She felt terribly wronged, but stubbornly refused to cry.
Her eyes reddened again, her eyelashes fluttered, and her lips parted slightly as she was about to question him.
"Yunying, you need to calm down. You'll fall into Qi deviation like this."
Gu Chengyin's voice came faster than hers, low, serious, and deliberate.
His hands cupped her face, his thumb gently brushing across her cheekbone.
"Right now, your cultivation has advanced too quickly. Your Dao heart is unstable."
"If you act rashly again, forget breaking through to the Golden Core stage—even reaching the Great Perfection will be a problem."
These words came like a basin of cold water, pouring down over her head.
Shangguan Yunying's grievance and impulsiveness froze in that instant.
It was as if someone had pressed the pause button; her expression remained stuck in a pout of resentment.
Her mouth slightly open, her eyes rimmed red, her eyelashes bearing a trace of barely-there moisture.
But her gaze had already changed.
From grievance to stunned confusion, from confusion to contemplation, from contemplation to a dawning sense of fear.
Ever since Gu Chengyin had taught her the Azure Cloud Art, her cultivation had indeed skyrocketed.
Originally at the mid-stage of the Foundation Establishment realm, she had relied for years as the chief female officer more on her ability and loyalty than on martial power.
But the Azure Cloud Art changed everything—it was a top-tier celestial technique aimed directly at ascension.
Combined with her previous training in the Azure Sword Art, her cultivation surged like a bursting dam.
She broke through to the late stage of Foundation Establishment on the spot.
And the threshold to the Great Perfection of Foundation Establishment was already within her grasp.
At most, she would cross it in three days.
This was the foundation accumulated over many years—not reckless growth, nor a castle in the air.
But... when cultivation advances too quickly, one problem almost always arises:
An unstable Dao heart.
This is also an important reason why Heart Demons appear after breaking through to the Golden Core stage.
The cultivation has advanced, but the Dao heart still lingers at Foundation Establishment.
Shangguan Yunying closed her eyes.
The matter between Lin Qingyan and Gu Chengyin had already shaken her mind deeply.
This was the first time she had lost her composure in front of Gu Chengyin.
Grabbing his collar, eyes red, acting like a child—both aggrieved and throwing a tantrum.
The feeling of losing control felt foreign even to Shangguan Yunying herself.
She had always been gentle, capable, and flawless in handling matters.
But before Gu Chengyin—before the fact that she was the first to arrive yet Lin Qingyan had stolen him away—
Shangguan Yunying's self-control shattered more thoroughly than glass.
If anything really happened between her and Gu Chengyin at this moment,
it would indeed be exactly as he said: Forget the Golden Core stage.
She might not even reach the Great Perfection before falling into Qi deviation.
Shangguan Yunying’s fingers curled slightly inside her sleeve, her nails pressing into her palm.
The force was neither too heavy nor too light, just enough to leave a faint white mark on her palm.
She took a deep breath, very slowly.
As if using the breath to press down all the chaos and restlessness in her chest, bit by bit.
Then a second breath, and a third.
Her heartbeat gradually returned from its wild sprint to a normal rhythm.
Like a wild horse finally tamed, willing to slip into the reins.
Once her mind had settled, Shangguan Yunying slowly opened her eyes.
Those naturally beautiful eyes had regained their clarity.
No longer the dazed, burning, beseeching look from before.
Instead, they held the gaze of the gentle, capable chief female officer.
Her spine straightened again, her shoulders relaxed again, and even her breathing became even and steady once more.
If not for the faint trace of red lingering at the corners of her eyes,
it would be hard to tell that this was the same woman who had just been red-eyed.
"I understand."
Her voice had also returned to calm, tinged with apology:
"Forgive me. I was too impulsive."
Gu Chengyin watched the woman before him—who, in just a few breaths,
had completed the journey from losing control to regaining composure—and his eyes were full of admiration.
This was Shangguan Yunying.
