Just as she was about to tear him to pieces in the most vicious way possible...
A figure suddenly embraced her.
A warm body carrying a familiar fragrance hugged her tightly, forcibly halting her movements.
Immediately after, a familiar voice sounded by Luo Zhao's ear, gentle yet firm:
"Your Highness, it is me!"
This voice...
This presence...
The touch of this embrace...
Luo Zhao's whole body stiffened.
The frantically surging true qi abruptly halted.
The monstrous hatred began to retract inward.
She slowly turned her head.
Under the moonlight, she saw a gentle and beautiful face.
"Yun... ying?"
Luo Zhao's voice trembled slightly.
She almost couldn't believe her eyes.
Wasn't Shangguan Yunying hypnotized?
Wasn't she just expressionlessly tying her up and suspending her a moment ago?
Why now...
Why would she be here?
Why would she be holding her?
Why would she say... it is me?
Shangguan Yunying hugged Luo Zhao tightly and repeated:
"Your Highness, it really is me."
"I was awakened by Xiaoli, and then she awakened you too."
Xiaoli?
Luo Zhao abruptly turned her head and looked at the other figure by the bed.
Gu Xiaoli.
Why was she here?
Why could she awaken hypnotized people?
She...
In Luo Zhao's mind, various fragments of information began to rapidly piece together.
An astonishing conjecture slowly surfaced.
"Is it... Imperial Father?"
Gu Xiaoli quietly looked at Luo Zhao, then nodded.
Luo Zhao slowly closed her eyes.
She took a deep breath, heavy and long, suppressing all the emotions in her chest.
When she opened her eyes again, the madness and brutality from earlier were gone.
"Yunying."
Luo Zhao spoke, her voice having recovered its usual coldness and majesty:
"Since you had Xiaoli awaken me, does that mean Gu Chengyin doesn't know?"
Shangguan Yunying looked at Luo Zhao with some worry.
She understood this Crown Princess too well; the calmer she was, the more terrifying she became.
When Luo Zhao put away all her emotions and spoke in this icy tone...
It often meant that she was brewing an extremely dangerous plan in her heart.
But Shangguan Yunying still nodded.
She released her arms around Luo Zhao and began to explain in detail, from how she was awakened by Gu Xiaoli to how Gu Xiaoli modified the hypnotic logic.
Then to the state of being a conscious puppet, and finally her decision to come and awaken Luo Zhao...
Every word, every detail, Shangguan Yunying explained clearly.
Luo Zhao listened quietly.
Her expression no longer changed, only deep within her phoenix eyes, a strange light would occasionally flash.
It wasn't until Shangguan Yunying finished speaking that the bedchamber fell back into silence.
Luo Zhao then slowly spoke:
"So that's how it is."
"I understand."
The corners of Luo Zhao's mouth suddenly curled into an arc:
"This is actually a very good opportunity."
Shangguan Yunying's heart tightened.
Looking at the eerie smile on Luo Zhao's face, she felt a chill down her spine.
She softly probed, "Your Highness... I think..."
Shangguan Yunying didn't know what to say.
Say "I think Gu Chengyin cannot be killed"? Say "We should endure for now"? Say "We need him"?
Would these words sound like betrayal to Luo Zhao, who had just experienced such humiliation?
But Luo Zhao suddenly turned her head and looked at Shangguan Yunying.
There was no anger or accusation in her phoenix eyes, but rather a gentle smile.
But that smile made Shangguan Yunying even more uneasy.
"Yunying, did you think I would ask you to go and kill Gu Chengyin?"
Shangguan Yunying nodded gently.
This was the most reasonable speculation. Given Luo Zhao's personality, killing Gu Chengyin was an almost inevitable choice.
But Luo Zhao shook her head.
Not only did she shake her head, but she also smiled.
That smile was not a cold sneer or a mocking laugh, but a smile of complete unconcern.
As if the person gnashing her teeth and vowing to kill Gu Chengyin just a moment ago wasn't her.
"Yunying, rest assured." Luo Zhao's voice carried an eerie gentleness. "I won't have you kill him."
She paused, a sickly gleam flashing in her eyes:
"Not only that, but I also want to thank him properly."
Shangguan Yunying was stunned.
Thank him? Thank Gu Chengyin?
She almost thought she had misheard.
But Luo Zhao's next words made her completely understand.
This Crown Princess was no longer the Highness who merely acted on her temper.
A gentle smile, almost pathological, appeared on Luo Zhao's face.
This smile was twisted yet beautiful, like a blooming poppy, bearing deadly temptation and danger:
"If it weren't for his personal instruction and cultivation, I would still be that foolish Highness! The most useless Crown Princess of Great Luo!"
Luo Zhao's voice gradually rose, her tone filled with self-deprecation:
"Naive, suspicious, obstinate, always thinking I could control everything, yet unable to withstand a single blow in front of a true master."
"If it weren't for him, how could I have understood so thoroughly!"
Luo Zhao smiled.
But the smile made Shangguan Yunying shudder:
"So, why should I kill him?"
"Since he said he wants to make me the sole sovereign of Great Luo, then I will watch with my own eyes."
"Watch how he lays out his plans, how he schemes, how step by step he clears all obstacles and suppresses all opposition."
"And then delivers all the power... right into my hands."
Shangguan Yunying stared blankly at Luo Zhao; she had never seen Her Highness like this.
Sickly flames burning in her eyes, an eerie smile hanging on her face, her tone full of a mad calmness.
This was far more terrifying than anger or hatred.
"Furthermore, Yunying, do you know?"
Luo Zhao's voice suddenly lowered, carrying the excitement of sharing a secret:
"I already know why Gu Chengyin absolutely had to hypnotize me."
In her eyes, the pathological flames grew fiercer:
"His cultivation is linked to his status and power."
"He controls me so that I will ascend to the throne, so that I will become the Empress."
"Only when I ascend the throne can he obtain that position below one person and above ten thousand, and only then can he break through to the Golden Core realm!"
Luo Zhao suddenly extended a finger, placing it vertically against her lips in a shushing gesture.
Then, she smiled.
"Then I will grant his wish."
"Wait until the day he reaches the summit."
Luo Zhao moved the finger at her lips forward, then stared at it, saying excitedly:
"All it will take is a single imperial edict."
"I will be able to erase everything he has."
"Erase all his official posts and status."
"Erase all his identity and power."
"By then, no matter how formidable he is, how clever, how calculating..."
"He will only be able to watch helplessly, watching everything he has turn into nothing."
"Because his cultivation is tied to his status and power."
"When all of that disappears, he will be nothing but an ordinary mortal."
"When that time comes..."
Luo Zhao grabbed Shangguan Yunying's hand tightly, a bone-chilling hatred surfacing on her face:
"He will belong to me forever!"
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...
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
and couldn't return to the real world. Finally, I gave up and decided to go with the flow, only to discover that writing a diary could make me stronger. Since no one could read it, Su Luo wrote freely, daring to pen anything and everything. Female Lead #1: "Not bad. This diary helped me steal all the protagonist's opportunities. I just want to get stronger." Female Lead #2: "I don’t care about reaching the peak of the cultivation world. Right now, I just want to enjoy the chaos." Female Lead #3: "What? Everyone around me is a spy? I’m the Joker Demon Lord?" ... It’s so strange. Why is the plot completely off track, yet the ending remains the same? Are you all just messing with me?!
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.
