Sweet Romance11 min read
I woke up in a cultivation world and my exes were famous immortals
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"I won't get up," I said, and pulled a pillow over my head.
"Get up, Addison! You're going to be late!" Valentina grabbed the bedframe and yanked. Her twin buns bobbed. "Really, stop burying your face."
I peeled the pillow back and squinted at ceiling rafters I did not own. Silk draped the window, not the cheap blinds from my last apartment on Earth. My hair—"my" hair—hung long and black across the edge of the bed like a comet tail. I wanted to be anywhere but here.
"You'll be fine," Valentina said. "We have to go. The selection begins."
"I didn't sign up to be selected by immortals," I muttered. "I signed up for sleep."
She shoved a mirror in front of my face. "You? Never."
I looked. My cheeks were porcelain. My phone-free mind made decisions I never learned. "Valentina, are you sure you're not an actor?" I blinked. "This is a set."
"You're the one who bumped into a whole circle of immortals like it was a coffee date," she said. "Do you want me to braid your hair properly or will this half-pony do?"
"I don't know how to do any of this." I plucked a stray lock and did the best high ponytail I could.
We hurried down the mountain path. The testing grounds smelled of pine and incense. People gathered around a huge amber stone that would reveal memories. I frowned.
"What does that stone do?" I whispered.
Valentina winked. "It shows your past. It decides whether you are good or lazy. And if you are caught lying about your practice, it shows it."
"Great. I have a past of sleeping in, binge-watching, and ordering late-night noodles." I laughed, but my stomach dropped. My original life, that neat stack of papers and a rented car, felt like a dream I kept trying to return to. I still had no memory of the actual moments before I opened my eyes here, only flashes—faces.
"Who are you looking at?" Valentina asked.
I looked up. Four men sat on the judges' stone like gods: pale and otherworldly. Their faces, in the blinding sunlight, were heartbreakingly familiar. When I met one pair of eyes, my heart lurch knocked like an alarm.
"Conway Vargas?" I whispered.
"Don't be ridiculous." Valentina nudged me. "Conway is a living legend. He looks terrifyingly like someone you'd date on purpose."
"They all look like someone I dated," I said. The word landed between us, ridiculous and true. Four faces from previous versions of my life seemed to have been cast into immortals: one gentle, one dangerous, one flirtatious, and one who used to be kind.
"Addison Carroll!" the old Master called. "First round: the Memory Stone."
"They'll show my past," I said. "They'll show me ordering delivery at midnight and leaving dishes in the sink for three days."
Valentina snorted. "Stop being dramatic. You'll pass."
"They said it tests your heart. It will show everything."
"Only everything bad makes for a good story," she said.
I stepped forward when my name was called. The stone glowed and then poured out my days. I watched myself—stumbling, clumsy, trying to train with a wooden sword and plunging into a pond after mistaking a cow for a challenge. "You jumped in after a cow," Valentina mouthed behind me. I wanted to sink through the stone like a bad memory.
The Master waved a hand. "Pass."
People applauded. Someone behind me cheered my name. I wanted to smile back, but my face felt like someone else's. I wanted to run and hide in whatever modern city I had crossed from.
"Who is that?" Valentina whispered. "Did you see him on the judges' balcony? Always watching?"
"Which one?" I asked. "Conway? Chase? Quincy? Braxton?"
"Chase Moller," she said. "He's the one with the coconut scent and kind hands. People say whoever he likes will be taken into his own gate."
I made a face. "And the flirtatious one?"
"Quincy Ferrari. A smile that ruins evenings."
"And the serious teacher-man?" I asked, stomach tightening.
"Braxton Bray," Valentina said. "Do not let him flatter you. He's clever. People whisper about him."
I swallowed. The competition moved into the second phase—teams. We were four: Valentina, the tall calm elder sister Sistrum (she introduced herself as Ansel Brantley; she was a skilled blade), Alejandro Richter (a rich, always-smiling benefactor who had offended a few on his way up), and me.
"Remember," Valentina said, "keep your head. Don't do anything silly."
