"Yaoyao, would you be my cultivation partner?"
The quiet scene erupted as countless heads lifted in shock.
Yue Anyao stared blankly at the person before her, her mind echoing words she had only ever dreamed of hearing. After reaching out to touch Fang Zhiyi's face to confirm this wasn’t a dream, she nodded vigorously!
At that very moment, the bottleneck in her cultivation that had long resisted breakthrough showed the slightest sign of loosening.
Noticing this, Fang Zhiyi said, "Break through here. I’ll guard you."
Without hesitation, Yue Anyao sat cross-legged. The aura of her breakthrough rippled through the entire Cloud Sky Palace. When she opened her eyes again, the pressure of the Void Refinement stage emanated from her.
"Holy—! The Palace Master wasn’t lying! Finding a cultivation partner really helps with cultivation!"
"You’re wrong—you have to find the right partner!"
"Right, right!"
Ahem.
The gossiping disciples turned to see several elders standing behind them and immediately scattered.
Overjoyed, Yue Anyao threw herself into Fang Zhiyi’s arms. He simply held her and patted her gently.
"I’m slow-witted. You’ve suffered because of me."
"Don’t you all have anything better to do?" The Law Enforcement Elder barked, sending the lingering onlookers fleeing. The elders exchanged odd glances at the affectionate pair.
"Elder Kong, is it true that finding a cultivation partner aids cultivation?"
"Uh... I’ve never heard of it, but the Palace Master’s Soul Formation cultivation seems to have advanced again. Before, I could still sense his level, but now it’s completely beyond me."
"Tsk... I just remembered I have something to attend to. Excuse me."
A frenzy swept through Cloud Sky Palace. First, the outer disciples were mobilized—those skilled in cooking prepared meals, while the swiftest were sent down the mountain to gather ingredients. The kitchen disciples, originally responsible only for feeding the outer disciples, now had to cater to the entire palace. More outer disciples were eventually recruited to ease the burden.
Second, disciples who had once buried themselves in solitary cultivation now practiced in pairs. Those without partners grew frantic.
Fang Zhiyi was delighted. Every day, outer disciples delivered meals to him, and even some inner disciples joined in, inventing new dishes.
"What in the world is this? Watermelon stewed with beef?" Fang Zhiyi stared at the blood-red concoction before him.
The outer disciple delivering the meal explained, "Palace Master, this dish was invented by Elder Kong’s personal disciple. We thought you should be the first to try it, so we brought it here."
"......" Fang Zhiyi suppressed his reaction, eyeing the earnest disciple.
From that day onward, Cloud Sky Palace established a new rule:
"Dishes can be unconventional, but not outright bizarre. Anyone who wastes ingredients will spend a year in penitence at the Law Enforcement Hall!"
Yue Anyao’s mental state gradually stabilized, and cooking became her passion. She even built a small kitchen next to Fang Zhiyi’s residence to experiment—though the frequent explosions were unnerving.
"That’s the third time today, right?" Two patrolling disciples flinched at the latest blast.
"Fourth. There was one before your shift."
"Elder Yue isn’t cooking—she’s refining pills!"
"Hey! You two!" Yue Anyao appeared, her hair disheveled and face smudged with soot.
The disciples froze. "E-Elder Yue."
"Come. Taste this."
They nearly wept at the sight of the unidentifiable dish in her hands. To avoid wasting ingredients, Yue Anyao insisted on having someone sample her creations, calling it "taste-testing."
But who dared refuse? She was the Palace Master’s cultivation partner!
No one in Cloud Sky Palace escaped her culinary experiments—even the Law Enforcement Elder was once cornered into trying her food. Rumor had it he nearly lost a cultivation realm because of it.
Finally, protests arose. While Yue Anyao was away, six elders confronted Fang Zhiyi, who had been napping.
Hearing their grievances, Fang Zhiyi only grinned foolishly, refusing to say a word. No way am I interfering. Yue Anyao’s current obsession stemmed from her insecurity about not cooking as well as Zhong Ling'er. Who knew what might happen if she were stopped? He had no intention of letting her repeat past mistakes.
"Everyone, calm down." Seeing the elders grow agitated, Fang Zhiyi resorted to spinning a tale. He released a hint of his aura, instantly paling their faces.
"This... this..."
"Palace Master, you’ve reached mid-stage Soul Formation?"
Fang Zhiyi now resembled a cult leader. "As you can see, I’ve advanced swiftly to mid-stage Soul Formation. Why?" He cast a soundproof barrier and whispered conspiratorially, "Though Yue Anyao’s dishes may not taste good, they’re infused with passion. During one tasting, I glimpsed an indescribable truth—a revelation that propelled my breakthrough."
The elders looked skeptical.
"Ordinary disciples need worldly experiences to temper their hearts. As elders, your comprehension runs deeper. Embracing all flavors—sweet, sour, bitter, spicy—is the path to the Great Dao."
When doubt still lingered, Fang Zhiyi nearly lost his composure.
Suddenly, Elder Kong smacked his thigh. "I understand! The other day, she made me try that charred meat—it was salty and bitter. But now I realize, I’ve only accepted the delicious dishes from disciples, ignoring the natural flavors that should exist!"
"Just as the world has tall and short, kind and wicked people! This is akin to ascetic training! I’ve attained enlightenment!"
Elder Kong was ecstatic, and the others seemed similarly inspired.
Fang Zhiyi exhaled in relief. Thank goodness these old-timers only know how to cultivate. They’ll overthink anything I say. His rapid advancement was actually due to no longer needing to transfer cultivation to Zhong Ling'er—plus his protagonist halo.
As the elders departed, Fang Zhiyi decided to advise Yue Anyao to add more rare ingredients to her dishes.
Rumors spread—from elders to personal disciples, then to inner disciples. Though some still recoiled, many now voluntarily sought Yue Anyao to "taste-test."
Though puzzled, Yue Anyao assumed her cooking had improved and was delighted.
With the food situation settled, Fang Zhiyi turned his attention to another matter: business.
Even Cloud Sky Palace was poor. As a cultivation sect, they cared little for mortal luxuries, so their funds were limited. Most income came from renting land and buildings to mortals for silver, used to recruit disciples and sustain the outer disciples’ livelihoods. Now, with a thousand mouths to feed, the treasury was running low.
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)
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...
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.
