RETURN OF THE DRAGON: Made 100 Trillon in A Day

The velvet box in my pocket felt like a lead weight, yet I carried it as if it were the most precious artifact in the world. It was our third anniversary. Three years of marriage to Lin Xiaoran—the woman who had saved me from the gutter, the woman I had spent every waking moment trying to be "enough" for.

I pushed open the heavy oak doors of our cliffside villa. The air inside was thick with the scent of expensive lilies and something else—a sharp, musky cologne that definitely didn't belong to me.

I headed for the master bedroom, my heart thumping against my ribs. I wanted to surprise her. I had spent the last of my meager savings on a diamond that looked like a drop of frozen starlight. I was the "trash" husband, the man the city laughed at for being a stay-at-home lackey while his wife ran a business empire. But tonight, I thought, we would celebrate our bond.

I reached the door. It was slightly ajar.

"The ocean is deep, Qin Ming," a voice drifted through the crack. It was Xiaoran. Her voice didn't have its usual warmth. It was cold, clinical, and sharp as a scalpel. "But not as deep as the grave I've dug for your ego."

I froze. My hand stayed hovered over the handle.

"He’s served his purpose, hasn't he?" a man’s voice responded. I knew that voice. Chu Haoran. My boss. My "best friend." The man who had given me a job out of "pity."

I pushed the door open.

The sight was a physical blow to the gut. My wife was wrapped in a silk sheet, lounging on the bed we shared, while Chu Haoran sat beside her, his hand possessively on her thigh. They weren't startled. They were waiting.

"Xiaoran?" My voice was a pathetic croak. "Haoran? What the hell is this?"

Chu Haoran chuckled, a deep, mocking sound. "It’s an intervention, Qin Ming. An intervention for your delusions."

"You’re sleeping with him?" I looked at Xiaoran. "After everything? For three years, I’ve given you everything. I even gave my blood when the doctors said you were dying of that rare deficiency. I’ve been your personal blood bank!"

Xiaoran stood up, letting the sheet fall away as she donned a designer robe. She looked at me with a level of disgust I didn't know a human could harbor. "Gave me your blood? You pathetic, low-born worm. Do you really think I had a 'blood deficiency'?"

I blinked, my mind racing. "The hospital reports... the transfusions..."

"All fake," she snapped. "Every drop of that 'inherited' blood of yours went straight into Haoran. You aren't a husband, Qin Ming. You’re a battery."

"A battery?" I looked at Haoran. He stood up, and I noticed the difference immediately. His skin had a faint, iridescent sheen. His eyes were clear, piercing, and terrifying.

"Your lineage, Qin Ming," Haoran said, walking toward me. I tried to move, but his presence felt like an invisible weight pressing down on my shoulders. "The 'Qin' bloodline is ancient. It’s the purest fuel for cultivation in the modern world. Every time you 'donated' to save your wife, you were actually fueling my ascent to the Sky Realm."

"You stole my life force?" I felt a wave of nausea. "You used our marriage as a harvesting operation?"

"Precisely," Xiaoran said, stepping up beside him. "Why else would a woman like me marry a nobody like you? You have no money, no status, and no spine. But your marrow? Your marrow is worth billions."

"You’re monsters," I spat. I reached for my phone, but Haoran was a blur. He moved faster than a human should be able to. In a second, he was in front of me, his hand around my throat.

"Monsters? No. We’re gods in the making," Haoran hissed. He lifted me off the floor with one hand. "But the well has run dry. The doctors say your blood is thinning. You’ve been bled out, Qin Ming. There’s nothing left to harvest."

"So what?" I wheezed, clawing at his iron grip. "You just... throw me away?"

"That’s exactly what we do with trash," Xiaoran said. She walked over to the dresser and picked up a suppressed handgun. She checked the chamber with a practiced click.

"Xiaoran, wait!" I screamed. "Three years! We lived together! We shared a life! Does that mean nothing to you?"

She laughed, and it was the most horrific sound I’d ever heard. "I had to shower for an hour every time you touched me, Qin Ming. I loathed the very sight of your 'loving' face. Every 'I love you' made my skin crawl."

"Faceslapping truth, isn't it?" Haoran mocked, dropping me to the floor. I collapsed, gasping for air. "You thought you were the protagonist of a romance novel. In reality, you’re just the cow we milked until the udders bled."

