Although Lin Qingyan’s tone was suggestive when she said it, and her expression was alluring as well, there was no trace of the turmoil in her thoughts from moments ago.
If anything, there was even a hint of encouragement in it—the indulgence and pampering she showed only to Gu Chengyin.
Yet Gu Chengyin’s expression shifted.
He had caught something.
Beneath that seemingly suggestive surface, there was a subtle turn.
Like a river that had been flowing straight ahead suddenly curving at some point.
The angle of the bend was slight, so slight it was almost imperceptible.
But it was there, plainly telling every careful observer:
This was not where the river should have curved. Someone had deliberately bent it.
Lin Qingyan hadn’t originally intended to say this.
That was Gu Chengyin’s first instinct.
He could clearly sense a pause in Lin Qingyan’s words, one so brief it was almost impossible to notice.
It wasn’t a pause to catch her breath, but one caused by changing what she was about to say.
What had Lin Qingyan originally wanted to say?
Gu Chengyin turned the question over in his mind.
Was it about what had happened earlier?
Or Luo Zhao’s inner demon?
Or perhaps the intuition that had told her something was wrong?
All of those were possible, but none could be confirmed.
The only certainty was that Lin Qingyan had changed her mind at the last moment and swallowed her words.
Instead, she had switched to a new topic that wouldn’t weigh down the atmosphere—in fact, one that could even be called pleasant.
But why had she swallowed those words?
Was she worried they would damage the relationship between them?
That didn’t fit Lin Qingyan’s personality.
She had always been straightforward, never hiding her thoughts or holding anything back.
She would never wrong herself simply because she was afraid of making someone unhappy.
Lin Qingyan was not that kind of person. She never had been.
Gu Chengyin, however, did not dwell on it for long.
Because he knew there was no need to overthink things with Lin Qingyan. If he had something to say, he only needed to say it directly.
Fairy Jingzhe was not the kind of person whose thoughts needed to be guessed.
So Gu Chengyin spoke, directly skipping over Lin Qingyan’s invitation.
“There’s no need to prepare anything.”
“But, Auntie, that wasn’t what you wanted to say just now, was it?”
It was neither an accusation nor a probing question, merely a simple statement.
Like a precise hook, it firmly caught hold of the seemingly flawless turn Lin Qingyan had made moments earlier.
Then he pulled it out from beneath the surface and laid it bare in the sunlight.
Lin Qingyan smiled.
There was no distance in her smile, nor any of that lofty, untouchable nobility.
There was only warmth and delight welling up from the depths of her heart.
Her eyes curved into crescents, their outer corners beautiful enough to seem drawn with the finest brushstrokes.
As her eyes shifted, Gu Chengyin’s reflection swayed in her pupils, like a beautiful dream that would never awaken.
This detestable, rotten man.
How could she possibly like him this much?
Lin Qingyan liked Gu Chengyin’s intelligence.
She liked how, when no one else could see the problem, he could pinpoint the only flaw with perfect accuracy.
Lin Qingyan liked Gu Chengyin’s directness.
She liked how, when everyone else was dancing around the issue, he could lay everything out cleanly on the table.
Lin Qingyan liked Gu Chengyin’s gentleness.
She liked the deep affection in his eyes—the kind only she could see—when he said the most heart-stirring things in the calmest possible tone.
Since Gu Chengyin had already said it outright, Lin Qingyan no longer saw any reason to hide.
She had never been the sort of person who hid things in the first place.
The hesitation just now had already made her feel somewhat uncomfortable.
She didn’t like wearing a mask in front of Gu Chengyin. She didn’t like holding anything back from him, and she didn’t like pretending to be someone she wasn’t when she was with him.
Lin Qingyan sat up a little straighter in Gu Chengyin’s arms and lifted her head to meet his eyes.
Her expression grew serious, and the smile between her brows and eyes faded somewhat.
In its place was a solemn, grave look tinged with confusion.
She pressed her lips together slightly, as though organizing her thoughts, then spoke.
“Chengcheng, with what you know about me, what do you think could make me suffer qi deviation and fall into demonic madness?”
She was direct and completely unguarded, just like the person she was.
Gu Chengyin was slightly taken aback.
He hadn’t expected that this was what Lin Qingyan had been struggling over.
He had thought she would ask about Luo Zhao, or continue asking about the master.
Perhaps she would ask about matters directly related to the situation before them.
Not this vague, purely hypothetical question.
Suffering qi deviation and falling into demonic madness.
Those four words were not something one casually mentioned in the cultivation world.
Nor were they merely descriptive.
They referred to a real and extremely dangerous state that struck fear into the hearts of all cultivators.
Once a cultivator suffered qi deviation and fell into demonic madness, the consequences could be as mild as a decline in cultivation, or as severe as the shattering of their Dao heart.
More severe still, they could lose all reason and become murderous monsters driven only by instinct.
Every cultivator in the Golden Core realm had endured the tribulation of the inner demon.
They had all walked once along that line between life and death, and all knew what falling into demonic madness meant.
So Lin Qingyan had not asked this question casually.
She must have sensed something.
Had that cheat-like intuition of hers foreseen something?
Gu Chengyin knew exactly what Lin Qingyan’s intuition was like.
It wasn’t a sixth sense that happened to be right once or twice.
It was a terrifying talent that struck the heart of the truth with perfect accuracy every time—even he had no choice but to admire it.
Lin Qingyan’s intuition had never been wrong. Not once.
Therefore, when she asked this question, it meant that her intuition was warning her.
Something was quietly, silently drawing closer in this direction.
Gu Chengyin did not answer immediately.
He carefully went over the question in his mind.
First, he ruled out external factors.
An enemy’s attack, the trials of a heavenly tribulation, a bottleneck in cultivation…
None of these would be enough to make Lin Qingyan suffer qi deviation and fall into demonic madness.
Her Dao heart was the most resilient one he had ever seen.
Not the kind of resilience that was hard as stone, but the kind that was supple as reeds.
It looked soft, yet no matter how hard one pulled, it could not be torn apart; no matter how heavily one pressed down, it could not be bent; no matter what one did, it could not be destroyed.
Something like that could not be broken by external force.
The only thing capable of breaking it was a force that arose from within.
Then what internal force could shatter Lin Qingyan’s Dao heart?
Gu Chengyin thought of one possibility.
If there was anything that could make Lin Qingyan suffer qi deviation and fall into demonic madness, the most likely candidate was the fragment of memory sealed within her inner demon.
It was the most fragile place in the depths of her heart—the only weak point in her Dao heart.
That memory contained the truth of how the original Lin Qingyan had turned herself into an inner demon.
In a sense, it could also be considered a form of falling into demonic madness.
But that had already happened.
The inner demon had been weakened, and the memory had been sealed away.
It shouldn’t have any effect on the Lin Qingyan of the present. What was more, she now had him as a new spiritual pillar.
Besides, the past was already past. It could no longer hurt the Lin Qingyan of today.
Unless…
Something similar happened in the future.
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!
ap a wealthy young lady? Or else I'll be eliminated by the system? Ye Feng, who awakened the Kidnapper System, originally wanted to live a peaceful life but never imagined he would become a kidnapper of young women. However, after some time, he discovered that all the girls the system ordered him to kidnap were far from ordinary. "Big brother Ye Feng~ You've kidnapped my heart, and now you're not allowed to leave me ever again~" "Ye Feng~ You kidnapped me back then, now it's my turn to capture you♡" "Little Feng, you're mine! You can only be mine!" "Ye Feng, none of them deserve you. Only I love you the most♡" ... This is madness, they've all gone mad! Wait, what? Why are all the girls I kidnapped yanderes?!
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.
