Gu Chengyin’s thoughts followed that line of reasoning to its conclusion.
If Lin Qingyan had once suffered qi deviation because of Empress Lin, then who would cause Lin Qingyan to suffer qi deviation now?
The answer was obvious.
Him.
Only him.
A complicated mixture of emotions suddenly surged through Gu Chengyin’s heart, as though something heavy had pressed down on it.
His past. The way he existed. His place in Lin Qingyan’s life.
All of it meant that he was no longer a man without ties.
He was Lin Qingyan’s anchor, her spiritual pillar.
He was the lamp that kept Lin Qingyan from losing her way in this world.
If something happened to him, if there were any problem with his existence…
Then for Lin Qingyan, the sky would fall.
Death.
What would happen to Lin Qingyan if she lost him?
Gu Chengyin had thought about this question many times, but he had never truly considered it.
Because he would not allow himself to die.
So death had never been a possibility from the very beginning.
Besides, Lin Qingyan would never let him die.
When his life was at stake, she was the kind of person who would trade her own life for his.
So she would not suffer qi deviation because he died.
Because Lin Qingyan would die before Gu Chengyin ever did.
If that was the case…
Then only one possibility remained.
Gu Chengyin’s gaze fell on Lin Qingyan’s eyes.
Those extraordinarily beautiful eyes were quietly watching him, waiting for his answer.
There was no impatience in them, no anxiety—only complete trust.
Lin Qingyan knew Gu Chengyin would give her the right answer, so she had never needed to urge him.
Then Gu Chengyin spoke. His voice was quiet, his tone steady.
But his gaze was utterly serious—more serious than Lin Qingyan had ever seen it.
“Auntie, if… I mean, if…”
Gu Chengyin paused.
Lin Qingyan’s heart suddenly skipped a beat.
She did not know why. She only instinctively sensed that what Gu Chengyin was about to say might be the most terrifying thing she would hear in her entire life.
Her fingers unconsciously tightened around his robe, her knuckles paling as if she were clinging to the last strand of hope.
Gu Chengyin looked into Lin Qingyan’s eyes and spoke slowly, each word clear:
“What if I forgot you?”
The air froze.
This was not a metaphor or a figure of speech. The air truly froze.
All the air inside the Meditation Tower seemed to be seized by an invisible hand.
It no longer moved or circulated. It simply hung there in lifeless stillness.
The candle flames stopped flickering. The incense smoke stopped drifting. Even the wind outside the window vanished without a trace.
The entire world fell silent—so silent that it no longer felt real.
It was more like a fictional scene that someone had paused with the press of a button.
Lin Qingyan’s entire body went rigid.
Her pupils violently trembled for an instant, then rapidly widened, as though she wanted to carve Gu Chengyin’s words, complete and unaltered, into the deepest part of her heart.
Her lips parted, then closed, then parted again.
Like a fish lifted from the water, she wanted to say something, but nothing would come out.
For those few moments, her mind was blank—not the kind of blankness that meant there was nothing there.
It was blank because there was too much information for her mind to process.
Like a machine running beyond its limits, it finally buckled under the pressure and crashed completely.
If Gu Chengyin forgot Lin Qingyan…
If the man she had used her entire life to love, trust, and depend on…
If one day he looked into her eyes and no longer held any tenderness, no longer held any deep affection, no longer possessed those things only she could see in him…
If all the nights they had spent together—all those nights when she rested against his chest and listened to his heartbeat…
All those nights when she whispered secrets into his ear and he smiled as he rubbed her head…
If all of it were erased from Gu Chengyin’s memory, as though it had never happened at all…
If it all became a one-woman performance, with only her remembering everything while he remembered nothing…
If one day she stood before him, her heart pounding like a war drum, her eyes red and her lips trembling, a thousand words lodged in her throat, yet all she could say were two words:
“Chengcheng…”
And Gu Chengyin looked at her, frowned, and asked politely and distantly:
“Do we know each other?”
Lin Qingyan felt that her dao heart would shatter into dust in that moment.