"Not that I can help it."
"You'll hold out," she promised.
Team battles were messy. Valentina's secret weapon was a shield she made from a weaponsmith family rune; she held the line while Ansel danced through opponents. Alejandro fanned, always cool, and I did what I could: I rode my little white balance device—my "Little White"—and dodged.
At the end of the day, we had won more by luck than strength.
"Addison." A voice, warm and precise.
I turned. Emissary Chase Moller stood with a small offering: a packet of food and a space pouch he gave me to keep. "Eat," he said.
"Thank you," I said, and took the pouch. He smiled and said, almost absentminded, "Choose me in the final."
"Choose you," I repeated like an echo that didn't belong to me.
He nodded. "Be safe."
The final trial was a hunt through the Blackwood. "Find one of twenty-three seed pearls hidden inside the forest," the Master had said. "Three shining pearls grant a choice—direct discipleship to a teacher. Many pearls will be guarded."
I slipped into the trees and found a pearl almost at my feet—a white one that looked like jade. I snatched it and stuffed it into the space pouch Chase had given me. Within earshot, people were shouting and scuffling. I moved away.
"These pearls follow fate," a quiet voice said behind me.
A man in black stood on a mossy rise. His features were plain but the eyes were sharp. He introduced himself as White—no, he said, "Ansel," and then corrected, "No—my name is Braxton Bray."
I froze. "Braxton Bray?" I echoed. A name I had heard swirl through the tents like storm rumors. He offered no smile.
"Keep to your path," Braxton said.
"I—" I started, then clapped a hand over my mouth. I was suddenly a child being shushed. I hurried on.
Later, in another clearing, I saw a scene rippling through the leaves: a group of masked men surrounding a woman. I remembered the earlier commotion by the lantern bazaar when a nobleman's men had cornered a beauty. Instinct made me do something wildly stupid: I lit a charred knot of paper and threw it into a nearby dry patch. Smoke flared. People rushed.
When the dust settled, the woman was safe. She had disappeared into the crowd, leaving behind only a scent of jasmine and that impossible familiarity—someone who looked exactly like a gentle face I used to lie beside, Conway Vargas. I breathed and something in me bowed.
"Addison," someone said. "You found a white pearl."
I looked down. The pearl hummed like a heart. I tucked it into my pouch and continued.
A day later, the Master's stage hosted the final proclamation. "Those who found pearls may choose a teacher," the Master intoned. "If a shining pearl chooses you, its bearer may ask for a direct discipleship."
My hands were shaking. Valentina squeezed them. "Choose careful."
I walked among teachers, and there they were: Conway Vargas with a quiet ease, Chase Moller offering steady hands, Quincy Ferrari leaning like a cat, and Braxton Bray—cool, polite, and smiling like a masked blade.
I stepped forward because my legs remembered him even before my brain did—Chase Moller. "I would like to choose," I said.
"Choose who," Braxton asked at my side, smiling thin.
"Chase Moller," I said without thinking. The crowd stirred. Chase's eyes—like the sea after rain—met mine.
"Very well," Master said, "Chase Moller accepts."
Relief warmed me. People cheered. I thought of Little White, of Valentina, of the pouch full of warm dried fruits. For a sliver of a second, I allowed myself to be happy.
Then a hush slid across the square. Someone raised a hand and shouted, "Stop!"
No one noticed at first. Then the screen behind the stage burst into light. Images streamed across—transcriptions, plain as day: messages, hidden ledgers, deeds. Braxton Bray's smiling face replaced the decorative banners.
"What is this?" he demanded.
The Master gestured toward the flaring screen. "Evidence," he said.
The messages were undeniable. Braxton had been buying off scouts, arranging teams to raid pearls and to manipulate matches. Worse: he had authorized a contingency to corner and coerce a woman who was resisting going with his men—orders issued in his tidy, charming handwriting. The crowd read the words as if they were knives. I heard a ripple of disbelief.
