of work to do to prepare for his wedding. He needed to find thicker armor, invent stronger poisons, and perfect his terrified scream. After all, the life of a useless prince married to the most dangerous woman in the world was not going to be easy. But with two major realms of superiority backing him up, he was confident he could survive it.
Cautiously. Quietly. And absolutely ruthlessly.