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.
grated, and just when he finally managed to get into an elite academy, he discovered that he actually had a system, and the way to earn rewards was extremely ridiculous. So for the sake of rewards, he had no choice but to start acting ridiculous as well. Su Cheng: "It's nothing but system quests after all." But later, what confused Su Cheng was that while he was already quite ridiculous, he never expected those serious characters to gradually become ridiculous too. And the way they looked at him became increasingly strange... (This synopsis doesn't do it justice, please read the full story)
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?!
] [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!"
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!