"He paid scouts to deliver pearls to me," Braxton said, voice steady. "That is—"
"You're supposed to be a revered elder," Conway Vargas said, stepping forward. His voice was soft, but it cut. "How did you plan to put our selection under your thumb?"
Braxton's calm cracked. "You can't prove—"
A judge clicked a small charm, and the screen filled with other proof: receipts, bindings, a ledger that matched the old man's seal to a bribe. Someone in the crowd had recorded an entire meeting where Braxton laughed about "teaching the naive," and the audio played, his laughter ringing off the stone.
"I never—" he began, and then the tone changed. His face flushed from polite to shocked.
"You paid for outcomes," Conway said. "You used men to threaten, to coerce."
Braxton's mouth opened and closed. "Those messages were misread. I meant—" He tried the soft-smile that had charmed delegations, but no one softened. The round stone emitted a low hum. The Master raised his hands.
The change in Braxton was a slow, total collapse. First, the confidence faltered; he repeated phrases like a man learning new words. The crowd's murmurs turned to shouts.
"Is this true?" a woman demanded.
Braxton's eyes darted. "No! I—I never thought—"
"Then explain to us," Conway said, "how you ordered raids to claim pearls? Why men followed your orders to harass a stranger?"
"Those men were hired! They acted without my full knowledge!" Braxton's voice climbed into the edge of panic. "I would never—" He took a step and then another as if the ground itself had shifted.
An elder disciple produced a sealed letter, and the ink inside matched Braxton's handwriting. The crowd read and recoiled. Someone began to record. Phones did not exist here, but apprentices held up stones that captured images; a network of disciples passed the recordings to the city. The noise swelled: shock, anger, phones clicking—the sound of future gossip being born.
"Stop him!" someone shouted. "He can't buy our entrance!"
"I demand a trial!" Braxton snapped. It came out too loud, too naked. His polished words turned brittle. He glared, then faltered. The warmth drained from his face: from smug to startled to desperate.
"Do people want him judged publicly?" the Master asked.
"Yes!" The voice rose to a roar. "He corrupted the fairness of the selection!"
Braxton's face contorted through denial, then wild reasoning. "You're wrong! This is political. I was trying to guard against chaos. I meant to keep order—"
"Order?" an old woman shouted. "You call this order? You call threatening women and bribing scouts order?"
The red in Braxton's face crawled into purple. People no longer looked like spectators. They were a jury. Someone in the crowd stepped forward, a bold sophomore whose brother had been pushed off the stage earlier. He held up a cloth. On it were the names of every family whose candidate had been sabotaged.
"Where is the honor you boast?" he demanded.
Braxton scanned the crowd and saw only betrayal. Then the expression collapsed into a single, small thing: panic.
He lurched forward and dropped to his knees on the marble, his fine robes wrinkling, one hand pressed to the ground as if the stones themselves had betrayed him. "I didn't—" he pleaded, and now the words sounded like a child, raw and thin.
"Beg?" someone hissed.
A ripple of translation spread. Hands shoved smartphones toward the kneeling man. Someone recorded every tremor. The circle around him tightened. The apprentices who had been ordered kept silent—some with glee, some with bitter shame.
"Please," Braxton croaked. He reached for mercy as if it were a drink. "I will repay. I'll give everything. I—"
The crowd did not immediately answer. There was a tenseness like a trapped animal. Then voices rose in judgement, and in those voices I heard every pain his schemes had carved open—the parents who had labored for a fair chance, the hopeful youths pushed and shoved and made to fall. The first sound that came back was cold: "No."
He tried to stand and was held down by his own hands of honor; a thousand looks boiled into a single, stinging point. His expression turned to pleading. "Forgive me! I will kneel before Master. I will hand over all my holdings. Please—please—"
People recorded, whispered, pressed throngs of paper evidence into the Master's hands. The crowd exhaled scorn, then a sound like release: they wanted retribution not only in punishment, but in exposure. Someone in the audience—an apprentice quick with a stone recorder—stepped into the stone circle and read back Braxton’s own words from the hidden ledger. Each line landed like a hand.
