Gu Xiaoli blinked, her lashes fluttering several times.
First came confusion, then realization, and finally, the solemn understanding of someone who felt she had grasped something profound despite not quite understanding it.
Gu Xiaoli glanced at Luo Zhao.
Luo Zhao still had her head lowered over the official documents, completely oblivious to everything happening beside her.
Her vermilion brush continued to glide across the page, her annotations as neat and elegant as ever.
Gu Xiaoli gave a tiny nod and turned her head back, as though she had never seen Gu Chengyin at all.
Yet the feline ears formed from spiritual energy atop her head remained precisely angled in Gu Chengyin’s direction.
Their tips trembled faintly, as if tracking his every movement on a frequency audible to no one but her.
Seeing that Gu Xiaoli had not exposed him, Gu Chengyin continued observing Luo Zhao.
The reason he had decided to do this was that he had realized he did not know Luo Zhao very well.
This realization had surfaced only after he had crushed that notion of questioning Luo Zhao.
At the time, his Dao Heart had told him that he should not doubt her.
But immediately afterward, he had realized that while he should not doubt her, he did not truly understand her either.
That was right. After knowing each other for so long and going through so much together—
Gu Chengyin’s impression of Luo Zhao could, in truth, be summed up by just one word: endurance.
And because Luo Zhao was simply too good at enduring, many things about her had been concealed.
Her likes and dislikes, her choices and habits, her true way of handling affairs.
The different faces she showed to different people, the person she was when she was alone, and so on.
All of it had been wrapped beneath that thick shell of endurance—sealed away tightly, without the slightest gap.
To the point that Gu Chengyin was no longer certain whether the Luo Zhao in his mind was truly Luo Zhao.
Or rather, which version of her was the real Luo Zhao?
Whenever Luo Zhao revealed a new side of herself, Gu Chengyin would think that was the real her.
But the problem was that Luo Zhao had far too many new sides.
The cold, proud, and solitary woman was her.
The Crown Princess who yielded when necessary was her.
The arrogant and overbearing young lady was her.
The obedient, docile puppy was also her.
Some of these facets even contradicted one another.
How could someone cold, proud, and solitary act as obediently as a puppy before him?
How could someone arrogant and overbearing yield time and again when circumstances required it?
Which one was the real Luo Zhao?
Or perhaps all of them were the real Luo Zhao?
Gu Chengyin did not know, because he had never concerned himself with such matters before. He had never cared about Luo Zhao.
He had merely needed a tool called the Crown Princess. He had not wanted to know what kind of person that tool was.
After all, a tool only needed to be useful. What did its personality, preferences, or inner world have to do with him?
He had only needed a tool called the Crown Princess.
So whether Luo Zhao endured or did not endure—
Whether she had been pretending before him or acting sincerely—
It made no difference to Gu Chengyin.
He did not care about Luo Zhao, and naturally, he did not care what kind of person she was.
But once his Dao Heart had placed Luo Zhao among those he should not doubt, Gu Chengyin had no choice but to care about her.
If his Dao Heart believed Luo Zhao should not be questioned, then she truly was someone he should not question.
What did it mean for a person to be placed within the realm of those who should not be doubted?
It meant that, like Lin Qingyan and Shangguan Yunying, Luo Zhao was someone he could not treat as a chess piece.
It meant that he could no longer regard her as nothing more than a tool called the Crown Princess, as he had in the past.
It meant that he needed to know what kind of person she was, and what she was thinking.
He needed to know her joys, anger, sorrows, and pleasures. He needed to know why she acted the way she did before him.
And he needed to know what she was like when he was not there.
Was she the cold, proud, solitary Crown Princess?
The princess who yielded when necessary?
The arrogant and overbearing niece?
Or the obedient, docile puppy?
Gu Chengyin needed to know which of these was Luo Zhao’s true foundation.
And which was merely an outer garment she put on for a particular situation.
In the end, Gu Chengyin chose to observe her.
It was the simplest and most effective method.
Words could be disguised. Expressions could be controlled. Even tears could be false.
But some things could not be faked.
The little movements one made when alone. The subtle changes in one’s manner when facing different people.
Instinctive reactions. Fleeting looks that escaped without warning.
Those things could not be hidden.
They were too subtle—so subtle that most people did not even notice them themselves, much less deliberately try to control them.
So, if one wanted to know what a person was truly like—
Do not listen to what she says. Watch what she does.
Watch the choices she makes. Watch how she treats all sorts of people.
Listen to her tone, the manner in which she speaks, the habits she reveals without thinking.
Put together the different ways a person behaves around different people, and you will see that person’s most genuine whole.
It did not take much time.
Gu Chengyin was not some naive fool who needed months or even years to see a person clearly.
With his powers of observation, he only needed to study Luo Zhao for a short while to determine what sort of person she truly was.
Which parts were an act, which parts were genuine, and which parts were merely fleeting emotions.
Which parts were her nature, carved into her bones—Gu Chengyin could distinguish seven or eight parts out of ten with only a few glances.
The remaining two or three parts required time, not observation.
And what Gu Chengyin needed to do now was first see those seven or eight parts clearly.
It was rather strange. He had controlled Luo Zhao for so long, yet he had never understood what her true conduct or style was like.
He understood Lin Qingyan. He knew that beneath her cool exterior lay an exceedingly soft heart.
He knew her sharp tongue and stubborn pride. He knew her defiance—the way she still made fierce threats after every defeat.
He understood Shangguan Yunying. He knew her gentleness and restraint, the desires she had suppressed for so long, and why she always seemed to hesitate when she was with him, as though she wanted to speak but could not.
Yet Luo Zhao alone remained a mystery to him.
Of all the people Gu Chengyin had controlled most completely and influenced most deeply, she was the one he understood the least.
Perhaps that was what they called failing to see what was right beneath one’s nose.
Because she was too close, because she was too easy to control—
Because her obedience had seemed too natural, Gu Chengyin had never once thought to take a proper look at her.
At the moment, Luo Zhao was engaged in her routine work of handling official affairs.
Gu Chengyin stood three steps behind her, silently watching as she reviewed the documents.
Sunlight streamed through the window lattice, casting interwoven patterns of light and shadow across her black-and-gold court robes.
In that shifting light, her profile looked exceptionally beautiful, the line of her jaw exquisitely refined.
The contours of her ear were tinged with a faint blush beneath the light filtering through the lattice.
Luo Zhao’s fingers held the vermilion brush as its tip moved across the page, neither too quickly nor too slowly, with the calm assurance of someone long accustomed to the task.
After observing for a while, Gu Chengyin reached his first conclusion.
This Crown Princess—
was truly beautiful.
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!
lan, the Luo family, tracked him down - along with the babies in their arms. Mo Xuan stared pensively at the paternity test results from over a dozen top institutions, both domestic and international, showing a 99.99% match between himself and the two baby girls. At 23, Mo Xuan, a doctoral student, had become the father of two three-year-old children. The kicker? The mothers weren't even the same person! He gradually realized he was being lured step by step into an elaborate trap designed by these two yandere sisters. "Be good, little Xuan. Sister's life belongs to you entirely." "Brother, if you try to run away, I'll have no choice but to tie you up." Mo Xuan: "Do whatever you want, ladies. I give up."
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.
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.
