The air in the courtyard suddenly fell still.
Not the stillness of emptiness, but the stillness of someone deep in thought.
The leaves stopped rustling; even the wind, sensing the moment, halted its steps.
Gu Xiaoli's delicate, world-weary little face wore a rare expression of disdain.
That disdain wasn't aimed at Gu Chengyin, but squarely at those four words—Golden Core Invincible.
"Sister Qingyan really is impressive."
"But that's only because her opponents were all too weak."
She said these words with absolute seriousness—so serious that her spiritual cat ears stopped twitching altogether.
They simply stood upright, like two small, straight blades.
"If Xiaoli really got serious..."
But mid-sentence, Gu Xiaoli suddenly paused.
Her cat ears tilted back slightly, the tips drooping a little, as if she'd just remembered something unpleasant.
Her lips moved, and in the end, she forced out the second half of her sentence, her voice much quieter than before.
"Even if I might not beat Sister Qingyan, protecting big brother is still no problem."
As the words fell, Gu Xiaoli's spiritual cat ears drooped completely, pressed flat against her hair like two leaves soaked by rain.
Her gaze shifted away from Gu Chengyin's face, landing on the ground beside his knee, staring at the vein patterns of a fallen leaf.
Her words carried an unmistakable trace of guilt.
Gu Chengyin noticed it, but didn't call her out.
By now he had a fairly good read on Gu Xiaoli's temperament.
This little cat was fearless in most things, but only when it came to Lin Qingyan did she show this kind of guilty look.
Not because she was truly afraid, but because she genuinely wasn't one hundred percent sure of herself.
Cultivation realm and actual combat strength were, after all, two different things.
It was just that Lin Qingyan would never go all out against Gu Xiaoli.
No matter how much they bickered, they were ultimately allies standing on the same side.
Lin Qingyan's golden thunder could slay demons and monsters, could intimidate the cultivation world, but it would never truly fall upon Gu Xiaoli.
Likewise, no matter how sharp Gu Xiaoli's claws were, she would never really aim for Lin Qingyan's heart.
At most, she'd draw a little blood.
So in a sparring match with limits observed, Gu Xiaoli could definitely hold her own against Lin Qingyan.
"Then... what about Xiaoli being big brother's bride?"
Gu Xiaoli's big eyes lit up in an instant.
Her spiritual cat ears snapped upright, the fur on the tips standing on end.
But that excitement lasted less than a breath.
A breath later, the fire in those big eyes dimmed by half, replaced by a thin layer of wariness.
Like a cat that had been eyeing a fish suddenly realizing a trap might be sitting beside the fish tank.
Gu Xiaoli's spiritual cat ears shifted from upright to leaning forward, the tips trembling slightly.
She was catching any suspicious trace in the air.
She looked left.
On the left was a thick tree trunk, its bark covered in moss, with no sign of anyone hiding.
On the right were the vermilion pillars of the Crown Prince's Palace, the wood warm from the sunlight, polished and mirror-bright.
Behind her was the corridor leading to the main hall, empty except for a few leaves swirling in the wind on the ground.
The courtyard truly held only her and Gu Chengyin.
After confirming this, Gu Xiaoli turned her gaze back to Gu Chengyin.
Her head tilted slightly to one side, and her spiritual cat ears tilted along with it.
The wariness in her big eyes grew thicker, almost ready to condense and drip from her lashes.
"Big brother."
"Xiaoli feels like you're up to something sneaky?"
She asked this extremely directly.
So directly that if anyone else had said it, it might almost be considered rude.
But Gu Xiaoli asked anyway, because that was just her nature.
In a cat's world, there were no convoluted schemes, no beating around the bush.
If there was a question, you asked it. If there was a grievance, you voiced it.
Gu Chengyin looked into Gu Xiaoli's eyes and suddenly smiled.
He didn't deny it, and admitted it very frankly:
"Because... I want to hypnotize Xiaoli."
The moment these words left his mouth, the wind in the courtyard stopped completely.
The leaves no longer rustled, the wind chimes under the eaves no longer clinked.
Even the distant sounds of palace servants moving became remote and faint.
The entire world seemed to have been pressed by an invisible hand onto a pause button.
Only these words remained, slowly unfolding in the air, word by word.
Gu Xiaoli froze.
Her big eyes stared unblinkingly into Gu Chengyin's eyes, as if searching for the source of those words.
Her pupils slightly dilated, reflecting his image.
One breath.
Two breaths.
Three breaths.
After three breaths, Gu Xiaoli suddenly snapped back, violently tearing her gaze away from Gu Chengyin's eyes.
She turned her head left, then as if that wasn't far enough, whipped it right.
Finally, she lowered her entire face, her chin nearly buried into her chest.
Her spiritual cat ears followed this flurry of movements, flapping wildly, as if trying to shake something out of them.
Gu Xiaoli no longer dared to meet Gu Chengyin's eyes.
This cat-eared girl with half-step Nascent Soul cultivation, upon hearing the word "hypnotize," instinctively did the first thing that came to mind: she avoided Gu Chengyin's gaze.
Because she was Gu Xiaoli.
The Gu Xiaoli with rich experience in pretending to be sweet.
She knew very well the power of hypnosis.
It wasn't some immortal art, wasn't some divine ability, wasn't even any recognized technique in the cultivation world.
It was something more primal, more direct—like a hand reaching out from the depths of one's soul, casually pushing open that door you thought was locked tight.
So now, facing Gu Chengyin's sudden confession, Gu Xiaoli found herself in an unprecedented dilemma.
Demand an explanation?
On what grounds?
Whatever Gu Chengyin did was right—this was Gu Xiaoli's current belief, more deeply rooted than any hypnosis.
Get angry?
How could she?
He'd even said the words "I want to hypnotize you" right to her face. What was there to be angry about?
Someone who truly intended to do wrong wouldn't advertise it.
Play dumb and stab him in the back?
But Gu Chengyin had already shown his cards.
Gu Xiaoli knew he wanted to hypnotize her, and he knew she knew he wanted to hypnotize her.
Under such circumstances, any pretense became meaningless.
The two stood face to face, separated by a thin layer of paper.
And Gu Chengyin's words just now were the finger reaching out to poke that paper through.
Gu Xiaoli's big eyes stared at the leaf on the ground.
Her spiritual cat ears gradually calmed from their frantic flapping, settling into a slight tremor.
Her ear tips drooped downward, pressed against her scalp, like two leaves that had been soaked by rain and left to half-dry in the breeze.
"Big brother..."
Gu Xiaoli's voice was as soft as a mosquito's buzz, the tone dragging out long.
It circled on the tip of her tongue several times before reluctantly falling:
"Are you serious?"
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?!
't think I'm that capable, I'm just trying my best to stay alive. I've been kind all my life, never did anything bad, yet worldly suffering spared me not one bit. The human world is a nice place, but I won't come back in my next life. A kind young man, who wanted to just get by singing, but through repeated deceits and betrayals, has gone down an irredeemable path.
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!
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
