How could she not know that this was a deadly trap?
Zhao Wuji had confiscated her Nine Revolutions Ice Heart Pill and chosen this exact moment, when her Nine Yin Cold Poison was on the verge of fully erupting, to force her to go to the sect's most Yin-heavy location to suppress the formation core.
If she didn't go?
Crushed by the weight of righteousness, all the disciples of Cold Moon Peak would be thrown into the Penalty Hall tomorrow under the charge of "betraying the sect."
If she went?
Under the extreme Yin resonance, the cold poison would seep into her bones. She wouldn't even have the chance to self-destruct her Golden Core, and would inevitably become that old thief's cultivation cauldron.
In her meridians, the Nine Yin Cold Poison felt like thousands upon thousands of ice needles, frantically chiseling away at her Dao foundation.
That despair, chilling to the very depths of her soul, made the knees of this proud Golden Core elder suddenly go soft.
"Ugh..."
She fell to one knee on the freezing ground, panting violently.
Her rapid breaths turned into plumes of white mist in the air.
On her pale white forehead, a fine layer of fragrant sweat beaded up like ice crystals.
In her extreme pain and despair, her usually cold and clear eyes began to lose focus.
Countless scenes flashed through her mind like a spinning lantern.
Finally, they bizarrely fixed upon a pair of deep, cold black eyes.
"Gu Yang..."
Shen Qingyue's trembling eyelashes were covered in frost. Her red lips parted slightly, letting out a murmur like someone talking in their sleep.
"Where are you..."
Shen Qingyue clutched the lapels at her chest tightly, feeling the cold tide inside her body that seemed to want to completely freeze her blood.
If only he were here... if only his Extreme Yang True Fire could scorch her one more time...
A trace of extremely hidden, shameful desire that even she was unwilling to admit grew like wild weeds in this freezing death trap.
...
Falling Cloud Sect, Heavenly Punishment Main Peak.
On the massive white jade training ground, thousands of eternal lamps lit up the night as bright as day.
The curling smoke of soothing sandalwood incense took the shape of auspicious beasts in the night breeze, hovering above the sea of clouds.
Great Elder Zhao Wuji sat upright on a ten-foot-tall purple-gold lotus platform, looking solemn and dignified.
He wore a purple immortal robe embroidered with cloud cranes, his graying beard fluttering slightly in the wind, as he imparted the Great Dao of Core Formation, every word a pearl of wisdom.
Below him, a full three thousand inner and outer sect disciples, along with dozens of deacons, sat formally, listening to his teachings with fanatical eyes.
No one noticed that this highly respected Great Elder's left hand, hidden under his wide sleeve, was forming an extremely bizarre and incomplete hand seal.
Zhao Wuji smiled and stroked his beard, his gaze sweeping over the dense crowd of heads below with compassion.
Three thousand pairs of eyes were fixed on him; three thousand disciples were his witnesses.
Tonight at midnight, he, Zhao Wuji, had been presiding over the main peak, never taking a single step away.
No matter what "accident" happened at the Mirror Moon Cold Lake, it would not have half a spirit stone's worth of connection to him, the benevolent Great Elder.
As for that Blood Transformation Clone that had cost him a hundred years of painstaking effort to refine, it had probably already snuck into the bottom of the lake by now.
The smile on Zhao Wuji's lips grew even more benevolent. The Dao sounds he spat out were like a massive bell, causing all the disciples present to kowtow in unison.
...
A hundred miles north of the Falling Cloud Sect, the Mirror Moon Cold Lake.
The lake, spanning ten miles, had not a single ripple, like a giant piece of black glazed glass set among the mountains.
The lake water was formed from the gathering of extreme Pure Yin spirit water.
Even if a goose feather fell on it, it would instantly be frozen into ice shards and plummet straight to the bottom of the lake.
In the very center of the lake stood a solitary thousand-year Crystal Jade Tree, several dozen feet tall.
It had not a single leaf; its branches were entirely formed from transparent, extremely cold ice crystals.
Beautiful, yet exuding an absolute deathly stillness and fatal danger.
This was the Falling Cloud Sect's most Yin-heavy place, a forbidden zone for living creatures that not even birds dared approach.
"Rustle..."
Faint footsteps crushed the icicles at the edge of the lake.
Shen Qingyue stood all alone, stopping at the edge of this lake of death.
She still wore her signature white palace dress with gold patterns, a wide ink-black silk ribbon tightly cinching her breathtakingly full waist.
On her cold, absolutely beautiful, pale white face, there was not a single trace of emotion.
Only her bright autumn-water eyes, usually as placid as an ancient well, flashed with a trace of extremely suppressed sorrow as she looked at the Crystal Jade Tree in the center of the lake.
Of course, she knew Zhao Wuji's sinister intentions.
The formation core of the Mirror Moon Cold Lake didn't loosen earlier or later, but just had to malfunction on the night of the full moon when her Nine Yin Cold Poison was about to erupt on a massive scale.
But she could not retreat, nor could she run away.
On Cold Moon Peak, there were still over a hundred outer sect disciples who were completely devoted to her.
Once she defied the order, with that old thief Zhao Wuji's ruthless methods, Cold Moon Peak would be completely washed in blood by the butcher knives of the Penalty Hall tomorrow morning.
If she fled, the old thief would definitely search souls and extract memories to find out exactly who possessed the Extreme Yang Physique that had cured her poison that night.
Gu Yang had only just reached Foundation Establishment. No matter how deep his thoughts were, how could he possibly contend against Zhao Wuji, who was at the peak of the Golden Core stage?
Rather than letting him have his tendons pulled and bones extracted by the old thief, she might as well sever this karma with her own hands, and bury all the schemes and deadly traps at the bottom of this unknown icy lake.
