Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

Ye Heavenly City.

Under the grand expanse of the Tian Yuan Empire, where sprawling mountain ranges met glittering spiritual rivers, there existed no place quite like it.

With a size as big as a star, it was known universally as the number one resort city famed for its entertainment, nightlife, and most of all, gambling.

When the sun dipped below the western horizon and darkness blanketed the rest of the continent, Ye Heavenly City truly came alive.

Billions of multicolored spiritual lanterns would ignite simultaneously, casting a vibrant, neon-like glow over towering pavilions, bustling night markets, and floating pleasure boat arrays.

Cultivators from all walks of life—from loose cultivators trying to make a quick fortune to high-ranking elders seeking a reprieve from their strict sects—flocked here to indulge their deepest desires.

It is even known as the gambling capital of the Tian Yuan Empire.

In this city, rivers of spirit stones changed hands every single second.

Enormous, multi-tiered casinos lined the main thoroughfares, their floors packed with patrons betting on dice games, spiritual card arrays, and divination lotteries.

But above all the classic games of chance, there was one singular attraction that stood at the absolute pinnacle of the city’s economy.

This is the birthplace of Dragon-Horse Racing, the most popular performance sport in the entire empire.

The sport was an awe-inspiring, high-stakes spectacle.

Ferocious, majestic beasts—descendants of ancient flood dragons and celestial stallions—were bred and trained to race through treacherous, magically engineered aerial tracks filled with hazardous formations, shifting gravity fields, and artificial storms.

Billions of spectators would crowd into colossal amphitheatres, screaming themselves hoarse as they watched these magnificent creatures clash at breakneck speeds.

The betting pools for a single premier race could easily rival the yearly revenue of an entire mortal kingdom.

And this entire city is ruled by the Ye Family.

They were the absolute sovereigns of this entertainment empire, holding a complete monopoly over the breeding of the dragon-horses, the operation of the tracks, and the massive banking systems that managed the gambling syndicates.

Their wealth was legendary, and their influence reached deep into the imperial court.

And at this moment, in the Ye Family mansion.

"YAN RENHUA! DO YOU HAVE A DEATH WISH!?"

A booming voice echoed through the estate, carrying a terrifying acoustic force that shattered nearby decorative jade vases and sent flocks of spiritual birds scattering into the sky.

Along with the roar, the overwhelming, suffocating power of a First Stage Heavenly Saint Realm expert exploded outward.

The sheer pressure caused the very air to warp and shimmer, vibrating with a volatile, metallic resonance that testified to the speaker’s absolute fury.

In a beautiful garden, completely undisturbed by the sudden outburst of spiritual pressure, a beautiful woman with long white hair and pink eyes stood watching the flowers.

Her name was Yan Renhua, the matriarch of the Ye Family.

She possessed a timeless, ethereal beauty, her milky-white tresses cascading like a frozen waterfall down her back, contrasting beautifully with her serene, rose-tinted eyes.

She gently touched the petal of a glowing spirit orchid, her demeanor completely tranquil, as if the world-shaking shout was nothing more than a passing summer breeze.

A servant girl stood beside her, holding an umbrella.

The poor maid was trembling like a leaf in a winter storm, her face completely pale as she fought to keep her grip on the silk handle.

She lacked the profound cultivation required to withstand a Heavenly Saint’s aura, and her knees knocked together in sheer terror.

Just then, a middle-aged man appeared behind them, his face red from fury, his eyes bloodshot as he glared at the woman.

This was Ye Liuman, the patriarch of the Ye Family and the absolute master of Ye Heavenly City.

His chest heaved with heavy, ragged breaths, his expensive, gold-trimmed robes rustling violently as his internal qi flared out of control.

