Feeling the touch of lips against lips, a surge of electricity seemed to course through Long Aotian's body. His heart trembled violently, and the faint fragrance lingering at the tip of his nose made him instinctively pull away.
"Don't do this."
For a moment, Long Aotian's mind was a buzzing mess, his thoughts a complete jumble. His heart raced uncontrollably, and even his breathing became unsteady.
Hu Yuying looked timidly at the flustered Long Aotian, feeling the lingering warmth on her lips. Summoning her courage, she stepped forward again, rising on her tiptoes...
"I said don't do this!"
Long Aotian took a step back, and the gentle touch landed on his chin instead.
Looking at Hu Yuying before him, Long Aotian was at a loss. His hands and feet felt awkward, as if they didn't belong to him. Finally, he rubbed his forehead and said, "Do you... do you know what you're doing?"
Hu Yuying lowered her head without speaking, only glancing up at Long Aotian before nodding seriously.
A peculiar atmosphere filled the small living room.
Seeing Hu Yuying's obedient demeanor, Long Aotian wanted to say something but ended up sighing helplessly.
Frustrated, he ran his fingers through his hair. "I... I'll go cook first!"
Without waiting for Hu Yuying to respond, he quickly left the room.
Hu Yuying stood still, silently listening to the sound of Long Aotian's footsteps fading away.
Only when the sound of the kitchen door closing reached her ears did she turn around in a daze, gazing toward the kitchen. She felt utterly lost.
For a brief moment, her emotions had overwhelmed her, making her forget herself.
That fleeting heartbeat had momentarily swept her away, leaving her feeling lost, unable to control herself...
Her fingertips lightly brushed her lips as she listened to the pounding of her own heart, slowly lowering her head.
The rain grew heavier, and Long Aotian's breathing became rapid. Only the trembling of his fingers betrayed the turmoil in his heart.
Standing in the kitchen, he took a deep breath, resisting the urge to look toward the living room, and silently continued cooking.
His mind was in chaos. Even on the day he had transmigrated, he hadn't felt this disoriented. A voice deep within him kept repeating, "You've lost control. Everything is out of control..."
The meal was ready, but his heart remained unsettled.
Taking a deep breath, he lifted the bamboo curtain and walked back into the living room.
Hu Yuying sat obediently on the sofa. Though she tried to appear calm, her tightly clenched fingers betrayed her inner unease.
Seeing Hu Yuying's nervous and restrained demeanor, Long Aotian awkwardly averted his gaze.
For a moment, he didn't know what to say.
The atmosphere was briefly awkward, yet there was an indescribable undercurrent beneath the tension.
After some thought, Long Aotian finally spoke. "Yuying, you're still young."
"I'm not young anymore. I'm already eighteen. Strictly speaking, I'm an adult," Hu Yuying replied without looking up, voicing her thoughts.
Long Aotian scratched his head. "What I mean is, in my eyes, you're still young. I've always treated you like a... like a younger sister. Do you understand?"
Hu Yuying lowered her gaze, recalling the moments she had shared with Long Aotian...
From the beginning, Long Aotian had taken care of her like a little follower. Over time, they had grown closer...
There was no denying that Long Aotian had always been the one looking out for her.
After a long pause, she finally said, "I understand."
Hearing this, Long Aotian breathed a sigh of relief. "Come eat. Let's see how my cooking tastes."
Hu Yuying looked up and nodded.
But we're not siblings.
And... I heard your heartbeat too... I heard it...
Stealing a glance at Long Aotian, Hu Yuying knew she wasn't foolish. On the contrary, she was intelligent. Having lost her parents at a young age, she was particularly sensitive to others' emotions.
In the past, when her heart raced in Long Aotian's presence, she had mistaken it for happiness, excitement, or even gratitude.
But the words "You're worth it" had suddenly made her see her true feelings. She knew it wasn't just that...
She had also heard Long Aotian's heartbeat, racing and joyful, just like hers.
