It was not a complete blockade. Emperor Luo would never go that far; doing so would only force him to seek another path.
Emperor Luo had merely placed several roadblocks along the routes Gu Chengyin was bound to take, ensuring that every step he made would require several times the effort it once had.
As a result, Gu Chengyin was forced to expend a great deal of energy overcoming those obstacles, leaving him no time to attend to anything else.
That was the art of imperial rule.
It was not about stopping you from moving forward, but about making every step as difficult as possible.
That was why Gu Chengyin needed to open up a second path: the Celestial Master’s Office.
The position of Grand Celestial Master at the Celestial Master’s Office was even more transcendent than that of Chief Grand Secretary.
Emperor Luo could use an imperial edict to block Gu Chengyin’s path to promotion, but he could not block his path to becoming Grand Celestial Master.
The rules of the Celestial Master’s Office were not set by Emperor Luo. They had been established by its founding patriarch and forged into ironclad tradition over the course of a thousand years.
Even Emperor Luo, despite being the current Grand Celestial Master, could not reach into the Hall of the Founding Patriarchs.
But that did not mean Gu Chengyin had abandoned the path of official advancement altogether.
He had never been the sort of person to put all his eggs in one basket.
He would pursue both paths: the Celestial Master’s Office and the imperial court.
He would advance along both simultaneously, and take whichever one opened first.
If both paths opened, then he would have twice the bargaining power and twice the initiative.
But for now, it seemed unlikely that Emperor Luo would allow him to become Minister of Rites.
That much was obvious.
Emperor Luo had just weakened his influence with an imperial marriage decree, and had just placed colored lenses over everyone’s eyes by exploiting their preconceived notions of him.
He had only just set the first roadblock on Gu Chengyin’s path to promotion.
At a time like this, it was impossible for Emperor Luo to turn around and push Gu Chengyin into the position of Minister of Rites.
That would not accord with the art of imperial rule.
So Gu Chengyin was not going to the Grand Secretariat to threaten or entice anyone.
He merely wanted to see who had made it onto the preliminary list.
Because in truth, there was a great deal of room to maneuver when it came to that list.
Gu Chengyin’s fingers came to rest on the low table.
At last, his gaze found its focus. It settled on a small patch of the carriage window’s gauze curtain illuminated by the morning light, and his pupils contracted slightly.
The list drafted by the Grand Secretariat was itself the result of a contest of interests.
And once the list was submitted, how Emperor Luo chose from it would constitute another layer of that same contest.
Therefore, as long as he could ensure that the Grand Secretariat’s proposed list remained under his control, the path to promotion could still be made to work.
Moreover, Gu Chengyin had already seized upon Emperor Luo’s weak point: Luo Zhao.
The trust Luo Zhao placed in him—trust that was almost pathological.
Gu Chengyin understood better than anyone just how far it had gone.
As long as he kept Luo Zhao firmly in his grasp, Emperor Luo’s bottom line on many matters would be much lower than expected.
At that thought, Gu Chengyin suddenly fell silent.
The carriage happened to be crossing a stone bridge. Its wheels rolled over the bridge, producing a deep, rumbling sound.
Below lay the river that ran through the Divine Capital. In the morning light, its surface glittered like someone had scattered a handful of broken gold across the water.
The willows on either bank had already begun to sprout new leaves. Their tender green branches hung over the water, swaying gently in the morning breeze.
Meanwhile, the image of Luo Zhao’s exquisite face surfaced in Gu Chengyin’s mind.
Not the cold and aloof Crown Prince, with her back ramrod straight and her eyes lowered as a vermilion brush glided across official documents.
Every character she wrote was neat and elegant, as though nothing in this world could ever move her.
No, what appeared in his mind was Luo Zhao as she looked curled up in his arms.
Her brows and eyes were full of spring. Her pitiful phoenix eyes brimmed with mist, and her lips were slightly pursed.
In that hoarse, soft voice, carrying a trace of grievance and a hint of anticipation, she called him Master.
Her hand would seize his and press his palm against that slender, fair section of her neck.
She would raise her chin slightly, offering her most vulnerable point to his control without reservation.
But Gu Chengyin did not feel smug because of these memories, nor was he reminiscing over one of his spoils of war.
The relationship between Luo Zhao and him was twisted.
Yes—twisted was the only word that could describe it.