"Yan Renhua!" he spat, his voice trembling with a mixture of rage and disbelief. "Why did you cancel the grand race tomorrow without telling me about it?! Do you have any idea how much preparation went into that event?! And you even allowed the Imperial Academy to use our premier stadium for free?! You didn’t charge them even a single spirit stone?! Do you have any idea how many losses I suffered because of you?! The ticket refunds alone are costing us millions, not to mention the damage to our reputation with the high lords who booked the VIP boxes!"

The woman, Yan Renhua, sighed softly.

She withdrew her hand from the spirit orchid and turned slowly toward the trembling, furious man, her pink eyes were calm, carrying a faint, weary trace of motherly sadness.

"Our daughter asked us for it," she replied, her voice soft but carrying an undeniable clarity. "Ye Liuman, although you are a businessman through and through, you should at least care for your own child. Hongyan rarely ever asks anything of this family. If she needs the stadium to broadcast the academy’s trials, it is our duty as her parents to support her."

"I don’t have a daughter like her!" he roared, feeling his blood pressure rising rapidly, veins pulsing violently on his head and temples as he slammed his fist down, the shockwave ripping up a neat line of stone tiles along the garden path.

The servant girl holding the umbrella almost passed out, thankfully, Yan Renhua’s shielded her.

"Because of her... because of her... Because she refused the Shi Clan’s young master back then, our family almost went bankrupt! Have you forgotten the dark days we crawled through because of her willful, arrogant stubbornness?!"

Yan Renhua remained silent as she lowered her gaze slightly, a soft, melancholy sigh escaping her lips.

After all, she knew that what her husband said was right.

The scars of that era were deeply etched into the foundation of their family, and no amount of time could truly erase the terror they had faced.

Ye Hongyan didn’t know this, but the young master who tried to force himself on her back then was the heir of the Shi Clan, one of the Nine Immortal Clans.

To the mortal world and ordinary cultivation houses, the Ye Family was an unshakeable colossus of wealth.

But to the Nine Immortal Clans, who stood above the heavens and commanded forces that could rewrite reality, the Ye Family was merely a prosperous merchant house that could be crushed with a flick of a finger.

Especially the Shi Clan, universally known as the richest and most resourceful of the immortal clans, having monopoly to most of empire’s mines.

When Ye Hongyan rejected the Shi Clan, crying out to her mother for help, the retaliation that came after was swift, silent, and absolute.

The Shi Clan didn’t even need to mobilize their armies.

A single decree from their elders sufficed, and they systematically cut off the Ye Family’s primary supply lines of spiritual herbs, pressured their allied trading conglomerates to break their contracts overnight, and froze their massive assets in the imperial banks.

Within a single month, the prosperous Ye Family was pushed to the absolute brink of total annihilation.

Their markets collapsed, their debtors pounded on their gates, and bankruptcy loomed over them like a waiting executioner.

Ye Liuman had humiliated himself completely during that dark period.

To save his bloodline from being slaughtered and his ancestors’ legacy from being erased, the proud patriarch had traveled to the Shi Clan’s ancestral domain.

He had spent three days and three nights kneeling on the cold, unforgiving stone steps outside their mountain gates, enduring the mocking laughter of their low-ranking disciples.

He had bowed until his forehead bled, offering up vast mountains of rare treasures, signing away seventy percent of their outer territories, and begging the young master’s father to finally forgive his daughter’s transgression.

All their original assets were seized or ruined during that brutal economic suppression.

If Ye Liuman hadn’t accidentally discovered a group of wild, dragon-blooded horses racing aggressively against each other in a hidden valley during his desperate travels—and subsequently thought of capturing them, taming them, and turning the concept into a regulated, high-stakes spectator sport—their Ye Family would have already disappeared from the history books of the empire.

It was through sheer, desperate business genius and the wild success of Dragon-Horse Racing that he managed to rebuild their fortune from the ashes.

Back then, Ye Hongyan had completely severed her ties with the clan, traveling the empire alone as a rogue cultivator before eventually earning her position as one of the Ten Sages of the Imperial Academy.

Because she was entirely cut off from the family’s internal affairs, she didn’t know any of these grim details.

