The bathroom was filled with a hazy mist of steam. At this moment, Bai Qianshuang sat on a chair, her legs stretched out stiffly.
"Don’t be nervous. It’s pretty common here for people to scrub each other’s backs," Ye Chuan said, noticing how Bai Qianshuang kept her eyes lowered.
"......"
A few seconds later, Bai Qianshuang’s gaze landed on Ye Chuan. Her long, delicate eyelashes fluttered slightly before she muttered in a quiet voice,
"Liar. I’m not that easy to fool."
Huh?
Wait, has Qianshuang gotten smarter?
Still, the girl swept her long hair aside, revealing her reddened ears, and Ye Chuan began lathering soap bubbles onto her back.
"By the way, Qianshuang, I have a question for you," Ye Chuan said as he continued scrubbing her back while seated. He couldn’t help but bring up the person who had impersonated Bai Qianshuang earlier.
"Do you have any sisters who look just like you?"
"Sisters..." Bai Qianshuang didn’t understand why he was asking but shook her head. "No."
I see...
If she didn’t have any, then who was the one pretending to be Bai Qianshuang?
As Ye Chuan pondered this, he continued scrubbing the soap onto her front. Perhaps because she was too sensitive, Bai Qianshuang flinched after just a few moments of having the bubbles massaged in, stiffly standing up.
"I’ll... scrub your back instead..."
Seeing Bai Qianshuang, who looked like a startled rabbit, Ye Chuan knew the girl had already been bold enough for today. He chuckled. "Sure, you scrub my back."
After rinsing off the soap, Ye Chuan and Bai Qianshuang left the bathroom.
Noticing the girl beside him keeping her head down in silence, Ye Chuan took Bai Qianshuang’s small hand in his. "Want to come to my room later to cultivate?"
"I-I should go back first!" Bai Qianshuang fled like a startled hare, darting into her own room.
Watching the girl retreat in a fluster, Ye Chuan glanced at his palm before pulling out his phone to check the tenant information—
Bai Qianshuang’s affection level had risen again.
[Daily earnings increased from 16,000 → 50,000. Daily chance to obtain cultivation tools or cultivation progress.]
[Current Bai Qianshuang affection level has reached quasi-maximum. Please fulfill hidden conditions.]
Hidden conditions?
What?
Ye Chuan wasn’t entirely sure what the hidden conditions were, but since the affection level was at a quasi-maximum, there must be something left unfulfilled.
Just… take her?
That probably wasn’t the hidden condition.
"I’ll find a chance to make a move. She shouldn’t be too resistant now—after all, we’ve bathed together." Though Ye Chuan thought this way, based on his understanding of the system’s usual antics, the so-called hidden conditions definitely wouldn’t be that simple.
Most likely, it involved something related to emotional barriers.
For example—
The matters of the Qingyun Sect or the Jade Void Sect.
But given Ye Chuan’s current cultivation level, helping Bai Qianshuang exact revenge would still take time.
"Hidden conditions..."
Since it was a main quest, Ye Chuan still wanted to complete it and see what the rewards would be.
Not dwelling on it further, he dried his hair with a towel and returned to his room to rest.
Meanwhile, on the other side, Bai Qianshuang returned to her room feeling unsettled. She didn’t understand why she had been so bold as to agree to bathe with Ye Chuan.
Just thinking about it made her heart race uncontrollably.
"This feels uncomfortable." Bai Qianshuang didn’t understand these emotions. All she knew was that a strange sensation tugged at her thoughts, making her unable to stop thinking about Ye Chuan.
"Qianshuang!"
A sudden voice beside her made Bai Qianshuang jolt, instinctively drawing her sword!
"Eeeek?!!!!" A terrified shriek came from the other side. Bai Qianshuang turned to see Lan Xiaoke, her face deathly pale from fright.
"Ah..." Bai Qianshuang quickly sheathed her spiritual sword. "Sorry, Xiaoke. Reflex."
