When Gu Chengyin stepped through the main gate of the Celestial Master’s Residence once more, the afternoon sun had already begun to slant.
The steward cultivator at the entrance had received instructions in advance. The moment he saw Gu Chengyin enter, he came forward to greet him.
He led Gu Chengyin through the ginkgo grove toward the Ancestral Hall.
The sunlight was warm and bright now, and the grove had lost its morning gloom. Patches of light sifted through the branches and leaves, spreading across the bluestone path. Stepping on them, one could almost feel the warmth of the sun.
The ginkgo trees on either side remained lush and verdant, but quite a few cultivators had gathered beneath them.
Groups of three or four gray-robed disciples whispered beneath the covered walkways. Several blue-robed stewards hurried past with scrolls in their arms. Whenever they saw Gu Chengyin, their steps involuntarily slowed for half a beat. Their eyes lingered on him before darting away.
Some cultivators did not bother pretending at all. They stood behind the pillars and openly stared at him.
The news had spread faster than expected.
The disturbance in the Inner Cabinet’s council chamber had yet to fully make its way outside, but the Celestial Master’s Residence was already in an uproar.
Jingzhe of the Celestial Master’s Residence was personally recommending someone for initiation, and that person was none other than her fiancé—the Junior Tutor to the Crown Prince, Gu Chengyin.
The news had begun circulating throughout the residence that morning. With every retelling, it spread farther and became more outrageous.
Some said Gu Chengyin had come to the Celestial Master’s Residence to escape danger. The emperor had granted him a marriage he did not want, and he could no longer remain in court, so he had no choice but to hide here.
Others said he had come to cling to a powerful patron. Fairy Jingzhe was an extraordinary figure; to become her Dao companion was a blessing earned over eight lifetimes.
Still others claimed he had come to gild his reputation. After spending a few years at the Celestial Master’s Residence and obtaining a Daoist title, he would leave with dual standing in both the imperial court and the Celestial Master’s Residence. By then, who would dare lay a hand on him?
All kinds of speculation circulated among the crowd, but no one dared voice it loudly.
Lin Qingyan had issued a warning: anyone who caused trouble today would become her sworn enemy.
No one in the Celestial Master’s Residence failed to understand the weight of those words.
Gu Chengyin paid no attention to the gazes around him.
He followed the steward cultivator through the ginkgo grove and finally stopped at the edge of the plaza before the Ancestral Hall.
The plaza was enormous.
The entire ground was paved with square blue-gray bricks, each carved with fine grooves to prevent slipping.
The Ancestral Hall stood at the northern end of the plaza, its vermilion doors thrown open. The flames of the ever-burning lamps inside cast a small patch of flickering warmth along the doorframe.
Before the hall was a flight of nine stone steps. On either side stood a bronze crane, each with a sprig of lingzhi clasped in its beak.
Their postures were dignified yet archaic. Fine patterns left behind by the passage of time covered their mottled, verdigris-stained surfaces.
Covered walkways lined the eastern and western sides of the plaza. Faded couplets hung from their pillars.
The brushwork was vigorous and powerful. The characters were still faintly recognizable as the work of a former Celestial Master.
Quite a few people stood beneath the walkways. Some leaned against the pillars, while others sat cross-legged on the railings.
Some had gathered in small groups, all of them looking toward the same place.
More than a hundred people had already assembled in the plaza itself.
Among them were cultivators dressed in moon-white robes. They were the direct disciples of the Golden Core elders, and they now stood on the eastern side of the plaza.
There were not many of them, but every one possessed a composed and solemn bearing, entirely different from the outer disciples who looked around with open curiosity.
There were also gray-robed Transmission Elders, who were responsible for teaching the Dao and instructing disciples in the Celestial Master’s Residence. Most of them were in the middle or late stages of Foundation Establishment.
They stood beneath the covered walkway, their expressions calm. Their eyes held more scrutiny than hostility.
The blue-robed steward cultivators managed the various affairs of the Celestial Master’s Residence.
Their cultivation was not particularly high, but they were the best informed of all. They had gathered beneath the ginkgo trees, quietly exchanging the news they had heard from outside the residence.
Several Golden Core elders had also arrived after hearing the news.
The elders usually secluded themselves in their respective caves to cultivate and rarely showed themselves without good reason.
