Luo Zhao could feel Gu Chengyin's arm wrapped around her waist.
She could feel his chest pressing against her shoulder, his breath brushing against her neck.
These sensations were like a dense, interwoven net, trapping her whole body tightly within its mesh.
It kept tightening, squeezing so hard that Luo Zhao could barely breathe.
At this point, there was no way she could think about anything else.
Her mind was as if someone had poured a pot of glue into it, everything sticky and murky, unable to turn at all.
Luo Zhao instinctively wanted to push Gu Chengyin away, to curse at him, to demand whether he knew what he was doing.
But her body seemed to have been enchanted by a freezing spell, so stiff she couldn't move even a single finger.
There was no helping it. Right now, she simply had no resistance against Gu Chengyin.
Even though she believed with all her heart that she hated Gu Chengyin, loathed him, and despised everything about him.
Luo Zhao still had to admit that she could not resist Gu Chengyin.
In the end, all she could do was strain to turn her head away, facing her face in the direction farthest from him.
As if, as long as she didn't see his face, none of this was real.
At the same time, she pressed both hands against Gu Chengyin's chest, trying to stop him from getting closer.
But as her palms rested against his chest, she could feel the heartbeat beneath the fabric of his clothes.
It thumped against her palms, beat after beat, mingling with her own heartbeat until she couldn't tell whose was whose.
Although Luo Zhao was pushing with all her might, her strength was nothing more than a tickle in front of Gu Chengyin.
His arm remained steadily fixed around her waist, neither tightening because of her resistance nor loosening because of her struggle.
It simply held her in place within his embrace with exactly the right amount of force.
This level of struggle thrown at Gu Chengyin was like a gentle spring drizzle falling on a boulder, not even leaving a trace behind.
If anything, it only sparked a desire to conquer, though Luo Zhao herself had no idea.
The more she struggled, the more weak and helpless she seemed.
The more weak and helpless she seemed, the more it made one want to bully her.
Her cheeks flushed red from the struggle, her breath came quick and short from nerves, and her body trembled from the resistance.
To a wicked eye, all of this made her look like a blank sheet of paper just begging to be stained.
And on top of that, she was the proud and aloof Luo Zhao, with the weight of her status and bearing amplifying everything.
It only made that urge to conquer burn all the fiercer.
Fortunately, Gu Chengyin was not a wicked man. More precisely, he was not trying to conquer Luo Zhao.
The reason he had suddenly made such an ambiguous move was simply to strike at her weak point.
With one arm around Luo Zhao's waist, he reached out with the other and took the imperial decree.
Then he held the decree up in front of the both of them, posed as intimately as a husband and wife reviewing a document that had just been delivered.
Gu Chengyin spoke again, his voice ringing close by Luo Zhao's ear, so near it was as if he were whispering right against it.
“Your Highness, tell me, what should we do now?”
Luo Zhao had no idea what to do.
Right now, her entire being was enveloped in Gu Chengyin's presence.
It was like an invisible net, closing in from every direction, wrapping her tightly within.
Her nostrils were full of his scent, her skin carried the warmth of his embrace, her ears were filled with the low sound of his breathing.
This feeling was far too familiar.
So familiar that Luo Zhao couldn't help but recall the scene from that night.
That night, he had also been this close to her, so close she could have counted the strands of his hair.
Everything that had happened afterward was like a spark buried deep in her heart.
On normal days, Luo Zhao carefully covered it, afraid to touch it, afraid to think about it.
But at this moment, Gu Chengyin's breath was like a gust of wind, gently blowing.
It scattered the layer of ash that concealed it, revealing the embers still smoldering beneath.
Luo Zhao's mind could no longer think on its own.
All her rationality, all her composure, all the judgment that came with being the heir apparent.
In that instant, they were all scattered to the winds by the overwhelming presence surrounding her.
All she could do was speak on instinct, her voice carrying a softness she herself had not noticed.
“What do we do about what?”
Her voice was so small, as if squeezed out from the very depths of her throat.
Every word carried a tremor, like a candle flame blown by the wind, flickering and unsteady.
Seeing that Luo Zhao had responded, Gu Chengyin continued.
