After finishing the treatment, Liu Bufan transformed from a handsome and dashing man back into a scarred, limping figure.
Before Wan'er could ask, Liu Bufan said with a sly smile:
"This is to keep the game playable. I only need to keep the real side in front of my family. If that venomous woman in Kyoto finds out, she will probably send people again, and I'm afraid I won't be able to resist going straight there to finish her off. I still want to wait until I find my eldest uncle's family and my younger siblings, so they can execute their vengeance with their own hands."
Liu Bufan raised an eyebrow.
"However, I do want to tease my father-in-law, mother-in-law, brother-in-law, and sister-in-law a bit."
Jiang Wan'er chuckled:
"Darling, I never imagined you had such a mischievous side. By the way, aren't you temporarily without magical power? How can you still use disguise?"
"A minor detail. Disguising a Saint Body is quite simple and doesn't require magical power."
Jiang Wan'er pinched Liu Bufan's face, found no flaws whatsoever, and sighed at how powerful he was. Then she said excitedly:
"Darling, can you turn into other appearances? Marrying one person is like having countless husbands—how thrilling!"
Liu Bufan was speechless:
"What on earth are you thinking about all day long in that little head of yours?"
Jiang Wan'er burst out laughing. Then she linked her arm through Liu Bufan's and walked toward the car as naturally as could be.
...
Inside the car, at Jiang Wan'er's strong insistence, Liu Bufan kept changing his appearance. But in the end, he found his original face the most pleasing.
Chatting along the way, the two unconsciously arrived near the entrance of Jiang Wan'er's small villa.
"Darling, do you have any plans for the future? Or rather, what are your plans after you exact your revenge? Don't worry, whatever you do, I will stay by your side," Jiang Wan'er said while driving.
"Wife, you might not believe me when I say this, but I want to retire," Liu Bufan said with a straight face.
This answer left Jiang Wan'er completely baffled. Retire? He hadn't even had a job before this—what kind of retirement was he talking about?
Noticing his beloved's confusion, Liu Bufan explained:
"Actually, if it weren't for acquiring supreme cultivation so I could travel back to your side and exact revenge, being an Immortal Emperor would be quite boring. I have no interest in being an Immortal Emperor at all."
While deeply moved, Jiang Wan'er's mouth twitched uncontrollably, and she thought to herself: *Ah, a master of humblebragging right beside me. Darling, you and Jack Ma must be cousins.*
Then she heard him say:
"Actually, I grew tired of all the killing long ago. I much prefer the peaceful environment here on Earth. My greatest wish after revenge is to take good care of you, raise our children, and let them forge their own paths."
Before Wan'er could express her touched feelings, she heard Liu Bufan continue:
"Simply put, practicing cultivation back then was out of necessity and had a purpose. Now I just want to be an ordinary person who is invincible, awesomely wealthy, yet low-key, luxurious, and refined."
Jiang Wan'er rolled her eyes all the way to the heavens, no longer knowing what to say. *How is it,* she thought, *that my husband is straying further and further from the image of the male god he used to be? And really, is this your definition of an ordinary person?!*
"When our children are born, if it's a boy, we'll raise him to be a sissy; if it's a girl, we'll raise her to be a tomboy."
Hearing this, Jiang Wan'er slammed on the brakes, looked at Liu Bufan in utter shock, and reached out to touch his forehead:
"Darling, are you running a fever? Are you serious?"
"Hahaha, how could that be?"
"You scared me to death."
"Of course little girls should be raised like little princesses."
Jiang Wan'er's face flushed red: "Then boys should be raised like sissies!"
"Uh, uh, uh... let's talk about that later!"
"Liu Bufan, you're so bad, I'm going to bite you!"
With that, she leaned over and bit him.
Just as the two of them were playfully wrestling, a motorcycle stopped beside the car, glanced inside, and sped away in shock.
A short while later, Jiang Wan'er parked the car in the villa garage.
The two walked into the living room together.
Liu Bufan shifted back into his limping persona. He and Jiang Wan'er had agreed to explain that the car crash had jolted his brain, and through a stroke of fortune, he had regained the ability to speak. If anyone pressed for details, they would simply say the doctors couldn't explain it either.
