What she should do, what she should not do, whether to go left or right, advance or retreat—Gu Chengyin had already made every decision for Luo Zhao, then simply told her what to do.
There was no room for discussion, no space to maneuver.
At first, Luo Zhao thought she hated Gu Chengyin.
Because she was the Crown Princess.
Her dignity and pride would not allow Gu Chengyin to live.
Who had ever dared treat her like this since she was a child?
Who had ever dared make decisions for her without asking her opinion?
Who had ever dared treat her like a chess piece that could be manipulated at will?
Even the Emperor would never treat her this way.
The old foxes in court would not dare, either.
But Gu Chengyin dared.
Not only did he dare, he did it as though it were the most natural thing in the world, with a righteous confidence that made it seem as though nothing on earth ever required her opinion.
And so Luo Zhao hated Gu Chengyin.
She hated him enough to grit her teeth, enough to lie awake at night, enough to bite his name between her teeth through countless nights of tossing and turning.
She imagined that one day, after ascending the throne, the first thing she would do was lock this treasonous Royal Tutor in the underground prison.
She would make him kneel before her. She would make him realize that he had been wrong. She would make him beg for her forgiveness.
But later, Luo Zhao realized that she did indeed hate Gu Chengyin.
Just not because he had trampled on her dignity or crushed her pride.
She hated him because he did not care about her.
She was the Crown Princess, for heaven’s sake.
One day, this entire realm would belong to her. The court would belong to her. The life and honor of every commoner under heaven would one day rest upon a single thought of hers.
She was one of the most exalted people in the Great Luo Dynasty. Apart from the Emperor, no one stood higher than she did.
The sons of the great clans lowered their heads when they saw her. The high ministers of the court bowed before her.
Even those unruly cultivators behaved properly in her presence and respectfully addressed her as Her Highness.
Her beauty, too, was universally acknowledged. The title of Goddess Descended into the Mortal Realm was not something she had claimed for herself—it had been bestowed upon her by all under heaven.
Luo Zhao was Heaven’s favored child, the most dazzling pearl in the world.
Everyone told her so, and everyone believed it.
But Gu Chengyin simply did not care about her.
Even though he held every aspect of her firmly in his grasp, even though he could reshape her into whatever form he pleased at any moment.
Even though her joys and sorrows, every move she made, and every decision she took were all within his calculations.
Gu Chengyin still did not care about her.
His control over her did not come from concern. His domination did not come from possessiveness. His calculations did not come from desire.
He controlled her only because she happened to be the Crown Princess.
He dominated her only because it was most advantageous to him.
He schemed against her only because he needed a chess piece, and she happened to be the most useful one.
What if Luo Zhao were not the Crown Princess?
What if she were merely an ordinary daughter of a noble family?
Would he spare her even a second glance?
Would he still go to such lengths to control her?
Would he still use such forceful methods to keep her tightly in his grasp?
No.
That realization was like a thorn piercing Luo Zhao’s heart, sinking deeper and deeper, causing greater and greater pain.
In front of others, she could maintain the Crown Princess’s cold arrogance and aloofness. In court, she could present the composed bearing of the Goddess Descended into the Mortal Realm. She could make everyone believe that she cared about nothing.
But in front of Gu Chengyin, she could not pretend.
Because he did not care whether she was pretending or not.
Only then did Luo Zhao realize that everything she was proud of was worthless in Gu Chengyin’s eyes.
In the eyes of others, she was Her Highness, the Goddess Descended into the Mortal Realm.
Everyone looked up to her with awe, longing, and devout reverence.
But in Gu Chengyin’s eyes, she was merely the Crown Princess.
Nothing more.
If someone else occupied that position, he would control them in exactly the same way, dominate them in exactly the same way, scheme against them in exactly the same way.
There was nothing special about Luo Zhao herself to him.
That realization nearly crushed her.
And so her state of mind changed once again.
She wanted to drag Gu Chengyin down.
Not from the heights of power—Gu Chengyin was a subject to begin with, and had always stood beneath her.
She wanted to pull down that bright moon hanging high in the sky.
She wanted him to look at her—to truly look at her. Not at the Crown Princess. Not at a chess piece.
But at her as a person.
Luo Zhao wanted Gu Chengyin to know that she was not as worthless as he thought.
She worked hard, too.
She read through official documents late into the night, examining every one carefully and annotating each one with painstaking attention.
Not because she enjoyed it, but because she wanted to prove herself.
She was clever, too.
Although she could not yet understand his schemes, she had been studying them all this time. She was constantly learning and improving.
She had talent, too.
Among her peers, her cultivation was already outstanding. Though she was not as astonishingly gifted as Lin Qingyan, she was still a genuine prodigy.
Given enough time, she might well become the next Golden Core Invincible.
Besides, she was beautiful. She was truly beautiful.
Her features were acknowledged throughout the world. Countless women envied her figure, and countless men admired her bearing.
So why was Gu Chengyin unwilling to look at her even once?
Luo Zhao waited for a long time.
From the moment she realized that she had begun to care about Gu Chengyin.
From the moment she understood that he had already taken complete hold of her every joy and sorrow.
She had been waiting ever since.
Waiting for him to look at her.
To truly look at her.
But Gu Chengyin never did.
In the end, after one disappointment piled upon another and she had endured herself into silence time and again, Luo Zhao finally discovered the door hidden in the deepest part of her heart.
It had long since been kicked open by Gu Chengyin.
Yes, Gu Chengyin had not walked into her heart.
He had kicked the door down and barged in.
He had never asked her permission, nor had he even considered whether she was willing.
He had simply appeared in her world and forcibly broken into her heart.
When Gu Chengyin made decisions for her, she no longer had to weigh the pros and cons herself.
When he told her what to do, she no longer had to probe the hearts of others.
When he arranged everything, she no longer had to worry about taking a wrong step.
All she had to do was obey him and do as he instructed. Then she could rest easy within the safe boundaries he had drawn for her.
For Luo Zhao, this feeling of being dominated was not a restraint.
It was liberation.
Seeing that Gu Chengyin was about to get up, Luo Zhao grew anxious.
She had not received anything yet. How could he be leaving already?
At once, Luo Zhao raised her arms and wrapped them around Gu Chengyin’s neck.
Like a supple vine winding itself around a tree it had chosen.
Gu Chengyin lowered his eyes. All he saw was a pair of pitiful phoenix eyes.
They were filled with a mist—not tears, but the moist sheen that appeared only when desire stirred.
It made Luo Zhao’s pupils look exceptionally bright, like a lake gleaming beneath the sun after a rainstorm, its surface rippling with iridescent light.
The ends of her brows drooped slightly, while the outer corners lifted upward, forming an expression that was both helplessly pitiful and faintly alluring.
Her eyes were clearly saying: You haven’t rewarded me yet. How can you leave just like that?
Gu Chengyin’s movements halted.
Looking at Luo Zhao’s aggrieved expression, he suddenly felt that his self-control might not be quite as strong as he had imagined.
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?!
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!
Cheng's father told him he was getting remarried—to a wealthy woman. Cao Cheng realized his time had finally come: he was about to become a second-generation rich kid. Sure, it might be a watered-down version, but hey, at least he'd have status now, right? The wealthy woman also had four daughters!! Which meant, starting today, Cao Cheng gained four stunning older sisters?? But that wasn't even the whole story... "My name is Cao Cheng—'Cheng' as in 'honest, smooth-talking gentleman'!"
transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”
