She wore a complex Miao silver headdress, with silver tassels hanging over her eyes, obscuring most of her face. It only revealed a pair of fox-like eyes with a half-smile, and lips painted with a deep purple rouge.
Around her, many righteous cultivators who prided themselves on their profound self-control were secretly observing her from the corners of their eyes.
Their Adam's apples bobbed, their gazes burning with desire.
Yet, no one dared to step forward and strike up a conversation.
Because just half an hour ago, a blind rogue cultivator tried to flirt with her.
As a result, before he even got within thirty feet, his entire body silently and inexplicably melted into a puddle of foul-smelling black water.
However, in Gu Yang's eyes, the current state of the Holy Maiden of the Southern Border seemed a bit off.
Her eyes seemed somewhat hollow and unfocused.
It was as if she were being controlled by someone.
...
Rumble!
Just then, the earth suddenly began to tremble violently.
An ancient, desolate aura surged forth from deep underground.
The originally dim sky was instantly torn apart by a pillar of black light shooting up into the heavens.
"It's open!"
"The entrance to the forbidden grounds is open!"
The crowd instantly boiled over with excitement.
In the center of the mass grave, the ground slowly split apart like a giant mouth.
The entrance to an ancient, ruined underground palace, exuding a terrifying pressure, was revealed to the world.
And at that entrance, a ten-zhang tall headless Qilin stone statue stood quietly in the wind and sand, like a gatekeeper from hell.
"Charge!"
"The exotic treasure is mine!"
Reason was fragile in the face of greed.
Countless streaks of light rushed madly toward that pitch-black entrance like moths to a flame.
Screams instantly rang out.
The dozens of cultivators rushing at the forefront, the moment they got within a hundred zhang of the headless Qilin, had their bodies sliced apart by something invisible.
Pfft, pfft, pfft!
Blood splattered, and severed limbs flew everywhere.
That was not ordinary air at all, but the Wind of Extinction formed by countless tiny wind blades.
Gu Yang stood in the distance, watching coldly.
He was waiting.
Waiting for the Chou hour.
Waiting for this group of cannon fodder to wear down the sharp edge of the grand formation with their blood.
Even more so, waiting for... the person holding the key to scout the path first.
In the crowd, Mo Bufan's figure also disappeared.
He didn't rush in; instead, like a venomous snake, he silently slipped into the shadows, sneaking toward a specific direction.
The night sky was like a shroud soaked in clotted blood, pressing heavily over the Immortal Burial Forbidden Grounds.
The screams gradually became sparse.
The Zi hour had arrived.
Before Gu Yang's eyes, lines of small, blood-red text that only he could see faintly emerged in the void.
[Daily Intelligence Refreshing...]
[Today's Intelligence is as follows:]
[White Intelligence: Su Wanyin, the Holy Maiden of the Hehuan Sect, faces the upcoming Blood-Soaked Dharma Battle with very few cards left to play. The sycophants who used to surround her are now watching from the sidelines, and some have even secretly defected to her arch-nemesis. Su Wanyin falls asleep every night hugging an old gray robe stained with the scent of an unfamiliar man. In her dreams, she longs for that man with absolute power to appear again and carve a path through the thorns for her.]
...
[White Intelligence: Mo Bufan's portable grandpa, the Blood River Demon Venerable, has contacted a hidden piece of the Blood River Sect who has been lurking in the Righteous Alliance for years—the early-stage Golden Core cultivator Daoist Xueku. This person disguised himself as a rogue cultivator and brought a group of demonic disciples into the forbidden grounds, with the goal of escorting Mo Bufan straight to the core area and helping him seize the Evernight Empress's fortuitous encounter.]
...
[Blue Intelligence: The truth behind the hollow eyes of Lan Caidie (Mid-Stage Foundation Establishment), the Holy Maiden of the Southern Border, has been analyzed. Li Qingzhe (Late-Stage Foundation Establishment) used the ancient Gu technique Marionette Play to plant a child-mother corpse Gu inside her, temporarily sealing her consciousness and turning her into a Gu puppet with only combat instincts. Only the Concentric Gu, long extinct in the Miao border, can break this situation. Several Gu bugs are sealed in a hidden compartment of a side hall in the southeast corner of the inner palace of the Immortal Burial Forbidden Grounds [Click to view coordinates]. Li Qingzhe stumbled upon the hidden compartment while searching for treasures and obtained the Concentric Gu, but did not rescue Lan Caidie immediately; instead, he attempted to refine her into a higher-level Lifebound Gu Slave.]
