As Luo Zhao spoke, her voice began to tremble.
But she quickly suppressed that tremor, replacing it with a sharper mockery.
"Yet even so, you still didn’t dare to take me."
"Because you’re afraid—because you’re nothing but a coward!"
"Because you don’t dare to be responsible for me! You’re terrified you can’t handle that burden!"
"So you, Gu Chengyin, are just a small fry!"
"A small fry, a small fry!"
Luo Zhao stared at Gu Chengyin, waiting for his reaction.
But Gu Chengyin still didn’t move. He still didn’t speak. He watched her with that same unreadable gaze.
A wave of frustration suddenly surged within Luo Zhao.
Why wasn’t he angry yet?
She had pushed him this far—how could he still sit so still?
Was he made of wood?
Or stone?
A clay doll with no temper at all?
No.
She couldn’t stop here. She had to see Gu Chengyin break, see him lose his composure.
To see a crack appear on that eternally calm face.
Luo Zhao took a deep breath and played her final card.
"Gu Chengyin."
Her voice suddenly turned soft, as though she were calling to an intimate lover:
"Are you impotent?"
The air in the hall froze.
Shangguan Yunying covered her mouth. Gu Xiaoli’s eyes went wide.
Lin Qingyan shut his eyes, unwilling to watch any longer.
Gu Chengyin finally moved.
He rose from his chair.
The motion was unhurried, almost leisurely.
After standing, he smoothed his robes, then walked toward Luo Zhao.
One step.
Two steps.
Three steps.
The footsteps weren’t heavy, but each one seemed to land on Luo Zhao’s heart.
He wasn’t moving fast, yet the invisible pressure bore down on her like a mountain collapsing, stealing her breath.
Luo Zhao’s smile froze on her face.
Instinctively, she tried to step back, but the bed was behind her; there was nowhere to retreat.
She watched Gu Chengyin draw closer, step by step, his tall frame casting a shadow that enveloped her entirely.
She watched him look down at her from above.
Luo Zhao’s heartbeat suddenly quickened, pounding like a drum.
"What did Your Highness just say?"
Gu Chengyin’s voice even carried a hint of amusement:
"I didn’t catch it. Could you say it again?"
Luo Zhao’s throat tightened.
She wanted to speak, to keep provoking him, to maintain her defiant posture.
But her lips trembled, and she couldn’t utter a single word.
Gu Chengyin bent down.
His face came closer and closer to hers, so close that she could see the dark glint deep in his eyes.
"Was Your Highness asking if I dared to take you?"
"Calling me weak? Calling me a coward? Saying I’m incompetent?"
With every word, Gu Chengyin leaned in further.
Luo Zhao’s body instinctively leaned back, her spine pressing into the soft pillow until she nearly sank into it.
"And has Your Highness ever considered,"
Gu Chengyin suddenly reached out, planting his hand on the bedding beside her.
He leaned slightly forward, trapping her entirely in his shadow.
"What if it’s not that I don’t dare, but that I’m afraid Your Highness can’t handle it?"
Luo Zhao’s face flushed bright red.
From her cheeks to her ears, from her ears to her neck—red as a boiled shrimp.
She opened her mouth to say something that might salvage the situation, but her mind was a blank.
In the end, driven by sheer instinct, she whispered:
"I... I didn’t mean that..."
"Then what did Your Highness mean?"
Gu Chengyin didn’t back away; instead, he came closer.
His nose almost touched hers, his breath brushing against her face.
"Didn’t Your Highness agree? Weren’t you willing to give yourself to me?"
With every word he spoke, Luo Zhao’s face reddened further.
She finally realized how much trouble she had caused.
She hadn’t provoked just any man—she had provoked Gu Chengyin.
The man who never backed down, who never succumbed to pressure, whom she had never once defeated.
"Gu... Junior Preceptor Gu..."
Luo Zhao tried to shield herself with her title: "I... I am the Crown Princess... you cannot..."
"Your Highness didn’t say that just now,"
Gu Chengyin’s voice was tinged with laughter, but beneath that laughter lay something that sent chills down Luo Zhao’s spine:
"When you agreed just now, you didn’t think about being the Crown Princess, did you?"
