Knowing this part of the plot, Jiang Lan certainly wasn't going to let this heroine walk all over him.
"Miss Qinghan, tell me, what should I do with you?"
He smiled faintly, looking at Su Qinghan, who was surrounded by guards with their blades drawn. "According to the laws of the Great Xia, how should one be punished for attempting to assassinate the family of a high-ranking minister?"
Su Qinghan's face paled. She had never imagined things would turn out like this.
She had returned to her family to visit, intending to inform them that she had joined the Dao Cang Sword Sect. At the same time, she planned to ask her grandfather to cancel her engagement to the protagonist, Lin Fan.
In her mind, as long as she and Lin Fan had not completed the wedding ceremony, they were not truly husband and wife. Even if they were, she could dismiss him with a single letter of divorce.
Now that she was about to join the Dao Cang Sword Sect, her status had changed dramatically. She had much more influence and no longer needed to compromise for her family's wishes or her parents' commands.
She would be in control of her own marriage.
Unexpectedly, just after returning to her family, she learned from her younger sister's handmaiden that her sister, Su Qingyao, had been forcibly abducted from her academy.
Furious, she investigated and quickly identified the culprit: Jiang Lan, the Son of the Prime Minister, who had recently appeared in Yu Yi City.
He was an infamous wastrel, notorious throughout the entire Great Xia dynasty.
After all, he was likely the only one in Yu Yi City who would dare to so brazenly abduct a woman in broad daylight, even going so far as to have his guards block the entrance to the Snow Moon Pavilion.
Her younger sister, Su Qingyao, had been exceptionally beautiful since childhood. Her fame and talent were widespread, and she had countless suitors in Yu Yi City.
The scoundrel must have been passing through Yu Yi City, heard of her sister's beauty, and was suddenly overcome with lust, leading him to dispatch his men to abduct her.
So, Su Qinghan found a way to bypass all of Jiang Lan's guards and slipped into the Snow Moon Pavilion, hoping to rescue her sister.
But when she arrived, she saw only a man in white leisurely drinking tea in the pavilion. Her sister was nowhere to be seen.
Anxious and impulsive, she had acted rashly, threatening Jiang Lan in a desperate attempt to make him hand over her sister.
But Su Qinghan had never, ever expected this.
'Jiang Lan is clearly just a debauched, good-for-nothing wastrel. Why isn't he the least bit afraid of death?'
'Shouldn't someone like him cherish his life all the more?'
He had faced her threat as if he hadn't heard a thing.
This was completely different from what Su Qinghan had envisioned.
Instead of trembling in terror, Jiang Lan had flustered her, then used the situation to brand her with the crime of assassination.
"If Young Master Jiang hadn't abducted my sister, I would not have been so impulsive…"
Su Qinghan was no ordinary person. Even in this predicament, she quickly took a deep breath to calm herself and began to explain.
Jiang Lan cut her off as if he'd heard a joke. "Let's not even discuss whether or not I abducted your sister," he said nonchalantly. "Even if I did, what of it?"
"You just wounded me, Miss Su. For attempting to assassinate me, do you think your life, and the lives of the entire Su Family, would be enough to atone for it?"
"Young… Young Master Jiang," she stammered, "I was impulsive just now. I apologize. But my sister, Su Qingyao, is young and naive. I don't know how she might have offended you…"
Su Qinghan's hands clenched into fists.
Assassinating the Son of the Prime Minister—it was a crime neither she nor the Su Family behind her could afford to bear.
Jiang Lan's brow furrowed slightly, but his tone remained unhurried. "Miss Qinghan, you were trying to kill me just now. Do you really think a simple apology is appropriate?"
"An apology requires sincerity, does it not?"
With that, he lowered his gaze and casually blew on his tea, his posture a picture of indifference.
Jiang Lan currently had no time to waste on Su Qinghan.
Familiar as he was with the plot, he had naturally been prepared for Su Qinghan to walk right into his trap.
'A villain system?'
'A Golden Finger?'
Jiang Lan sighed internally. 'I've been calling out for so long with no response. It looks like I really don't have a Golden Finger.'
After transmigrating into this world, he'd found that the original owner of this body had not a single shred of cultivation.
Even consuming numerous Celestial and Earthly Treasures, including Creation Lingzhi, had proven completely useless.
The body's original owner was like a natural funnel; any Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi he absorbed would leak right back out.
Otherwise, with the resources and power of the Prime Minister's Mansion, how could they possibly have allowed him to remain an ordinary person with no cultivation?
So, what troubled Jiang Lan now was this:
'If I don't have a Golden Finger, how am I supposed to increase my strength?'
'This is a world of fantasy and cultivation. No matter how powerful my background is right now, it's ultimately an illusion, a fleeting dream.'
'Without cultivation, relying on a few life-extending Miracle Elixirs, I could live to be a hundred at most before turning into a pile of bones.'
This was not the fate Jiang Lan wanted for himself.
As for Lin Fan, the protagonist of the original story, Jiang Lan had been plotting how to get rid of him ever since he understood his own new identity.
Never mind that, according to the plot, he had already kidnapped Lin Fan's prospective sister-in-law.
His father's position alone guaranteed they would become Lin Fan's enemies, destined for their entire family, young and old, to be killed off one by one.
A Powerful Minister who brings chaos to the court is destined for a bad end, regardless of the dynasty.
'If I don't kill Lin Fan, Lin Fan will kill my entire family.'
'So, Lin Fan must die.'
Just then, as if sensing Jiang Lan's thoughts…
A gentle, ancient, and mysterious aura suddenly radiated from the space between his eyebrows.
The aura was profound and immense, unfathomably deep. It felt like the rolling river of eons past, like a million boundless worlds rushing toward him.
Jiang Lan froze, then a flicker of joy ignited within him.
Although he had never cultivated and had not developed a Sea of Consciousness Space, he could clearly see the scene within his Mud Ball Palace.
A lush, emerald-green vine, seemingly carved from flawless jade and shrouded in a mysterious aura, had taken root there.
The vine wasn't thick. Its leaves were a vibrant green, translucent and sparkling like jade, with wisps of a fine, mist-like substance swirling around them.
And at the tip of the vine hung a small, fruit-like object.
It was only the size of a thumb, yet it emanated an incredibly profound and mysterious aura.
'Destiny Dao Fruit?'
A stream of information flashed through his mind, and Jiang Lan instantly understood what it was called.
'So I do have a Golden Finger after all.'
'And it's one related to destiny, of all things.'
'When the fruit matures, I'll be able to obtain a complete Destiny Dao Fruit.'
Jiang Lan wasn't yet sure what a Destiny Dao Fruit could do for him.
'But one thing's for sure—it's definitely a good thing.'