...
So that's how it is.
I was wondering why Lan Caidie looked so strange.
It turns out she was controlled by Li Qingzhe using Gu techniques.
Since it's Blue Intelligence, intercepting it should yield 20 Destiny Points.
20 points is quite a lot.
Moreover, the intelligence said there are several Concentric Gu bugs, which should be enough to save Su Wanyin's master and Lan Caidie.
...
[Blue Intelligence: Deep in the outer periphery of the Immortal Burial Forbidden Grounds, there is a hidden Corpse Rearing Ground [Click to view coordinates]. Growing there is a three-thousand-year-old Nine-Leaf Soul-Returning Herb. This herb grows in places of extreme Yin but contains boundless life force. It is the main material for refining a Scapegoat Puppet and can forcefully sustain a breath of life when one is heavily injured and on the verge of death. Mo Bufan, under the protection of Daoist Xueku, is rushing there at full speed. He plans to consume this herb to make full preparations for refining the Evernight Empress later.]
...
"Nine-Leaf Soul-Returning Herb..."
This is a great life-saving item.
In this dog-eat-dog cultivation world, having an extra life means having an extra trump card.
"This leek Mo Bufan is growing delightfully well."
Since I know about it, there's no reason to let him have it.
Plus, there are 20 Destiny Points.
However, that early-stage Golden Core Daoist Xueku is a problem.
[Green Intelligence: Within the underground palace corridors deep in the outer periphery of the Immortal Burial Forbidden Grounds, there are three unexpired lethal mechanisms hidden. These mechanisms are the Gui Water Yin Thunder Array and the Bone-Corroding Soul-Melting Light personally set up by the Evernight Empress back in the day. Buried deep beneath the blue bricks of the walls, their power is enough to instantly severely injure or even annihilate an early-stage Golden Core cultivator. Because the array patterns have been eroded and hidden by time, ordinary people find it extremely difficult to detect them. But if one uses the Nine Nether Soul-Locking Flame as a catalyst and injects a trace of the fire seed into specific long-bearded ghost-faced lampstands on both sides of the corridor, they can be activated at will. [Click to view coordinates]]
...
Oh, there are also mechanisms...
Gu Yang looked thoughtful...
...
Three quarters past the Chou hour.
The gloomiest moment between heaven and earth.
The originally noisy outer periphery of the Immortal Burial Forbidden Grounds had now become eerily quiet.
Near the entrance of the Immortal Burial Forbidden Grounds.
A half-buried stone statue appeared before Gu Yang's eyes.
It was a Qilin.
Only, its head had been severed by some unknown sharp weapon. The cut was as smooth as a mirror. After thousands of years of wind and frost, it had not grown a single trace of moss, but instead faintly revealed a heart-palpitating dark red color.
"This is it."
Gu Yang took a deep breath without the slightest hesitation.
"Buzz."
A cluster of faint blue flame leaped out from his fingertips.
That was the Nine Nether Soul-Locking Flame after being devoured and assimilated by the Great Sun True Fire. Although it was now a vassal of the Great Sun True Fire, under Gu Yang's deliberate control, it stripped away its extremely Yang outer shell, revealing only the purest and most chilling origin aura.
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.
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...
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?"
close your eyes and open them again, only to find yourself transmigrated into the role of a villainous male supporting character. Readers familiar with urban wish-fulfillment novels know that it is only through the relentless antics of the villainous male supporting character that the plot between the male and female leads can progress. As the villainous male supporting character, Long Aotian not only has to bully the female lead, harass the second female lead, and flirt with the third female lead, but he also has to go all out to antagonize the male lead. In the end, when his body is discovered, he is still clutching half a moldy fried dough stick in his hand. Fully aware of the plot, Long Aotian is determined to change his fate, starting with the female lead! In the beginning, the female lead lacks confidence: "Big brother, I hope I didn't scare you?" In the middle, the female lead treads carefully: "Brother Long, please don't hit me, okay?" Later on, the female lead becomes coquettishly clingy: "Aotian, it's time to pay the 'public grain' tonight." Long Aotian's legs go weak, and he feels like crying: "I taught you to be thick-skinned, not shameless!"
