“Y-Your Highness?”
Before Gu Chengyin could react, Shangguan Yunying’s voice suddenly came from the side.
It carried a hint of hesitation, a hint of shock, and a hint of self-doubt.
After all, Shangguan Yunying had genuinely never expected Luo Zhao to be curled up in Gu Chengyin’s arms.
And calling him Master, no less?!
At the sound of that voice, Luo Zhao went rigid.
Starting from her spine, it felt as though an invisible icicle had been drawn from the back of her neck all the way down to her tailbone.
Her entire spine straightened in an instant, and the outline of her shoulder blades showed clearly beneath her ordinary clothes.
She remained sprawled in Gu Chengyin’s arms.
The slightly pouty note at the end of her voice still lingered in the air, not yet fully dissipated.
Then Shangguan Yunying’s cry of “Your Highness” struck it out of the air.
Luo Zhao turned her head. As she did, her collar flipped up, revealing a small patch of fair skin along the side of her neck.
Shangguan Yunying had already changed back into her chief lady-in-waiting’s uniform.
Her lapels were neat, her waist sash properly fastened, and her skirt fell to her ankles. Her hair was arranged in an immaculate coiffure.
She looked like an entirely different person from the woman who had just descended from the third floor with her long hair loose, wearing a rumpled nightgown and sporting a neck covered in hickey marks.
She stood at the foot of the stairs, one hand still resting on the banister, apparently having just come down from the third floor.
Her expression, however, was anything but the composed dignity expected of her. It was one of stunned disbelief.
Her gentle eyes were nearly twice their usual size, her mouth hung slightly open, and she had even forgotten to breathe.
She stood perfectly still, like a statue that had been struck by a pressure-point technique.
Shangguan Yunying blinked again, as though checking that she had not imagined what she was seeing.
This obedient-looking woman, curled up in Gu Chengyin’s arms like a well-behaved puppy...
Was she really the Luo Zhao she knew?
Was she truly the cold and aloof Crown Prince?
When had the relationship between these two developed to this point?
Before resigning from her position as chief lady-in-waiting, Luo Zhao and Gu Chengyin had shared a subtle, ambiguous tension, but it had been nowhere near this intimate.
Luo Zhao had always maintained a certain dignity around Gu Chengyin.
No matter how much she cared about him, she insisted on appearing cold and distant.
And yet now, this cold and distant Crown Prince was lying in Gu Chengyin’s arms, calling him Master.
Only then did Luo Zhao finally come to her senses.
Without showing the slightest sign of panic, she slipped out of Gu Chengyin’s embrace. Her movements were so natural that it was almost as if she had never been breaking free at all.
As if she had merely been standing beside him from the beginning, and Shangguan Yunying had happened to catch them from a misleading angle.
Luo Zhao rose to her feet, folded her hands in front of her, and straightened her back. Her skirt swayed lightly around her ankles before she lifted her head.
Her face once again wore that cold and aloof expression.
The change in her demeanor was so swift and so natural that Shangguan Yunying nearly thought she really had imagined what she had just seen.
There was no trace left between Luo Zhao’s brows of the obedient sweetness she had displayed while nestled in Gu Chengyin’s arms. All that remained was the detached indifference of the Crown Prince.
“Just now, I accidentally tripped. Fortunately, Junior Preceptor Gu caught me.”
Her tone was as flat as a bowl of cooled-down water, without the slightest unnecessary inflection or explanation.
It was as though she really had been tripped by something invisible, and Gu Chengyin had merely happened to reach out and catch her.
“Er...”
Shangguan Yunying slowly walked closer.
Her gaze lingered on Luo Zhao’s face for a moment, then moved to Gu Chengyin’s, before returning to Luo Zhao’s.
After serving as chief lady-in-waiting for so many years, Shangguan Yunying had heard Luo Zhao say countless things in countless situations.
Truths, lies, official statements, platitudes, polite formalities—she could distinguish every one of them with ease.
That was why she noticed the redness at the tips of Luo Zhao’s ears.
That flush betrayed every bit of composure Luo Zhao was pretending to possess.
At first, Shangguan Yunying had been worried that Gu Chengyin might have hypnotized Luo Zhao again.
