The night in Crimson Flame City was far from cool.
The restlessness of the underground fire veins seemed even more intense than during the day. The dark red rocky pavement was like a red-hot branding iron, steaming with infuriating waves of heat.
Gu Yang pulled down his bamboo hat, his figure weaving through the intricate labyrinth of alleys like a phantom.
He walked quickly, yet made absolutely no sound.
Suddenly, Gu Yang's silhouette vanished into the shadows at the end of Dead End Alley. His breathing ceased completely, as if he had never existed at all.
A few breaths later.
That Ugly Slave, carrying a giant sword and hunching her back, sneaked a peek inside. Her face was smeared with sallow grass juice and dotted with nauseating black moles, her eyes frantically searching the blind alley.
Where did he go?
In that moment of bewildered helplessness, a cold, rough hand lunged out of the darkness without warning. Like iron tongs catching a venomous snake, it locked onto the back of her neck in a death grip.
Bang!
A dull, teeth-aching thud echoed.
Ji Shuanghua didn't even have time to circulate her protective spiritual energy before her entire body was ruthlessly slammed against the rough, uneven bluestone wall by that tyrannical force.
Her cheek scraped violently against the moss- and filth-covered stone bricks. A burning, stinging pain instantly flared up as a few traces of blood seeped out, mixing with the black soot on the wall in a miserable state.
Ugh...
A sense of suffocation instantly flooded her brain.
Which gutter rat are you?
Gu Yang's voice exploded by her ear, hoarse, icy, and carrying undisguised disgust. Sent by the Lin family?
Along with the interrogation, Gu Yang's grip suddenly tightened.
His knuckles sank deeply into the tender, soft flesh of her neck, pinning her face firmly against the wall that reeked of urine.
Pain.
An agonizing pain that felt as if her spine was about to snap.
But the moment this intense pain traveled up her nerve endings into her brain, Ji Shuanghua's pupils, initially constricted in terror, suddenly dilated.
This feeling...
This feeling of being dominated by absolute power...
It was too familiar!
Although she couldn't see his face right now, this trembling killing intent, this sheer indifference that didn't even treat her as a human, it could be none other than the man who had thrown her away like trash in the Biluo Secret Realm!
It was him!
Ji Shuanghua's body trembled instinctively, but it wasn't out of fear. Instead, it was a tingling numbness and excitement originating from the depths of her soul. The Shattered Jade Sword Bone within her body was like a shark smelling blood, beginning to thrash madly through her meridians.
Not talking?
Seeing the ugly woman in his grasp remain silent, her body turning soft like a puddle of mud, Gu Yang scowled.
He violently grabbed her collar, roughly tearing her away from the wall and turning her around to face him.
By the faint moonlight filtering into the alley, Gu Yang finally saw the true face of this rat.
Sallow, withered skin, inexplicable black moles, messy hair like dead grass, and a sour stench deliberately smeared on for disguise.
Gu Yang's brows instantly knitted into a tight knot, the disgust in his eyes practically overflowing.
Truly disgusting.
Those words were like a heavy sledgehammer, smashing ruthlessly against Ji Shuanghua's heart.
If anyone else dared to evaluate the Eastern Region's number one beauty, the Ice Soul Sword Immortal, in such a way, they would have long been decapitated by her sword.
But at this moment, looking into Gu Yang's unwavering eyes that stared at her as if looking at a rotting lump of meat, Ji Shuanghua only felt a jolt of electricity instantly pierce through the crown of her head.
He doesn't recognize me.
He doesn't know I am the lofty Ice Soul Sword Immortal.
In his eyes, I am just an ugly, dirty, and lowly stalker.
Therefore, this disgust was real.
This humiliation was pure.
Stripped of her status and the filter of her beauty, she was trampled beneath his feet.
Haa...
A broken gasp squeezed out of Ji Shuanghua's throat. Those eyes, usually as cold and clear as frost, were now glistening with a sickly wetness, staring fixedly at Gu Yang. A trace of greed and obsession actually seeped into her gaze.
Gu Yang felt a chill of revulsion from that stare.
Is this woman a lunatic?
Or a rogue cultivator who practiced some evil art and suffered qi deviation?
I don't care who sent you.
Gu Yang released his hand, letting her slide to the ground like a puddle of mud.
Seeing as you are a piece of trash, I won't kill you. I'm afraid of dirtying my hands.
Roll as far away as you can.
If I ever see your disgusting face in my sight again, I'll chop you into pieces and feed you to the dogs.
After saying that, Gu Yang didn't even cast another glance at the woman on the ground, turning and striding away.
The alley returned to a dead silence.
Only the faint sound of a blacksmith striking iron could be heard in the distance.