Luo Zhao had no retort.
"Your Highness also called me a small fry,"
Gu Chengyin’s tone seemed both accusatory and teasing, like someone taunting an angry cat:
"A coward, afraid to take responsibility, impotent."
Luo Zhao wished she could bite off her own tongue.
When had she called him a small fry?
She had only thought it in her mind.
No—wait, she really had said it out loud.
"I didn’t..."
Luo Zhao weakly defended herself.
"Your Highness also said,"
Gu Chengyin added unhurriedly, "that I like you."
Luo Zhao’s face burned as though it might bleed.
She bit her lip fiercely, unable to utter a single word.
"Someone as clever as Your Highness must know..."
Gu Chengyin’s voice dropped low, so low that only the two of them could hear:
"That some things can be said, and some things cannot."
"Some fires can be lit, but once lit..."
Gu Chengyin paused, his gaze falling on Luo Zhao’s tightly pressed lips.
"You have to be responsible for putting them out."
"Your Highness, you are playing with fire."
Luo Zhao’s mind exploded into chaos.
She heard nothing, saw nothing.
Only her heart thrashed wildly in her chest, as if trying to leap out of her throat.
She wanted to flee, but her body felt limp as water, too weak to even lift a finger.
"I’m sorry! It’s my fault!"
Finally, unable to withstand Gu Chengyin’s pressure any longer, Luo Zhao choked out an apology, her voice tinged with tears:
"Junior Preceptor Gu, I truly know I was wrong!"
"Mm?"
Gu Chengyin didn’t pull back; instead, he tilted his head slightly, pretending he hadn’t heard clearly.
"What did Your Highness say?"
"I said I know I was wrong..."
Luo Zhao’s voice grew a little louder, but it was still as faint as a mosquito’s buzz.
"What did you do wrong?"
Luo Zhao gritted her teeth.
She had already apologized—what more did Gu Chengyin want?
But when she met those eyes, so close to her own, all her defiance crumbled into dust.
"I shouldn’t have called you a small fry..."
Luo Zhao’s voice was muffled, carrying a hint of grievance: "Shouldn’t have said you were incompetent... shouldn’t have provoked you..."
She paused, her voice growing even softer.
"Shouldn’t have played with fire..."
Gu Chengyin looked at Luo Zhao, so pitiful, and suddenly smiled.
His smile was much gentler than before. The dark glint in his eyes gradually faded, replaced by warmth.
He didn’t press her further.
Instead, he straightened up, took a step back, and closed the distance between them.
Luo Zhao felt as if she had been granted amnesty. She collapsed onto the pillow, gasping for air.
Her face burned fiercely. Her heart pounded as though it might burst from her chest. Her clothes were damp with sweat.
Shangguan Yunying and Gu Xiaoli watched, utterly stunned.
They had never expected the situation to end like 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!
lity and could only live as an ordinary mortal. He only wished to live a peaceful life. Yet he didn't know— The dog he adopted, because it ate his food, became a legendary demon king. The kitchen knife he casually forged became a peerless divine weapon, causing numerous experts to fight desperately for it. The young disciple he took in became an immortal lord that led an era, due to cultivating the techniques Ye Feng taught him. Even the skeletons he looked down on the most were ominous demon kings that suppressed countless worlds. Many years later, looking at the void shattered with a punch, Ye Feng murmured to himself: It turns out the peerless kings were myself all along...
iemie, male, Race: Moon. Hobby: Collecting anomalies. At first, he thought he possessed two systems: the Crimson Rainbow Moon and the Clear Cold Frost Moon. One day, he discovered that he himself could also become a system for others, holding the chessboard of fate. The Eighth Epoch, also known as the Eternal Moon Epoch. Humans, witches, elves, bloodline descendants, specters, demons, and spirits together compose a new history. Walking the path on behalf of the moon, before he knew it, Chen Miemie's footsteps were followed by all manner of strange and wondrous anomalies. As time passed, many titles circulated about him—The King in Yellow, Lord of Anomalies, Heart of the Eternal Moon, and more. "Me? I'm just a traveler who enjoys collecting interesting creatures," Chen Miemie said.
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?!
