The mountain split.
I don't mean it cracked a little. I don't mean a rock fell off.
I mean the actual, ten-thousand-foot Ancestor's Peak split right down the middle like a ripe melon hit by a sledgehammer.
I was in the middle of eating noodles.
They exploded in my face.
A shockwave of dust and ancient, stale air rolled over the Outer Disciple quarters. It slammed into the paper windows, blowing them out instantly.
BOOM.
My bowl flipped. Hot broth splashed onto my lap.
"Hot! Hot, hot, hot!"
I jumped up, slapping at my robes, dancing a pathetic little jig in the middle of my small, wooden shack.
Then the pressure hit.
It wasn't wind. It was spiritual gravity.
It felt like the sky had decided to sit down.
CRASH.
Every disciple in the Heavenly Dao Sect—thousands of us—hit the dirt. My knees slammed into the floorboards so hard I thought I chipped a bone. I couldn't breathe. The air tasted like ozone and terrified sweat.
It was heavy. Suffocating.
It was the feeling of an ant standing under a falling boot.
"What... the... hell?" I wheezed, my face pressed against the spilled noodles.
Through the broken window, I saw it.
High above the clouds, where the peak used to be whole, a figure floated.
She was tiny from here. A speck of white against the blue sky. But the presence? It was massive. It filled the valley. It filled my lungs. It filled the empty space in my head where my survival instinct used to be.
Ancestor Ling Shuang.
The living legend. The monster who locked herself away 650 years ago because the world was "too boring."
She had stepped out.
And just like that, my quiet, invisible life as a mediocre cultivator was over.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZING...]
A blue box.
It floated right in front of my nose, glowing softly. It cut through the dust and the panic.
I blinked. I thought the lack of oxygen was making me hallucinate.
[MATCHMAKER SYSTEM ACTIVATED]
[SCANNING HOST...]
[HOST: Chen Wei][STATUS: Foundation Establishment (Rank 3/12)][REPUTATION: Invisible Weirdo][ROMANTIC HISTORY: Zero. Null. Void.]
"Hey," I whispered, my voice cracking. "That last part was unnecessary."
The blue box ignored me. It pulsed, turning a dangerous shade of red.
[TARGET DETECTED: Heaven Chosen Woman][NAME: Ling Shuang][AGE: 3,000 Years][CULTIVATION: Nascent Soul Peak (Rank 8/12)][THREAT LEVEL: Calamity]
I stared at the text. My heart did a slow, painful flip in my chest.
"Wait," I said. "No. No, no, no."
[MISSION GENERATED]
[OBJECTIVE: Propose to Ancestor Ling Shuang.][TIME LIMIT: 7 Days.][FAILURE PENALTY: Cultivation Crippled. Death by loneliness probable.][REWARD: Cultivation Breakthrough + Romance Points.]
I choked on a piece of noodle.
"You want me to WHAT?!"
My scream was lost in the chaotic noise of the sect. Outside, elders were shouting. Swords were flying. The Sect Master was probably wetting his robes.
But I was frozen.
"Propose?" I hissed at the air. "She's 3,000 years old! She splits mountains for breakfast! I'm an Outer Disciple! I clean the beast stables!"
[SYSTEM]:Stop whining. You wanted a connection, didn't you?
The voice wasn't robotic. It sounded like a sarcastic woman speaking directly into my brain. Like an older sister who enjoyed watching me suffer.
"I wanted a girlfriend!" I whispered furiously. "Maybe a nice alchemy apprentice! Not a nuclear weapon in a dress!"
[SYSTEM]:Look at the stats, Chen Wei. She has been in seclusion for 650 years. She is emotionally stunted. You died on Earth without ever holding a woman's hand. You are emotionally stunted.
The blue box flashed brightly.
[SYSTEM]:It is a perfect match.
The memory hit me then.
It wasn't the mountain pressure that crushed me this time. It was the past.
Earth. The hospital room.
The smell of antiseptic. The hum of the machine. The white ceiling tiles I had counted four thousand times.
I was 24.
The cancer had eaten everything. My hair, my strength, my future.
I remembered holding my phone. My thumb hovering over a dating app I had downloaded but never used. Swiping left. Swiping right. Looking at faces I would never meet.