As soon as they stepped into the living room, they saw Jiang Wan'er's parents sitting on the sofa.
Her younger brother, Jiang Cheng, was also there, though the look he gave Liu Bufan was a mix of bewilderment and sympathy.
To be honest, Jiang Wan'er's family had always been quite good to Liu Bufan. The biggest reason was that he was Jiang Wan'er's chosen partner, even though her choice had resulted in their family being cast out by the Jiang family.
Of course, the people with a good attitude did not include her younger sister, Jiang Yue'er. This little firecracker had targeted Liu Bufan the moment he stepped through the door, and after Liu Bufan allegedly "abused his family," she was the very first to jump up and demand a divorce.
Her younger brother used to be a die-hard fan of Liu Bufan, but after the drunken shoving incident, his attitude had become very conflicted. After much internal struggle, he ultimately sided with his older sister.
Seeing Liu Bufan and Jiang Wan'er return—especially noting that Liu Bufan looked no different than before—their father, Jiang Shanyue, completely bypassed asking about the divorce and asked in shock:
"Wan'er, didn't Bufan get into a car accident?"
As it turned out, the moment Liu Bufan had his accident, Jiang Wan'er had immediately called home. The family had rushed to the hospital, but upon hearing from the doctor that Liu Bufan's surgery might take a very long time, and with matters pending at the company—plus Wan'er's insistence—the others had gone back first, though they stayed up waiting at home without sleeping.
"Father, Mother, I'm sorry for making you worry."
Hearing these words, Jiang Shanyue and his wife nearly popped their eyes out of their heads.
The younger brother leaped straight up!
"Brother-in-law, holy crap! You can talk! Don't tell me you awakened some kind of superpower after getting hit by a car? I knew it—how could someone with a protagonist's life script stay useless forever? Hahahaha..."
Without another word, he vaulted over the coffee table and lunged to hug Liu Bufan.
Evidently, Liu Bufan had underestimated his brother-in-law's enthusiasm. Seeing Jiang Cheng charging like a wild boar, Liu Bufan instinctively swatted him with a single palm, sending him crashing onto the sofa. After spinning through the air for an unknown number of degrees before landing, Jiang Cheng didn't give anyone a chance to speak; the entire living room echoed with his laughter:
"Hahahaha, I'm his brother-in-law, hahaha..."
With that, he bolted out the door like the wind.
Everyone had initially worried whether Jiang Cheng might have been seriously hurt. But with Jiang Cheng pulling such a stunt, the atmosphere in the room turned somewhat awkward.
"Um, Father, Mother, after I got hit by the car, it wasn't anything major, and as a stroke of luck, I can speak again."
Jiang Shanyue obviously didn't buy it:
"Do you take me for a six-year-old child? You went into the operating room earlier, and I didn't see any surgical scars on you."
"Well, at the time I was just unconscious. Once they wheeled me into the operating room, they realized it wasn't serious—just a bump to the head, and I slept for a bit too long."
Jiang Shanyue took a sip of tea:
"Oh, is that so?"
Jiang Wan'er looked at her father in disbelief. He actually believed that?! Whatever happened to *not* being a six-year-old child?!
"Father, Mother, I plan to remarry Wan'er. I promise I will treat her well for the rest of my life," Liu Bufan said solemnly.
Putting aside his identity as an Immortal Emperor, Jiang Wan'er's parents were his true parents-in-law. Ever since he married Wan'er, the two elders had treated him well and shouldered the pressure from the Jiang family on his behalf. Liu Bufan still held deep respect for them.
Jiang's mother, Li Xiue, gave Jiang Shanyue a complicated look. The latter returned a reassuring look and said to Liu Bufan:
"Bufan, we all know your background. Back then, Wan'er was headstrong and insisted on being with you; we love her, so we didn't object. But she is still our daughter. We could overlook her being wronged, but you raised a hand against her—that is something we find very hard to forgive. You say you'll treat her well, but what proof do you have?"
Hearing this, Jiang Wan'er grew anxious. Just as she was about to speak up and explain that it wasn't Liu Bufan's fault, she felt her small hand enveloped in warmth.
