Chen Chang'an leaped into the Heavenly Pool and discovered that the space below was far more expansive than above.
Moreover, the depth exceeded his expectations. After diving nearly a hundred meters, he still hadn’t reached the bottom.
Though Chen Chang'an’s cultivation was only at the first level of the True Qi Realm, his true strength was far greater.
Additionally, his unique physique rendered the water pressure completely ineffective against him.
He continued his descent and, after nearly a thousand meters, finally noticed something unusual.
At the bottom of the Heavenly Pool, there was another barrier—one that merely separated the water from a cave entrance below.
"Interesting."
Chen Chang'an smirked before flashing forward and slipping into the cave.
Inside, the surroundings were pitch-black. The tunnel was narrow and winding but still allowed him to walk upright.
With a flick of his finger, a golden sword energy shot forward, illuminating the tunnel clearly.
The passage wasn’t long—only about a hundred meters—and at its end stood a stone door.
To his surprise, the door opened with a simple push.
Beyond the door, darkness still reigned, but Chen Chang'an’s senses told him the space wasn’t large.
Most importantly… there was warmth.
Not the natural kind, but the warmth of human habitation.
Someone was here!
"I know you’re here. I mean no harm—just passing through and found this place peculiar, so I decided to investigate," Chen Chang'an said calmly.
The other party’s strength was formidable; Chen Chang'an couldn’t sense their aura or pinpoint their presence.
Yet he was certain they were here.
"Chen… Chen Chang'an?"
A tentative voice echoed from the darkness.
The words stunned Chen Chang'an.
Another damn acquaintance?
What was going on? Were all his old friends gathering in Langya for a reunion?
"You know me?" Chen Chang'an asked, puzzled.
After receiving confirmation, the oil lamps in the chamber suddenly ignited, bathing the stone room in light.
The furnishings were sparse—a stone bed, a stone table, and a stone chair.
As Chen Chang'an surveyed the room, a figure emerged from behind a stone wall.
Recognizing the man, Chen Chang'an froze momentarily before recalling his name.
"Lie Zhankuang? How is it you?"
"You’re still alive?"
The revelation genuinely shocked Chen Chang'an. After all, Lie Zhankuang was someone he’d known seven or eight thousand years ago.
Having heard nothing of him in all that time, Chen Chang'an had assumed the man was long dead. Yet here he was, hiding at the bottom of the Heavenly Pool? What kind of hobby was that?
Lie Zhankuang sat on the stone bed and gestured for Chen Chang'an to take the chair.
"I never expected to see you alive after all these years, let alone meet you here."
"Fate plays cruel tricks."
"To be honest, I haven’t seen a familiar face in over six thousand years."
"It’s suffocating. Damn suffocating," Lie Zhankuang grumbled.
Six thousand years living here?
Seriously?
"Did you offend someone?" Chen Chang'an asked curiously.
Back in the day, Lie Zhankuang had been a prodigious genius, even more talented than Xuan Wudao and notoriously arrogant.
He’d been the type to pick fights with anyone who so much as glanced at him wrong.
That he’d ended up like this didn’t surprise Chen Chang'an—the man had always been a troublemaker.
"Yeah, I pissed off a Great Emperor. Had no choice but to hide. I haven’t dared leave this place since."
"Luckily, it’s secluded enough that no one else can get in."
"Wait… how did you get in here?"
Lie Zhankuang suddenly realized the oddity of Chen Chang'an’s presence.
"Walked right in. The barrier doesn’t stop me."
"Though I must say, you’ve grown stronger. That barrier even kept Da Huang out," Chen Chang'an remarked with a chuckle.
"Da Huang’s here too? Of course, you two are inseparable."
"After all these years, that dog’s still alive? What breed is it anyway?"
"How the hell is it so freakishly long-lived?" Lie Zhankuang asked, baffled.
"The Dog King."
"Dog King? At this point, it’s practically the Dog Emperor."
"Enough about him. Tell me—which Great Emperor did you cross? There aren’t many in the Tai Xuan Realm," Chen Chang'an pressed.
"Who else? That old bastard Long Wuqi."
"All I said was, ‘This bastard’s ugly as sin,’ and he sent ten Undying Realm experts after me."
"Bro, I was only at the Sovereign Realm back then. Was it necessary to send ten Undying Realm killers?"
"My old man made it worse—he disowned me on the spot to avoid dragging the family down."