It wasn’t that she had no emotions, but that she knew better than anyone when to let them stop.
This restraint was not a gift but a self-discipline honed day after day, year after year.
Like a piece of iron tempered through countless cycles—cold and hard on the surface,
but only those who truly held it knew that its core could still be heated red; it just cooled faster than others.
Seeing that Shangguan Yunying had recovered, Gu Chengyin did not let go.
His hands still cupped her face, his thumb still resting on her cheekbone.
Instead of pulling away, he drew their distance even closer.
Close enough that the tip of his nose almost brushed hers, close enough for her to see her own reflection in his eyes.
"Yunying."
Gu Chengyin’s voice was as low as a plucked string, its resonance trembling softly in the air.
"You will always be my favorite person."
Every word of this sentence felt seared like a branding iron, scorching Shangguan Yunying’s newly stabilized Dao heart into a violent tremor.
Always.
Favorite person.
The combined impact of these two phrases was ten thousand times greater than any sweet talk.
Because the person saying it was Gu Chengyin.
The one who never spoke extra words, never did extra things, and every word carried weight.
When he said always, it meant always.
When he said favorite, it meant second to none.
Shangguan Yunying’s Dao heart felt as if someone had struck it with a hammer—still intact on the surface, but cracks had spread from the center to the edges.
Her breathing began to waver again, her heartbeat quickened again, her cheeks flushed again.
And at that very moment, Gu Chengyin let her go.
Clean and decisive, dragging no loose ends.
As if the heartfelt confession just now had only been a brief, precisely timed performance.
When the time was up, the curtain fell, and the actor exited.
He stepped back half a pace.
The tenderness and affection on his face shifted in an instant into his usual faintly careless smile.
"I still have something to discuss with His Highness. I'll come find you later."
With that, Gu Chengyin turned, raised his hand, and pushed open the door of the small room.
Morning light rushed in from outside, casting him in a radiant glow.
His silhouette, so clear and slender against the light, with sharp shoulders and a narrow waist,
looked like a fine-brush ink painting, every stroke meticulous.
Then Gu Chengyin stepped out.
The door closed slowly behind him, narrowing the morning light little by little,
until only a thin golden line remained on the floor.
Shangguan Yunying stood still, watching Gu Chengyin’s figure vanish through the gap in the door.
Her fingers still held the position from when she had embraced his neck, slightly curled.
Her fingertips hung in midair, uncertain whether to withdraw or continue reaching.
The warmth and softness of the kiss still lingered on her lips.
Like a piece of candy melted in the mouth, its sweetness lingering on the tongue for a long time.
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?"
] [Lone Wolf, No Male Gaze] [Protagonist is pursued early on; extreme protagonist-stans, stay away!] The "Carnival Paradise" descends and slowly devours the real world in the form of a game. By chance, Zhu Yan awakens the talent [Roleplay], becoming one of the first beta players. He thought he could develop safely, but after clearing the first instance, he is branded by humanity as the chief culprit behind the game's spread—a traitorous villain. A villain? Who would ever... become one! He'll be the villain! From then on, Zhu Yan is not only a player but also a lackey for the Carnival Paradise. Between the straight path and the crooked path, he chooses the con. With his left hand, he dons the villain's mantle, staging scenes within instances, infuriating players who decry him as a despicable traitor, all while the game happily promotes him. With his right hand, he joins the non-human organization "Fangcun Mountain," which opposes the Carnival Paradise, transforming into a mysterious player who slaughters game bosses, earning cheers of "Long live the expert!" from fellow players. Gradually, Zhu Yan rises to become an S-rank human player in Fangcun Mountain's archives, while also being the Carnival Paradise's certified top game Boss. But when the final war erupts and both major factions place their hopes in him— Players tag his various aliases: "Experts, this offensive depends on you." The Carnival Paradise's supreme Boss throws an arm around his neck: "Bro, you're the iron, I'm the steel; you can't let me down again!"
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!
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?!
