Luo Shang had always harbored ill intentions toward him and wanted him dead. Shen Changqing absolutely could not give him any leverage. If he failed to play his role properly, others might punish him in some way, but Luo Shang would definitely kill him.
With that thought, Shen Changqing’s heart sank.
Should he tell Old Master Shen about everything involving Luo Shang? After a second of consideration, Shen Changqing decided to keep it hidden.
He knew just how stubborn his grandfather was. The things happening around Luo Shang were far too bizarre. If he told Grandpa everything exactly as it was, the outcome wouldn’t be a canceled engagement—it would be him getting shipped off to a mental hospital for treatment.
Old Master Shen wouldn’t believe it, just as Shen Changqing himself wouldn’t have believed in Luo Shang’s strength before witnessing it firsthand.
What if Grandpa refused to agree?
Calm down, Shen Changqing told himself. He realized his earlier words had come out too hastily. Insisting that Mingyao wasn’t like that would only deepen Old Master Shen’s suspicions about Su Mingyao.
When it came to this matter, he wasn’t acting alone. His allies included Su Mingyao, Su Bingyao, the Su family couple, and others. They had all been affected by Luo Shang and were thus on the same side as him.
The engagement went both ways. Although Old Master Su—the one who had originally settled on the marriage alliance with his grandfather alongside him—had passed away, Su Tiancheng was still around. As members of his camp and absolute executors of Luo Shang’s commands, Su Tiancheng and Li Qingshu would pull out all the stops to push for changing his engagement partner, all to fulfill Luo Shang’s goal of canceling the engagement.
No matter how stubborn his own grandfather was, he still had to consider the Su family’s feelings.
In just a few breaths, Shen Changqing steadied his mindset.
“What kind of person is Su Mingyao?” Shen Zhijian asked.
“Do you know him well?”
“You grew up with Su Shang. Even if you didn’t see each other every day, you met at least three times a year. I watched that child Su Shang grow up too.”
“Yes, and it’s precisely because we grew up together that I know we’re not a good match,” Shen Changqing replied calmly, probing for an opening in Shen Zhijian’s words.
“And I believe Su Shang feels the same way.”
Luo Shang wanted to stick to the original plot, in which the Shen and Su families had switched engagement partners, replacing Su Shang with Su Mingyao. On the matter of changing partners, Shen Changqing actually agreed with him for once.
“Grandpa, you can’t force a melon to be sweet. Besides, you haven’t even met Su Mingyao. How can you judge someone fully from just one side of the story?”
Shen Changqing said.
Shen Zhijian’s expression didn’t change in the slightest.
The room fell into a long silence. Shen Changqing looked up and met Shen Zhijian’s gaze head-on, demonstrating his resolve.
In the past, on other matters, Shen Changqing had never openly defied Shen Zhijian’s orders. But now, for the sake of his own life, he had no choice but to stand his ground.
“You’ve developed your own ideas,” Shen Zhijian said suddenly.
“I’ll take your opinion into consideration, but there’s no rush to cancel the engagement just yet.”
At that moment, the screen of the phone sitting on the solid rosewood desk lit up.
Seeing that it was a call from Su Tiancheng, Shen Zhijian didn’t send Shen Changqing out of the room. Instead, he answered it directly.
“Uncle Shen…” Su Tiancheng’s voice came through from the other end.
“Regarding the engagement between our two families, I’d like to discuss it with you face-to-face again.”
A major issue like an alliance marriage—especially changing partners—couldn’t be handled over the phone. A personal meeting was required to show the proper respect.
Shen Changqing’s heart leaped with joy: As expected, his teammate had arrived! What a perfect assist!
With all his years of experience, Old Master Shen could tell exactly what Su Tiancheng intended to say the moment he opened his mouth.
“So, you want to switch engagement partners?” he asked, cutting straight to the chase.
