Chapter 2

Shinosaki Riku, smiling, watched as Wang Xia was handcuffed and brought away.

Wang Xia was the type of person he hated the most. In fact, Riku actually did recognize Wang Xia; the accent gave it away. There were very few people that had a grudge with Riku, and only one of them came from a village that spoke in a very peculiar Chinese accent.

The Shinosaki young master was a part of a group that worked to support domestic abuse victims among other things, and he could tell the signs when he saw them. A visit from an expert therapist under the clan's hire saw the exposure of the full story.

Wang Xia's troublingly possessive nature started to first show itself after his parents died and the two were left with only each other. He hated when Li Xiaoya interacted with other people, greatly exaggerating her natural shyness to use as an excuse to lock her inside his house like a pigeon in a cage. He even went and sold off everything that could remind Li Xiaoya of anyone but him, including mementos of her parents.

If that wasn't controlling enough, he continuously raped her, using his position as the "man" in the relationship or the "breadwinner" of the two (though the most he did to make money was selling Li Xiaoya's inheritance) to coerce her into sex. If that didn't work, he outright forced himself onto her.

Apparently, Wang Xia didn't think anything he did was wrong. When his fellow villagers confronted him, he essentially admitted to it, saying that he was only right to do all that as a man and expecting everyone else to side with him.

Riku relished every punch he swung.

Seeing the figure of Wang Xia disappear into the police station barely a hundred meters away from him, Riku was satisfied. He had tied up a loose end; the local government of the area Wang Xia's village was in was notoriously old-fashioned and sexist. The fact that Riku was a foreigner from a country the locals hated certainly did not help the case as Wang Xia was cleared of any guilt soon after (there was a "lack of evidence"), something that made Riku want to go back to China just to give Wang Xia and the local authorities a few good punches. Justice was served, and Riku was sure that Wang Xia wouldn't handle being captured by the Japanese police too well, especially when he took into account the Chinese man's obvious racism.

More importantly, Riku could now shoo off his parents from asking him to cultivate or do something productive for a few days using this incident as an excuse. This small fifteen-minute matter earned him at least a few days of anime watching time—how could he not be satisfied?

"A bargain! Such a good bargain!" Riku mumbled as he walked back into the Shinosaki building.

His residence was at the top floor of the headquarters of the Shinosaki Corporation, a place that Riku loved being in and would probably never leave if his parents didn't force him to, like when he was forced to visit several places in China about a year ago.

He took the elevator up and holed himself up into his room.

"Don't bother me until Thursday," he yelled to the air.

Three minutes later, the Shinosaki family's butler, Kato, knocked on the young master's door.

Riku took a deep breath before an angry shout burst out the door, "I literally just got in three fucking minutes ago! What the hell! What do my parents want this time! I just came back from vanquishing evil and sowing the seeds of good karma! Let me watch anime, for goodness' sake!"

The butler was evidently used to the young master's temper. He replied calmly, "Your parents have arranged a marriage for you. Your father has requested you to guide your new fiancee around the building; she will be living with us from now on."

Silence.

Kato had finished what he was ordered to say and calmly waited for his young master's response. The young master, on the other hand, was cursing his father in his head while hurriedly putting his t-shirt back on, not in the least bit calm or pleased.

After getting dressed, Riku made sure that his underwear wasn't sticking out. It actually was, so he pulled his sweatpants up. He took a breath and slammed the door open. It made a rather weird sound: a smack was heard instead of a bang.

Paying the odd noise no heed (who really cares about what sound a door makes?), he yelled loud enough that the world could hear him, "Cancel! Cancel! I want to cancel this engagement! Where's my dad! I swear I'll—fucking hell, are you okay?" From his initial yell, he quickly turned apologetic.

The servant was used to the Shinosaki family's dramatics and had a habit of taking a few steps back from the door when trying to coax the young master out. However, the unmoving girl lying sprawled down on the ground evidently did not have the same presence of mind.

Even though Riku was a lazy bum, everyone knew that he had a Foundation Establishment cultivation. He also knew that the door and the walls around the door were reinforced with steel—something he ordered to be done so he could slam the door open without breaking it. The door opened outwards for this reason too. Hence, he didn't hold back.

In fact, cultivators had a common habit of slamming doors open; even Wang Xia did it despite having lived over a thousand years ago. It was universal, and doors like this weren't all that rare in cultivators' homes.

It was actually a subject of much debate between cultivators over what were the best doors to slam open. Traditional-minded folks preferred sliding doors, but many others preferred hinged doors; hinged doors had more impact, they claimed.

It was clear that the unmoving girl came from a cultivator family that slammed open sliding doors instead of hinged doors.

"Kato! Why didn't you warn her!" Riku, panicking, yelled at the servant.

Kato bowed deeply, saying, "I-I'm sor—"

Riku quickly calmed down and cut him off, "No, don't apologize! This is my fault, not yours. Dammit. Fuck. I should've checked beforehand." After the initial bloodrush to his head, he realized that he only had himself to blame.