"Ah, such touching father-son affection," Lie Zhankuang sighed bitterly.
Long Wuqi?
The founder of the Dragon Emperor Palace and one of the few Great Emperors in the Tai Xuan Realm.
The Dragon Emperor Palace was a formidable force, and Chen Chang'an knew a thing or two about Long Wuqi—mostly from Mu Yunyao.
Long Wuqi and Mu Yunyao were peers, both at the peak of the Great Emperor Realm.
Lie Zhankuang had it coming. Long Wuqi’s biggest taboo was being called ugly, and he’d gone out of his way to provoke the man. No wonder he’d been marked for death.
"Did you set up the barrier around the Heavenly Pool too?" Chen Chang'an asked.
"No way. I’m not that capable."
"Even though I’ve reached the Undying Realm now, I couldn’t create a barrier like that."
"It was already here when I arrived. That’s why I chose this spot," Lie Zhankuang admitted with a wry smile.
It predated him?
"Then how did you get in? Da Huang couldn’t even enter," Chen Chang'an pressed.
Lie Zhankuang shrugged. "Pure luck, I guess. The Heavenly Pool atop Cloud Snow Ridge has existed for ages, and so has this barrier."
"But the barrier has a flaw—it briefly weakens at regular intervals."
"I stumbled upon that quirk and used it to slip inside."
"Waited a year for the pool’s barrier to weaken, then another year for the cave’s barrier."
"Such a hassle, so I rarely leave."
Now Chen Chang'an understood—the barrier had a loophole.
But what about the villagers and the Snow Demon outside?
"Are the villagers and the Snow Demon connected to you?"
"Are they worshipping you?"
"Well… yes and no. It’s complicated."
"Then give me the short version."
"Fine."
young master of the Shen family—a figure of immense power and wealth beyond measure—and awakened the "Destined Ultimate Villain System"! His starting scenario? Running into his icy fiancée who shows up with a mountain-descending divine doctor to break off their engagement. The divine doctor arrogantly taunts: "What does your Shen family have besides a bit of stinking money? You're not even worthy of tying Qingxue's shoelaces!" Shen Fei just smiled. He completely defied the usual script: "Fine, I agree to break off the engagement. Also, notify the finance department to withdraw all investments from the Su family." Minutes later, with its capital chain severed, the Su Group teetered on the brink of bankruptcy! The once aloof and proud ice queen CEO was thrown into utter panic. That very night, she went to Shen Fei's villa, casting aside all dignity to beg and plead desperately... From then on, in this world teeming with Sons of Destiny, Shen Fei embarked on a path of extreme dimensional suppression! A mountain-descending divine doctor? Peerless medical skills? Shen Fei: "Reporting you for practicing medicine without a license! I'll gladly take your ancient medicinal cauldron and twin sister assassins." The Crooked-Smiling Dragon King? Commanding a hundred thousand soldiers with a single order? Shen Fei: "Illegal assembly and suspected treason! Let a fleet of attack helicopters sanitize the area and teach you what the state apparatus really means!" A reborn tycoon? Knows all the golden opportunities of the next decade? Shen Fei: "A trillion in capital to reverse and pump the stock market, making you blow your margin and jump on the very first day of your rebirth!" What Chosen Ones? What bearers of Heavenly Fortune? In Shen Fei's eyes, they're all just chives (i.e., suckers/marks) waiting to be harvested! Shen Fei: "Sorry, but as the Destined Ultimate Villain, I don't play by the rules of honor. I only play the game of dimensional suppression."
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.
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.”
. As long as he maintains the villain image and follows the plot to the grand finale, he can obtain generous rewards and return to the real world. So Gu Chen'an entered the role and began to act as a scumbag villain, but who would have expected that the female leads could hear his inner thoughts. Miss Su from the Su family was shocked: "I originally thought Gu Chen'an was a scumbag, but I didn't expect he turned out to be a gentleman! What? You said I have to call off the engagement? I definitely won't, I'll piss you off!" Bai Yuan Tian was dumbfounded: "Young Master Gu is usually unreasonable and a complete brat, but he actually calls me little sweetie in his heart? What, Young Master Gu even said he likes me?" As the female leads' images collapsed more and more, the plot also collapsed with it. Gu Chen'an looked at all this chaos. "Ladies, don't aggro me, if you keep this up the male lead really will stab me, I still need to survive to the grand finale!"
