“Oh, that’s about enough. Go ahead and tell me what you came for.”
Xu Mu set down his teacup with a smile.
“Alright, I’ll get straight to the point. The Second Elder has a very good chance of becoming clan leader, but I still want to help my father. To be honest, my father is Shui Yuanyao.”
Shui Miaomiao explained.
“How can I help?”
Xu Mu asked, though he already knew the answer.
“As long as someone wins two out of the three evaluations, they can become clan leader. What Goateed Senior said before was right: in the contest of personal strength within the clan, my father should win. But in the competition for merit, he definitely can’t compare to the Second Elder.”
Shui Miaomiao explained, “Their contributions were more or less equal before the selection process began, but once the candidates were decided, the Second Elder suddenly turned in a large number of treasures, including a divine artifact.”
Xu Mu stroked his chin. “Looks like she came prepared.”
“Exactly. If my father wants to defeat her, he’ll have to submit a divine artifact as well. But something like that isn’t easy to come by. We can only pin our hopes on the final test—the leadership assessment.”
Shui Miaomiao nervously clasped her hands together. “I’d like to ask you to join my father’s team.”
“Would I be allowed to compete? Wouldn’t the Four Great Races target me?” Xu Mu asked.
“I’ll need to ask my father about that. If it really isn’t allowed, I hope you can disguise your identity.”
Shui Miaomiao suddenly pressed her palms together. “We’ll definitely reward you handsomely.”
“If I help you, but you don’t succeed in the end, will you still reward me?”
Xu Mu asked with a smile.
“I can guarantee that we will. It just won’t be as much as if we succeed.”
Shui Miaomiao replied with a serious expression.
“Fine. How exactly do you plan to reward me? I don’t like empty promises. Unless you put the terms on the table, I’ll have to consider whether helping you is worth it.”
Xu Mu said to Shui Miaomiao.
“Alright. Then please wait here for a day or two. I need to go back and ask. Oh, and…”
Shui Miaomiao took a blue token from her spatial ring. It looked like a block of ice.
“This is a token for one of our guest retainers. As long as you carry it, you can come to the ruins to find me whenever you wish.”
“Alright.”
Xu Mu accepted the token. It was certainly a useful item.
After Shui Miaomiao left, Xu Mu used an illusion array to alter his appearance, giving himself a full beard.
After leaving the teahouse, Xu Mu headed to the restaurant in the royal city.
Zidian had already left. He had even assured Shui Shu that when the time came to test both sides’ leadership abilities at the ruins, he would personally be there.
After Zidian left, Shui Shu remained seated in the private room without moving.
Her expression shifted constantly. Clearly, she had yet to calm down from her earlier fury.
Xu Mu could understand how she felt. Even if she became clan leader, if that video were ever made public, she would still be too ashamed to face anyone.
After waiting for roughly ten minutes, Shui Shu put on the hood of her black robe and walked out of the restaurant.
When Xu Mu saw that she was not heading toward the ruins in the royal city, he followed after her.
He intended to test her. As long as he could successfully obtain the Battlefield of the Gods, Xu Mu would not release the video.
He had no grudge against her, nor did he have any unusual fetishes. There was no way he would keep threatening her with the video.
After following her for two streets, Xu Mu suddenly saw Shui Shu hurry into a clothing store.
Xu Mu knew she had already noticed him, but he still deliberately walked over, pretending to look around.
Just then, Shui Shu emerged from the shop and asked Xu Mu, “What do you want with me, sir?”
“Heh. I’d only seen you in videos before. Now that I’m finally seeing you in person, I almost didn’t recognize you with your clothes on.”
Xu Mu altered his voice, making it rougher and deeper.
At his words, a chill involuntarily radiated from Shui Shu’s body. “Come with me.”
“I’m not going anywhere. I’m an honest man—what if you kill me?”
Xu Mu smiled. “Let’s go back to the restaurant you were just at. There are plenty of people there. You probably won’t make a move on me there.”
With that, Xu Mu took the lead and headed back.
Shui Shu hesitated where she stood for a moment before ultimately following him.
Upon returning to the restaurant, Xu Mu asked the owner for a private room. Led by a waiter, they went upstairs to the second floor this time.
Shui Shu followed close behind until the two of them entered the private room together.
“Who exactly are you?”
Shui Shu’s expression was grave.
Xu Mu pulled back the hood of his black robe, revealing a bearded face.
Shui Shu removed her hood as well. Her mature, elegant features studied Xu Mu for a long while.
“An array?” she said flatly. “You’ve concealed your appearance, but the array is very limited. It only covers your face.”
As she spoke, she examined Xu Mu’s exposed hands and arms. “You should be young, shouldn’t you?”
Xu Mu was secretly startled. As expected of an eighth-rank expert—she was on another level.
Still, it was only natural. The private room was small, and they were barely a meter apart. It was no surprise that she could sense the fluctuations of the array.
“I have concealed myself, that’s true. But that isn’t the point. The point is, a holy goddess like you is secretly Zidian’s plaything. What does that make of those of us who admire you?”
Xu Mu’s tone was icy.
At that, Shui Shu was certain that this person had seen the video. Otherwise, he could not possibly know such details.
Yet her face remained composed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Still playing dumb? I saw the video!”
Xu Mu was not afraid of her denying it. After all, the evidence in it was overwhelming.
“A video? Don’t you know that AI-generated videos are everywhere these days? Anyone could use my face to fabricate a video, and you just believed it?”
Shui Shu spoke as calmly as ever. “That makes you a fool. If you don’t believe me, I can have someone make a video using your face.”
“Shui Shu! You’re my goddess. Of course I believe the video is fake. That’s why I came to verify it myself.”
Xu Mu pointed at her. “Take off your clothes. I need to verify it.”
“Outrageous!”
Shui Shu’s face darkened.
“I only want to verify it. AI videos can only swap faces—the body is either randomly generated, or they simply paste your face onto another woman’s body.”
Xu Mu said calmly, “All I need to do is verify whether a more private part of you matches the person in the video. Then we’ll know for sure.”
“Which part do you want to verify?”
“You definitely wouldn’t agree to let me check the black butterfly-shaped tattoo.”
Xu Mu suddenly pointed to the area beneath the left side of his chest. “But surely you can let me see the mole here.”
“Bastard!”
Shui Shu snarled. The ice spikes suspended in the air instantly shot toward Xu Mu’s face.
“See? You’re getting worked up.”
Xu Mu let out a breath. “You’re still something of a goddess to me. I don’t want to make things too difficult for you. Just tell me the locations of two unexplored battlegrounds of the gods, and I’ll delete the video.”
Shui Shu narrowed her eyes. So that was his real goal.
“Hehe, am I really your goddess?”
She suddenly covered her mouth and laughed. “Then which would you choose: those two places, or spending one night with your goddess?”
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
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.
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."
nto another world, I bought a slave for the first time, never expecting the silver wolf girl to be so cute... Lin Feng: I know it's cold, but you don't have to sneak into my bed! Yuna: Just sharing body warmth, if you dare do anything naughty, I'll definitely...