"Reflex? More like ‘reflex and I’m deceased’!" Lan Xiaoke collapsed onto the bed like a melted puddle of slime, only her eyes peeking out. "Ahhh, I almost died. Scared the ghost outta me."
Hugging her sword, Bai Qianshuang poked the blob-like Lan Xiaoke. "I’ll compensate you with money."
Hearing this, Lan Xiaoke bounced back like jelly. "Ohhh, should’ve said so earlier! No problem then."
Watching the white-haired girl return to her usual form, Bai Qianshuang asked,
"It’s late. What did you come here for?"
Though Bai Qianshuang didn’t mind Lan Xiaoke visiting, she wasn’t used to the girl suddenly phasing through walls.
"I saw you weren’t live-streaming, so I came to check." Lan Xiaoke sat on the edge of the bed, noticing Bai Qianshuang’s freshly bathed appearance. "Oh, you just took a bath? Was it nice?"
"A bit ticklish. And sore." Bai Qianshuang’s eyes flickered away.
Ticklish? Sore?
Lan Xiaoke scratched her head.
Huh? Did the showerhead spew sulfuric acid or something?
"Xiaoke, there’s something I don’t understand," Bai Qianshuang said.
"What is it?"
"If you can’t stop thinking about someone, always caring about them… what does that mean?" Bai Qianshuang voiced her confusion. "I don’t get it."
"You’re in love, duh. With Ye Chuan?"
"No, it’s not that kind of feeling." At the mention of Ye Chuan, Bai Qianshuang immediately denied it.
"It totally is, though?" Lan Xiaoke blinked. "Qianshuang, you like Ye Chuan, right? I mean, who else could it be? You don’t interact with anyone else."
Seeing Bai Qianshuang shake her head in denial, Lan Xiaoke suddenly grinned mischievously, scooting closer. "It’s fine to admit it! At your age, liking a guy is totally normal."
"Is it normal?"
"Is it not?" Lan Xiaoke held up a finger. "Didn’t you say before that you wanted to become cultivation partners with Ye Chuan?"
"That’s different. Cultivation partners don’t necessarily involve romantic feelings. It’s just to make joint cultivation easier." Bai Qianshuang shook her head.
"Your customs are so weird." Lan Xiaoke scratched her head.
"Did you have a cultivation partner before?"
"I grew up with my master and mother." Bai Qianshuang shook her head. "Some of my senior and junior sisters in the sect had cultivation partners, so I only know a little."
"They told me forming a partnership isn’t always about emotions. Benefits are what matter most to us."
"Oh, well, people in this world also get together for benefits sometimes." Lan Xiaoke figured that part wasn’t too different.
But right now, she thought the main point was elsewhere. "Qianshuang! I think you’ve fallen for Ye Chuan!"
"I haven’t."
"Suuuure~" Lan Xiaoke teased. "Qianshuang, do you know what’s harder than the sword you carry?"
"?"
"Your denial."
Bai Qianshuang fell silent for a long moment. Seeing Lan Xiaoke’s smug expression, she finally asked in a small voice, "Xiaoke… are you experienced in matters of the heart?"
"Of course! I, Lan Xiaoke, have battled on the frontlines for decades. What kind of man haven’t I seen?" Lan Xiaoke declared proudly.
"That’s… impressive." Bai Qianshuang hadn’t expected Lan Xiaoke to have such a background.
"Damn right." Lan Xiaoke had binge-watched enough idol dramas to consider herself an expert.
transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”
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?!
lities. One day, Qi Yuan was buying groceries when he unfortunately came face-to-face with a monster. Just when he thought he was going to die on the spot, he suddenly heard the monster's thoughts... "This aura, he's definitely not an ordinary master!" "So terrifying, so terrifying." "A fight with my back against the wall, I can't take it anymore." Qi Yuan: Ah, no one told me that my awakened ability isn't telepathy, but rather the stronger my enemies imagine me to be, the stronger I truly become. PS: Zhou Hai in the first chapter is not the protagonist.
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!