Shen Qingyue closed her eyes, and the previous scenes uncontrollably surfaced in her mind once again...
Afterward, she suddenly opened her eyes, the last trace of vulnerability in their depths completely frozen over.
Her bare, cold white jade feet tapped lightly, and Shen Qingyue, like a moth darting into the fire, flew without hesitation toward the deadly Crystal Jade Tree in the center of the lake.
At the center of the lake, above the formation core.
Shen Qingyue landed steadily on the top branch of the Crystal Jade Tree, her hands rapidly forming seals.
The majestic spiritual energy of the Golden Core stage transformed into streaks of pure white, extremely cold silk-like energy, striking precisely into the lake surface below.
"Buzz——!"
The originally dead-silent black lake surface instantly lit up with complex formation patterns.
However, the moment the formation patterns lit up, Shen Qingyue's pupils shrank abruptly!
The deep blue light that was originally supposed to be used to suppress and sort out the spiritual energy unexpectedly twisted into an extremely eerie purple-black in an instant!
The Extreme Yin spirit water in the formation core wasn't suppressed. Instead, like an enraged mad dragon, it followed the streaks of spiritual energy she had struck down and surged upward with extreme ferocity!
The Yin-Yang Reversal Formation!
Zhao Wuji hadn't just tampered with the formation; he had completely changed it into a deadly resonator specifically targeting her Nine Yin Physique!
"Boom!"
The terrifying Extreme Yin resonance was like an invisible heavy hammer, smashing fiercely against Shen Qingyue's dantian.
"Pfft——!"
She threw her head back and spat out a large mouthful of blood mixed with ice crystals. A tragically beautiful red plum blossom instantly bloomed on her white and gold palace dress.
But this was only the beginning.
The forceful backflow of the external Extreme Yin spirit water instantly detonated the Nine Yin Cold Poison deep in her bone marrow, which had been suppressed to the absolute limit!
That was a curse originating from her bloodline, completely impossible to resist with ordinary spiritual energy.
A layer of terrifying, ghostly blue frost instantly condensed on Shen Qingyue's pale white skin.
But this elder of the Falling Cloud Sect did not panic.
Her eyes were terrifyingly cold. Even though her meridians were snapping inch by inch, her hands remained as steady as a boulder.
"Shatter Illusion!"
he colors of other people’s emotions. Light red meant anxiety. Gray meant exhaustion. Orange meant excitement. Yellow... meant repression. At the same time, he could gain unlimited control over one of those colors. Pale cyan: relaxation. Using this ability, he started offering “two-yuan hugs,” spending an afternoon exchanging emotional-color experiences with others. Then came his final female customer of the day— a girl whose emotional color was pure black... —— A week later, Xu Chuan had become skilled at using pale cyan—Relaxation—treating it like a bottle of menthol balm whenever he needed it. That was when he discovered he had unlocked another unlimited emotional color: Purple, the color of fear. So these emotional colors refresh every week? Fine, I take it back—I’ll never call you useless again... —— Much later, after Xu Chuan had accumulated countless emotional abilities, one night, he suddenly found himself inside someone else’s dream. There, he could use the emotional colors he possessed to paint. And in her dream, he painted her a shower of pink shooting stars, spreading across the depths of the night sky...
m back to his original world. In the end, he realized he had overthought things. [Hey, why is Shen Manni, the female lead, acting strange? Shouldn't she be fawning over the male lead at this point?] [Zhou Qiaoqiao, are you sick? Weren't you supposed to break off your engagement today?] [Damn it! An Youyi, please do your job as an undercover agent and sell my information to the protagonist, you idiot!] ... At this moment, Xu Mo himself didn't know that these female leads had already heard his inner thoughts. Then they decided not to play by the rules. Xu Mo: Please respect my profession as the big villain!
ions, keeping it grounded and realistic】 After quitting his job, office worker Su Yang accidentally binds with the "Enjoy Life System." As the name suggests, simply by indulging in life's pleasures, he can earn random rewards from the system—no need to spend money on beautiful women or grovel before anyone. Just enjoy, and the money follows, making it all about effortless fun. The system comes with a scanning feature, allowing him to establish a favorability bond with women rated 85 points or above. Every 20-point increase in favorability unlocks additional rewards. After suffering through over twenty years of hardship, Su Yang trembles with excitement, his dull eyes suddenly gleaming with newfound hope. "Enjoy life? How hard could that be?"
] [Lone Wolf, No Male Gaze] [Protagonist is pursued early on; extreme protagonist-stans, stay away!] The "Carnival Paradise" descends and slowly devours the real world in the form of a game. By chance, Zhu Yan awakens the talent [Roleplay], becoming one of the first beta players. He thought he could develop safely, but after clearing the first instance, he is branded by humanity as the chief culprit behind the game's spread—a traitorous villain. A villain? Who would ever... become one! He'll be the villain! From then on, Zhu Yan is not only a player but also a lackey for the Carnival Paradise. Between the straight path and the crooked path, he chooses the con. With his left hand, he dons the villain's mantle, staging scenes within instances, infuriating players who decry him as a despicable traitor, all while the game happily promotes him. With his right hand, he joins the non-human organization "Fangcun Mountain," which opposes the Carnival Paradise, transforming into a mysterious player who slaughters game bosses, earning cheers of "Long live the expert!" from fellow players. Gradually, Zhu Yan rises to become an S-rank human player in Fangcun Mountain's archives, while also being the Carnival Paradise's certified top game Boss. But when the final war erupts and both major factions place their hopes in him— Players tag his various aliases: "Experts, this offensive depends on you." The Carnival Paradise's supreme Boss throws an arm around his neck: "Bro, you're the iron, I'm the steel; you can't let me down again!"