"Father, Mother, I know no matter what I say, it will be hard to convince you, but please take a look..."
Just as Jiang Shanyue reached out for his teacup, he watched as the scars on Liu Bufan's face slowly faded away. His entire posture swept away its dejection, his chest straightening proudly. In short, his aura underwent a drastic transformation.
More importantly, the radiance bursting from his eyes! What absolute, unshakeable confidence!
Jiang's mother was also left dumbfounded. As the saying goes, a mother-in-law looks at her son-in-law with increasing fondness. Furthermore, women are emotional creatures; though she had never seen what Liu Bufan looked like before, the aura he radiated right now unmistakably announced that the man of the past had returned. Overjoyed for her daughter, the corners of her eyes grew moist.
*Clatter.*
The teacup slipped from Jiang Shanyue's hand, shattering the quiet in the room.
Watching her parents' reaction, Jiang Wan'er felt a wave of intense emotion. Who wouldn't want to receive the blessing of their parents when they are with the person they love?
Previously, her parents hadn't objected to her being with Liu Bufan, but they hadn't been particularly happy either—they had always been filled with anxiety and worry. Jiang Wan'er had once asked her father why he was willing to shoulder the family's pressure for her.
Jiang Shanyue's reply had been very simple: *I am a man, and even more so, a father. I cannot let my child bear what I am still strong enough to carry.*
Jiang Wan'er had shared these words with Liu Bufan in the car, making Liu Bufan respect this seemingly unserious yet deeply stubborn father-in-law even more.
"Father, Mother, what happened to me is far too bizarre. The story begins from the moment I was hit by a car..."
Over the next hour or so, Liu Bufan briefly recounted his experiences spanning thousands of years.
After listening to Liu Bufan's tale, Jiang Shanyue and his wife felt their heads buzzing. Li Xiue's hands trembled as she picked up a cup of long-since-cold tea and took a sip.
"L-Little Fan—no, wait, you must be over 8,000 years old now. Calling you that probably isn't right anymore," Jiang's father said with a conflicted expression. "I'm only fifty-five years old, for crying out loud, yet I have an 8,000-year-old son-in-law? And why does this feel so completely absurd..."
Liu Bufan had anticipated this reaction. He casually picked up the two iron exercise balls that Jiang Shanyue usually twirled in his hands.
Jiang's parents watched in bewilderment as their jaws dropped wide open.
The two iron spheres were first crushed together in Liu Bufan's grip until they fused into one; then, he kneaded them like dough until not a trace of metal remained.
*Gulp, gulp.* Two separate sounds of swallowing echoed in the room.
Being able to deform iron balls just required great strength, but turning them into absolute nothingness was an entirely different matter.
Seeing this, Liu Bufan said mildly:
"Father, Mother, do you believe me now? And the two of you don't need to worry about age." He glanced at Jiang Wan'er. "No matter what time comes, the two of you will always be my elders. However, please don't spread the word about my affairs just yet. As you both know, I carry a heavy vengeance. Although I have the ability to exact it right now, I want to find my separated family members before going to Kyoto. I hope you can understand."
Li Xiue nodded:
"Little Fan, you're a capable and resolute child. Your mom and dad won't disrupt your plans. Wan'er is in your hands now; you must take good care of her."
Liu Bufan took his beloved's small hand, placed it against his chest, looked into her eyes, and said solemnly:
"Even if the mountains lose their peaks and heaven and earth merge as one, I will never be parted from you."
Eyes burning red, Jiang Wan'er threw herself directly into Liu Bufan's arms.
Jiang Shanyue coughed twice:
"Ahem, well, Xiue, I'm tired today, let's turn in early, ahem. Oh, and Bufan, remember to buy me two new iron balls tomorrow, don't forget."
Li Xiue glanced at the clock hanging in the living room—*well, 2:30 AM is certainly early enough.* But seeing the children finally finding happiness, she smiled faintly and escorted Jiang Shanyue upstairs.
Only Liu Bufan and Jiang Wan'er were left in the living room.
"Wife?"
"Hmm?"
"Shall we head back to the bedroom?"
The little rabbit in his arms nodded shyly.