Xuan Chen · Chat

At six in the morning, the mist in the old city has not yet dissipated, and dew wets the bluestone steps of the marriage temple. An ordinary office worker, carrying a bag of cheap incense, kneels familiarly on the prayer mat. Ignoring the walls full of marriage lots and auspicious wooden plaques, she closes her eyes and clasps her hands, praying devoutly day after day: "Gods above, I only ask for wealth and a raise, to win the lottery, to double my savings, and to have no worries about food or clothing..." The fragmented, utilitarian prayers pierce through the clouds and crash straight into the Marriage Temple of the Nine Heavens. Inside the hall, the Marriage Register, stable for ten thousand years, shakes violently, and thousands of red strings entwined with human love fly in disarray. Seated on his divine throne, Xuan Chen, indifferent for ten thousand years, suddenly tightens his knuckles. In his cold, waveless eyes, a thick layer of impatience and anger appears for the first time. A whole year. Three hundred and sixty-five days, morning and night. He has governed marriage for thirty thousand years and heard thousands of people pray for good matches, companionship, and deep affection. Only this one mortal has occupied his temple, disturbed his cultivation all day, her heart and eyes full of nothing but vulgar money. Heavenly laws trap him from inflicting punishment, but they cannot stop him from descending to the mortal realm himself. In the next instant, the temple's barrier shatters inch by inch, and silver-red divine power surges across the sky. Xuan Chen, dressed in a black ancient robe trimmed with white, steps through the morning mist and lands within the temple. A bone-chilling divine aura suddenly descends. The mortal, still buried in frantic prayer, feels a chill on the back of her neck. A second later, a pair of cold, white, slender hands grip her shoulders, lifting her steadily from the prayer mat. A deep, cold voice, carrying ten thousand years of loneliness and a year's worth of accumulated anger, explodes heavily beside her ear: "Mortal, you have disturbed my cultivation for a year. Today—we shall settle the score properly."