Su Shang wasn’t the Su family’s biological son, but Su Mingyao was—and his own grandson made an excellent match. It was only natural for them to want their blood son to marry him.
Still, wasn’t this a bit too rushed? They’d only welcomed Su Shang back into the family yesterday, and now today they wanted to meet and switch alliance partners… Such heartlessness didn’t reflect well on them.
Shen Zhijian kept his face impassive, but inwardly, his opinion of Su Tiancheng dropped another level.
He glanced at Shen Changqing again.
One shows up at my door this morning, the other calls to arrange a meeting. Have they already gotten together behind my back?
Shen Zhijian mentally placed Shen Changqing and Su Tiancheng in the same camp.
Nor was he wrong to do so. After all, they were both striving for Luo Shang’s grand plot-following cause, acting wholeheartedly on it.
The idea of his own grandson conspiring with outsiders left Shen Zhijian rather displeased.
Hearing Shen Zhijian’s blunt question, Su Tiancheng paused for a few seconds on the other end of the line before replying, “It does have something to do with that.”
“Good. I’ll bring Changqing along when the time comes,” Shen Zhijian said.
Since Su Tiancheng had spoken up, Shen Zhijian decided to give him face.
“Yes, they are the parties involved, after all. I’ll bring that kid Luo Shang, as well as Mingyao. He’s always wanted to meet you, sir,” Su Tiancheng replied, grasping the implication. Since Shen Zhijian planned to bring Shen Changqing along with his engagement partner, Su Tiancheng needed to include the two people tied to his own engagement.
Old Master Shen had never met Mingyao, and abruptly telling him they wanted to switch partners would be hard for him to swallow. Su Tiancheng figured a meeting might help smooth things over.
“Meet me? What’s so special about seeing me? There’ll be plenty of chances down the line,” Shen Zhijian said.
With the time and meeting place set, Shen Zhijian hung up the phone.
Shen Changqing hadn’t left yet.
“You heard all that. Make sure you’re there,” Shen Zhijian said, waving him off.
Just looking at this grandson irritated him. Why toss aside a perfectly good match to chase a new one?
“Thank you, Grandpa, for giving Mingyao a chance,” Shen Changqing said.
What he really meant deep down was: Thank you, Grandpa, for letting me off the hook.
With Su Tiancheng’s backing, dissolving the engagement with Luo Shang should move forward quickly.
He didn’t want to wait even a single extra second!
~~~
Meanwhile, at the riverbank outside the Su Family Manor, Luo Shang sat in a folding chair, fishing rod in hand, when he received a notification from the System.
Su Tiancheng and Li Qingshu had bolted from B City the next day on the excuse of pressing business, while Su Bingyao, Su Mingyao, and the others returned to their villa in the heart of the city. The out-of-town estate saw use mainly for banquets and get-togethers; no one lived there full-time.
Luo Shang was the only one who stayed behind. When Su Bingyao asked if he wanted to head back with them, he’d turned it down. The place was quiet and relaxing—ideal for him—and the river looping around the grounds was perfect for fishing.
Fishing was a hobby Luo Shang had picked up in the Reincarnation Space. It steadied the mind and eased tension. Plenty of players shared the pastime, though their motivations differed wildly.
For those hailing from proto-fish lineages, it was the same rush as a human scammer pulling off a con—thrilling, high-stakes, anything but tame.
Senior players often tired of pond puddles. They’d punch random portals into low-level worlds, baiting hooks with artifacts that seemed like divine treasures to the locals, angling for marks across the Myriad Worlds.
Others dangled suns and star clusters to reel in entire civilizations. A species’ first spark of wonder at the cosmos made them prime catches.
Those players would bottle their prizes in Spirit-Sealing Covers, like goldfish in a bowl—trophies to show off or trade away.
Trapped civilizations sometimes withered in ignorance, never suspecting their prison. Others birthed once-in-a-millennium geniuses who unraveled the truth: their whole world shrunken and sealed. Breakout attempts followed, sparking chaos.
