When Gu Chengyin emerged from the ginkgo grove, a ginkgo leaf was still caught on the front of his robe.
The golden leaf was lodged between the frog buttons at his collar, trembling faintly with every step like a butterfly reluctant to leave.
He did not look back. After learning what Lin Qingyan had done, Gu Chengyin knew that he had to go to the Tranquility Pagoda first.
That foolish girl, Shangguan Yunying, had actually disguised herself as Lin Qingyan just to win him over.
Gu Chengyin found it utterly exasperating, yet he could not bring himself to blame her for it. Nor could he say anything to Lin Qingyan.
After all, Lin Qingyan had come to him wearing Shangguan Yunying’s clothes. From that perspective, Lin Qingyan could not even be said to have humiliated Shangguan Yunying. In fact, she had genuinely been helping her.
The ginkgo grove continued to rustle in the wind as Lin Qingyan leaned against one of the trees.
Her pale crimson palace gown was slightly disheveled, and the cloud patterns at the collar had been rubbed into several fine creases.
She watched Gu Chengyin’s back pass through the mottled light and shadow as he headed toward the Tranquility Pagoda. The corners of her lips lifted into a meaningful curve.
“Auntie, wait outside for me a while.”
Those had been Gu Chengyin’s parting words. Lin Qingyan had not asked how long he would be gone, nor what he was going to do.
She had simply leaned against the ginkgo tree, watching his figure vanish at the end of the woodland path. Then she closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath.
The air still carried his scent, mingled with the bitter freshness of ginkgo leaves and the gentle, lingering fragrance clinging to Shangguan Yunying’s robes.
Lin Qingyan could only feel that the whole thing was astonishing. She had actually sent Shangguan Yunying straight into Gu Chengyin’s arms.
If this had been the old her, she would never even have dared imagine such a thing. She would have wanted nothing more than to lock Gu Chengyin away so that he could belong to her alone forever.
After thinking it over, Lin Qingyan ultimately attributed it to the breadth of heart and bearing expected of a principal wife.
The gate of the Tranquility Pagoda slowly opened before Gu Chengyin.
Dark silver runes flowed across the doors in a single circuit, as though recognizing his aura. Then the doors slid silently apart.
The spiritual light inside the pagoda was far dimmer than outside, as if it rose from some incredibly deep place, carrying with it a stillness that had settled there over a thousand years.
Shangguan Yunying was seated before the glazed crystal mirror inside the pagoda.
Though “seated” was not quite the right word. She looked more as if she had been frozen in place.
Her back was ramrod straight, and her hands were folded over her knees. Her fingers twisted unconsciously at the hem of her moon-white robes, crumpling the fabric into countless fine creases.
Her gaze rested on the woman in the moon-white robes reflected in the mirror, yet she was not truly looking at her.
The focus of her eyes had drifted, as though she were staring at something distant and indistinct.
Shangguan Yunying was nervous.
She had been nervous ever since Lin Qingyan left.
At first, the feeling had been faint, like a small pinch of salt dissolved in a cup of tea—noticeable, but not yet unbearable.
She had still been in the mood to tidy her hair before the mirror, carefully tucking the loose strands Lin Qingyan had disturbed behind her ears one by one.
She had even been in the mood to study her reflection in the moon-white robes, trying to find a trace of familiarity in the unfamiliar attire.
But once Lin Qingyan’s footsteps had completely faded away, and the dull boom of the pagoda doors closing had reverberated through the tower, Shangguan Yunying’s nerves flared as if someone had suddenly poured a ladleful of boiling oil over them.
She began to let her imagination run wild.
She wondered how Gu Chengyin would react when he saw Lin Qingyan wearing her clothes.
She wondered whether Lin Qingyan had already betrayed her.
She wondered what she should say first when she met him later, dressed in these moon-white robes.
Should she call him Gu Chengyin, or Chengcheng?
Should she follow Lin Qingyan’s script, or improvise?
What if he saw through her at a glance?
And what if he did not see through her, and truly mistook her for Lin Qingyan? What would she do then?
Time passed extremely slowly inside the Tranquility Pagoda.
So slowly that every breath seemed stretched into a strand of sticky taffy, clinging torturously to Shangguan Yunying’s nerves.
She could even hear her own heartbeat pounding against her eardrums—faster and louder with every beat.
Then she heard the pagoda doors opening.
The footsteps that followed were not Lin Qingyan’s calm, assured steps, but a steadier rhythm.
They were Gu Chengyin’s footsteps.
She had listened to those footsteps for so long—from the corridors of the Crown Prince’s Palace to the vermilion steps of the court, from the blue-stone streets of the Divine Capital to the ginkgo grove of the Celestial Master’s Residence—that she could recognize them even with her eyes closed.
He was here.
Shangguan Yunying sprang to her feet before the mirror.
She rose too quickly. The hem of her moon-white robes swept sharply around her ankles, nearly tripping her.
Her hands instinctively braced against the edge of the mirror. The glazed crystal was cold and smooth beneath her palms, and the sensation jolted her into a little more clarity.
Shangguan Yunying’s breathing suddenly quickened. Her chest heaved violently with every breath, making the thunder patterns at the collar of her moon-white robes tremble as well.
She parted her lips, wanting to say something.
Should she call him Gu Chengyin, or Chengcheng? Or perhaps…
The footsteps stopped behind her.
He was very close—close enough for Shangguan Yunying to sense the familiar aura around Gu Chengyin.
Close enough for her to hear his breathing, steady and deep, sharply contrasting with her own shallow, hurried breaths.
Before Shangguan Yunying could say anything, Gu Chengyin’s hand reached toward her.
His fingers closed around her shoulder. The pressure was neither light nor heavy, just enough to turn her around, shifting her from facing the mirror to facing him.
She saw his face.
The face she had watched for so long, thought of for so long, and waited for so long.
Gu Chengyin’s brows and eyes still held their usual calm composure, but his expression was unusually severe.
The faint spiritual light of the Tranquility Pagoda was reflected in his eyes, making them shine with startling intensity.
Then Gu Chengyin’s hand moved away from Shangguan Yunying’s shoulder.
It moved to her collar.
His fingertips touched the edge of the thunder pattern. Beneath the spiritual light, the pattern shimmered with a faint golden hue, gleaming against his knuckles.
Gu Chengyin’s fingers tightened slightly as they seized the front of her moon-white robe.
Shangguan Yunying’s pupils contracted violently.
Before she could react, she heard a crisp tearing sound.
The sound of fabric ripping was exceptionally clear in the silent Tranquility Pagoda, like a thunderclap exploding beside her ear.
The moon-white robes of the Celestial Master’s Residence—garments Lin Qingyan had worn for so many years—were torn apart beneath Gu Chengyin’s fingers as easily as a sheet of paper.
The thunder pattern split down the middle. Golden threads burst apart beneath the spiritual light, scattering into countless tiny sparks before vanishing into the air.
The front of the robe tore from the collar all the way down to the waist, revealing the undergarment beneath and exposing broad expanses of skin as pale and smooth as jade.
Shangguan Yunying froze completely.
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.
grated, and just when he finally managed to get into an elite academy, he discovered that he actually had a system, and the way to earn rewards was extremely ridiculous. So for the sake of rewards, he had no choice but to start acting ridiculous as well. Su Cheng: "It's nothing but system quests after all." But later, what confused Su Cheng was that while he was already quite ridiculous, he never expected those serious characters to gradually become ridiculous too. And the way they looked at him became increasingly strange... (This synopsis doesn't do it justice, please read the full story)
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.
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!