But there was no need to worry anymore. That expression of pretending not to care while secretly caring very much was unmistakably Luo Zhao herself.
Still, Shangguan Yunying had no idea whether she should expose her or pretend she had seen nothing.
After all, she had personally heard Luo Zhao call Gu Chengyin Master—and Luo Zhao had been fully conscious when she said it.
She had not been hypnotized, coerced, or influenced by any outside force.
Luo Zhao had been awake, aware, and speaking from the bottom of her heart.
If Shangguan Yunying exposed her now, Luo Zhao would surely become furious with embarrassment. She might even turn on her then and there.
But if she pretended not to have seen anything, that would seem far too deliberate.
As for Gu Chengyin, the moment he saw the conflicted look on Shangguan Yunying’s face, he knew she had heard everything.
So he simply reached out, wrapped an arm around Luo Zhao’s waist, and pulled her back into his embrace.
Caught off guard, Luo Zhao instinctively began to struggle.
A look of panic also appeared in her eyes. Shangguan Yunying was still watching.
She had gone to so much trouble to explain things away. Why was Gu Chengyin pulling her back again?
Then Gu Chengyin leaned close to her ear and said, “All right. Yunying already heard you.”
Only then did Luo Zhao stop struggling.
She sneaked a glance toward Shangguan Yunying, then quickly looked away again.
Lowering her head, she said in a small voice, “Then... Yunying, don’t let Auntie know.”
Luo Zhao’s voice was even softer than before, and her face had turned completely red.
Shangguan Yunying blinked. Her expression first showed confusion, then sudden realization, and finally shock that she could barely contain.
Don’t let Auntie know?
That meant Lin Qingyan was still completely unaware of the relationship between Her Highness and Gu Chengyin?
Did that mean the Crown Prince was seducing her aunt’s husband?!
Shangguan Yunying’s eyes widened at once, and her hand rose unconsciously to cover her mouth.
It was as though she were desperately trying to force back the gasp that was about to escape.
The Crown Prince and Gu Chengyin... had their relationship really progressed that far?
Although she had already become Gu Chengyin’s woman, she was still deeply shaken by the news.
After all, there was nothing strange about Lin Qingyan and Gu Chengyin.
There was nothing strange about Shangguan Yunying and Gu Chengyin, either.
But Luo Zhao and Gu Chengyin?
“Your Highness, you and Gu... you and Chengcheng?”
Luo Zhao did not answer. She only lowered her head even further.
Her hands were folded over her knees, her fingers unconsciously twisting the hem of her ordinary clothes.
The main problem was that their relationship was so perverse that she simply could not bring herself to say it out loud.
She could call him Master without the slightest inhibition when they were alone. Even when he gripped her by the throat, she could reveal a smile of utter satisfaction.
But all of that happened when there was no third person present.
Now, however, she was facing Shangguan Yunying.
Facing the former chief lady-in-waiting who had spent so many years by her side, someone who understood her character and temperament better than almost anyone.
Luo Zhao truly could not bring herself to answer such a perverse question.
Fortunately, Gu Chengyin promptly came to her rescue.
“Actually, it isn’t that complicated. Her Highness has finally come to trust me.”
At those words, Shangguan Yunying’s eyes lit up.
All her shock and confusion transformed in an instant into heartfelt joy.
u Chenyuan transmigrated into a female-oriented novel about a real and fake heiress, becoming the CEO elder brother of both. Unfortunately, the entire Lu family—including himself, the CEO—were mere cannon fodder in the story. Determined to save himself, Lu Chenyuan took action. The spoiled, attention-seeking fake heiress? Thrown into the harsh realities of the working class to learn humility. The love-struck real heiress? Pushed toward academic excellence, so lofty goals would blind her to trivial romances. As for the betrayed, vengeful arranged marriage wife… the plot hadn’t even begun yet. There was still time—if he couldn’t handle her, he could at least avoid her. "CEO Lu, are you avoiding me?" Mo Qingli fixed her gaze on Lu Chenyuan. For the first time, the shrewd and calculating Lu Chenyuan felt a flicker of unease.
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...
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.
