When the power gap is too vast, this is what happens. Even if the Jialan Empress didn’t intend to kill Jiang Che, in her invincible dream realm, he was nothing more than an extremely fragile existence. A mere sneeze from her could shatter him to pieces.
[Ding! Host successfully tricked the Jialan Empress! Reward: 1.5 billion points.]
A massive windfall!!!
Humiliation!
Utter humiliation!!!
The Jialan Empress was on the verge of collapse. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined she would be forced to kiss someone—especially a mere ant whose cultivation was far beneath her own!
She was far too proud. To conquer her... one would need strength surpassing hers. Jiang Che had made her feel as though she had suffered an unbearable disgrace!
"Are you satisfied now?" The woman’s voice was practically forced through gritted teeth.
Her phoenix-like eyes burned with fury. The wrath of a half-immortal... The entire dream world, once dim and shadowed, suddenly transformed into a landscape of crimson molten rock, as if a volcanic apocalypse had erupted.
"Very satisfied. But Your Majesty, you’ll need to get used to this. To save Ling'er... you have no other choice, do you?"
"Besides, this is just a fragment of your soul in the dream realm. It’s not even connected to your true body. Just think of it as being bitten by a dog, alright?"
Jiang Che’s skin was thicker than a fortress wall—so thick he’d even insult himself without hesitation!
"No choice..."
Indeed, she truly had no way out now.
She knew exactly what this ant wanted. In the end, to save Ling'er, she would have to yield. Yet, she was powerless to resist.
Ling'er was her everything!!!
The fury on the empress’s face gradually subsided into calm. Then, she released Jia Ling'er.
The poor mermaid girl was already half-petrified—her lower body, waist, and hands had turned to stone. She lay unconscious, her life hanging by a thread.
"Your Majesty, I beg you... don’t tell Ling'er about my crimes. Let her continue loving me as she does now."
"Over my dead body!!!"
Once Ling'er awoke, the empress would use every means at her disposal to project the despicable scene of Jiang Che’s shamelessness into her mind, forcing her to see the true evil behind his charming facade!
He was far more wicked than the demons of the outer realms!
"Tsk tsk, what a shame... Then I suppose my heart’s blood is off the table—"
"I... I agree!"
The Jialan Empress had never known the meaning of helplessness—until now.
She was being led by the nose, completely at his mercy!
Jiang Che had truly backed her into a corner.
"Extracting heart’s blood isn’t easy, you know... But lucky for you, I already prepared it in advance!"
Jiang Che retrieved a small jade vial from his spatial pouch. Inside was a drop of his heart’s blood, extracted with the system’s power.
Did he really expect to endure the agony of the Midnight Heartbreak Curse?
Not a chance!
Gazing at the crimson droplet, Jiang Che smirked.
There were many ways to undo Jia Ling'er’s petrification. The simplest was to spend 300 million points to replace the royal blood in her veins with another lineage’s, nullifying the curse entirely.
But... wouldn’t that be a terrible waste of a golden opportunity?
How else could he use Jia Ling'er to control the esteemed empress?
"Didn’t you say you’d extract the heart’s blood at midnight?" the woman demanded.
"Oh, this drop was taken yesterday. Must be the time difference—you know how it is on Earth. I took a quick trip abroad, and midnight there happened to align with midnight here in Dragon Country now..."
Jialan Empress: "......"
She strongly suspected Jiang Che was lying through his teeth, but she had no proof.
With a slow, deliberate motion, Jiang Che let the droplet fall onto Jia Ling'er’s nearly fully petrified body.
In the next instant—
The stone encasing her shattered away like a shell, revealing flawless skin beneath, smooth as a peeled egg.
At the same time, the girl’s vitality began to surge back!
The mermaid clan’s petrification curse was, at its core, a seal on the life force. Once lifted, it left no lasting harm.
"This—!"
The Jialan Empress’s eyes widened in shock and disbelief!
This was the first time she had ever seen someone survive the ancestral curse after being afflicted.
Which meant... Jiang Che’s method actually worked!
But her astonishment quickly sharpened into suspicion. "No, the curse in Ling'er’s body hasn’t dissipated—it’s only been suppressed! What did you do?!"
"I told you, this is just a temporary fix. It lasts twelve hours at most. Every midnight and noon, she’ll need another drop of my heart’s blood. If even you can’t break this curse, how could I possibly eradicate it completely?"
The empress fell silent. She was certain Jiang Che had a way to fully cure Ling'er but was withholding it deliberately!
Even his so-called "heart’s blood treatment" might be a sham!
His true target was her. This greedy human not only wanted Ling'er—he wanted her as well!!!
[No. Endless concessions will only embolden him further. Today, he demands five cities; tomorrow, ten. And after a night’s peace, you wake to find his armies at your gates once more.]
[I must uncover the mermaid clan’s ancestral secret. Only then can Ling'er be saved without relying on him.]
Jiang Che glanced at her, his gaze unreadable.
A clever woman indeed. Pity about the temper... A woman like her needed to have her pride utterly crushed beneath his heel!
For now, he couldn’t touch her true body. But this fragment of her soul would make for excellent practice...
......
"Mmm... What happened to me?"
Freed from the curse, Jia Ling'er slowly opened her eyes—and immediately locked gazes with the Jialan Empress.
Her entire body froze.
"M-Mother...?"
"Ling'er... You’re safe! That’s all that matters!" The empress pulled her daughter into an embrace, her voice trembling with emotion.
But the next moment, Ling'er shoved her away with startling force!
Horror filled her as she looked down at her hands—the petrification marks were completely gone.
A terrible realization dawned on her.
As far as she knew, the only way to lift the petrification curse... was to kill its source!
Which meant... Jiang Che... was dead?!
Her heart clenched violently!
Memories of her time with Jiang Che flooded her mind. Their acquaintance had been brief, far from pleasant—even outright hostile.
By all logic, Jiang Che should have been nothing more than a despicable scoundrel to her. Yet, for some reason... she had still begun to petrify. The ancestral curse didn’t lie. She had no choice but to confront her own heart!
"Mother!!! You killed Jiang Che!!!"
Jia Ling'er’s scream pierced the air like a blade.
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?"
lanned to earn money steadily and take life at a slower pace. But he never expected... his father's remarriage, and the stepmother bringing along a dependent, would completely disrupt his life's plans...
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.”
shall grant"] ["Inscribing the glory of our race upon tombstones"] ["All that is threatened, I shall protect"] How his younger sister sees her brother: A brother who only makes eye contact once a day, mostly fading into the background as he tinkers with who-knows-what in his room all day. Their life paths should have remained largely separate. Until one day. Su Qi created an equipment card for his never-met "online girlfriend." His sister fell into silent contemplation upon receiving the "white stockings." [Card can be upgraded] [Upgrade by fulfilling any of the following conditions] [Condition ①: Consume one hundred higher-tier cards] [Condition ②: Complete one 'Heart-Pounding Adventure'] What constitutes a Heart-Pounding Adventure? [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Beginner Level): Equip the card and invite 'Su Qi' to admire it.] [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Easy Level): Equip the card, invite 'Su Qi' to touch it, and analyze the equipment's texture.] [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Entry Level): Equip the card and invite 'Su Qi' to...] [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Challenge Level): Freely combine the words 'Brother' 'Out' 'Brother' 'Me' 'Please' into a complete sentence...] "Please help me analyze both teams' mistakes in this match, brother..." His sister exhaled in relief—surely... surely there couldn't be anything more difficult? [Heart-Pounding Adventure (Suicide Mission Level): Sneak a peek at the names of the galgames in 'Su Qi's' hidden E-drive folder]
