Falling Cloud Sect, Cold Moon Peak.
Piercingly cold astral winds howled outside the cliff, yet a suppressed undercurrent eerily permeated the grand hall.
Gu Yang stepped over the high threshold, his deep black eyes sweeping across the empty hall without a ripple of emotion.
On the cold jade bed.
Shen Qingyue was still wearing that magnificent palace dress with gold patterns on a white background.
After being cleansed by the Great Sun True Fire and nourished by the Extreme Yin Spirit Lake, her beautiful, originally paper-pale skin now revealed a breathtaking, lustrous glow.
Even just sitting there quietly, the cold aloofness and lofty majesty belonging to a Golden Core stage grand cultivator made one dare not look at her directly.
However.
When her gaze crossed Gu Yang and landed on the gray figure following closely behind him.
Shen Qingyue's clear, autumn-water eyes, usually as placid as an ancient well or a freezing pool, suddenly shrank.
Zhao Yuelian stopped half a step behind Gu Yang, bowing her head deeply.
The coarse gray outer sect servant robe she wore could not hide her ripe, voluptuous curves at all.
Instead, due to the tightness of the fabric, her slender waist and astonishing curves were fully accentuated.
What suffocated Shen Qingyue the most.
Was the faint spiritual power fluctuation emitting from this woman, which made even her heart pound with fear!
Late Core Formation stage, Great Circle of Perfection!
Shen Qingyue gripped her cuffs, her voice so cold it could almost drop ice shards.
A Core Formation Great Circle... sword attendant?
Gu Yang did not turn his head; the corner of his gray clothes fluttered slightly in the draft.
Zhao Yuelian, however, acutely caught the hint of jealousy in the depths of Shen Qingyue's eyes.
As a Supreme Elder of the Joyous Union Sect who had struggled for hundreds of years in a cannibalistic demonic lair, when it came to manipulating human hearts, an icy snow lotus like Shen Qingyue who had always cultivated in a greenhouse was absolutely no match for her.
Thud.
Zhao Yuelian's knees gave way, and she knelt extremely humbly on the freezing jade bricks.
This servant Zhao Yuelian greets Elder Shen.
Her cold, breathtakingly beautiful face carried a perfectly measured look of trepidation and docility.
Her voice was bone-meltingly charming, yet it revealed absolute submission.
This servant, with her frail willow-like appearance, was graced by the Young Master's favor to be kept by his side as a vicious watchdog. I would absolutely never dare to overstep my bounds in front of the Elder.
Shen Qingyue's breath suddenly hitched.
Veins throbbed violently on her smooth forehead.
The humbler the other party acted, and the more she kept saying servant and Young Master, the more it felt like poisoned needles fiercely piercing into Shen Qingyue's pride.
A peerless female cultivator with a cultivation base higher than her own was willingly kneeling at her disciple's feet, calling herself a servant!
How was this paying respects?
This was clearly an extremely subtle flaunting to her, showing off Gu Yang's absolute, bone-deep control over her!
What an obedient... watchdog.
Shen Qingyue's full chest heaved slightly.
Gu Yang watched this silent confrontation.
Knowing this woman's tsundere nature well, he leveled his hands and took out an ice-blue jade box wrapped in heavy restrictions from his storage ring.
Gu Yang took a step forward and extremely respectfully presented the jade box onto the cold jade desk in front of Shen Qingyue.
Please quell your anger, Master.
He lowered his head slightly, his deep voice carrying a perfect trace of reverence, giving this iceberg elder plenty of face and an easy way out.
This is a spoil of war that your disciple accidentally intercepted in a perilous secret realm near the Holy Heaven City some time ago. I specifically brought it back to honor you, Master.
Gu Yang's fingertips spat out a faint spiritual light. With a click, the array patterns on the surface of the jade box dissipated like water ripples, and the lid slowly popped open.
System Prompt: Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Yin Jade Pillow: Produced beneath ten thousand fathoms of ice in the Extreme North Ice Plains, taking ten thousand years to form.
System Prompt: Efficacy: Sleeping on it year-round can nourish the divine soul. Especially for female cultivators practicing Yin-cold attribute cultivation methods, it has the miraculous effects of preserving youth and purifying Yin essence.
An extremely pure, freezing aura that even carried a trace of cold, sweet fragrance instantly filled the entire hall.
Gu Yang looked directly into Shen Qingyue's slightly widened autumn-water eyes and spoke to her in a steady tone.