The Crown Prince herself, the future Empress of Great Luo, Luo Zhao, the Goddess Incarnate—
in front of him, she was nothing more than a docile little puppy that would bark on command.
No matter how one looked at it, the relationship was twisted.
And yet it had happened. It had happened so naturally, so smoothly, as though it had simply followed the course of water finding its way downhill.
Gu Chengyin also believed that he truly trusted Luo Zhao’s trust in him.
Not because of anything Luo Zhao had said, but because of what she had done.
Words could be disguised. Expressions could be controlled. Even tears could be false.
But some things could not be faked.
For instance, the instant of complete relaxation in Luo Zhao’s muscles when she seized his hand and pressed it against her neck.
It was not deliberate relaxation, but a defenselessness rising from the depths of her subconscious—something she herself was not even aware of.
For instance, the almost ecstatic satisfaction in Luo Zhao’s eyes when he tightened his fingers.
It was not an act. Her pupils widened instinctively, her breathing stopped instinctively, and her body trembled instinctively.
Even the most accomplished actor could not fake such things.
And so Gu Chengyin truly believed her.
He believed that Luo Zhao’s trust in him was genuine. He believed that when she called him Master, she did so willingly.
He believed that when she barked like a dog, the happiness she felt came from the bottom of her heart.
But even so, Gu Chengyin could not help imagining the worst-case scenario.
It was a habit carved into his very bones.
He was not naturally suspicious. Reality had forced him to become this way.
What if Luo Zhao were pretending?
What if her unquestioning trust and almost pathological obedience were all an act?
What if she was still enduring in silence, waiting for the right moment, using this behavior to lower his guard—only to deliver a fatal blow at the moment he least expected it?
Gu Chengyin was the Junior Tutor to the Crown Prince, as well as a hypnotist. Luo Zhao was the Crown Prince, as well as the one being hypnotized.
She knew far too many of his secrets, and understood him far too well.
Gu Chengyin even suspected that Luo Zhao might understand him better than Lin Qingyan did.
After all, Her Highness had always been studying him—studying his way of thinking, his methods, and the way he handled things.
And if Luo Zhao truly was enduring all this in silence, then she had only one goal:
to take everything back when he was at his most defenseless, leaving him no chance to rise again.
But this time was different from before.
Gu Chengyin discovered that his Dao heart actually rejected this possibility.
It was not that his reason rejected it. Rationally speaking, he still believed the possibility was logically sound and could very well exist.
Anyone who had spent so long circling the heart of the power vortex had to consider the worst-case scenario.
Nor was it that his experience rejected it. He had witnessed far too many betrayals. Those bloody lessons had taught him that the more complete the trust appeared, the more likely it was to be a carefully designed trap.
No—it was his Dao heart that rejected it.
It was the embryonic Golden Core he had condensed after cultivating to this point, after experiencing so much and comprehending so much.
It was his true nature, his principles, his values.
It was the most essential thing at the very core of what made him Gu Chengyin—and it rejected the idea.
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?"
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.
] [Lone Wolf, No Male Gaze] [Protagonist is pursued early on; extreme protagonist-stans, stay away!] The "Carnival Paradise" descends and slowly devours the real world in the form of a game. By chance, Zhu Yan awakens the talent [Roleplay], becoming one of the first beta players. He thought he could develop safely, but after clearing the first instance, he is branded by humanity as the chief culprit behind the game's spread—a traitorous villain. A villain? Who would ever... become one! He'll be the villain! From then on, Zhu Yan is not only a player but also a lackey for the Carnival Paradise. Between the straight path and the crooked path, he chooses the con. With his left hand, he dons the villain's mantle, staging scenes within instances, infuriating players who decry him as a despicable traitor, all while the game happily promotes him. With his right hand, he joins the non-human organization "Fangcun Mountain," which opposes the Carnival Paradise, transforming into a mysterious player who slaughters game bosses, earning cheers of "Long live the expert!" from fellow players. Gradually, Zhu Yan rises to become an S-rank human player in Fangcun Mountain's archives, while also being the Carnival Paradise's certified top game Boss. But when the final war erupts and both major factions place their hopes in him— Players tag his various aliases: "Experts, this offensive depends on you." The Carnival Paradise's supreme Boss throws an arm around his neck: "Bro, you're the iron, I'm the steel; you can't let me down again!"
