Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!-Chapter 133: The Trash Son-in-Law

This has been said several times, but the expanse of the Shen Clan’s territory was so vast that it contained entire ecosystems, mountain ranges that touched the stars, and cities that functioned as worlds unto themselves.

Among these, Divine Wind City stood as a shimmering jewel of commerce and heritage.

It was the pulsing heart of the clan’s economy, a sprawling metropolis where the air was constantly filled with the scent of rare medicinal herbs, the metallic tang of spirit-forged weapons, and the low hum of thousands of arrays that kept the city’s climate in a perpetual, temperate spring.

And the Jiang-Shen Family was known as one of the most influential family in the city.

Why Jiang-Shen Family? You see, within the Shen Clan, whose members numbered in the billions across the Shen Clan Domain, a single surname was insufficient for identification, making it rather hard to differentiate the Family Lines.

Thus, the tradition of the double-surname was born.

To differentiate one’s lineage, a family would append the surname of a prominent spouse to the ancestral "Shen", and this name will be passed down to their descendants.

The Jiang-Shen Family was one such line.

For nearly five centuries, they had been a respectable, albeit unremarkable, branch of the clan, quietly accumulating wealth through the trade of Spirit Silks.

However, within the last two decades, their status had skyrocketed, eclipsing families that had been prominent for millennia, and this meteoric rise was due entirely to a single individual: their eldest daughter, Shen Xinye.

Shen Xinye was a name that commanded respect and admiration in the training halls of the young generation.

This was because she was one of the Ten Crowns, the elite circle of the ten most gifted youths in the entire Shen Clan.

Ranked at Number 4, she was not only one of only three women to hold a Crown but was also undisputedly the strongest among them.

Her talent was a freak of nature, her sword-intent as cold and sharp as the void itself.

Yet, as the saying goes, the taller the tree, the more it attracts the wind.

The Jiang-Shen family was famous for Xinye’s brilliance, but they were equally infamous for her marriage.

In a clan where bloodline purity and power were the only currencies that mattered, the strongest woman of the generation was married to a man who was, by all accounts, absolute trash.

At this moment...

Inside the sprawling Jiang-Shen mansion, a structure built from white jade and roofed with sapphire tiles, the midday sun filtered through silk curtains.

The atmosphere was heavy, not with peace, but with a simmering, acidic disdain.

An average-looking man, dressed in a simple, unadorned white robe that lacked any spiritual embroidery, moved with practiced, quiet steps.

He carried a tray with a single porcelain cup, his movements were humble—too humble for a man living in such a palace as he approached a beautiful middle-aged woman who sat on a chaise lounge.

She possessed the signature golden-blonde hair of the Shen Clan, and her silver eyes were currently narrowed in a sharp, cold glare.

"Mother-in-law, here is your tea. It is the Cloud-Mist leaf, harvested at dawn as you prefer," the young man said, his voice low and devoid of the arrogance usually found in the city’s youths.

The woman, Shen Xiu, didn’t even look at the cup, her gaze remained fixed on the man’s face, her lips curling in a sneer. "I didn’t ask for it. Do you think a cup of tea makes up for the fact that I have to see your face in my home every day? Take it back and scram. Your very presence spoils the fragrance of the room."

"O-Okay, apologies, mother-in-law. I shall take my leave," the young man replied, his expression remaining neutral despite the venom in her voice.

He bowed repeatedly, a submissive gesture that only seemed to irritate her further, before placing the tea on the table and backing out of the room.

As the door slid shut, a soft, weary sigh echoed from the shadows of the balcony.

"Mother, I told you... there is no need to be so hard on him. He does his best to stay out of everyone’s way," a voice said, clear and cold as a mountain spring.

Shen Xiu turned her gaze to the side, and standing by the balcony was a figure that could only be described as a masterpiece of creation.

Short golden-blonde hair framed a face of ethereal beauty, and her silver eyes held a depth of coldness that spoke of a heart forged in battle.

This was Shen Xinye, the 4th Crown.

"Shen Xinye," the older woman called out, her voice sharp with maternal frustration. "Are you actually starting to have feelings for that trash? If so, I need to consider having a doctor check your eyes. Or perhaps a soul-searcher to see if he’s placed a charm on you."

Shen Xinye walked into the room, her footsteps making no sound on the plush rugs as she sat down opposite her mother, her movements possessed of a lethal grace. "Whether I like him or not is a different matter, Mother. But no matter what the circumstances were, he is still my husband. Even if it is a marriage in name only, he has fulfilled his part of the bargain without complaint."

"Hmph. A bargain?" Shen Xiu’s eyes flashed with a bitter light. "If it wasn’t for that cursed fate, how would a mortal trash like him—a man who cannot even feel the Qi in the air—be qualified to even breathe the same air as you, let alone marry you? Now, the entire clan knows you are married. Even if you divorced him today, the damage is done. In the eyes of the other Great Clans, you are ’used.’ No one of high status will take you as a primary wife now. At best, you would be a concubine to some old monster or arrogant, lustful young masters. It makes my blood boil!"

Shen Xiu shook her head in regret, her mind involuntarily drifting back thirty years to the incident that had derailed their lives.

Three decades ago, Shen Xiu had been a different woman. She was a rising star of the Shen Clan, beautiful and adventurous, talented and strong.

