Luo Zhao struggled desperately in the tide, but the more she struggled, the deeper she sank.
Her reason told her she should push him away, her pride told her she could not yield, but her body was far more honest than either.
What was ordinarily concealed beneath reason and pride—all it took was one gentle touch, and it would come fully awake.
And when Gu Chengyin pulled her into his arms in that high-handed way,
Luo Zhao's mind went completely blank. Reason had already begun to crumble,
and when reason exited the stage, instinct took its place.
And her instinct had long since been molded into the shape of Gu Chengyin.
This was the fruit that had finally ripened after one suppression after another.
Luo Zhao craved being controlled by him, craved being handled roughly by him.
In this moment, she was not the Crown Princess, not Her Highness, not the peerlessly elegant Luo Zhao.
She was merely a woman who wanted to be utterly claimed by Gu Chengyin.
These desires—on ordinary days Luo Zhao crushed them deep in her heart, so deep she dared not even face them herself.
She was the Crown Princess—the future Empress of Great Luo.
How could she harbor such shameful thoughts?
It was too humiliating, too abnormal, too unfitting for a Crown Princess's image.
So Luo Zhao suppressed them, pressed them down as hard as she could.
Pressed into the deepest, darkest corner of her heart, pretending they had never existed.
But Gu Chengyin pried that corner open.
Not with tenderness, not with sweet words, but by pulling her into his arms in the most overbearing way possible.
Then he placed his hand on the back of her neck, firmly holding her life in his grip.
To any normal person, this would have been a lethal threat—but to Luo Zhao, it became the key that unlocked that door.
Because her subconscious had always been waiting for this moment, waiting for Gu Chengyin to claim her in that most extreme fashion.
To pull her down from the pedestal of Crown Princess, to let her be a woman who could be weak, and who could also drown in desire.
Gu Chengyin's silence, in Luo Zhao's world, became a soundless scrutiny.
He must be looking at her.
Looking at this wretched version of herself.
The thought made Luo Zhao's face burn even hotter, red enough to catch fire.
She should have felt ashamed, should have wished she could crawl into a hole.
But strangely, beneath the shame hid something even more secret.
She was excited—perversely so—because he had seen her like this.
Gu Chengyin saw it.
Saw her most shameful, most disgraceful, most unspeakable side.
And since it had already been seen, there was no need to hide it anymore.
Luo Zhao opened her eyes. Her eyelids slowly rose, revealing the mist-laden eyes beneath.
That mist was not tears, but the dampness that comes only with desire.
It made her pupils shine all the brighter, like a lake after fresh rain, rippling with light.
Luo Zhao's gaze collided with Gu Chengyin's.
This time she did not flinch, did not look away—she simply stared straight at him.
Her eyes had changed. A moment ago there had been humiliation in them, shame, a trace of unwillingness at being forced.
But now, those emotions seemed to have been devoured by something, wiped clean away.
In their place was a look Gu Chengyin had never seen in her eyes before.
It was longing.
Raw, unguarded, almost ravenous longing.
"Master Tutor—"
Luo Zhao's voice was faintly hoarse, carrying a languid, honeyed depth that only came after passion.
Each word seemed scooped straight from a jar of honey—sweet and sticky, refusing to dissolve as it hung in the air.
She called him "Master Tutor," but in truth,
to Luo Zhao, Gu Chengyin was never simply her Crown Princess's tutor, nor some so-called betrothed.
Her relationship with Gu Chengyin had been sealed from the very first moment they met.
And because his hand was still wrapped around her neck, Gu Chengyin's voice carried a hint of pressure.
His tone was deeper than usual, as though forced out from the back of his throat.
"You... you want to choke me, don't you?"
As she spoke, Luo Zhao's gaze drifted from his eyes to his hand—
the hand still clasped around her neck.
Her eyes lingered on his knuckles for a breath, then returned to his face.
The corners of her lips curled upward slightly, carrying expectation, and temptation, and a plea that was almost coquettish.
Gu Chengyin's pupils contracted. Of course he caught the meaning beneath Luo Zhao's words.
The emphasis was not on "choke," but on "want."
Luo Zhao wasn't asking him why he was choking her—she was confirming something:
You want to choke me, right?
You did it on purpose, right?
You want to completely own me, right?
Luo Zhao was asking Gu Chengyin for confirmation.
Confirmation that his roughness was not accidental, but intentional.
Confirmation that his control was not a threat, but a claim.
Confirmation that the suffocation he gave her was his way of showing he cared.
Gu Chengyin suddenly felt his throat grow dry. His gaze tangled with hers.
This Her Highness's eyes no longer held the dignity of a Crown Princess, nor the reserve of a royal heir.
Only the softness and attachment a woman shows when looking at the man she loves.
But beneath that softness lay something that made his heart tremble.
"Your Highness—"
Gu Chengyin began, but stopped after the two words, as though weighing his next words, or waiting for her reaction.
Luo Zhao's reaction came faster than he expected.
When she heard "Your Highness," her brows twitched.
Not in displeasure, but in awkwardness.
The title was too formal, too distant—not what she wanted to hear in this moment.
What she wanted to hear was something more excessive, something more degrading.
Something only Gu Chengyin would call her.
Gu Chengyin was silent for a breath, and then he spoke.
"Good Doggy."
Three words, simple and plain, yet they were like a key that flung wide the half-open door buried in Luo Zhao's heart.
Her eyes lit up instantly, bright as the most radiant star in the night sky.
The corners of her lips lifted upward, spreading into a nearly reckless smile.
That smile held no shyness, no reserve—only immense satisfaction.
Then Luo Zhao reached out and took hold of the hand Gu Chengyin had placed around her neck.
Her fingers were slender and warm, covering the back of his hand, curling gently.
"You can use a little more force."
Her voice grew huskier still because of the grip on her neck, carrying a unique timbre that came only from slight pressure.
As though each word was being squeezed out from somewhere very, very deep.
When Luo Zhao said this, her gaze never left Gu Chengyin's face.
There was no shame in her eyes, no hesitation—only a devout openness.
As if what she had said was not "you can use a little more force," but "you can love me a little more."
Gu Chengyin's fingers did not move. His gaze lingered on Luo Zhao's face for a long, long time.
So long that the expectation in Luo Zhao's eyes began to fade, bit by bit, replaced by a faint whisper of unease.
lities. One day, Qi Yuan was buying groceries when he unfortunately came face-to-face with a monster. Just when he thought he was going to die on the spot, he suddenly heard the monster's thoughts... "This aura, he's definitely not an ordinary master!" "So terrifying, so terrifying." "A fight with my back against the wall, I can't take it anymore." Qi Yuan: Ah, no one told me that my awakened ability isn't telepathy, but rather the stronger my enemies imagine me to be, the stronger I truly become. PS: Zhou Hai in the first chapter is not the protagonist.
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!
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...