It would not break slowly. It would be the sharp crack of a mirror falling from a great height and smashing against the floor.
Every fragment would reflect Lin Qingyan’s face. Every fragment would contain the image of Gu Chengyin.
Yet not one piece would remain whole, and not one could ever be put back together.
If Gu Chengyin forgot her, she would not go looking for him.
It was not because she would be unable to find him. It was because she would not dare.
What she feared most was not failing to find him, but finding him and seeing a stranger in his eyes.
Seeing him look at her as though she were an ordinary person.
No ripples. No warmth. No extra attention of any kind.
Seeing the love she had devoted herself to fail to stir even the slightest ripple in Gu Chengyin’s heart.
Seeing the memories etched into her bones become a prison built for her alone.
Amid Gu Chengyin’s unfamiliarity, she would gradually become someone even she no longer recognized.
Lin Qingyan’s eyes reddened at once.
It was the body’s instinctive response after being struck by an immense and indescribable wave of emotion.
The redness was faint, spreading only along the edges of her eyelids.
It was as though someone had dipped the finest brush into vermilion and traced a delicate circle around her eyes.
Yet that shallow ring was enough to transform her entire face.
She was no longer the aloof and distant Fairy Jingzhe.
She was merely an ordinary woman afraid of losing someone, afraid of being forgotten.
Lin Qingyan’s lips moved.
She wanted to say, You won’t.
She wanted to ask how he could possibly forget her.
She wanted to say, I’ll stay by your side forever. Even if you forget me, I’ll make you fall in love with me again.
Those words turned once in her throat, but in the end, not one escaped.
Because Gu Chengyin had said if. It was only a hypothetical.
It had not happened. It was merely the correct answer to her question.
Even though that correct answer was cruel—so cruel that it directly shook Lin Qingyan’s dao heart—it was undeniably precise to the point of suffocation.
Because Gu Chengyin was right.
If he forgot her, she truly would suffer qi deviation.
It would not be a possibility. It would be inevitable.
There would be no suspense whatsoever. It would be one hundred percent certain. Even the gods would be powerless to save her from it.
Lin Qingyan buried her face directly against Gu Chengyin’s chest.
She used all her strength to hold him tightly, as if afraid he might disappear the next second.
Her fingers clenched around his robe until her knuckles turned white, as if she meant to tear a hole through the fabric.
Her voice was muffled against his chest, low and trembling with vulnerability:
“You’re not allowed to forget me without my permission…”
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!
ver to a world of cultivation and returned invincible. Modern medicine is child's play compared to elixirs; technological might crumbles before true cultivation. My name is Qin Ning, Earth's sole cultivator!
] [Lone Wolf, No Male Gaze] [Protagonist is pursued early on; extreme protagonist-stans, stay away!] The "Carnival Paradise" descends and slowly devours the real world in the form of a game. By chance, Zhu Yan awakens the talent [Roleplay], becoming one of the first beta players. He thought he could develop safely, but after clearing the first instance, he is branded by humanity as the chief culprit behind the game's spread—a traitorous villain. A villain? Who would ever... become one! He'll be the villain! From then on, Zhu Yan is not only a player but also a lackey for the Carnival Paradise. Between the straight path and the crooked path, he chooses the con. With his left hand, he dons the villain's mantle, staging scenes within instances, infuriating players who decry him as a despicable traitor, all while the game happily promotes him. With his right hand, he joins the non-human organization "Fangcun Mountain," which opposes the Carnival Paradise, transforming into a mysterious player who slaughters game bosses, earning cheers of "Long live the expert!" from fellow players. Gradually, Zhu Yan rises to become an S-rank human player in Fangcun Mountain's archives, while also being the Carnival Paradise's certified top game Boss. But when the final war erupts and both major factions place their hopes in him— Players tag his various aliases: "Experts, this offensive depends on you." The Carnival Paradise's supreme Boss throws an arm around his neck: "Bro, you're the iron, I'm the steel; you can't let me down again!"
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.
