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.
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.
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...
lanned to earn money steadily and take life at a slower pace. But he never expected... his father's remarriage, and the stepmother bringing along a dependent, would completely disrupt his life's plans...
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!
