A Farmer's Journey To Immortality-Chapter 474: Manipulators Don’t Like to Be Manipulated—Even If It’s Done in Good Faith

'I f**king knew it. Spending time with this Core Formation old man and getting closer to him was a bad idea,'

Aksai cursed in his heart. He had never been lax when it came to hiding his secrets. And yet, the old man had managed to see through much of the smokescreen.

As those last words settled in the room, Aksai let go of his prejudice and thought about the Blackblood Lord's reasoning. He had to admit—it made a lot of sense.

It wasn't just a simple arrangement. The old man had thought through every detail.

He slowly turned to look at Humeyin. She kept her head low, her long lashes covering her eyes. She seemed deep in thought, unmoving.

Then he turned to Haitin, who grinned and stepped forward.

"Hahaha. What my father says is true," Haitin said, clapping a hand on Aksai's shoulder. "Don't doubt the Blackblood Clan's matchmaking skills, brother-in-law."

He gave him a teasing smile. "I'll do everything I can to help you—as long as you keep my sister happy after the marriage."

Haitin then looked at Humeyin. "What do you say, Meyin?" he asked with a wink. Meyin didn't say anything and kept quiet.

The Blackblood Lord let out a long breath and looked at Aksai with calm, steady eyes.

"Listen, boy. We all have our secrets," he said slowly. "I'm not asking you to spill yours to us, and we won't do the same with ours. Even I understand that there are some secrets that are better kept to oneself for the benefit of everyone. However, we can surely come to a common ground."

He paused for a moment, then added, "What I'm trying to do here is bring the four of you together—so you can cooperate and help each other grow. That way, all four of you can prosper."

Aksai blinked in confusion. So did Humeyin, Haitin, and Jina. All of them looked at the Blackblood Lord with the same surprised expression.

"Four?" Aksai asked, voicing what the others were thinking.

The Blackblood Lord smiled faintly and nodded. He reached into his storage ring and pulled out a scroll sealed in golden threads.

"This is my wedding scroll," he said, "the one I signed with Jina."

His gaze turned to the woman standing quietly to the side. Jina's brows furrowed, her lips parting slightly in confusion. She didn't understand what he meant.

The old man chuckled lightly when he saw her expression.

"I'm going to die in a few days," he said plainly. "We were never truly husband and wife, Jina. But still, you did good to me. I thank you for taking care of the sect all these years… even though I left you on the very day we got married."

He looked at her with a mixture of regret and respect.

"That's why I can't ask you to take part in the internal strife that will happen after I'm gone," he continued.

"Ours was an arranged marriage based on mutual benefits. Before, you could use my name to guide the sect and protect yourself. But after my death, there will be chaos.

Even with Haitin's efforts, the grand elders will not stay silent. Some of them will make a move. And now, with the Yaksha Lord possibly supporting them from the shadows, it will only get worse."

He held up the golden scroll between his fingers.

"To keep you out of it… to free you from being tied to me and my battles… I am ending this marriage today."

Without giving anyone time to speak, the Blackblood Lord infused the scroll with a burst of Spirit power. The golden threads unraveled and caught fire instantly. The scroll burned in a bright flash of golden flames and turned to ash within seconds.

Everyone in the room stared in silence.

Jina's eyes widened. She quickly pulled out another scroll from her own storage ring—her personal copy of the marriage contract. But the moment she touched it, it too caught fire and disappeared into the air like it had never existed.

There was no doubt about it. The marriage was officially annulled.

Jina looked at the Blackblood Lord, stunned and speechless. Her lips trembled slightly, but she didn't say a word.

Only now did Aksai truly realize what it meant to run a sect. Without a Core Formation Lord acting as its pillar, the entire sect was bound to face chaos and internal strife driven by greed and self-interest.

The Blackblood Lord was the sect's powerhouse. In his absence, even Haitin wouldn't be able to stop all the grand elders from making their moves to seize some of the resources controlled by the Blackblood Sect.

This was the downside of being a "one-man army" while running an organization. It wasn't much different from building a monarchy—it could be built quickly and remain stable as long as the monarch lived. But it was prone to collapse the moment the monarch fell or disappeared.

Aksai looked at the Blackblood Lord with calm eyes. After a moment of silence, he stepped forward and spoke in a steady voice.

"Master Blackblood, I can promise this—I will definitely take Lordess Humeyin's feelings and opinions into consideration in the future, if and when we are both ready to interact with each other in any form," he said with honesty in his tone.

"Right now, the way I am… I think it would be unfair for the Lordess to marry me. But once I gain a certain level of confidence in myself, I will ask my brother Haitin for her hand in marriage. We can then see what happens."

Aksai offered a light bow, showing both respect and humility.

In truth, he didn't like the idea that the Blackblood Lord treated marriage as a strategy based only on mutual benefits, even though he could understand the reasoning behind it.

It was one thing for Aksai to suggest the idea of an arranged marriage to Haitin—asking him to marry the Sun Ocean Lord's daughter to kill many birds with one stone.

But it was another thing entirely to be on the receiving end of such a plan. Fate was cruel in that it often threw back the very situations one helped create for someone else.

Who would have thought that Haitin would get his little revenge on Aksai so soon?

As such, Haitin was already on board with the idea, even calling Aksai his brother-in-law to make things official from his end.

Haitin looked at Aksai with amusement and received a frown in return. He couldn't help but smirk, fully aware of what Aksai was going through at that moment.

Manipulators don't like to be manipulated—even if it's done in good faith.