His tone carried a hint of grievance, of injustice, of righteous indignation.
Like a loyal minister who had worked diligently and yet been treated unfairly.
“I am the Crown Prince's Grand Tutor. I have labored with all my heart, teaching and training Your Highness for so long.”
“Yet His Majesty not only fails to reward me, he targets me instead. Is there no justice or law left in this world?”
Gu Chengyin deliberately stressed the words “teaching and training” just slightly harder than the rest, just enough that only Luo Zhao could catch the hidden double meaning.
To the ordinary ear, the term meant simply to instruct and nurture.
But in Luo Zhao's ears, she thought Gu Chengyin was referring to what he had taught her to do that night.
The tips of her ears flushed crimson in an instant, so red they looked ready to drip blood.
But hearing something so utterly absurd finally snapped a bit of Luo Zhao's sanity back into place.
This Red Egg, he was clearly bullying her on purpose, and still putting on the act of a victim.
What diligent service? What painstaking effort? Even Gu Chengyin himself probably didn't believe a word of it when he said it.
And if they were really going to talk about justice and law, Gu Chengyin was obviously the one going too far.
What Grand Tutor would hold the Crown Prince in his arms like this, as intimately as a pair of lovers in the middle of a romance?
Luo Zhao took a deep breath, forcing her voice to sound as steady as she could.
“But Father has bestowed a marriage upon you and my aunt. Isn't that a reward?”
When she said this, she finally gathered the courage to turn her head and meet Gu Chengyin's gaze for a single moment.
Her eyes carried a hint of accusation, a trace of defiance, and a stubbornness that said: don't think you can fool me.
A betrothal arranged by the emperor was an honor of the highest order. Officials across the entire court would beg for such a favor and never receive it.
But this Gu Chengyin, he had received a gift and now pretended it was nothing, even daring to claim it wasn't a reward.
In response to Luo Zhao's rebuttal, Gu Chengyin's expression did not change.
There was no trace of embarrassment at being caught off guard. Instead, he lifted his chin with a look that said, “That's where you're wrong.”
Then he rebutted with all the righteousness in the world: “Of course it's not a reward.”
“Your Highness, even if His Majesty had not arranged the marriage, my aunt would still be mine.”
“Since she was already mine, how could that count as a reward?”
“Besides, everyone in the world knows that Your Highness and I are a match made in heaven.”
“So His Majesty isn't rewarding me at all. In fact, he's harming me.”
Gu Chengyin's tone was so self-righteous, so utterly convinced, that one almost began to doubt their own judgment.
At this point, Luo Zhao was thoroughly dumbfounded. Her lips hung slightly open, her eyes full of bewilderment.
Her wits, already half destroyed by being held in Gu Chengyin's arms, were now gone completely.
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?"
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?!
ive and Ruthless] Before his transmigration, Ye Xuan was playing a game called "Severing Emotions to Attain the Dao." The game's core wasn't about leveling up by fighting monsters, but about conquering various "bad women" with wicked personalities and cold, fickle natures. There was only one method to conquer them: stay unwaveringly by their side, then die at a critical moment, driving them to madness after losing the protagonist. The higher their level of regret, the higher the player's score. To dominate the server, Ye Xuan conquered all the bad women. In the early stages, he showered them with boundless tenderness, only to choose to sacrifice himself for them later, making them weep bitterly and drown in regret. Among them were: Xia Lengyue, the unfaithful immortal wife who chased after powerful men and discarded her husband like trash. Ye Qingcheng, the Demonic Venerable of the Joyous Union Sect, who appeared pure and innocent but was, in reality, promiscuous. Wu Lingxiao, the Empress of the Great Xia Dynasty, who lusted after men and loved maintaining a harem. Bai Qiangu of the Endless Demonic Sect: a bloodthirsty mass murderer. However, when the protagonist transmigrated into the game world, he made a horrifying discovery. Eight hundred years had already passed. The bad women he had conquered had now each become deities and revered ancestors. Faced with the endless stream of toxic women coming for him, Ye Xuan could only rely on his god-tier acting skills to carve a path of survival through this world of treacherous women.
