I Can Only Cultivate In A Game

The others stayed behind but Victor later excused himself and secretly followed them.

From a good distance, he watched as they ascended a quiet, lesser-used trail around the western edge of the estate.

High walls surrounded this part. Vines crawled across white stone walls, and cherry trees swayed in the breeze. The air smelled faintly of lavender and peach.

A secluded pavilion appeared, shaped like a crescent moon. It's roof was designed with peacock motifs. Two women in white stood by the gate. Qin Fei waved his badge, and they bowed.

"You two wait here," Qin Fei voiced while turning to the lackeys. "This visit is… personal."

Victor watched from behind a bush half the size of a grown adult.

The moment Qin Fei stepped in and the gates closed, Victor activated his [Shadow Blink] technique and appeared atop a nearby tiled roof with utter silence.

He used a sliver of void qi to conceal his presence and peered through the gaps in the upper wooden lattice.

The interior of the courtyard was a stunning greenery of lush grass, trimmed azalea bushes, and an artificial pond with koi fish.

At its center, sitting beneath a rosewood pagoda, was a woman in lavender robes with long black hair. Her back was to the entrance with her hands cradling a guqin she had no intention of playing.

Victor recognized her even before she turned.

Bai Ting Ting.

Although, he had never seen her in person before, he had managed to come across a painting of her once.

But what struck him most wasn't her beauty that had deepened into something sorrowful and melancholic, but the way she barely turned her head when Qin Fei entered.

"Still ignoring me?" Qin Fei muttered while walking toward her with visible frustration.

"I'll continue to ignore you till the stars fall," she replied softly but with a tone of conviction.

"Tch… You're my wife now. Do you know how ridiculous this is? I gave you everything—"

"You gave me nothing but a golden cage."

Victor narrowed his eyes and watched.

"I let you keep your title. I spared your lover's life—"

"You mean Chen Wu? You killed him," she said coldly as her fingers instictively curled around her guqin.

Qin Fei paused.

"That wasn't me. It was my father," he snapped with a defensive tone. "His family was going to disgrace ours—what did you expect?"

Victor's heart sank. So the rumors were true. Chen Wu and his father… they'd been wiped out.

"But I kept you safe," Qin Fei added. "Even now, no one is allowed to touch you but me."

"That's not love. That's obsession," Bai Ting Ting replied.

Their back and forth continued until Bai Ting Ting stopped responding all together.

Qin Fei was ignore for another full ten minutes before he turned around to leave in frustration.

Fortunately, Victor slid off the roof moments before Qin Fei turned and stormed out.

Once the young master had gone, Victor vanished into the shadows with something he hadn't felt in a long while—rage.

He didn't care that this was just a game... Victor had always had personal attachments to characters and Chen Wu was a very likeable one.

[ New Objective: Speak to Bai Ting Ting ]

Victor had barely gotten far when a new notification appeared in his line of sight.

He froze in place not expecting this.

He proceeded to turn around and silently head back.

Within a few minutes, he found himself back at the wall surrounding the secluded pagoda.

His frame burst into shadows as he reappeared on the wall in the next instant.

Adjusting his stance, he leapt from the wall's edge and dropped silently into the courtyard's moonlit embrace.

Ting Ting was instantly alarmed as she sensed a presence behind her.

"Spy!"

Her hand snapped to a slender dagger at her side as he spun around and swung it towards the unknown assailant.

The blade whistled through the air with its tip aimed at Victor's throat.

Victor's arm shot up with speed and caught her wrist before the dagger could meet him.

He shook it out of her hand, causing it to fly out of her grasp and pierce through the wall.

Her mouth flew open but before she could scream, he spun her around and clamped his other hand over her mouth.

Her eyes burnt with fear and fury as she tried to free herself to no avail.

Victor eased the hand from her mouth but held her wrist firmly. "Shh," he whispered with a silkly tone. "I'm not your husband's spy or anything. I'm a friend of Chen Wu's."

Her eyes flickered at the name, causing her to draw in a shuddering breath. "Chen Wu… you knew Chen Wu?" she voiced with an emotional tone.

