“You’ve got a sharp nose,” Fang Zhiyi said with a shrug, following the young monk inside.
Though he had seen his fair share of temples, this place still managed to surprise him. For one thing, whoever built this temple clearly had some serious resources—carving a cliff face like this alone would have taken a tremendous amount of manpower.
“What the hell is the Imperial Observatory doing? How is a place like this still standing?”
Just as Fang Zhiyi was muttering to himself, the abbot slowly emerged from the main hall. He cast a glance at Fang Zhiyi, his gaze locking firmly onto the cloth-wrapped bundle strapped to his back.
Silence fell over the scene.
The abbot suddenly pressed his palms together and recited a Buddhist chant.
“Little cultivator, you’ve come from afar. Won’t you come inside for a cup of hot tea?”
But Fang Zhiyi slowly took the bundle off his back, unwrapping it layer by layer. “We’re all busy here. Why bother with these riddles? There’s no one else around.”
The abbot’s eyes narrowed into slits. “Little cultivator, what do you mean by this…”
Fang Zhiyi grabbed the hilt of the sword. “I hate people like you. You can’t just speak plainly—always dancing around the point.”
“That sword in your hand… the old monk feels he’s seen it before… Could it be that you are…”
Fang Zhiyi paused for a moment, then grinned. “Oh? So we’ve got a connection?” As he drew the blade, the dark souls sealed within it stirred restlessly, black smoke seeping out from the already pitch-black sword.
“How dare you bring such filthy, defiled things into my Buddha hall!” the abbot suddenly bellowed.
Fang Zhiyi didn’t bother with idle talk. He simply swung his sword, and several dark spirits howled as they lunged forward.
The abbot could no longer keep up the act. By all conventions, shouldn’t they talk first, and fight only if talks failed? This unknown daoist wasn’t playing by the rules at all!
Just as the dark souls were about to reach his face, Huijue pressed his palms together. Golden light radiated from his body, blocking the assault with brute force.
“You wicked demon, stop this obsession!” His voice seemed amplified, echoing from all directions.
Fang Zhiyi casually picked his ear. “Me? A wicked demon? Yeah, I guess that’s not wrong. But what makes you think you’re any better? You wear a pious face while stealing people’s fortunes.”
Huijue stared coldly at Fang Zhiyi.
“Don’t try to fool me. I’ve already figured it out. You send two lackeys out to borrow luck from people. When they refuse, you go after their parents, threatening them until they come here to beg you—offering you money and luck, and thanking you for it.” Fang Zhiyi spat on the ground as he spoke. “Pretty clever, huh?”
Huijue raised a hand, and a streak of golden light shot straight at Fang Zhiyi.
He was certain the strike would hit—if it were anyone but Fang Zhiyi.
“But then I started thinking. The Imperial Observatory already showed up in Huai River. There’s no way they missed you. So what does that mean?”
Huijue was stunned. How was this young daoist so fast? He was already squatting on the railing to his right.
Fang Zhiyi flashed his white teeth. “It means… you’re not important enough for the Imperial Observatory to bother with.”
“Demon!” Huijue reached out, and a phantom hand formed in the air, growing larger. Seeing that Fang Zhiyi didn’t dodge, didn’t even call his dark souls back to defend, a flicker of joy passed through Huijue’s eyes.
“Since you recognize this sword’s owner, that means you must know Xuan Jizi too.”
Huijue’s eyes went wide. That young daoist had blocked his dharma manifestation using nothing but a single sword.
“I’m a quick learner. After I killed him, I picked up a few of his tricks…”
“You… you killed that Old Madman?” Huijue was stunned. As if in answer, one of the lurking dark souls pressed close to his face.
Seeing Xuan Jizi’s face right in front of him sent a chill down Huijue’s spine.
He had suffered terribly at the hands of that Old Madman before. If it weren’t for Xuan Jizi’s sudden fit back then, Huijue would have died long ago.
This young man killed Xuan Jizi? How was that possible?
While he was still reeling, a voice rang in his ear: “Buddhist light can block dark forces, but it can’t stop physical attacks, can it?”
Huijue instinctively ducked and rolled, abandoning all dignity—but the sword still sliced off his ear.
“You bastard! How dare you harm me!” Huijue clutched his ear and pointed at Fang Zhiyi. “Men! Men! Kill him!”
The other monks in the temple rushed over, weapons in hand.
Fang Zhiyi swept his sword in an arc, scanning the gathered monks. He sniffed the air slightly. “Such a lovely place of cultivation—how did it end up gathering a bunch of fools like you?”
Several bare-chested martial monks charged at him with steel blades. In their eyes, Fang Zhiyi was just a frail young man. They had dealt with troublemakers before—hacked them down, no problem.
But as soon as they clashed, the monks’ faces changed in an instant.
Fang Zhiyi moved like a shadow, his sword strikes incredibly fast. In just a few breaths, the four monks surrounding him stood frozen.
The monks behind them were confused. “Brothers, what’s…”
Before they could finish, black mist burst from the four monks’ seven orifices. In the blink of an eye, all that black smoke was absorbed into the sword.
Fang Zhiyi glanced approvingly at his blade. “That old fool had such a great weapon, and he just used it to hack people…” He didn’t seem to notice the remaining monks and turned to walk into the main hall.
“You! Stop right there!” a big monk shouted.
“Are you crazy? You tell me to stop and I stop? I’m busy, you know. Besides, I was just warming up. You all don’t even need me to dirty my hands…” Without turning back, Fang Zhiyi raised his hand and made a gesture.
The restless dark souls immediately lunged at the crowd.
Fang Zhiyi stepped over the threshold, his eyes sweeping the room before fixing on the massive golden Buddha statue. “Old bald donkey, what, are you going to put on a show for me too?”
Huijue, still clutching his bleeding ear, glared at Fang Zhiyi with a twisted face. “You take your road, I’ll take mine. Why do you have to push me so hard?”
“There are so many evil people in this world—can you really kill them all? I just steal a little luck! Why are you targeting me?”
Fang Zhiyi stared at Huijue for a long moment, then suddenly laughed. “You’re overthinking it.”
“Huh?” Huijue didn’t understand.
“I’m no saint either—you know that. After all, a good guy wouldn’t be trailing black smoke, right?” Fang Zhiyi stepped closer. “It’s just that what I’m up against is a little… too tough. I figured I’d use you bastards to level up.”
Huijue didn’t know what “level up” meant, but after a moment’s thought, he roughly understood. “Since you insist on making an enemy out of me, don’t regret it!”
lan, the Luo family, tracked him down - along with the babies in their arms. Mo Xuan stared pensively at the paternity test results from over a dozen top institutions, both domestic and international, showing a 99.99% match between himself and the two baby girls. At 23, Mo Xuan, a doctoral student, had become the father of two three-year-old children. The kicker? The mothers weren't even the same person! He gradually realized he was being lured step by step into an elaborate trap designed by these two yandere sisters. "Be good, little Xuan. Sister's life belongs to you entirely." "Brother, if you try to run away, I'll have no choice but to tie you up." Mo Xuan: "Do whatever you want, ladies. I give up."
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?"
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
