Gu Chengyin looked down at the immortal in his arms.
He could feel the face pressed against his chest, its temperature rising.
It was not the usual warmth, but an abnormal heat, as if something were burning in her blood.
The air began to grow thick, saturated with an ambiguous, intimate atmosphere.
Lin Qingyan’s breathing grew heavier, brushing against the side of his neck, carrying a faint, elusive fragrance.
The hand that had been clutching his robe loosened, then climbed to his shoulder, her fingertips unconsciously stroking the back of his neck.
Gu Chengyin was no callow youth; he knew what this meant.
This was an invitation, and a permission.
For an ordinary man, he would have likely followed the current of the moment.
A secluded man and woman, alone together, bound by mutual affection—what was there to hesitate over?
But Gu Chengyin did not.
Far from it. His brows instead furrowed.
Because he sensed something amiss, a subtle wrongness that would have been difficult to perceive at the Foundation Establishment stage.
But now that his Tao heart had broken through to the Golden Core stage, its function became clear.
Amidst the chaotic tide of desire, it was like a piece of cold jade sunk to the bottom of the water.
Clear, cold, and translucent, utterly unmoved.
And it was precisely this clarity that allowed Gu Chengyin to detect the anomaly.
This was also the crucial point he had occasionally sensed before but never deeply investigated.
Why did Lin Qingyan become aroused?
No Heart Demon had appeared. Where did her desire come from?
Gu Chengyin recalled the previous times when Lin Qingyan had been stirred, yet no Heart Demon was involved.
Back then, he had assumed it was the Heart Demon at work.
After all, the Heart Demon was a consciousness of negative emotions, formed from desire itself.
It would cause one to lose control and sink into depravity—that seemed reasonable.
But before his Golden Core stage Tao heart, Gu Chengyin discovered something.
Lin Qingyan’s Heart Demon was quiet, weak, with not a hint of agitation.
It was as if the ambiguity and passion between them now had nothing to do with the Heart Demon.
If the Heart Demon was desire, and the Heart Demon had not stirred,
then where did Lin Qingyan’s current passion come from?
Gu Chengyin’s thoughts raced.
He recalled the records about Heart Demons: that they were the crystallization of a cultivator’s deepest obsession,
becoming an independent existence that coexisted with the host.
If so, then the host should be cold and detached.
Why, then, was Lin Qingyan more prone to passion?
How could she act so absurdly, even while fully awake?
Was this reasonable?
It was not.
Unless...
A thought suddenly flashed through Gu Chengyin’s mind, like a bolt of lightning in the dark night.
What if Lin Qingyan’s Heart Demon was not about desire at all?
What if the Lin Qingyan he had always seen was never the real Lin Qingyan?
“Little Aunt,”
Gu Chengyin spoke, his voice clear as a striking stone.
The immortal in his arms lifted her head.
Lin Qingyan’s eyes were still moist, her cheeks still flushed, her lips slightly parted as if about to speak.
But when she saw the look in Gu Chengyin’s eyes, her entire body suddenly stiffened.
Those were exceptionally clear eyes,
calm and transparent, like the still waters of a deep pool, showing no ripple at all.
They formed a stark contrast with the room’s intimacy and the burning heat of her body.
The passion faded a little from Lin Qingyan’s gaze, replaced by a kind of bewilderment,
as if she had been abruptly woken from a deep dream and had not yet come to her senses.
Gu Chengyin gazed quietly at Lin Qingyan, studying her intently, as if examining a treasure he had never seen before.
The face before him was one he knew well.
The brows and eyes were the same, the contours the same, still so beautiful,
like a celestial maiden descending from heaven, untouched by mundane dust.
Yet her expression was completely wrong. Those eyes were now brimming with lust,
hazy and soft, without a trace of her usual cold detachment.
This was wrong.
Very wrong.
If this were the cold, aloof Lin Qingyan, she should not show such an expression,
nor should she have done those utterly absurd things.
But if it were the Heart Demon, the Heart Demon had not appeared. It remained docile, under his control.
If so, only one possibility remained.
Gu Chengyin’s heart sank.
Unless the Lin Qingyan before him was not the real Lin Qingyan.
And the cold, aloof Lin Qingyan was the true her.
The cold detachment Gu Chengyin had always seen was merely a disguise,
meant to show everyone that Lin Qingyan was still Lin Qingyan.
This thought was absurd, yet far too plausible.
So plausible that a cold shiver ran down Gu Chengyin’s spine.
He had always believed the Heart Demon was the embodiment of desire, Lin Qingyan’s suppressed passion.
So when the cold, aloof Lin Qingyan appeared, he had never doubted her.
But Gu Chengyin had overlooked one thing.
A Heart Demon could be any extreme emotion.
It could be repressed desire, or it could be bone-deep hatred.
What if Lin Qingyan’s suffering was too great?
So great that she could not bear it, forcing her to sever those memories and seal them away.
And the Heart Demon that sealed those memories would become a negative consciousness of pain and hatred.
Within this negative consciousness would be all the memories Lin Qingyan refused to face.
Meanwhile, she herself would become a new Lin Qingyan, one with desire and love,
but without painful memories.
So she would feel passion, lose control, and... love him.
Because the extreme negative emotions of pain and hatred were gone,
leaving only the part that could feel moved, yearn, and surrender.
Gu Chengyin closed his eyes. He recalled all that had happened these days.
The look Lin Qingyan gave him—starting with distance, then growing gentle, and now full of affection.
He had thought that, after the Heart Demon was released, it was her true nature showing through.
It turned out that from the very beginning, what he saw was not the Heart Demon, but her true nature.
Except that this true nature was incomplete.
And the Lin Qingyan with all her memories was the real Lin Qingyan.
“Little Aunt,”
Gu Chengyin called softly again, his voice even gentler than before, carrying an indescribable tone.
The passion in Lin Qingyan’s eyes faded a little more.
She seemed to sense something, but dared not be certain.
She only gazed at him blankly, like a frightened kitten.
Gu Chengyin sighed, raised his hand, and stroked her cheek.
His fingertips touched burning skin—whether from lingering heat or nervousness, he could not tell.
Lin Qingyan’s eyes widened slightly, as if she had not expected him to make such a move at this moment.
But Gu Chengyin did nothing further. He only gently caressed her cheek,
as if soothing her, or confirming something.
He suddenly spoke, confessing with utter sincerity:
“Little Aunt, I like you very much. Truly.”
Lin Qingyan froze.
“But...”
Gu Chengyin looked at her, his tone indescribably complex:
“Is this really alright?”
His thumb gently brushed the corner of Lin Qingyan’s eye, where a trace of moisture lingered.
“If the real you were to know, could she truly accept this?”
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!
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...
pression Bureau] Transported to a fantasy world overrun by demons and monsters, Gu Qingfeng becomes a jailer in the Demon Suppression Prison of the Great Yan Dynasty's Demon Suppression Bureau. From this point on, bizarre cases frequently occur in the Demon Suppression Prison, once known as hell on earth and infamous for its gloomy, terrifying atmosphere! Why do the demons and monsters in the prison wail miserably every night? Why has the corpse demon, capable of transforming into various beauties, donned black stockings and switched careers to become a foot massage therapist? Why has the eye demon, expert in soul-snatching and illusions, turned into a VR headset? Why is the fox spirit performing otaku dances? Are all these occurrences a twisted expression of demonic nature, or a descent into moral depravity? After peeling away layer upon layer of mystery, all clues ultimately point to a jailer named Gu Qingfeng. Gu Qingfeng: "Hehehe... My dear demons and monsters, whose card shall we flip today?"
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.
