Li Mo gathered all the rare herbs and treasures and placed them inside the hollowed-out tree root bathtub. Then, he called out to the attendant outside, asking him to prepare hot water.
Before long, the chamber was filled with steam, the air thick with the sweet, fragrant scent of flowers and herbs.
Li Mo glanced at the bathtub, now adorned with floating petals, and tested the water temperature. Satisfied that it was similar to the Mistflower Immortal Spring, he turned to the side and said,
"Ice block, the 'soup' is ready. Come in."
Ying Bing pressed her lips together, her beautiful eyes flickering with complicated emotions.
"Is this today's four dishes and one 'soup'?"
"Huh?"
Li Mo was momentarily stunned.
He hadn’t prepared any soup during dinner—mainly because they had returned late, and he was exhausted.
This "soup" wasn’t meant for drinking anyway...
"In the southern borderlands, hot springs are called 'soup.' Oh~ You didn’t think..."
"I didn’t."
Ying Bing stared at him coolly.
"...Right."
Li Mo had initially wanted to explain, but as silence fell, he recalled the scenery he had glimpsed during their last massage session.
As everyone knew, Li Tianjiao possessed an incredibly robust physique, capable of bearing the weight of four thousand soldiers and armor, even smashing disaster beasts’ skulls with his bare hands.
Yet, there were things even an indestructible body couldn’t withstand.
Some things could make him bleed in an instant.
How terrifying.
Searching his conscience, Young Li considered himself a gentleman. But if he were to scoop a bowl of water from the bathtub she had just soaked in, he feared his mouth might have ideas of its own.
With utmost seriousness, Li Mo said, "Go ahead and soak. The 'soup' will cool soon, and that wouldn’t be... good. It wouldn’t feel comfortable."
Ying Bing pinched the head of a large doll in her hands, her tone faintly mocking. "Young Hero Li, truly a paragon of virtue..."
"Naturally."
Li Mo maintained an utterly solemn expression.
Splash—
A wisp of rosy light materialized into a tiny hand, pulling a folding screen across the room.
It divided the chamber in two, turning one side into a makeshift bathing area.
"?"
Young Gentleman Li’s expression stiffened.
What? Even a gentleman must be guarded against?
Thus, the most beautiful scenery in the world might be separated from you by nothing more than a screen.
She was inside. He was outside.
The glow of the night pearl illuminated the chamber, casting a soft, radiant light far gentler and brighter than candle flames. The woven screen appeared pristine, like a blank canvas.
The silhouette of the young maiden projected onto it, giving form to the interplay of light and shadow—a sight that stirred the heart.
Rustling sounds emerged.
"Hm? What’s that noise?"
Gentleman Li sat at the table, maintaining an air of solemnity as he analyzed the situation calmly.
Indeed.
That must be the sound of silk stockings being removed...
Young Li took a deep breath and pinched his own waist hard.
The system had issued so many rewards today, and he hadn’t even had the chance to claim and sort through them yet!
The Seventy-Two Transformations had reached perfection, and he still needed to study the Somersault Cloud from the "Monkey Seeks the Dao" painting!
Li Mo, oh Li Mo, how could you be so depraved?
"I can’t afford to be distracted like this!"
Summoning the system, Li Mo inhaled deeply and began reviewing the long list of rewards.
[Investment Return: Rongyuan Military Crossbow ×10.]
[Rongyuan Seven-Kill Crossbow: Crafted in the early years by the military artificer Gongsun Buqi. Can be charged with true essence, boasting extraordinary penetrative power. Even the defensive fields of ordinary Inner Realm experts cannot withstand it. A true killing weapon among military equipment.]
"Military gear?"
Li Mo’s eyes widened slightly in surprise.
Though this item was valuable, it clearly couldn’t compare to the rewards obtained from Ying Bing or Princess Xiao Jiang.
But similar items had never appeared as returns before—he had rarely even seen them.
The Great Yu did not prohibit swords, blades, or even bows and armor. Sects could even maintain private militias.
However, anyone caught hoarding military-grade weaponry would be treated as a rebel.
Thus, Li Mo had never encountered such items even in Yunzhou’s bustling markets.
The Rongyuan Seven-Kill Crossbow was a bronze-colored ballista, exuding a chilling aura of lethality—undoubtedly falling into this category.
[Investment Return: Thunderfire Pills ×50 crates.]
[Thunderfire Pills]: "A certain alchemy prodigy, gifted by nature, found that no matter what pill he refined, the cauldron would not only explode with alarming frequency but also with extraordinary force. It turned out there had been a mistake during his initial aptitude test—he did not possess a fire-wood spiritual root but a fire-thunder one.
Mocked and humiliated by his sect, he eventually left in fury and joined the Great Yu’s Divine Machinery Battalion, becoming a master of military explosives. In the end, he used Thunderfire Pills to blast his former sect into the sky."
"..."