She genuinely believed her father was simply a greedy, cold-hearted tyrant who only cared about profits, completely unaware of the absolute humiliation he had endured to keep their family alive.

Yan Renhua stared at her husband, her expression softening with a touch of profound empathy.

She stepped closer, gently placing a hand over his trembling, tightly clenched fist. "Dear, no matter what happened in the past, you cannot erase blood ties. It is a fundamental truth of the heavens. It is something unique and sacred, something that not even that adopted son of yours can ever have."

Indeed. Twenty years ago, Ye Liuman’s friend who had accompanied him through thick and thin, passed away.

In his final moments, he asked Ye Liuman to search for his son which had disappeared.

Ye Liuman spent a fortune to hire the best Seers in the Empire, and eventually the young boy, around 10 years old, in the slums.

He immediately adopted him, and he proved to be very capable, both in business and cultivation.

However, Yan Huared disliked the adopted child, tried her best to suppress him, feeling that everything that should’ve belonged to her daughter was getting taken away.

Ye Liuman simply glared at her, pulling his hand away with a bitter, resentful snort.

His chest still heaved with lingering irritation, but the explosive crimson aura around his body finally began to subside. "You better tell that daughter of yours that she owes me for this. This stadium broadcast is the absolute last favor she will ever get from the Ye Family."

With that, he turned around, his robes snapping in the wind as he prepared to leap into the sky to return to his business meetings.

"She told me that she already found a man, and that they had already cooked the rice," Yan Renhua said suddenly, her voice carrying a distinct, playful note.

Ye Liuman faltered for a moment, his entire body freezing mid-stride.

He stood perfectly still on the garden path, his back to his wife, his shoulders tensing up as the words registered in his mind.

"Cooked the rice..." he muttered under his breath, his cheek twitching violently. He took a deep breath, forcing his posture to remain rigid and unbothered as he recomposed himself. "Hmph. It doesn’t matter. At least that Mu Chen kid has finally proven himself. He has a decent reputation in the academy, and his talent isn’t completely useless. If she finally decided to settle down with him, it saves me the trouble of finding a political marriage for her."

Yan Renhua blinked, her white eyelashes fluttering in mild surprise, and she suddenly realized that her husband probably didn’t know what had happened to Mu Chen recently.

The news of about Mu Chen had literally almost brought the empire into chaos. It seems her husband is incredibly these past few days that he doesn’t even have time to look at the news.

"It’s not Mu Chen," said Yan Renhua simply.

"Not Mu Chen?"

Ye Liuman turned his head sharply, his left cheek twitching uncontrollably as a fresh wave of irritation washed over his face.

"That brat almost caused our family’s complete downfall a thousand years ago because she insisted on running away, and all this time I thought she was at least loyal to that Mu Chen boy! And now she chose someone else entirely?! Could she possibly be any more insufferable?! What, is that a new helpless mortal again!? Does she have a thing for powerless mortals she can dominate!?"

He shook his head in absolute anger, throwing his hands up in a gesture of complete surrender.

He was thoroughly sick and tired of trying to understand the unpredictable, rebellious nature of his firstborn daughter.

"Whatever! It doesn’t matter anymore! Whoever he is, he better have a massive mountain of spirit stones to compensate for my losses tomorrow!"

With that, he didn’t wait for his wife to respond.

He tapped his foot against the ground, his body transforming into a brilliant streak of golden light that flew straight into the sky, disappearing into the upper layers of the clouds.

Yan Renhua reached out her hand, as if wanting to call him back to explain the true identity of their new son-in-law, but she paused halfway, a small, elegant smile playing on her lips.

She slowly lowered her arm and just shook her head softly.

"Well," she murmured to herself, watching the golden streak vanish completely into the distance. "He will find out the truth during the broadcast in a few days anyway. I can’t wait to see the look on his face when he realizes who ’cooked the rice’ with our daughter."