When Luo Zhao said those words, even she found them ironic.
She never imagined that one day she would swear a poisonous oath for the sake of not killing Gu Chengyin.
But at this moment, she truly had no intention of killing Gu Chengyin.
Even when he infuriated her so badly that her teeth ached, she had never again thought of killing him.
She called him Master—not because she was forced to, nor because she had been hypnotized, but because she meant it.
Luo Zhao had handed herself over to Gu Chengyin without reservation, placing her neck in his grasp.
She had crushed her dignity and pride together, then reshaped them into something utterly twisted.
So she did all of this willingly.
But willingness was one thing, and having a few little schemes of her own was another.
For instance, she wanted to steal Gu Chengyin away from Lin Qingyan—and from Shangguan Yunying as well.
She wanted Gu Chengyin’s heart. She wanted all of him.
Not his destruction, but his complete possession.
Gu Chengyin needed only one obedient little dog by his side: her.
Of course, Luo Zhao would never say that aloud.
She wasn’t stupid. No one would openly admit something like that to another person’s face.
Lin Qingyan arched a brow, somewhat surprised by Luo Zhao’s decisiveness, though her expression held more scrutiny than anything else.
She looked Luo Zhao up and down, those eyes seeming capable of seeing straight through her.
“But I have one condition as well.”
Luo Zhao continued, a trace of tension in her voice that even she failed to notice.
She tried to make herself appear composed, but her fingers had already curled quietly inside her sleeves.
“I hope Little Aunt will agree.”
Lin Qingyan gave a slight nod, a hint of interest rising in her beautiful eyes.
“What condition?”
Luo Zhao did not answer immediately.
Her gaze wandered around the room, as though searching for something—or perhaps merely trying to stall for time.
She had visited the third floor of the Meditation Tower before, and was familiar with every piece of furniture.
A canopy hung over the rosewood bed, its curtains the pale blue of the sky after rain. The bronze mirror on the dressing table had been polished until it gleamed.
Several unfinished miscellanies lay open on the writing desk by the window. In the corner, an incense burner shaped like a Boshan mountain sent unfamiliar fragrant smoke curling lazily through the air.
In the end, however, Luo Zhao’s gaze fell upon the large bed.
It was the most conspicuous object in the entire room: a rosewood canopy bed carved with entwined lotus patterns.
The curtains hanging from its posts were only half drawn, revealing the disordered bedding within.
The brocade quilt had been crumpled into a heap, and one of the pillows lay askew. It was obvious that the bed had been roughly disturbed.
Luo Zhao stared at the traces left upon it, and images suddenly surfaced in her mind.
They were images that should never have appeared, yet they emerged with startling clarity.
It was as if someone were carving them into her mind, stroke by stroke, with a knife.
Luo Zhao could not help remembering the unnatural flush on Shangguan Yunying’s face when she had entered the room moments ago.
She remembered the stray strands of hair damp with sweat at Yunying’s temples, the barely perceptible weakness in her legs as she walked, and the rigid way she had held her back when she sat down.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to relax.
She simply couldn’t.
Luo Zhao’s face suddenly turned red.
But she did not look away. Instead, she examined the bed even more carefully, as though confirming something—or imagining something.
Lin Qingyan noticed Luo Zhao’s gaze. When she followed it, an ominous premonition suddenly rose in her heart.
“I want to see…”
Luo Zhao’s voice grew softer, until it was almost a whisper.
Yet in the silent room, every word was clear beyond measure.
“How Gu Chengyin bullied Little Aunt.”
The air fell utterly still.
This was not ordinary silence. It was the kind in which even the air seemed to have been sucked away.
The incense smoke from the Boshan burner appeared to freeze in place, no longer drifting, suspended in midair as though even the smoke itself dared not move.
Lin Qingyan’s expression changed.
It was not anger, nor embarrassment, but something difficult to describe.
There was surprise in it, yet also something that seemed not entirely surprised.
Something like refusal, and yet perhaps, for one brief moment, a hint of hesitation.
Lin Qingyan’s brows drew together slightly, then relaxed. Her lips moved, but in the end she said nothing.
Still, something Luo Zhao could not understand had appeared in those usually cool and distant eyes.
Luo Zhao’s heart pounded so violently it seemed ready to leap from her throat, but she did not stop.
She knew she was already standing at the edge of a cliff. One more step would send her plunging into an abyss, yet she could not control herself.
Then Luo Zhao turned her head toward Shangguan Yunying.
Yunying wore the same expression.
Her eyes were slightly widened, her lips parted, and her hands were clasped in her lap, fingertips drained white.
She had thought Lin Qingyan was already twisted enough, but she had never imagined that the princess, who had always been cold, proud, and solitary, could be no less twisted than Lin Qingyan.
Luo Zhao’s gaze lingered on Shangguan Yunying’s face for a moment before slowly descending to her neck.
“If Yunying could join Little Aunt…”
Luo Zhao’s voice was as light as a passing breeze, but the flames wrapped within it nearly set the entire Meditation Tower ablaze.
“That would be even better.”
The moment she finished speaking, Luo Zhao herself froze.
She knew she was twisted. She had known it for a very long time.
But never before had she realized so clearly just how twisted she had become.
What was she saying?
What was she saying to her own Little Aunt—and to the former Chief Lady Official?
No. She wasn’t the twisted one.
Lin Qingyan was.
Compared with Lin Qingyan, her own thoughts were nothing more than a small witch beside a great one.
If Lin Qingyan hadn’t provoked her, she would never have conceived such a perverse idea.
Yes. It was all Lin Qingyan’s fault.
Lin Qingyan had kept provoking her, so all of this was Lin Qingyan’s problem!
A gust of wind suddenly swept past the window, making the lattice rattle faintly.
The sound was particularly abrupt in the deathly quiet room, like something shattering—or like something breaking through the earth.
Lin Qingyan continued to look at Luo Zhao. The emotions in her eyes had already settled, leaving behind only a darkness so deep it seemed bottomless.
Her fingers rested there quietly, like a sword with its edge concealed.
This was not hesitation.
She was weighing things.
Weighing the significance of Luo Zhao’s words, and considering what attitude she should adopt in response.
Shangguan Yunying pressed a hand to her collar. Her knuckles had gone nearly translucent with whiteness.
Her face was neither red nor pale, but some strange color in between.
It was as though all the blood had been drained from her body, only to surge back again, wave after wave, battering every inch of her face.
Her lips trembled faintly, as if she wanted to say something, but in the end she merely bit down on her lower lip without making a sound.
Luo Zhao’s gaze moved back and forth between the two women, her heart pounding like a war drum.
She felt incredibly brave—brave enough to bear whatever consequences might follow.
And she felt incredibly twisted, twisted enough to be destroying everything with her own hands.
But she had no regrets.
At least, not yet.
The corners of Lin Qingyan’s lips curved upward slightly. Her gaze settled on Luo Zhao’s face.
Then, unhurriedly, she asked:
“Zhao’er, do you want to watch—or do you want to join us?”
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.
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!
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!
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...