I looked up at them from the floor. My "friend" and my "wife." They looked down at me like I was a cockroach they were debating whether to step on or spray.

"I’ll go to the authorities," I gasped. "The cultivation boards... they’ll execute you for illegal harvesting."

"The authorities?" Xiaoran smirked. "Who do you think sits on the board? Haoran’s father is the chairman. The police? I pay their pensions. You’re a ghost, Qin Ming. You have no family to miss you and no friends to look for you."

"Is that why you chose the cliffside villa for the anniversary?" I asked, my voice trembling with a mix of rage and despair.

"Poetic, isn't it?" Haoran said. "The 'worthless' husband, depressed by his own inadequacy, jumps to his death on his third anniversary. A tragic end to a tragic life."

Xiaoran stepped forward and aimed the gun at my forehead. "Goodbye, Qin Ming. Thanks for the power."

"Wait," I said, my voice suddenly calm. The fear had peaked and turned into a cold, hard knot of hatred. "If I’m going to die, tell me one thing. Was any of it real? Even just a second?"

Xiaoran paused, her finger on the trigger. She seemed to think for a moment, then leaned down, whispering in my ear. "The only real thing was the disgust I felt every time I saw your face."

The gun coughed.

The bullet didn't hit my head. She aimed for my shoulder, the force of the impact spinning me around and sending me crashing through the glass balcony door.

"Too quick," Haoran complained. "Let him feel the fall."

I lay on the balcony, the shattered glass cutting into my skin, blood soaking my shirt. I looked out at the dark Atlantic Ocean churning hundreds of feet below.

"You’re right," Xiaoran said, walking out onto the balcony. She looked like a goddess of death in the moonlight. "Let’s give him a show."

She fired again.

One bullet hit my thigh, the other my stomach. The pain was an explosion, a white-hot scream that I couldn't even let out. I staggered back, my heels hitting the edge of the railing.

"Look at him," Haoran laughed, standing in the doorway with his arms crossed. "The great 'Qin' heir. Bleeding out like a stuck pig. Go on, Qin Ming. Take the plunge."

I looked at Xiaoran one last time. She didn't even have the decency to look away. She watched me with a bored expression, waiting for the "trash" to be cleared.

"I’ll see you in hell," I managed to choke out, blood bubbling in my mouth.

"I'll be too high up for you to reach," she replied.

She stepped forward and delivered a sharp, mocking kick to my chest.

I fell.

The sensation of weightlessness was terrifying. The wind roared in my ears, tearing the breath from my lungs. The cliff face was a dark blur. In those few seconds of falling, my entire life flashed before me—the lies, the manipulation, the thousands of milliliters of blood I’d given for a woman who hated me.

I want them to burn, I thought. I want to tear their world down stone by stone.

Then, I hit the water.

It wasn't a soft entry. It was like hitting concrete. My bones snapped, and the cold of the Atlantic rushed into my wounds like needles. I sank rapidly, the bubbles of my last breath rising toward a surface I would never see again.

Darkness began to swallow my vision. The pressure of the deep was crushing what was left of my lungs. My heart slowed. One beat... two...

This is it.

Suddenly, the darkness didn't just fade—it shattered.

A blinding, golden light erupted in the center of my vision. It wasn't the sun, and it wasn't a hallucination of a dying brain. It was a digital interface, sharp and glowing with an impossible radiance.

[System: 100 Trillion Spirit Coins Deposited into Account 0001.]

My mind recoiled. 100 Trillion?

[Host Identity Confirmed: Qin Ming (Lineage: Ancestral God-Blood - Depleted).]

[Condition: Critical. Life Signs: 0.02%. Soul Dissipation: Imminent.]

[Emergency Protocol: Initializing 'God-Body' Reconstruction.]

The gold light began to seep into my skin, turning the dark water around me into a glowing nebula. The pain of my broken bones vanished, replaced by a searing, transcendental heat.

[Warning: Reconstruction requires massive energy expenditure.]

[System Query: Would you like to spend 1 Billion Spirit Coins to survive and activate 'God-Body' Phase One?]

One billion? The number was astronomical, but compared to the 100 trillion balance, it was a drop in the ocean.

Yes! I screamed in the silence of my mind. Spend it! Spend all of it if you have to! I want to live! I want them to pay!

[Transaction Confirmed. Balance: 99,999,000,000,000 Spirit Coins.]

[Commencing 'Immortal Heart' Integration...]

