Ye Xuan lifted his head, the corner of his mouth curling into a smile.
It was a gentle smile, yet cruel to the extreme.
“Perhaps it’s because…”
His voice was soft, as if he were discussing something trivial. “You love me, and I don’t love you.”
The Azure Emperor’s pupils contracted sharply, and all the color drained from her face.
“Pfft!”
A mouthful of blood burst from her lips, staining the front of her azure robes.
She staggered backward and braced herself against a broken rockery, her face pale as paper.
Her eyes were fixed on Ye Xuan, filled with pain, despair, unwillingness, and profound sorrow.
“Ye Xuan…”
Her voice was hoarse. Each word seemed to scrape its way out of her throat. “You’re truly so cruel… You’re the cruelest person in the world…”
Ye Xuan did not answer. He simply watched her in silence.
There was no pity or remorse in his gaze, only a detached indifference.
As if he were looking at prey caught by a hunter, or a flower blown from its branch by the wind.
Nearby, Bai Qiangu had witnessed the entire scene.
She stood beneath the archway at the garden entrance, her long crimson dress fluttering in the breeze. Her alluring phoenix eyes held a complicated gleam.
Watching the Azure Emperor spit blood, she felt deeply conflicted.
It wasn’t that she felt sorry for the Azure Emperor. They had never been friends.
Rather, it was because she saw herself in the Azure Emperor.
The same abject humiliation. The same despair. The same helplessness in the face of Ye Xuan, who toyed with them as he pleased.
As emotions churned within her, the voice of the Killing Dao Ancestor rang out in her mind.
The voice was old and deep, its coolness marked by the weight of countless years:
“This Ye Xuan acts much like Fang Yuan, the Emotion-Refining Demon Venerable of old—and may even surpass him. As expected, they must be connected.”
Bai Qiangu asked silently, “Ancestor, does Ye Xuan… love me?”
She knew the answer, but she still wanted to hear someone else say it.
As long as she didn’t say it herself, she could pretend the answer didn’t exist.
The Killing Dao Ancestor was silent for a moment, then let out a cold laugh.
“He will never love you.”
Bai Qiangu shuddered, her nails digging deep into her palm.
She had known the answer all along, but hearing it with her own ears still hurt so much she could hardly breathe.
The Killing Dao Ancestor continued, “Every master of ‘One Conquest, Eternal Conquest’ is a great demon who throws the heavens into chaos. Fang Yuan, the Emotion-Refining Demon Venerable of old, dared to act without restraint because his heart was utterly cold.”
“Among the Three Thousand Great Daos, the Dao of Emotion is the strangest and most difficult to cultivate.”
“To become a mighty cultivator of the Dao of Emotion, one must be heartless.”
“Only the heartless can master emotion. Those who are ruled by emotion can never master the heartless.”
The Ancestor’s voice took on a deeper meaning. “Ye Xuan understands this principle all too well. Now the tables have turned. The Azure Emperor loves him to the point of madness, to the point of losing all dignity. But Ye Xuan simply doesn’t love her.”
“What a skillful move.”
Bai Qiangu said nothing.
She only gazed at the distant man, his white robes as pristine as snow and his face cold and stern. A deep sorrow welled within her.
She and he were equally pitiable.
No—she was even more pitiable than the Azure Emperor.
At least the Azure Emperor could stand before Ye Xuan, be slapped by him, and suffer his humiliation.
As for Bai Qiangu, she had to beg even for the privilege of being humiliated.
She had killed Ye Xuan’s parents and younger sister simply because she could not have him.
She had thought it was love, but it was plainly possessiveness.
If she couldn’t have him, she would destroy him.
Had she gotten what she wanted now?
No.
She had gained nothing at all.
All she had received was Ye Xuan’s indifference and loathing, along with the occasional scraps of permission: “You may stay.”
Ye Xuan walked up to the Azure Emperor and looked down at her.
She leaned against the rockery, blood still at the corner of her mouth as tears streamed silently down her face. Her eyes were swollen and red. She looked like a flower battered by a storm, beautiful and fragile.
Ye Xuan’s face showed no emotion, but there was something in his eyes that was difficult to name.
It was a memory.
A memory from ten thousand years ago.
Back then, he had knelt before the Azure Emperor, low as dust. He had begged her to believe him, begged her not to cut out his kidney.
He had trampled every last shred of his dignity beneath his feet, hoping only that she would look back at him, just once, and believe him.
But what about her?
Her eyes had been fixed on Lu Yanchen.
She had cut out Ye Xuan’s kidney without the slightest hesitation.
