Eloping.
When those two words rolled off Lin Qingyan’s tongue, they carried the wistful longing of a young girl.
She wanted to abandon everything she had now.
Everything. Cast it all aside, throw it all away, and pretend it had never existed.
Then she would elope with Gu Chengyin. Just the two of them, finding a place where no one knew them and living a quiet life together.
She wouldn’t have to keep up appearances every day. She would only need to be Lin Qingyan, only need to be Gu Chengyin’s woman.
All she would need was to wake up in his arms and fall asleep beside him.
Just imagining that scene made Lin Qingyan’s heart race as if it were about to leap out of her chest.
But it was only an imagining. In truth, she held out no hope for it.
Because she knew Gu Chengyin’s temperament.
He was too steady, too thorough, too accustomed to shouldering every responsibility himself.
To him, eloping was probably about as unrealistic as having a pie fall from the sky.
So Lin Qingyan had already prepared herself to be rejected.
Yet Gu Chengyin’s answer came far more quickly than she expected.
So quickly that her mind had not even had time to prepare itself before his voice reached her ears.
“All right.”
Lin Qingyan’s eyes widened. She couldn’t believe what she had heard. She couldn’t believe that Gu Chengyin had actually agreed.
Even more unbelievable was how readily he had agreed, without the slightest hesitation.
But Gu Chengyin immediately added, “Though… can we wait until after the Taihe War?”
For Gu Chengyin, becoming the Taihe of the Celestial Master’s Manor would allow him to enter the Golden Core Realm directly.
After that, he would have to go to the Azure Sword Sect. Naturally, he would no longer remain in the Divine Capital.
Lin Qingyan’s heartbeat stumbled, then began pounding even more fiercely.
Gu Chengyin had agreed.
He had really agreed.
Not only had he agreed, he had even taken the initiative to set the time for their elopement: after the Taihe War.
That meant he wasn’t brushing her off or merely trying to soothe her.
He had genuinely agreed. He was taking this seriously.
Lin Qingyan’s eyes suddenly grew warm.
It wasn’t that she wanted to cry. It was the happiness surging in like a tide, flooding her tear ducts and making it impossible to suppress the urge to tears.
Lin Qingyan blinked hard, forcing the thin mist back.
Then she snuggled deeper into Gu Chengyin’s embrace, curling into him as though she wanted to melt into his body.
She didn’t mind the timing at all.
In fact, she felt it was exactly how things should be.
The Taihe War had already begun.
If they eloped now, it would amount to deserting in the face of battle, and people would condemn them behind their backs.
Lin Qingyan would never ask Gu Chengyin to elope at a time like this.
Leaving after the Taihe War was already the best possible timing.
Not too early, not too late. Just right.
At that moment, Lin Qingyan had only one thought in her mind:
He loves me so much.
For her sake, Gu Chengyin was even willing to cast aside the position of Taihe of the Celestial Master’s Manor the moment it fell into his hands.
So many people would fight tooth and nail for that seat.
They would be willing to remain there for even one more day, one more hour, or one more incense stick’s worth of time.
But Gu Chengyin?
He could throw it away just like that. He could say he didn’t want it and abandon it without even blinking.
Clearly, in his heart, she, Lin Qingyan, was what mattered most.
That realization filled her chest with a warm, swelling feeling.
It wasn’t happiness. The word happiness was too light, too small to contain what she was feeling now.
It was as if the weight of the entire universe had been compressed into a tiny pearl and placed against her heart.
Heavy yet warm, it made Lin Qingyan feel that even if the sky collapsed, the earth sank, and the entire world were destroyed, she wouldn’t care.
Because she was in the arms of the right person.
That was her whole world.
All the emotions that had assailed her moments ago were washed away by this overwhelming happiness, leaving not even a trace behind.
Like writing on the sand erased by the tide, they vanished without a mark.
Lin Qingyan no longer worried about Luo Zhao at all.
What was there to worry about?
After all, she and Gu Chengyin would elope after the Taihe War.
By then, they would travel far away, to a place where no one knew them, and live a life belonging only to the two of them.
And Luo Zhao?
Luo Zhao would remain in the Divine Capital, in her Crown Prince’s Palace, on her path toward the throne, and amid the political struggles of her court.
Could she find Gu Chengyin?
She’d have better luck finding a ghost.
No matter how she stirred the winds and clouds, how carefully she plotted, or how thoroughly she laid her inescapable net, she wouldn’t be able to touch so much as a single strand of Gu Chengyin’s hair.
And as long as Luo Zhao couldn’t find Gu Chengyin, she would have no way to make him forget Lin Qingyan.
At the thought of Luo Zhao’s furious yet helpless expression when that time came, the corners of Lin Qingyan’s lips curved upward unconsciously.
The more she imagined it, the better she felt.
All the gloom, unease, and inexplicable warnings from her intuition were shattered by the words elope, reduced to nothing.
Lin Qingyan’s emotions surged like an ocean whipped into towering waves by a storm.
The enormous roar echoed through her chest, making her entire body tremble faintly.
She even wanted to reward Gu Chengyin.
The moment that thought appeared, her fingers had already begun tracing idle circles over Gu Chengyin’s chest.
It was like a butterfly gently fluttering its wings against her heart—itchy, tingling, leaving her restless from head to toe.
But just then, footsteps sounded on the stairs.
There were two sets of footsteps, one lighter and one heavier.
Lin Qingyan froze.
Her hand stopped beside Gu Chengyin’s neck, her lips still resting near the line of his jaw.
She looked like a painting paused in the middle of an unfinished moment, frozen as though someone had pressed a pause button.
Her lashes trembled slightly before she slowly raised her eyes.
Her gaze shifted away from Gu Chengyin’s face and turned toward the staircase.
The footsteps drew closer.
After rounding the final bend, two figures emerged from the shadows of the stairs.
Luo Zhao walked in front, with Shangguan Yunying following behind her.
Luo Zhao had already dressed herself again.
Every strand of hair had been carefully combed, and every wrinkle in her clothes had been smoothed out with care.
She looked as though nothing had happened.
There was not the slightest trace of what had occurred on the third floor to be found on her face.
Her expression was so calm that no one could discern its depths.
There was no panic, no shyness, no grievance, and no sign that she intended to seek revenge.
She simply descended the stairs with composed serenity, like a true Crown Prince.
Luo Zhao spotted Gu Chengyin and Lin Qingyan at a glance.
More precisely, she saw Lin Qingyan clinging to Gu Chengyin’s embrace without the slightest intention of moving.
Her posture was openly intimate, carrying the unmistakable air of staking her claim.
Lin Qingyan was sprawled against Gu Chengyin, her cheek pressed to his chest and one hand resting against his neck, like a languid cat.
On her own territory, she stretched out in utter relaxation.
That lazy, satisfied contentment was not feigned.
It rose from her very bones, impossible to conceal.
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
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?!