Yet today, they had appeared around the plaza as if by unspoken agreement.
Three Golden Core elders stood beneath the covered walkway on the eastern side.
The leader was extremely tall and thin-faced. A strand of gray-white beard hung from his chin, and an unsheathed sword rested across his back.
The sword was pitch-black from hilt to tip. It reflected not the slightest glimmer beneath the afternoon light, as though even light itself were swallowed by it.
His Daoist title was Xuan Shi. He was in the late Golden Core stage and the most senior among the Celestial Master’s Residence’s elders.
The two men behind him were somewhat weaker, both in the early Golden Core stage.
One had a cold, stern face. The other wore a smile at the corners of his mouth—a smile that made people deeply uncomfortable.
Beneath the ginkgo trees on the western side stood two more Golden Core elders.
One was fat, the other thin. The fat one sat cross-legged on a tree root.
He held a handful of pine nuts and shelled them at an unhurried pace. A small pile of shells had accumulated beside his feet.
His Daoist title was Ling Song. He was in the middle Golden Core stage, yet he habitually looked disheveled.
If not for the deep-gray robe that marked him as an elder, anyone seeing him at a glance might have mistaken him for a drunk who had wandered out of some tavern.
The thin man stood with his hands behind his back, his brows tightly furrowed. His gaze was as sharp as a sword that had yet to leave its sheath.
His Daoist title was Han Shi, and he was likewise in the middle Golden Core stage.
The two elders appeared casual, but their positions had been chosen carefully. From there, they could observe every movement on the western side of the plaza.
Most of those present, however, were ordinary cultivators.
Unlike the elders, they did not put on airs. Unlike the stewards, they did not have to worry about their status.
They gathered in small groups and murmured among themselves.
Some speculated about Gu Chengyin’s cultivation. They had heard that he was only at the Foundation Establishment stage, yet Fairy Jingzhe was personally recommending him. Could he be hiding some trump card?
Some speculated about his relationship with Fairy Jingzhe. The imperial edict granting them marriage was genuine.
But Fairy Jingzhe was no ordinary person. How could she possibly take a fancy to a man from the imperial court who was only at the Foundation Establishment stage?
Others wondered why he had abandoned the perfectly good position of Junior Tutor to the Crown Prince to come to the Celestial Master’s Residence.
Could it be, as the rumors claimed, that the emperor had driven him into a corner, leaving him with nowhere else to go?
The voices were kept very low, but there were simply too many people. The hum blended into a single continuous buzz, like a swarm of insects lying in wait among the grass.
Standing at the edge of the plaza, Gu Chengyin took everything in.
His gaze swept from the eastern walkway to the western ginkgo grove, passing over each of the elders in turn.
He glanced over the disciples whispering among themselves, then finally came to rest on the stone steps before the Ancestral Hall.
Lin Qingyan had not yet appeared. The steps were empty, save for the two bronze cranes standing there in silence, each holding a sprig of lingzhi in its beak.
Gu Chengyin walked along the straight flagstone path through the center of the plaza and stopped before the steps, standing between the two bronze cranes.
He did not have to wait long.
Footsteps sounded from inside the Ancestral Hall.
At that moment, every gaze turned toward the open vermilion doors.
Lin Qingyan walked out of the hall.
The blazing white sunlight fell upon her. With every step she took, the Jingzhe lightning patterns on her robes flickered faintly, like countless tiny golden serpents slithering across the fabric.
Her hands hung naturally at her sides, her back perfectly straight. Between her brows and in her eyes remained the same cool, distant bearing that had earned her the title of Fairy Jingzhe.
The discussion across the plaza fell completely silent.
The disciples who had been whispering only moments before all closed their mouths.
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...
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.
m back to his original world. In the end, he realized he had overthought things. [Hey, why is Shen Manni, the female lead, acting strange? Shouldn't she be fawning over the male lead at this point?] [Zhou Qiaoqiao, are you sick? Weren't you supposed to break off your engagement today?] [Damn it! An Youyi, please do your job as an undercover agent and sell my information to the protagonist, you idiot!] ... At this moment, Xu Mo himself didn't know that these female leads had already heard his inner thoughts. Then they decided not to play by the rules. Xu Mo: Please respect my profession as the big villain!
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!