In that moment, Ye Xuan felt his heart die.
Now their roles had been reversed.
He stood high above her; she was low as dust.
He could trample her at will, and she did not even have the courage to resist.
“Ten thousand years ago, I was low as dust,” Ye Xuan said softly, his voice tinged with wistful reminiscence. “Now I stand proud as a god.”
He lowered his head and looked at the Azure Emperor’s pale face, the corner of his mouth curling into a cruel smile.
“Azure Emperor, I once told you that when our roles were reversed, I would show you what cruelty meant.”
The Azure Emperor shuddered, tears streaming down her face even faster.
Ye Xuan straightened, his voice turning cold and flat. “At this point, I could have you or not. It makes no difference to me. You mean nothing to me.”
He paused, then added, “But can you leave me?”
The Azure Emperor said nothing.
Her whole body trembled, her lips quivering violently.
Of course she couldn’t.
If she could have left, she would have done so long ago.
She stayed not because Ye Xuan had placed a restriction on her, but because she loved him. She loved him so much that she had lost herself, so much that she could endure any humiliation or hurt.
Watching her expression, Ye Xuan’s smile widened until it became a vicious grin.
“So you use the fact that I love you as an excuse to do whatever you please.”
The Azure Emperor finally spoke, her voice hoarse. Each word seemed to cost her all her strength. “You know I can’t leave you, so you can trample me and hurt me as you please, make me wish I were dead.”
Ye Xuan’s grin grew even more vicious.
“Exactly.” His voice was full of smugness and coldness. “Because I have the right to do so, and I can.”
He stared at her and spoke each word as if passing sentence on her fate:
“You love me more than I love you. I love you less than you love me.”
“So I can trample you, but you can never turn the tables on me.”
“That is the Dao of Emotion.”
“The moment you fell in love with me, you had already lost.”
The Azure Emperor’s pupils contracted sharply. Her lips moved, but no words came out.
The moment she fell in love with Ye Xuan, she was destined to lose.
The Dao of Emotion was never about who loved more deeply. It was about who loved less.
The one who loved less would always hold the upper hand.
The one who loved more would always be low as dust.
That was the cruel law of the Dao of Emotion.
to panic—he has a system. As long as an investment target dies, he can claim a reward. And since he is immortal, the one thing he has plenty of is time. ... Countless years later. “Immortal Emperor of Longevity? I invested in him.” “Supreme Celestial Venerable? I invested in him.” “Undying Empress? I invested in her.” “...” “Heh. Once they’ve all died, even the Heavenly Dao will have to kneel and call me Dad.”
his freshman year, Su Bai accidentally bound the "Indulgence Tycoon System." 【Sleeping in? Reward: +$1,000】 【Spent $288 at a street barbecue stall? Cashback: +$2,880】 【Dropped $14,396 on in-game skins? Special reward unlocked: A brand-new Porsche Panamera!】 Luxury cars, penthouses, corporate shares, financial empires… College life was all about living freely and doing whatever he pleased! … When the adorably naive academic genius faced family medical bills and financial struggles, Su Bai waved his hand dismissively: "Your future is on me." "Wuwu~ Big Brother is so good to me! I’ll become a scientist to repay you!" When the genius girl got bullied by a shady professor? Su Bai casually dropped a billion-dollar investment, forcing the university to grovel and beg for her return. A company’s funding chain collapsing? Su Bai smirked—cash was the one thing he’d never run out of. Years later, when people traced the rise of the AI prodigy beauty, who was the man behind her success? Not just that—Su Bai also became the tsundere campus belle’s unattainable dream, the contrast senior’s daily necessity, and the beautiful counselor’s emotional anchor…
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...
+ Slow Paced + Main Character Thrives Together with His Disciples】 Transmigrated into a cultivation world, Chu Xingchen awakens a discipleship system that reveals the tags of his disciples! Starting from scratch, he builds the strongest sect. Disciple One: Li Yingling 【Gold Tag: Genius Cultivator】【Purple Tag: Extremely Lucky】【Blue Tag: Bewitchingly Beautiful】 Disciple Two: Li Hangtian 【Gold Tag: Reincarnated】【Purple Tag: Ruthless and Decisive】【Blue Tag: Loyal and Noble】 Disciple Three: ??? 【Orange Tag: Alluring Demoness】【???】【???】 Thus, in the cultivation world, an unremarkable little sect appears out of nowhere, but little do others know that each member of this sect is a powerhouse in their own right. The book is also known as: Cultivation? It's Exactly Like This!