In the moment she had impulsively kissed him, she had seen hesitation and shock in his eyes—not disgust, not dislike...
The two of them didn't exchange another word during the meal.
After eating, Hu Yuying began cleaning up.
Everything seemed unchanged.
Long Aotian left the living room and stood in the courtyard, clearing his throat with a cough. "I have some things to take care of during this time, so I won't be able to come over often. Take good care of yourself."
Hu Yuying, who was washing the dishes, froze.
She stared blankly at Long Aotian, unsure how to respond. A sudden sense of loss overwhelmed her.
Seeing the disappointment in Hu Yuying's eyes, Long Aotian turned away, pretending not to notice.
From the moment he had decided to help Hu Yuying, their relationship had gradually grown closer.
But she was about to start university, and he couldn't always be by her side. It wasn't realistic.
At the same time, he wanted to give both himself and Hu Yuying enough time to think clearly.
Gratitude and dependence weren't the same as love.
Hu Yuying was still young. If she couldn't distinguish between them now, it didn't matter. Once she stepped onto a broader stage, she would eventually understand her true feelings. If, by then, she still chose him without hesitation...
"Ugh, it's a bit chilly today. I should get going!"
Without waiting for Hu Yuying to speak, Long Aotian opened the door and left.
Hu Yuying put down the dishes and hurried after him, watching his retreating figure. Her heart felt buried under the drizzle.
As he walked, Long Aotian felt uneasy whenever he encountered familiar faces, instinctively avoiding their gazes, even when they merely offered him an umbrella...
When he finally returned home, he immediately turned on the shower.
Long Aotian let out a slow breath, pressing his hand against his chest to calm the frantic beating of his heart.
His phone vibrated.
Long Aotian instinctively reached for it but hesitated for a moment.
In the end, he picked it up.
After wiping away the water droplets on the screen, he returned to his room.
Opening QQ, he felt a sense of relief.
It was a message in the class group chat.
Someone was organizing a graduation gathering for the class.
Bored, he tossed his phone aside and opened the curtains, quietly listening to the sound of the rain.
On the other side, Hu Yuying heard her phone buzz.
She quickly picked it up, but the joy in her eyes faded just as swiftly.
Silently, she put down her phone and curled up on the bed, feeling lost.
The next morning, the rain had stopped, and the sky was clear.
Hu Yuying woke up early and went to the kitchen to cook.
Even though Long Aotian had said he wouldn't be coming over, what if he did?
After preparing the meal, she opened the front door and waited quietly.
Time passed slowly.
The food grew cold, but Long Aotian never arrived.
Hu Yuying looked at the cooled porridge, her eyes inadvertently reddening.
She didn't know what to do.
Sitting on a small stool in the courtyard, she looked at the photos on her phone.
Alone.
It felt like she was alone again.
But... but...
Hu Yuying pressed her hand tightly against her chest. "But... this place has already been filled, without me even realizing it."
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."
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?!
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.
e vast world of cultivation, where he becomes the master of the Heavenly Ruins Sacred Hall, a dying old man with barely a tenth of his former cultivation remaining. He is immediately confronted with a deadly crisis: his subordinates have rebelled, and his protectors are forcing him to abdicate. At the critical moment, the system descends from the heavens: [Ding! The host has been detected facing a life-or-death crisis. The system is now officially activated!] [As a gift, you have received the Supreme Beginner’s Pack and awakened the ultimate cheat: ten thousand years of pure cultivation essence every second!] Yin Tianjue: “Wait… ten thousand years of cultivation every second? That’s six hundred thousand years a minute, and in one day… I can’t even calculate it. Either way, I’m already invincible!” You’re a peerless prodigy rarely seen in ten thousand years? Sorry, I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. You’re an undying ancestor who has guarded a sacred land for countless ages? Sorry, I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. You’re the strongest chosen one, blessed with heaven-defying destiny? Sorry, I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. From this day forth, I have only one thing to say: “I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. Now, how exactly are you supposed to deal with that?”
