Luo Zhao turned her head once more, fixing her gaze directly on Lin Qingyan's eyes.
In that instant, all the calmness in her eyes faded, revealing the sharp edge beneath.
“Auntie, you like him, don’t you?”
The air in the bedchamber froze for a moment.
Lin Qingyan’s expression shifted slightly.
It wasn’t panic, nor was it embarrassment. It was a deeper change,
like a zither string that had lain silent for years suddenly plucked by an unseen hand.
Lin Qingyan looked at Luo Zhao’s eyes—so similar to her own—and saw the undisguised sharpness within.
She didn’t admit it but shook her head gently:
“It’s not liking.”
“It’s love.”
Lin Qingyan met Luo Zhao’s gaze, earnest and firm, speaking clearly:
“I love him.”
When those three words landed, Luo Zhao’s expression changed.
It became incredulous, then disbelieving, then utterly unwilling to accept.
She had thought Lin Qingyan merely liked him—after all, Gu Chengyin’s charm was undeniable.
But she never expected those three words, spoken with such unshakable resolve.
From as far back as she could remember, Lin Qingyan had always been aloof and distant.
When the sky fell, she wouldn’t blink.
When the earth split, she wouldn’t frown.
She was the most ethereal immortal under heaven, so cold and remote that everyone believed nothing in this world could ever draw her attention.
But now, this ethereal immortal sat across from her,
speaking with the coldest, most indifferent tone the most blazing words in all the world:
“I love him.”
Emotion surged in Luo Zhao’s heart.
What she hadn’t expected was that Lin Qingyan would say it so simply, so openly, without a trace of concealment.
Yet when she thought about it, it made sense.
If it weren’t love, why would Lin Qingyan have thrown herself into the game time and again?
If it weren’t love, why would she have stepped into the Crown Prince’s palace that very night after the imperial edict was issued?
But as the tides of emotion ebbed, what remained in Luo Zhao’s heart was fury.
This fury came without warning, overwhelming and unstoppable.
Luo Zhao’s pupils contracted, and the faint smile at the corners of her mouth froze.
Slowly, it twisted into something else entirely.
This was the anger of one whose possession was coveted.
This was the anger of one whose possession was tainted.
This was the anger of one whose possession was stolen.
Gu Chengyin was hers.
From the days in Luoshui Commandery, from the moment she first met him,
from the first time she realized those twisted, unspeakable thoughts in her heart,
Luo Zhao had settled on one truth:
Gu Chengyin was hers.
He was the one she would bring down, the one she would crush beneath her feet,
the one she would make see only her in those eyes of his.
But now, Lin Qingyan—this woman who shared her face,
whom she so deeply trusted and cherished—
was sitting across from her, solemnly declaring:
“I love him.”
Something shattered in Luo Zhao’s eyes.
And from the cracks, something else grew wildly.
“Auntie.”
Luo Zhao spoke again, her voice still light, as if nothing had happened.
“Do you even know what you’re saying?”
Lin Qingyan’s gaze was calm as still water. She nodded:
“I know.”
“Do you know who he is?”
“I know.”
“Then do you know…”
Luo Zhao’s voice finally wavered, sharp as a blade scraping glass:
“He is mine!”
Lin Qingyan fell silent.
She didn’t look away. She just gazed quietly at Luo Zhao.
Her eyes held no retreat, no guilt, no shame.
Only a warmth Luo Zhao had never seen before—firm and steady.
“Zhao’er,” Lin Qingyan said softly, “you are the Crown Prince.”
“And Gu Chengyin is the Crown Prince’s Lesser Master.”
Luo Zhao’s eyes changed violently.
The barely contained calm she had struggled to keep finally shattered.
The light in her eyes grew searing and wild, as if something were burning inside her,
consuming her until she radiated a fevered, sickly intensity.
“He is mine.”
Each word was bitten off, heavy.
“He… is… mine!”
Repeating it, Luo Zhao hissed through gritted teeth,
like a young beast guarding its prey, baring its sharp fangs.
Lin Qingyan watched this face—so like her own—twist into something never seen before.
Moonlight still fell silently, illuminating the madness etched on Luo Zhao’s features with stark clarity.
In that moment, Lin Qingyan understood many things.
She understood why Luo Zhao had been targeting Gu Chengyin.
She understood why Gu Chengyin was so wary of her.
“Zhao’er,” Lin Qingyan said, her voice faint as a sigh, “do you know why I came?”
Luo Zhao didn’t answer, just glared at her.
“I came not to argue with you, not to fight you,” Lin Qingyan said slowly.
“I came to know why you do this.
Why you’re so harsh with Gu Chengyin—your own Lesser Master.
Now I see: it’s because you hate him so much.”
Luo Zhao was stunned.
Lin Qingyan’s gaze was complex, somber. “You’re not targeting him because he did wrong.
You do it because only by pulling him down can you make him bow his head.
Make him see you. Make him… unable to ignore you anymore.”
Luo Zhao’s face changed completely.
The madness froze, then crumbled, fragment by fragment.
The bedchamber was so silent you could hear the moonlight hitting the ground.
Then Luo Zhao’s lips curved into a smile—beautiful, and deeply unhinged.
“Auntie,” she said softly, her voice coquettish, “you’re right.”
“I hate him.”
“From the very first day I met him, I’ve hated him.”
“I hated that he never cared about me.”
“So I want him to look at me. Only at me. I want his eyes to have no one else.
Since he won’t look at me, I’ll pull him down.
Since he stands so high above me, I’ll make him kneel before me.
Since he doesn’t care about me…”
Luo Zhao’s voice paused, and her smile turned eerie under the moonlight.
“Then I’ll make him have no choice but to care.”
She stared at Lin Qingyan, her gaze blazing with madness.
“So he is mine.”
“From start to finish, he is mine.”
Lin Qingyan listened. She watched.
Her eyes held no anger, no disappointment—only a complex, indescribable emotion.
What she felt was relief: Luo Zhao didn’t love Gu Chengyin—she hated him to the bone.
Since that was the case, Lin Qingyan hadn’t stolen her niece’s man after all.
As for the rest, Lin Qingyan had only two sentences:
“The future is yours.”
Luo Zhao’s smile froze for a moment.
Lin Qingyan stood and walked toward the door, moonlight falling behind her.
“But the present is mine.”
with countless casualties. As a top-tier gamer, Liu Xuan volunteered to join the fight, intending to dominate with his skills, but instead he obtained the hidden class: [Pacifist]. Unable to attack. Unable to use active skills. Fortunately, with each level gained, he acquired a new passive skill. And so, armed with a body full of passives, Liu Xuan slaughtered his way through the battlefield of ten thousand races! [You attacked Liu Xuan] [You gained the debuffs: 'Poison', 'Fear', 'Burning', 'Bleeding', 'Freeze', 'Silence', etc.] [Your attack speed has been reduced by 99%] [Your armor and magic resistance have been reduced by 99%] Warriors of the Ten Thousand Races: How the hell am I supposed to fight this?!
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!
lan, the Luo family, tracked him down - along with the babies in their arms. Mo Xuan stared pensively at the paternity test results from over a dozen top institutions, both domestic and international, showing a 99.99% match between himself and the two baby girls. At 23, Mo Xuan, a doctoral student, had become the father of two three-year-old children. The kicker? The mothers weren't even the same person! He gradually realized he was being lured step by step into an elaborate trap designed by these two yandere sisters. "Be good, little Xuan. Sister's life belongs to you entirely." "Brother, if you try to run away, I'll have no choice but to tie you up." Mo Xuan: "Do whatever you want, ladies. I give up."
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?!