At first Braxton protested. "You're reading my private letters—it's out of context!"
Out of context: a plea that went nowhere in a square where context was now truth. A woman—one of those he'd sent men after—stood up from where she had hidden behind a pillar. Her voice was low and steady. "He made me afraid to leave the market. He told my children they would end up on the street." Then she turned and walked directly toward Braxton.
"He thought you were a commodity," Conway said. "Not a person."
"I—" Braxton sobbed. The proud man had been stripped. He sought to raise a hand to stop her, but she did nothing more than lift a finger and point at the ledger. "See? Proof."
Braxton's calm disintegrated into gasping pleas. "Please. I will give everything. I didn't do—" The words tumbled, collapsing into silence.
Around us, the crowd's reaction changed from shock to a slow, public humiliation: cameras captured his pleas; apprentices filmed the kneeling of a once-honored elder. "He is not invincible," someone said. "He is fallible."
Braxton's voice thinned and then hoarsened. "Please. Forgive—"
The first to move were those he had slighted: apprentices who had been pushed, parents who had cried at late-night rejections, the woman who had been cornered. One by one, they stepped forward, not to deliver blows, but to place the ledger under the Master’s hands as evidence. The Master's judgement was quiet, merciful for the innocent, stern for the calculated.
"You will be stripped of mentorship," the Master said. "You will be barred from living in the sanctum. You will make public reparations and personally help those you wronged. Your deeds will be carved upon the Hall Door."
The crowd listened. Braxton's eyes, once flame-bright in their cunning, went dull. He tried to speak, then sank to his face. He beat the marble with both fists as if to pound the shame out of his bones. The recordings would be shared beyond the mountain. He would be known everywhere—not for titles, but for the day he bought his power and lost it.
"I beg," Braxton said, now small as a child. He clung to the Master's robe with shaking hands, pleading for mercy.
No one wept for him. The crowd's mood was not vengeful so much as exultant over fairness restored. Some clapped, others simply breathed relief. A few people, with phones raised like lanterns, filmed the kneeling, the begging, the slow change of expression: from arrogance to shock, from denial to pleading, from pleading to collapse.
He would rise again in some form; surely he would try to buy his way back in another life. But for now, in the plaza where the pearls shone under the mountain sun, Braxton Bray's empire shrank to the size of his knees on stone, his hands reaching for mercy and the camera lights catching every salt wet of his cheeks.
Later, as I sat on the steps with Valentina and Ansel, watching Conway's quiet expression and Chase's steady smile, I took Little White out and rubbed its edge.
"That was..." Valentina said.
"Public," I finished. My throat tasted like victory and ash. "I never thought I'd see something like that."
"Neither did I," Valentina said. "But you stayed. You helped."
I looked at the snowman in the glass box of Chase's temporary tent—the last odd thing in an existence gone surreal—and I realized the world had rules. "I want to go home," I admitted.
Chase's voice cut through the gathering dusk. "You found a pearl, Addison. If you choose me, I'll keep you safe." He reached into his sleeve and handed me the space pouch back, now with two sparkling scrapes of light within.
I thought of the humiliation of Braxton and how truth had come like a blade when everyone saw. I thought of Conway's quiet kindness and Valentina's fierce loyalty. I looked down at the little snowman—its glass case fogging in the cooling air—and smiled the oddest, most private smile.
"Okay," I said. "I choose to learn. But I keep Little White."
Chase laughed, a sound like wind over water. "Good. You'll need it."
That night, I fell asleep with my hand tucked into the pouch. Little White hummed in the next room. The snowman in its cool glass seemed to wink. I dreamed of city lights and then of the mountain lanterns, and I woke up thinking of a single, impossible truth: sometimes you get dragged into a new world. Sometimes you are shown what you were hiding. And sometimes the people who look like your old lovers are teachers you never expected to have.
"Tomorrow," Valentina said, rousing me, "we practice."
"Tomorrow," I agreed, because I had already chosen an impossible line between who I once was and who I would be.
The End
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