This item is called the Ten-Thousand-Year Profound Yin Jade Pillow.
Your disciple has investigated it. Sleeping on it year-round can constantly nourish the divine soul. For someone like Master, who possesses the Nine Yin Physique, it has the miraculous effects of preserving youth and purifying Yin essence.
Hearing the words purifying Yin essence, Shen Qingyue felt that the newly stabilized Golden Core in her dantian let out a comfortable hum under the nourishment of this cold energy.
A treasure like this, specifically for Yin-cold physiques, could absolutely not be found even if one turned the entire Falling Cloud Sect's treasury upside down!
A highly complex and intense fluctuation instantly flashed through Shen Qingyue's cold eyes.
He... specifically snatched this for her in a perilous secret realm?
And even constantly kept her physique and needs in mind?
A touch of crimson quietly crept up Shen Qingyue's cold, white earlobes.
It is just a dead object.
Shen Qingyue abruptly turned her head away, not daring to look into Gu Yang's deep eyes. Her tone was still as stiff as a block of ice.
Do not think that this little favor can offset your frivolity of bringing a woman of dubious background back to the peak.
However, her jade-like hands, tightly gripping the edge of the jade box to the point where her slender nails were almost digging into the jade's texture, betrayed the joy in her heart at this moment.
...
He did not point out Shen Qingyue's awkwardness, but instead cast his gaze extremely stealthily upon Zhao Yuelian, who was kneeling on the ground.
On the system panel, the progress bar stuck at 32 percent looked particularly glaring.
He had to use stronger medicine.
The ancient illusion array, Lesser Formless Illusion Array, silently descended between the two of them!
In Shen Qingyue's line of sight.
The foxy sword attendant originally kneeling on the ground suddenly trembled all over, as if unable to withstand the pressure from her, the legitimate elder.
She kowtowed in trepidation.
Then, the woman humbly hunched her body and tactfully retreated to the dark corner at the outermost edge of the hall, turning her back to them like a dead stone statue.
Shen Qingyue's tense back finally relaxed a tiny, imperceptible bit.
At least this demonic woman knows her place.
An extremely secret delight of defeating a potential threat rose in her heart as her fingertips gently stroked the cold texture of the jade box.
However.
In the real space less than three feet away from Shen Qingyue!
Gu Yang had not retreated half a step at all. His body, scorching hot like a furnace, pressed directly closer.
His large hand, bearing thin, rough calluses, was like iron tongs as it extremely roughly grabbed Zhao Yuelian's burning wrist!
Mmph!
Zhao Yuelian's pupils contracted sharply. Her entire body was pulled directly toward that broad chest by an irresistible, massive force.
Gu Yang slipped one hand inside that coarse gray servant robe.
Young Master... do not...
Zhao Yuelian's clear autumn-water eyes instantly widened to their limits, and a fine layer of fragrant sweat suddenly beaded on the tip of her nose.
Shen Qingyue was sitting on the cold jade bed less than three feet away!
She could even clearly hear Shen Qingyue's extremely faint, soothing breathing as she admired the extreme cold jade pillow!
...
Ding! Detected that the target has generated feelings of extreme shame and immorality.
[ 'Nine Yin Creation Dao Seed' condensation progress: 33%... 38%... 42%! ]
...
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
rowess are unmatched, commanding a million-strong army! Yet, the Emperor wants to depose him for the sake of a false prince? Hold on, are you throwing me into some female-oriented romance plot? How can I tolerate this? With a grand wave of his hand—the Nine Clan Extraction Technique! Slander the Emperor? Very well, all of you shall die! ... The False Prince: "Although I am not the biological son, Father and Mother love me more. The throne should be mine!" The Female Lead: "Qin Xiao, you are the Emperor, and I am a commoner. If you wish to marry me, you must abdicate. Otherwise, you will never have me!" The Empress: "After we divorce, you must give me half the empire!" The Transmigrator Consort: "You worthless Emperor, why should I kneel to you? All men are equal—I advise you to be kind!" The Great General: "The enemy general is my childhood sweetheart. For her sake, I willingly abandon the frontier defenses!" The Retired Emperor: "Although Yu'er was adopted, I prefer him. Qin Xiao, you should abdicate and let him become Emperor!" ... Very well! So this is how you want to play? Facing this twisted world of female-oriented tropes, Qin Xiao grins and raises his hand to unleash—the Nine Clan Extraction Technique! I am the Emperor. Why would I bother reasoning with you? Seal the gates! Leave none alive!
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