The nurse had come in. She was kind. Too kind. The kind of nice you save for dying things.
"Is there anyone you want to call, Mr. Chen? Family? A partner?"
I remembered the silence. The weight of the phone in my hand.
"...No."
I died an hour later.
I didn't die screaming. I didn't die fighting. I died quietly, staring at a blank wall, wishing I had just spoken to someone. Anyone.
I woke up here, in this cultivation world, five years ago.
And I promised myself: Survive.
Just survive. Keep your head down. Don't be a hero. Heroes die.
But now...
[SYSTEM]:You are terrified.
"Yes," I admitted, my voice trembling. "I'm terrified."
[SYSTEM]:Good. Fear means you are alive. Now get up. She is looking.
I forced my head up.
The pressure had lessened slightly, just enough to move.
High above, the white speck was descending. She didn't fly like the elders, riding on swords or clouds. She just... existed, and gravity decided not to argue with her.
She landed on the shattered remains of the peak's edge.
Even from miles away, I could feel the cold.
The temperature in the sect dropped ten degrees in a second. Frost crawled over my window frame.
I squinted.
She was... beautiful.
Not the "pretty" kind of beautiful. The "terrifying" kind.
She looked twenty-five. Her skin was like porcelain that had never seen the sun. Her robes were simple white, fluttering in a wind that didn't touch anyone else.
But it was her eyes.
I have a skill. It's useless for cultivation. It's a remnant from Earth. I watch people. When you spend your life on the sidelines, you get good at reading body language.
I looked at her eyes.
They were blue. Ice blue.
They swept over the sect—over the kneeling elders, the trembling disciples, the flags snapping in the wind.
She looked bored.
No. Not bored.
Empty.
She was a statue made of flesh. She had infinite power. She could erase me with a thought. She had lived for three thousand years.
And she looked exactly like I felt in that hospital bed.
[SYSTEM]:Do you see it?
"She's..." I swallowed dryly. "She's alone."
[SYSTEM]:Strength without connection is hollow. She has reached the peak, Chen Wei. And she found nothing there but snow.
The Ancestor raised a hand.
Silence fell over the mountain. Absolute, heavy silence.
"I," she spoke.
Her voice wasn't loud, but it echoed in my bones. It sounded unused. Rusty. Like a door that hadn't been opened in centuries.
"I am awake."
That was it. Three words.
The Sect Master, a man who usually strutted like a peacock, slammed his forehead into the dirt.
"We welcome the Ancestor! The Sect rejoices!" he screamed, his voice shaking.
The Ancestor didn't look at him. She didn't look at the elders offering her treasures.
For a split second—maybe it was just chance, maybe it was fate—her gaze drifted.
It passed over the Inner Court. Over the training grounds.
And it landed on the Outer Disciple quarters.
It landed... on me.
I froze. My breath caught in my throat.
There was no way she could see me. I was a speck of dust to her.
But for a heartbeat, I felt it. A connection. A cold, sharp wire running from her eyes to mine.
She didn't look angry. She didn't look arrogant.
She looked... curious.
Then, she turned away. The ice wall slammed back down.
"I require... quiet," she said.
She turned and walked back into the darkness of her cave. The split mountain rumbled, stones shifting to cover the entrance, sealing her away again.
The pressure vanished.
The sect erupted into chaos. People were cheering, crying, fainting.
I sat there, in my noodle broth, heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
[You made eye contact.]
[Romance Progress: 0.001%]
[Time Remaining: 6 Days, 23 Hours, 59 Minutes.]
"System?" I whispered.
[SYSTEM]:What?
"I think I'm going to throw up."
[SYSTEM]:Save it for the proposal. Vulnerability is sexy.
I put my head in my hands.
"I'm going to die."
[SYSTEM]:Maybe. But at least this time, you won't die bored.
Outside, the sun was setting, painting the broken mountain in blood-red light.
Seven days.
I had seven days to make a god fall in love with an ant.
I looked at the timer counting down in my vision.
[6:23:58]
"Okay," I said to the empty room. "Okay."
I stood up. I wiped the broth off my robes.
"First step," I muttered. "I need new noodles."