Li Mo now had a rough idea of this item’s potency.
It was probably as volatile as the temperament of that 'misguided' explosives expert.
So... did this thing even count as a pill?
Elder Xue, the genius alchemist who had once refined external mystic pills, might be able to provide a definitive answer...
"What kind of rewards are these?"
"It’s not like I plan to blow up my own sect."
Frowning, Li Mo continued scrolling.
[Investment Return: Heavenly Tribulation Warding Banners ×4.]
[Heavenly Tribulation Warding Banners]: "When embedded into mountain walls or city fortifications, they can multiply defensive capabilities. Their sturdiness depends on the strength of the wielder maintaining the formations and the ambient spiritual energy."
......
[Investment Return: Thunder-Patterned War Drum.]
[Thunder-Patterned War Drum]: "A master craftsman used the hide of a thunder beast, said to carry a trace of the Kui Bull’s bloodline, and inscribed thunder patterns upon it to create this war drum. Its sound shakes the heavens, bolstering allies’ morale and striking fear into formidable foes."
......
[Investment Return: One Mystic Crystal.]
[Investment Return: 10,000 Demon-Slaying Arrows.]
[Investment Return: One Peace Golden Lock.]
[Investment Return: A pair of patchwork shoes sewn by mother.]
......
Among the subsequent rewards, aside from miscellaneous items, the valuable ones were either Mystic Crystals or military equipment. The crystals numbered in the thousands, while the military gear amounted to seventeen or eighteen types, all in considerable quantities.
Staring at the system’s storage space, now packed with enough Mystic Crystals and military supplies to sustain a small-scale war, Young Li fell into deep thought.
"System, you’ve been getting a little too 'criminal' lately."
Under normal circumstances, these rewards were practically unusable, weren’t they?
They couldn’t even be sold—even if he dared to offer them in bulk, who would dare buy them? Discovery would mean certain execution for the entire family.
He already had military funds.
If the system were to toss him a yellow robe next, it might as well be urging him to raise the banner of rebellion.
Hah, he absolutely couldn’t let his master find out.
She’d probably declare herself the Grand Imperial Emperor and immediately appoint Elder Hanhe as the Crown Imperial Grandson.
"Hopefully, these things will never see the light of day. Best if they rot in the system’s storage."
Shaking his head, Li Mo dispelled the mental image.
Better to focus on mastering the Somersault Cloud for now...
He swallowed a Seven-Lined Clarity Pill, then retrieved the "Monkey Seeks the Dao" painting.
"Only Brother Monkey can calm my mind."
Just as Gentleman Li was about to immerse himself in meditation—
Splash—
The sound of water came from beside him.
Inside the shimmering bathtub, Ying Bing had been about to rise when she suddenly froze, a flush creeping up her snow-white neck.
She had forgotten something.
Her birthday was approaching—she would soon turn seventeen, and her body had been growing quickly.
Her undergarments no longer fit properly. While the Jade Phoenix Form allowed her to alter her appearance and attire, it didn’t extend to the most intimate layers.
She had meant to buy new ones on the way back today.
But after slipping her hand into the young man’s pocket, she had completely forgotten.
She couldn’t very well step out with nothing underneath...
"......"
Ying Bing grabbed the floating bobblehead doll and searched through it.
A few seconds later.
Plop—
The chibi version of Li Mo plopped back onto the water's surface against her chest, splashing lightly.
Ying Bing pressed her jade-like lips together, hugging her slender legs as she sat in the wooden tub.
Nothing.
After a pause, her voice—cool, calm, and utterly 'composed'—drifted from behind the folding screen:
"Li Mo, I forgot something."
"What?"
"My clothes."
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)
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.
spital. Good news: I've bound a system. Bad news: I'm still a baby. "Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river, do not bully the middle-aged for being poor — Divorce Comeback System." "Your marriage may have failed, but your luck in love has never run dry. Your childhood sweetheart, out of contact for twenty years, reappears. Her beauty remains, yet her eyes are brimming with tears." [Listen to the childhood sweetheart's sorrowful story.] Chen Zhi looked down at the diaper he was wearing, then at the little childhood sweetheart crying her heart out beside him, and fell into deep thought. Can anyone relate? I'm having a midlife crisis at an age where even rolling over is a struggle.
and couldn't return to the real world. Finally, I gave up and decided to go with the flow, only to discover that writing a diary could make me stronger. Since no one could read it, Su Luo wrote freely, daring to pen anything and everything. Female Lead #1: "Not bad. This diary helped me steal all the protagonist's opportunities. I just want to get stronger." Female Lead #2: "I don’t care about reaching the peak of the cultivation world. Right now, I just want to enjoy the chaos." Female Lead #3: "What? Everyone around me is a spy? I’m the Joker Demon Lord?" ... It’s so strange. Why is the plot completely off track, yet the ending remains the same? Are you all just messing with me?!