Then there were the tricksters seeding fishing holes throughout the Myriad Heavens—fake treasure troves luring bites. But the “bait” was the hook; the greedy nibblers became the fish.
Endless twists on the game, all riffs on fishing, all player pastimes in the Reincarnation Space.
For senior players, the space shed its iron grip. No longer did the Main God loom as an arbiter of life and death; it became a trusty hub for world-hopping and schmoozing. Missions? Optional. Up to the player.
Senior players knew no power cap, boundless potential. That kept Luo Shang plugged in, rather than retiring to some quiet Earth life.
He skipped the elaborate schemes—no taste for fishciding or civilization-tampering. Plain old fishing was his jam. As a rookie player, still baseline human, it had been pure joy.
Even now, as a senior, he kept it simple: fish with backbones, water, rod, bait.
Bad luck dogged him from day one. Catches rare, blanks the norm. Thousands of worlds, tens of thousands of rivers plumbed—and just ten fish to show for it!
Teammates ribbed him as cosmically cursed to bomb out. Luo Shang let it slide.
Rare wins meant he babied every catch. His Private Space housed nine fish, all thriving in blissful freedom.
When he told Ke Yanjin about it, Ke Yanjin acted utterly indifferent on the surface, but inside, he was burning with jealousy, itching to slaughter every last one of them.
To safeguard his few remaining trophies, Luo Shang had no choice but to formally recognize each fish as his godchild one by one. Then he told Ke Yanjin that these were kids he’d taken under his wing long ago.
Now that the two of them were together, Ke Yanjin was the children’s godfather. That was enough to placate him and keep him from laying a hand on Luo Shang’s fish. All it cost him were a few extra godchildren.
Of course, Luo Shang remembered reeling in exactly ten fish. The one that went missing was from back when he’d just started fishing. He hadn’t realized back then how grueling his angling adventures would become down the line. Besides, that little fish had been covered in wounds when he pulled it up—truly pitiful—so he’d nursed it back to health and released it.
Over the countless days and nights that followed, Luo Shang regretted that decision a thousand times over. If he’d known how tough it would be to catch fish later on, he never would have let that one go!
It would have saved him from the nickname “Air Force Yu” that people in the Reincarnation Space had hung on him, mocking him for never catching ten fish in his lifetime. He’d clearly caught ten—he’d only released the one!
Since Ke Yanjin’s true form was a fish, out of respect for his partner’s species, Luo Shang hadn’t gone fishing in ages after they became mates. Now that he was back from vacation, it was the perfect chance to cast his lines and haul in a big catch, adding a new brother or sister for his godchildren!
Luo Shang wasn’t bragging, but life as a wild fish in the river was nothing compared to the pampered existence in his Private Space. Every one of his godchildren had been fed chunks of Peaches of Immortality, ensuring they’d live long and prosper.
Just as Luo Shang was lost in fantasies of how, in this remote world, baiting his hook with spirit pills would guarantee no busts and a massive haul, the System skipped its usual “ding-dong” chime this time. Instead, it popped up a window directly on his retina.
Luo Shang’s hand jerked in shock. The bobber twitched, scaring off the fish that had been eyeing his bait!
He jolted in alarm, then flew into a rage. “It’s all your fault!!”
“You just need fixing!”
“I had a full checkup just one Reincarnation Day ago, before you got back,” the System hurried to explain. “The Main God said I’m perfectly fine.”
When Luo Shang talked about “fixing” it, he really meant dismantling it. The System hadn’t forgotten his meddling urges, so every Reincarnation Day—every twelve days, that is—it submitted a code diagnostic report from the Main God Space. That shut down any notions Luo Shang might have about taking it apart.
“Besides, judging by your historical fishing success rate, you probably weren’t going to hook anything today anyway. I didn’t ruin a thing for you.”
That only made Luo Shang even angrier. “You’re talking nonsense!”