A long time passed.
The heap of shadows huddled in the corner stirred.
He didn't kill me...
Because I'm a piece of trash... because he was afraid of dirtying his hands...
Ji Shuanghua muttered to herself, her voice hoarse and trembling.
Was it shameful?
It was shameful to the extreme.
The dignified Saintess of the Supreme Sword Sect, cursed as disgusting trash.
But... it felt so good.
This sense of reality, being stripped of all halos, utterly cast down into the dust, and despised like garbage, made her tremble.
The hypocritical compliments and careful fawning of her martial brothers on ordinary days seemed so pale and powerless in the face of Gu Yang's truly disgusting.
The sword qi within her body was like a burst dam at this moment, violently washing through her meridians.
The bottleneck known as Supreme Forgetfulness that had always stuck her actually split open with a massive crack amid this extreme humiliation and self-loathing.
There was no need to sever the threads of emotion.
There was no need for a heart as still as water.
As long as this pain remained, her sword could become even sharper!
You didn't recognize me...
That's great... you didn't recognize me.
Ji Shuanghua staggeringly stood up from the mud. Her originally hunched back was now perfectly straight. A heart-palpitating, razor-sharp sword intent flashed around her, instantly slicing countless fine sword marks into that urine-reeking wall.
She picked up the broken bamboo hat from the ground and put it back on her head, concealing those eyes that had turned bloodshot red from extreme excitement.
Stumbling yet resolute, she moved toward the direction where Gu Yang had disappeared.
...
[Loading today's intelligence...]
[Green Intelligence: Zhu Lie, a true disciple of the Blazing Sun Holy Land, and his follower Zhao Fen, are not on this journey for experiential learning. Instead, they are acting on secret sect orders to retrieve the inheritance fire seed lost by the Holy Land three hundred years ago at all costs, the Golden Crow Origin Fire.
The Sun Seeking Compass in Zhu Lie's hands is extremely sensitive to the aura of the Golden Crow.
Because the Sun Seeking Compass produced a slight reaction at the Lin Manor, the two have already passed the preliminary round of the Lin family's martial arts marriage tournament and have decided to visit the Lin family's forbidden grounds tomorrow.]
...
Gu Yang remembered there was a green intelligence report before.
It said that on the night he awakened the Golden Crow Origin Fire, the Sun God Mirror deep within the Blazing Sun Holy Land sensed the anomaly of the origin fire seed.
They believed this was the origin fire that had been lost outside.
They also dispatched several disciples, moving from west to east, to systematically investigate genius disciples possessing fire-attribute constitutions.
To think they had tracked it all the way here.
e, Immortal Body, Transmigration, System, Progression Fantasy, Academy Setting, Third-Person Perspective. Alternate Title: Transmigrating into a High Martial World and Reading Live Comments. Bad news: I transmigrated. This is a terrifying high-martial world, and my original, pathetically weak body fell into a coma and never woke up. Good news: I got a Popularity Points system upon arrival. I can see live comments and even create an unkillable alternate identity. Starting out, the alternate identity has all stats at 1. The system tells me that to grow stronger, I must participate in the plot, gain popularity points to allocate stats and grow stronger, and ultimately awaken my original body. And so, carrying my original body on my back, I officially entered Huaqing Academy, where the story's protagonist resides. From that moment on, Chen Guan kicked the original plot to pieces. Live Comments: [Doesn't anyone find this mysterious coffin guy creepy? He can summon indescribable grey misty hands.] [Is this guy a hero or a villain? What kind of onion became a spirit?] [By the way, does anyone know who's in the coffin? Shouldn't the debt for saving his life be repaid by now?] [According to unofficial histories, the person in the coffin was Chen Guan's first love. Their love was once passionate and earth-shattering, but they were separated by life and death due to worldly circumstances. What a star-crossed pair.] ... Years later, the world knew of a demon god born from a coffin, shrouded in grey mist, impossible to gaze upon directly. His foremost divine emissary often wielded a scythe, reaping lives like the god of death. As war approached, facing former friends and a boundless sea of enemies, Chen Guan merely raised his scythe. "Would you like to dance as well?"
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...
ts me of treason?" "Correct. The host must return to the capital and gradually build up influence." "Wait—I have half a million soldiers, and you want me to go back to the capital to 'build influence'?" "Host, you are currently the Northern Garrison General, loyal to the Great Xia Dynasty." "Of course I am loyal to Great Xia! Absolutely loyal!" "But you keep referring to yourself as 'We'..." "Never mind the details! Summon all the regional commanders and military officers! We suspect treacherous officials are manipulating the court! They shall march with Us to the capital and purge the corrupt!" "......"
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?"