During a journey to the vast wilderness, she had met a rogue cultivator—a man of humble origins but staggering talent.

Against the wishes of her family, she fell in love with him and got married.

There was no drama involved, after all, as members of the Shen Clan, the number of people that are of the same status as them are few.

In the Shen Clan, it’s even fewer, after all, most of them are related, and unlike the Main Line, who mostly marry each other to preserve their bloodline and possessed a secret technique to prevent complications during the conception, the other branches doesn’t.

So if they wanted to get married, as long as the other party was talented, no matter where they came from, no one would usually prevent it.

Ans that’s what happened with Shen Xiu and her husband, however, after they got married, they decided to continue their adventures to the outside world, away from the rigid hierarchy of the Shen Domain.

A few years later, she became pregnant.

And fearing for the safety of her unborn child in the lawless wilderness, the couple decided to return to Divine Wind City so that the child could be born under the protection of the Shen Clan.

But they never made it.

A sect of demonic cultivators, whom the couple had offended during their travels, ambushed them.

The battle was catastrophic.

Shen Xiu’s husband fought with a suicidal ferocity, holding back dozens of enemies so she could flee, but he himself died on that nameless mountain, his soul scattered.

Shen Xiu and her unborn daughter only survived because a Shen Clan patrol, led by a Nirvana Rebirth Elder, arrived just as the final blow was about to fall.

But the demonic cultivators had left a parting gift: a Soul-Erosion Curse.

The curse was a parasitic entity, and it latched onto Shen Xiu’s foundation, ensuring she would never again progress in her cultivation.

For twenty five years, now almost a hundred years old, she had remained stuck at the 1st Stage of the Nirvana Rebirth realm, her potential frozen in time.

Worse, the curse had seeped into the womb.

When Shen Xinye was born, the healers delivered a grim prophecy: the girl would not live past her 18th birthday, and the curse would wait until her Spirit Circuits fully matured, then it would ignite, burning her soul from the inside out.

Spirit Circuits are kind of like veins in a person’s soul, which allows them to gather Qi and cultivate.

Shen Xiu had spent years on her knees, begging every Alchemist and Sage in the clan for a cure, and spent the family’s entire fortune on consultations.

Finally, a blind Seer from the Enshrined Elder lineage provided a solution, albeit a cruel one.

Since the curse required Spirit Circuits to activate, they can use a mortal, born without the ability to cultivate, and possessed no Spirit Circuits, to transfer the curse to them.

However, this transfer isn’t easy, and it required a special "bond", and this bond was marriage.

So when Shen Xinye turned 18, she had to marry a mortal, and only then can a forbidden ritual could be performed.

Using the metaphysical bond of marriage—a contract recognized by the heavens—the curse could be "tricked" into transferring its weight from the cultivator to the mortal spouse.

Because the mortal lacked the "fuel" the curse needed to ignite, the curse would simply go dormant within his flesh, becoming nothing more than a harmless, dark mark.

He would then live a normal mortal life, while Shen Xinye would be freed to reach the heavens.

Seven years ago, they had found him. A nameless orphan from the mortal slums with a constitution so weak he could never cultivate.

The wedding was a cold, clinical affair, but the ritual was successful, and the black veins that had threatened Xinye’s heart vanished, and she had since soared to become a Crown.

But for Shen Xiu, every time she saw her son-in-law, she didn’t see a savior, but saw the price of her daughter’s perfection.

She saw the "trash" that stood as a permanent stain on the 4th Crown’s reputation.

"Seven years," Shen Xiu muttered, her silver eyes looking toward the door where the man had exited. "He has lived in this house for seven years, eating our spirit rice and drinking our elixirs, all while my daughter’s name is dragged through the mud by the other families. Xinye, you are twenty-five now. Your beauty is at its peak, and your power is unrivaled. This man is a shackle. We need to find a way to break the link without the curse returning."

Shen Xinye didn’t respond immediately and just looked at her reflection in the cold tea. "Mother, no matter what, I am legally married to him. I cannot allow him to be humiliated and treated like a trash."

She stood up, her aura flickering slightly, as she stared at the door, a gentle expression on her face, "He is merely a mortal, he won’t live long. At least, as a compensation for helping me, let him live his life in comfort. As for me... I have no intention of getting married again."

Xinye walked out, leaving her mother alone with her bitter memories.

*

*

*

Outside, in the garden, the "trash" husband was quietly pruning a spirit-rose bush, his face calm, his eyes reflecting a depth of stillness that no one in that house had ever bothered to notice.

He was the vessel for a demonic curse that should have killed a genius, yet he moved as if he carried no weight at all.

Once done, he took a deep breath and stood up, walking under a tree for a shade and wiped his sweat before looking at an empty space. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

"System, sign-in." He muttered.

Then, a blue holographic screen appeared in front of him.

[Completed 7-Days of Consecutive Sign-In!]

[Congratulations Hosts!]

[Receiving: 10 thousand Spirit Stones, Boulder Crushing Fist Battle Technique, Thunder Following Steps Movement Technique, Rank 3 Sword Artifact]

[7-Day Consecutive Sign-In Reward: Curse of Soul Erosion has been completely removed]

The young man grinned.