Refusing to live as a caged canary locked inside a golden cage, she sought instead to rise as a prominent powerhouse in her own right.
Thus, Yue Mingkong had posed an absurd condition: demanding that Ye Yun break through to the Great Power Realm before reaching eighteen years of age.
Should Ye Yun fulfill that condition, she would willingly yield herself to become his woman.
From the very beginning, Yue Mingkong harbored zero intention of ever becoming Ye Yun's woman.
She had devised such an impossible condition purely to embarrass Ye Yun, hoping to force him into a retreat.
She had never anticipated that Ye Yun's predecessor possessed such stubborn recklessness, disregarding all caution to force an immediate breakthrough.
That reckless ambition directly triggered a severe qi deviation backlash, plunging the previous host into a deep coma.
Yue Mingkong had never intended to harm Ye Yun, yet she had failed to calculate his unyielding stubbornness.
The instant news of Ye Yun's qi deviation spread, blood drained from Yue Mingkong's face, leaving her pale with terror.
The calamity tied directly back to her actions, making it impossible to escape accountability should the Ye Clan investigate.
Causing the Young Master of the Ye Clan—the supreme overlord her family served—to collapse into an unawakening coma was a crime of catastrophic proportions.
Because her impossible condition was widely known throughout the region, the public effortlessly deduced the exact cause behind Ye Yun's sudden qi deviation.
Yue Mingkong had committed a foolish blunder.
Consequently, the cherished prodigy previously pampered by clan elders fell overnight from grace straight into a nightmare.
The clan elders abandoned their previous favor, regarding her with ungodly disgust and disdain.
That resentment extended beyond the elders, spreading rapidly among her peers within the clan.
Everyone recognized that Yue Mingkong had offended the Ye Clan, creating a rift deeper than any minor family could survive.
The Yue Clan Patriarch, Yue Feng, had placed Yue Mingkong under strict house arrest the moment he learned of the disaster.
Even with Yue Mingkong being his biological daughter, he could not ignore the overwhelming anger of the clan.
At this very moment, inside the internal council chamber of the Yue Clan...
Yue Feng occupied the head seat, flanked on both sides by the seated elders of the Yue Clan.
Scanning the silent room, Yue Feng hesitated briefly before taking the initiative to ask.
"Elders, several days have elapsed, yet the Ye Clan has sent no envoys to demand retribution... Does anyone understand why?"
He knew with absolute clarity that his daughter had committed a catastrophic blunder.
Had he known earlier that his daughter would pose such an unreasonable demand to Ye Yun, he would have intervened to stop her at all costs.
Yet who could have predicted Ye Yun's sheer arrogance?
He had recklessly attempted an impossible task, triggering a fatal backlash that cast him into a coma.
Could Yue Feng place the blame on Ye Yun?
Impossible; he lacked the standing to lay blame upon Ye Yun, leaving him no choice but to lay the fault entirely on his daughter, Yue Mingkong.
Why had she posed such an extreme condition for the Young Master of the Ye Clan to fulfill?
As a father incapable of protecting his own daughter, a wave of profound helplessness churned in his heart.
Yet as the Patriarch of the Yue Clan, he was forced to prioritize the survival of the entire family above personal sentiment.
Seated at Yue Feng's left hand was the First Elder of the Yue Clan, possessing the deepest seniority in the family.
Letting out a heavy, furious snort, the First Elder bristled his beard, his eyes flaring with anger.
"Hmph! Patriarch, how could any of us divine the intentions of the Ye Clan? Their affairs lie far beyond our ability to probe!
"We ought to focus on preparing for the catastrophic reckoning that will inevitably follow! The Ye Clan will never let this matter rest!
"Though everything appears calm at present, the Ye Clan remains the supreme overlord of the entire Immortal World!
"How could they overlook such a disaster striking their Young Master? This quiet is merely the calm before the storm!"
Following the First Elder's declaration, the surrounding elders nodded in unanimous agreement.
They shared the exact same foreboding outlook.
"The First Elder speaks the truth; a minor family like ours cannot begin to compare with the Ye Clan. Should they decide to strike, a single wave of their hand could wipe us out entirely!"
"Sigh! Regrets come too late! Had I known earlier, I would have stopped Yue Mingkong from making such a foolish demand!"
"Precisely! To earn the favor of the Ye Clan's Young Master was an unprecedented honor, yet that wilful girl failed to appreciate her fortune! She has dragged our entire lineage into ruin!"
"We should never have doted on her so excessively! In our indulgence, we failed to educate her properly, and now we reap this bitter fruit!"
"Recriminating past mistakes accomplishes nothing now. Though peace lingers for the moment, I sense disaster brewing. We must deliberate a way to survive this crisis."
...
The elders voiced their grievances in chaotic unison, unanimous in blaming Yue Mingkong for the crisis.
The vast majority believed that being chosen by Ye Yun was an extraordinary privilege, and she should have yielded obediently rather than setting unreasonable conditions.
Yue Feng let out a quiet, helpless sigh.
He recognized that his daughter's exceptional talent had cultivated a fierce, unyielding pride within her.
It was precisely that stubborn arrogance that had precipitated this catastrophe.
Right then, an inappropriate voice shattered the chamber's tension.
"Does the Ye Clan get to ignore all reason? Just because they stand as the strongest force in the Immortal World, does that give them the right to act tyrannically and force themselves upon women?"
The sharp, defiant tone betrayed the speaker's youth.
The assembled elders and Patriarch Yue Feng turned their eyes simultaneously toward the source of the voice.
A young man with sharp brows, bright eyes, and a slightly rogue charm strolled into the council chamber.
This was an internal elder council, where attendance required at least an elder's rank.
Yet an outsider had dared to barge in unannounced.
Worse still, instead of offering a constructive solution, he openly maligned and criticized the Ye Clan.
Should an ill-intentioned observer overhear his words and spread them with exaggeration, it would drag the Yue Clan straight into total destruction!
Catching sight of the youth, the First Elder slammed his palm violently against his chair's armrest.
Crack!
Snap!
Delivered with overwhelming force, the wooden armrest shattered under the blow.
The First Elder erupted in a thunderous roar.
"Insolent! Yue Qingshan, this is a formal council meeting of the clan elders—how dare you barge in here?!"
The remaining elders joined the chorus, roundly denouncing the intruding Yue Qingshan.
"Impudent brat! Knowing nothing of gravity, the Ye Clan is not an entity a foolish youth like you has the right to judge!"
"Silence your wild tongue! The Ye Clan reigns as the supreme overlord of the Immortal World—if word of your slander escapes, where will our family stand?"
"Well said! You seek to drag our entire Yue Clan into an abyss of ruin—a wretched, malicious fool!"