Victor released her wrist and knelt on the cool marble. "Sit with me," he murmured while gesturing to a low stone bench beneath an ancient jasmine vine.

She hesitated with the dagger still in hand and then tucked it into her sleeve and sat, knees drawn close.

Victor settled beside her, careful to give her room.

For a moment only the lantern's flicker and their breathing filled the silence. Then Bai Ting Ting spoke. "How did you know him?"

"From the rest. I was just a passerby... A traveler and he showed me hospitality. Much hospitality than I had received from anyone in this town," Victor responded with a reminiscent gaze.

Bai Ting Ting eyes emitted a sorrowful look; "He has always been like that. He was no cultivator, just a nobody, yet he…"

Her eyes shone with unshed tears. "…He treated me like any other girl. Everyone feared me, my beauty, my status—he saw only me." She smiled through her tears. "He used to sneak me pastries at dawn. Jump over my family walls just to catch a glimpse of me. I watched him knead dough by lantern-light, saw the care in his hands. He laughed… oh, how he laughed when I told him I loved him. I was so foolish, thinking love could protect us."

Victor's heart ached at her confession. He reached out and gently brushed a tear from her cheek. "He was hopeful and gentle," he said quietly. "His heart was his strength."

She bowed her head, weeping softly. "Until the Qin family offered to annex with our family and I was forced to marry that pig. They got rid of him because of me." She closed her eyes as fresh tears fell. "I should have been there. I… I couldn't save him."

Despite marrying Bai Ting Ting, Qin Fei had failed to win her affection. Even now, the rumors were true... she refused to even share a room with him, let alone seal their union.

Qin Fei, already volatile, had turned his fury toward the one man she had ever loved. She was sure that Qin Fei killed Chen Wu because of this.

Qin Fei visited occasionally, usually to berate her or to flaunt his newest concubine.

In one of such moments Qin Fei slammed a goblet against the floor and shouted, "Even now, you look at me like that damn barkeep! Like you're still waiting for him to walk in and rescue you!"

Bai Ting Ting never answered. Her silence was always louder than any insult.

"I will help you take vengeance," Victor promised. "I'm here under guise of this family's disciple, but I intend to dismantle their power from within. And when the time is right, we'll avenge Chen Wu."

Ting Ting lifted her head displaying an expression of sorrow mixed with hope. "You would do that… for me?"

Victor nodded. "For justice—for him... Tell me what you know—every secret of this family's dealings... their strength, their weakness..."

...

...

Victor slipped from the moonlit courtyard into the night-shrouded corridors of the annexed Bai–Qin estate.

His mind churned with the secrets Bai Ting Ting had entrusted to him: the midnight council in the east tower, the bribed stable masters, the hidden tax ledgers, and most crucial of all, the Iron Vein Ores.

A sprawling network of gemstone and spiritual crystal mines that fed the family's coffers.

Victor dug for more information after leaving and soon discovered even more crazy news.

It turned out that the Lingyun Town folks who had vanished for failing to bow to the power of the Bai-Qin annexed family were sent to these mines to work as slaves.

It was a really cold discovery and Victor decided he had to find out for himself.

Under the pretense of new disciple duties, Victor had petitioned to serve a week as guard at the Iron Vein Ores.

The family's overseers, eager to flaunt the strength of their young protegés, readily approved. So at sunrise he had mounted a battered cart, blade sheathed, robes clean, and accompanied the pallid-faced miners deep into the mountain's heart.

Now, approaching the mine's trembling maw, a yawning tunnel sunk into the slope beneath sheer cliffs.

Victor paused and inhaled the scent of wet stone and iron. Lanterns swayed on steel hooks as overseers barked orders and whip cracks echoed against stone.

Guards in lacquered leather helmed carts through the cut veins of crystal, while laborers in tattered robes struck at rock with pickaxes, sweat and dust mingling in their hair.

Victor instantly recognised a face that he had seen on one of the missing posters in town.

'So its true...'