The golden screen pulsed. I felt a thumb-sized spark ignite in the center of my shredded chest. It wasn't a heart of flesh; it was a heart of pure, condensed energy. It beat once—THUMP—and a shockwave cleared the water for ten feet in every direction.

[Bones: Reinforcing with Diamond-Grade Essence...]

[Muscles: Weaving with Celestial Thread...]

[Blood: Purifying and Multiplying...]

My eyes snapped open. They weren't brown anymore. They were glowing with the intensity of two dying stars. I wasn't sinking. I was suspended in the water, a golden god in a dark abyss.

[Phase One Complete. New Feature Unlocked: The Sovereign’s Shop.]

[Host, you have been betrayed by those who took your blood. Would you like to spend 5 Billion Spirit Coins to unlock the 'Blood-Debt' Tracker?]

Do it, I thought, my rage cold and focused now. Identify them. Mark them.

[Blood-Debt Tracker Active. Target 1: Lin Xiaoran (Debt: 4,500cc of God-Blood). Target 2: Chu Haoran (Debt: 4,500cc of God-Blood).]

[System Note: Killing them is too cheap. Would you like to bankrupt their souls?]

I looked up through the dark water. High above, on the edge of that cliff, they were probably clinking glasses of champagne, celebrating my death. They thought they had stolen everything. They didn't realize they had just triggered the awakening of a monster.

"I'm coming back," I whispered, and for the first time, I didn't need air. My voice vibrated through the water like thunder. "And I'm bringing the bill."

[Alert: Hostile Presence Detected on Surface. Chu Corporation Recovery Team approaching to ensure 'Body Disposal'.]

[Would you like to spend 10 Billion Spirit Coins for the 'Instant Kill' Aura or 50 Billion to 'Ascend' and Face-Slap them immediately?]

I felt a predatory grin spread across my face.

Give me the Ascension, I commanded. I want them to see me.

The water around me began to boil.

Up on the cliff, Lin Xiaoran leaned against the railing, sipping a vintage red wine. Chu Haoran stood behind her, his hand on her shoulder.

"It's done," Haoran said, looking at the black waves below. "The 'source' is gone, but I have enough stored to reach the Divine Realm by next month."

"He was so pathetic at the end," Xiaoran mused. "Did you see his face when I told him I hated him? It was almost worth the three years of boredom."

"A toast," Haoran said, raising his glass. "To the death of the trash, and the rise of—"

He stopped.

The ocean below wasn't dark anymore. A golden glow was rising from the depths, growing brighter and larger by the second. The water began to churn, a massive whirlpool forming directly beneath the villa.

"What is that?" Xiaoran gasped, dropping her glass. It shattered on the stone. "An earthquake?"

"No," Haoran whispered, his face pale as he felt a pressure so immense it forced him to his knees. "That... that’s not an earthquake. That’s a cultivation aura. But it’s... it’s impossible. It’s too strong!"

The center of the whirlpool erupted. A pillar of golden light shot into the sky, piercing the clouds and illuminating the entire coastline like high noon.

In the center of the light, a figure rose slowly into the air.

He was dripping wet, his clothes tattered and bloody, but his body was wreathed in a golden flame. His eyes were two pits of celestial fire, locked directly onto the two people on the balcony.

"Qin... Ming?" Xiaoran’s voice was a terrified whimper.

I floated level with the balcony, the air crackling with the sheer amount of power I was radiating. I looked at my "wife" and my "boss," seeing the raw, naked terror in their eyes.

"The ocean is deep, Xiaoran," I said, my voice echoing like a choir of demons. "But I found something at the bottom. And now, I’ve come to collect the interest on my blood."

I stepped forward onto the air as if it were solid ground.

[System: Target 'Chu Haoran' is attempting to flee. Spend 100 Million to lock space-time?]

Spend it, I thought.

Haoran tried to turn, but he froze mid-step, his body locked in place by a force that made the Sky Realm look like child's play.

"Now," I said, reaching out a hand. "Let’s talk about that anniversary gift."

[: Will Qin Ming kill them now, or does the System have a more 'expensive' torture in mind? And who exactly deposited 100 Trillion Spirit Coins into the account of a 'worthless' husband?]

[System: Warning! Unknown High-Level Cultivator approaching at Mach 5. Target: You.]

I didn't blink. I looked at the horizon, then back at the trembling Xiaoran. "Let them come," I growled. "I can afford the fight."