He rushed over to the girl, his earlier laziness nowhere to be seen. When he got closer to her, his divine sense caught the beating of her heart and the filling of her lungs: she was alive, at least.

"Bring the Hakkoda Divine Pill!" Riku took a deep breath before ordering the servant. The young master was already using his divine sense to guide the girl's spiritual energy to the right places to heal her. The Shinosaki Corporation was a pill-refining company, and the Shinosaki clan was a family of heavenly doctors. Riku clearly knew the pill needed to cure this girl with the least side effects.

Kato hesitated for a moment before rushing out. He heard Riku yelling behind him. "Oh! Take it from my personal collection, not the company's or the clan's!"

The Hakkoda Divine Pill was one of the specialties of the Shinosaki Corporation. Its primary ingredient was the rare and valuable Hakkoda Divine Root, the root of the Hakkoda Snow-Fireflower, which could only grow in certain places in Hakkoda Mountains. Furthermore, each of these places could only support the growth of one Divine Root before all the spiritual energy in the area would run out for a century. All further Snow-Fireflowers' roots would have no medicinal power and would be useless in pill refining! Although spirit stones could be used to replenish the area's spiritual energy, spirit stones are used as a universal currency. One has to literally burn money to grow these plants! If the main ingredient was so expensive, how could the supplementary ingredients be cheap? Well, the supplementary ingredients actually were cheap; several of them could be found at the local grocery store, but just the Hakkoda Divine Root made the price more than high enough.

The Hakkoda Divine Pill must be refined by at least a Pill Saint, and a Pill Saint wasn't exactly common. There were only around a thousand in the whole world, and the demand for even regular pill refining was always higher than the supply. And Pill Saints were at the pinnacle of pill refining. How could hiring one be cheap? Actually, the Shinosaki Corporation did employ a Pill Saint quite cheaply by industry standards, but that small fact doesn't really matter.

All that drivel could be summed up in one sentence: the Hakkoda Divine Pill was extremely, extremely expensive! And Riku was paying for it out of pocket!

The girl was a Core Formation cultivator and of course had a very resilient body. Normally, a Core Formation cultivator would never be knocked out by a mere Foundation Establishment cultivator, but unfortunately for her, she wasn't on guard whatsoever. Thus, she passed out after being hit in the head by the door. She actually got a concussion because of this.

A concussion, or any brain-related injury, is a very huge problem for a cultivator because any wrong step during a breakthrough could make the cultivator explode. Even though the cultivator wouldn't be hurt by it whatsoever, it was very loud and very smelly. It sounded and smelled very much like a loud fart. Furthermore, it would happen multiple times in a row; one time for each grade of cultivation the cultivator was at. Each realm had ten grades, so for example, the girl was a fifth grade Core Formation expert. Core Formation was after Foundation Establishment which was after Qi Gathering, meaning that the girl would "explode" twenty-five times before stopping. You must remember that the explosion was very loud and sounded like a fart. The whole city would definitely hear it and be disgusted. You must also remember that the explosion was very smelly and smelled like a fart. The whole city would definitely smell it and be disgusted.

The breakthrough would fail and your cultivation would drop by a bit, but that wasn't important. The important thing is that the whole city would witness you fart. Twenty-five times! The sound would be loud enough to wake everyone nearby out of their sleep. And even if they had slept with spiritual energy-powered soundproofing headphones for some reason, the smell was stinky enough to also wake everyone nearby out of their sleep! Breakthroughs were also quite flashy, so the perpetrator's house would be all shiny with bright lights radiating out of it. Everyone would know it was you!

There was one cultivator who was so embarrassed by this that she moved to the other side of the country…

Anyways, the Hakkoda Divine Pill could help cure the concussion as well as remove various impurities in the body, making cultivation easier. It was worthy of being called a Divine Pill.

In fact, many lesser pills could also cure the concussion. The Shinosaki Corporation produced several of these pills, but Riku didn't want to use them, even though he was actually paying for the pill out of pocket.

He really felt bad for this. If the girl wasn't a cultivator, she could very well be dead. The Hakkoda Divine Pill was nothing compared to a life.

Riku went back into his room and cleaned up the bed. He put new sheets and blankets in before picking the girl up and gently placing her on it, tucking her in. He looked around at his extremely dirty room. There were clothes everywhere and bottles and cup ramen lining the floor. The only clean spots were the newly cleaned bed and the computer desk.

He never imagined that he would ever think what he was thinking right now, but he was not in the mood for anime. So, he spent the time tidying up the room, waiting for Kato to come back.

The cleaning actually didn't take too long. Riku was a cultivator with a strong divine sense; he could perform psychokinesis effortlessly.

By the time he was done, the room looked cleaner than it ever had since the last time his servants tidied up his room a few days ago.