He was caught in the middle.
Shangguan Yunying was on his left, and Lin Qingyan on his right. With the two of them pressing against him from either side, he could barely move.
At this point, anyone who still didn’t understand what was going on had to be an absolute idiot.
It was obvious that both of them had been awake for some time and were only pretending to sleep.
Their movements when they turned over had been far too practiced—and far too precise.
Gu Chengyin sighed and said, “If you’re both awake, why are you still pretending to sleep?”
At that, Lin Qingyan and Shangguan Yunying opened their eyes at exactly the same time.
Their movements were so perfectly synchronized, it was almost as if they had rehearsed them. Their eyelids lifted together, their lashes trembled together, and their pupils focused together. Even the direction in which their eyes shifted was identical.
The two women exchanged a glance. In that single look were embarrassment, amusement, and the guilty unease of having been caught red-handed.
Then, as if nothing had happened, they both turned away again.
Shangguan Yunying climbed off Gu Chengyin and returned to her original spot. She lay on her side with her back to him, pulled the quilt up to her chin, and wrapped herself into a silkworm cocoon.
Lin Qingyan also climbed off Gu Chengyin and returned to her original spot. She lay on her side facing the window, pulled the quilt over her head, and left only a stray lock of hair peeking out.
Gu Chengyin looked at the two of them acting as though they had done absolutely nothing. He said nothing, merely shaking his head.
At a time like this, anything he said would be superfluous.
They wouldn’t admit to anything, they wouldn’t answer if he asked, and even if he called them out, they wouldn’t apologize.
They would only look at him with innocent eyes.
But since they were all awake now, there was no longer any need to worry about waking them.
Just as Gu Chengyin was about to get out of bed, Luo Zhao suddenly sat up on his right.
Her eyes were hazy with sleep, her gaze unfocused, and her entire person seemed caught in the bewilderment of not knowing where she was or who she was.
She rubbed her eyes. The quilt slipped from her body, revealing her fair shoulders and delicate collarbones.
There were also marks that looked as though something had bitten her.
Luo Zhao was completely unaware of them, however. She had not yet fully awakened, and her consciousness was still drifting along the boundary between dream and reality.
The next moment, her eyes met Gu Chengyin’s.
Their gazes locked.
Gu Chengyin looked at Luo Zhao, and Luo Zhao looked back at him.
Luo Zhao froze at once.
Her entire body went rigid, utterly motionless.
Her eyes were still clouded with sleep, but the mist slowly faded from her pupils.
She blinked.
Once, twice, three times.
Each blink seemed to be an attempt to confirm whether she was dreaming.
To confirm that the person before her was real. To confirm that she was no longer trapped in a dream.
Yet every time she opened her eyes, Gu Chengyin was still there.
Why?
Why had she seen Gu Chengyin upon waking?
Had he come to find her specifically?
Or…
At that moment, Luo Zhao suddenly realized something.
Her gaze moved away from Gu Chengyin’s face and slowly traveled downward.
It landed on her own body. The quilt had slipped to her waist, leaving her upper body almost entirely exposed to the morning light.
The marks left behind from the previous night were impossible to hide beneath the sunlight, like one seal after another had been stamped onto her skin.
Luo Zhao abruptly wrapped both arms around herself, her eyes widening as her pupils contracted violently. She cried out, “M-Master… you slept with me!?”
Her reaction was so extreme that one might have thought she hadn’t been the same person last night.
Luo Zhao’s mind was in complete turmoil, as though someone had thrown her memories into a blender and given them three full rounds.
Even so, she still recalled fragments: herself begging through tears, sprawled across Lin Qingyan, curling up in Gu Chengyin’s embrace, and more.
Luo Zhao felt as though she were watching someone else’s performance.
She couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t believe that the person in those memories had actually been her.
The woman who had flushed bright red, closed her eyes, and pleaded in a soft, sweet voice—had that really been her?
The woman who had rolled her eyes, trembled from head to toe, and could barely form a coherent word—had that really been her?
Gu Chengyin was somewhat speechless at Luo Zhao’s reaction.
The Crown Prince had not been drunk the previous night, nor had anyone drugged her. Everything had happened with her full awareness and complete consent.
She had been the one to ask for it. She had been the one to tease him. She had been the one to speak those words. She had been the one to provoke him.
From beginning to end, there had been no alcohol, no drugs, and no excuse that would allow her to deny responsibility afterward.
Yet Luo Zhao’s reaction made it seem as though he had ruined her through some sort of sinister scheme.
In terms of their identities, perhaps that was indeed how it looked.
After all, Luo Zhao was the Crown Prince, a goddess descended into the mortal world, with a noble bearing and breathtaking beauty.
Gu Chengyin, on the other hand, was merely a lowly Junior Tutor to the Crown Prince, someone who had simply taken advantage of his position and proximity to lure this peerless Crown Prince into bed.
But everyone present knew that the truth was entirely different.
Luo Zhao did not actually regret what had happened. She was merely bewildered.
Everything had changed. She now belonged to Gu Chengyin.
But Luo Zhao had not been prepared for it. She didn’t know how she was supposed to face Gu Chengyin now.
At some point, Lin Qingyan had sat up.
She slipped an arm around Luo Zhao’s shoulders, then looked toward Gu Chengyin with a teasing smile.
“Zhao’er seems a little embarrassed. Why don’t you help her get over it?”
It was practically an open invitation.
Luo Zhao’s face instantly turned red.
She remembered the previous night—and that mind-numbing sensation.
If he helped her “get over it” now, she wasn’t sure she could hold out.
Even less certain was whether she would lose the last shred of her dignity.
Despite the tempting offer, Gu Chengyin shook his head.
“There’s still a lot to do today. It wouldn’t be good if the Crown Prince couldn’t get out of bed.”
At those words, Lin Qingyan stopped insisting.
There really was a great deal to do today.
The Taihe Battle was tomorrow. As Crown Prince, Luo Zhao’s supervision of the battle would greatly demonstrate her abilities.
Especially with the entire cultivation world watching.
This was an opportunity to display herself before the world, and, more importantly, a chance for Luo Zhao to truly establish herself as the Crown Prince.
Everything had to be handled with the utmost care. There could be no mistakes—and certainly no possibility of leaving Luo Zhao unable to get out of bed.
Luo Zhao had initially seemed somewhat eager.
But the moment she heard those words, all of that eagerness vanished.
She shot Gu Chengyin a glance. In it were coyness, pleasure, and an utter lack of resistance.
Then Luo Zhao threw off the quilt and immediately got out of bed to clean herself up.
Seeing this, Shangguan Yunying quickly rose and followed after her.
The two women soon disappeared down the staircase.
The third floor fell silent.
Morning light filtered through the window lattice, spilling across the disheveled red sandalwood bed.
The air still carried a heart-stirring scent—the lingering traces of what had happened the night before.
As soon as Luo Zhao and Shangguan Yunying had left, Lin Qingyan threw herself into Gu Chengyin’s arms.
Her voice was muffled against his chest, low and soft, sounding half like a pout and half like an invitation.
Every word was sweet enough to make one’s bones go weak.
“Then… can you help me get over it?”
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!
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
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.
't think I'm that capable, I'm just trying my best to stay alive. I've been kind all my life, never did anything bad, yet worldly suffering spared me not one bit. The human world is a nice place, but I won't come back in my next life. A kind young man, who wanted to just get by singing, but through repeated deceits and betrayals, has gone down an irredeemable path.
