Beneath the shade of the locust tree, Gu Chengyin’s hand trembled slightly.
He looked down at Gu Xiaoli, who stood before him barely reaching his waist.
Her beautiful, wide eyes stared at him without blinking, her gaze as pure as freshly melted snowmelt from the mountains. Behind her, a fluffy spirit-power cat tail swayed gently from side to side.
Combined with her exquisite, almost impossibly adorable little-girl face and her slightly twitching spirit-power cat ears—
Even with Gu Chengyin’s extraordinary self-control, his mind couldn’t help flashing through a few unspeakable images.
This was seriously killing him.
Before transmigrating, whenever he came across jokes about “three years minimum,” Gu Chengyin could still laugh them off.
But now, with a catgirl who looked like a little girl standing before him and saying such dangerously suggestive words in the most innocent tone imaginable, he finally understood what it meant to be truly electrified.
And this was the kind that required a high-voltage current.
Fortunately, Gu Chengyin’s reason had not completely gone offline.
He quickly ran through everything he knew about Gu Xiaoli.
A cat demon at the half-step Nascent Soul stage.
She could take human form and perfectly conceal her demonic aura.
A demon who had cultivated to this level would have been anything but ordinary even in the ancient era, when the demon race had flourished. Reaching such a realm would take at least a century.
In other words, although Gu Xiaoli looked like a little girl on the outside, her actual age was probably terrifyingly high.
So she was legal.
This realization eased Gu Chengyin’s guilt somewhat, but it was soon replaced by an even stronger curiosity.
“Xiaoli, how old are you?”
The moment the words left his mouth, Gu Chengyin felt that the question might not have been phrased precisely enough.
After all, to the demon race, age was merely a number.
So he added, “What I mean is… you’re already an adult, right?”
There was quite a bit of thought behind this question.
Gu Chengyin had neither directly asked whether she was some centuries-old monster nor tried to force the human concept of adulthood onto the demon race’s way of thinking.
Instead, he chose an ambiguous yet respectful way of putting it.
After all, in his view, since Gu Xiaoli had taken human form—and had even chosen the appearance of a little girl—he should treat her the same way he treated Cui Zilu in this regard. Certain things still had to be clarified.
Yet when Gu Xiaoli heard the question, the spirit-power cat tail behind her stiffened.
The tail, which had been swaying lazily, stopped in midair as if frozen by a spell. Its tip trembled before slowly drooping downward.
Gu Xiaoli blinked her beautiful eyes. For a moment, she didn’t know how to answer.
Of course, she knew why Gu Chengyin was asking.
Gu Xiaoli was not ignorant of human customs and beliefs.
Humanity’s rules regarding age were especially strict—almost harsh.
What one could do at a certain age, and what one could not.
These rules were etched into their bones, more deeply rooted than any law.
Gu Chengyin was asking because he needed confirmation.
He needed to know which category Gu Xiaoli belonged to according to human standards.
That caution and respect warmed Gu Xiaoli’s heart.
At the same time, however, it left her in an even more difficult position.
She could not lie to Gu Chengyin about something like this.
Besides, she had sworn that no matter whether times were good or bad, she would never leave his side.
So, to Gu Xiaoli, deceiving Gu Chengyin over such a matter would be like carving a wound into her own heart. The damage would be far more serious than any physical injury.
What was more, after Niangniang, Gu Chengyin was the first person she had wanted to grow close to.
But if she told him her true age, she would no longer be able to call him “big brother.”
Gu Xiaoli’s spirit-power cat ears flattened backward slightly, a clear sign of unease.
She lowered her head, her gaze drifting restlessly between the tips of her shoes and the bluestone paving beneath her feet.
Her voice also grew much quieter. In a timid tone, she answered,
“…One… two…”
When Gu Chengyin heard those two numbers tumble from Gu Xiaoli’s mouth, he couldn’t help but pause.
Not twelve, but “one, two.”
That was a strange way to say it.
Normally, if someone were reporting that they were twelve years old, they would simply say “twelve,” not recite the digits one by one. The way she said it sounded more like she hadn’t finished.
Sure enough, Gu Chengyin’s guess was confirmed in the next instant.
Gu Xiaoli lowered her head even further. Her spirit-power cat ears trembled, and another number slipped through her lips.
“Two.”
One, two, two.
One hundred and twenty-two years old.
Gu Chengyin fell into deep thought.
Although he had been mentally prepared and knew that Gu Xiaoli’s actual age certainly wasn’t young, hearing the number with his own ears still came as a subtle shock.
This catgirl, who only came up to his waist, had a face so tender it looked as though one could squeeze water from it, and called him “big brother” in a soft, sweet voice—
She had already lived in this world for one hundred and twenty-two years.
Gu Xiaoli furtively raised her eyes and stole a glance at him.
Seeing Gu Chengyin lost in thought, her heart immediately began to pound with anxiety.
Did he think she was too old?
Did he think that an old monster like her shouldn’t pretend to be young and call him “big brother”?
Overwhelmed by panic, Gu Xiaoli hurriedly tried to explain herself. She spoke more than twice as fast as usual.
“The demon race has very long lifespans, so age is calculated differently from among humans!”
“It really is different! In the demon race, being over a hundred years old is, is still very young—really!”
The more Gu Xiaoli spoke, the more flustered she became. Her spirit-power cat ears stood straight up, while her spirit-power tail whipped anxiously back and forth behind her.
Seeing this, Gu Chengyin couldn’t help smiling.
He nodded slightly and agreed with her.
“That is indeed true.”
He wasn’t merely trying to comfort Gu Xiaoli. It was simply a fact.
Human cultivators, unless they managed to reach the Golden Core stage or an even higher realm, had lifespans of no more than a little over a hundred years.
The demon race, however, was long-lived by nature.
The blood flowing through their veins determined that their lifespans far exceeded those of humans.
Furthermore, the demon race’s path of cultivation was remarkably smooth. As long as they cultivated steadily, living for several thousand years was nothing unusual.
If the demon race had not vanished from the world alongside the ancient Immortal race, Great Luo would probably be filled with thousand-year-old demons even now.
By comparison, Gu Xiaoli’s age of one hundred and twenty-two really did make her nothing more than a little girl among the demon race.
And because their lifespans were so long, the emotional development and mental maturity of demons were entirely different from those of humans.
Human lives were brief. From birth to adulthood took little more than a decade, so their emotions and minds matured at an extremely rapid pace.
But the demon race’s lives often spanned thousands of years. Their growth curve was stretched out over an enormously long period, progressing far more slowly.
To them, a little over a century was only enough time to grow from an ignorant youngling into a girl who was just beginning to understand the world.
Thus, whether in her human appearance or in her mind and temperament, Gu Xiaoli was actually not much different from a genuine little girl.
She wasn’t pretending.
It was simply the natural result of the demon race’s form of life.
end. Thus one must continue to cultivate, and become a saint or great emperor, in order to prolong one's life. Chen Xia, however, completely reversed this. Since his transmigration, he has gained immortality, and also a system that awards him with attribute points for every year he lives. Thus between the myriad worlds, the legend of an unparalleled senior appeared. "A gentleman takes revenge; it is never too late even after ten thousand years." "When you were at your peak I yielded, now in your old age I shall trample on you." - Chen Xia
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!
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.
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.
