The upcoming Taihe Battle was the focal point of the entire cultivation world.
Although Gu Chengyin had his own trump cards and plans, to outsiders, he was simply trying to stop a boulder with an egg.
That was why Gu Xiaoli wanted to use this most extreme method to give him an extra safeguard.
“Xiaoli.”
Gu Chengyin’s voice was calm and gentle as he looked down at the catgirl in his arms.
“Are you worried that your brother will lose the Taihe Battle?”
Gu Xiaoli’s body stiffened.
She parted her lips as if to say something, then swallowed the words. She repeated this twice before finally taking a deep breath.
She raised her head and met Gu Chengyin’s eyes, speaking with utmost seriousness.
“Big Brother is so amazing. There’s no way you’ll lose!”
Gu Xiaoli paused. Her spirit-formed cat ears drooped backward, and her voice gradually grew softer.
“But…”
She bit her lower lip. Her eyes glistened with tears, reflecting Gu Chengyin’s face.
“It’s always better to be safe than sorry…”
“Xiaoli has already lost Niangniang, so… so I don’t want to lose Big Brother too…”
Gu Chengyin raised a hand and gently smoothed her hair.
His gaze, however, passed over the courtyard wall and the branches of the locust tree, settling on the distant blue sky and white clouds.
The sky was a brilliant blue, the clouds pure white, and the sunlight fell warmly across his face.
Gu Chengyin’s eyes were tranquil, like a bottomless lake.
All the turbulence churned beneath the surface, leaving the water above perfectly still.
He was thinking.
If Gu Xiaoli became his life-bound demon, he would effectively gain a second life.
For anyone, that would be an incredible stroke of luck.
There was no price to pay and no risk to bear.
All he had to do was nod, and he would gain another life.
And not just any life—it would be the life of a half-step Nascent Soul cat demon. Could there be anything better in the world?
But for Gu Chengyin, the answer was no.
To him, a life-bound demon was not a windfall. It was a shackle.
All his plans and schemes had been built on the premise that he had only one life.
Put nicely, one could call his approach “staking everything on a desperate comeback.” Put less nicely, he was dancing repeatedly on the edge of death.
And the reason for that was precisely because Gu Chengyin knew he had only one life.
If he lost, he was finished. So he calculated every step to the absolute limit and prepared an escape route for every move.
But if he had a second life, everything would change.
That was simply how human beings were—even Gu Chengyin would unconsciously become more dependent on it.
He would instinctively allow himself a little more hope, and in a moment when he needed to risk everything, he might hesitate for the briefest instant.
After all, he still had a life-bound demon to shield him.
Yet that brief hesitation, that extra sliver of wishful thinking—
That dependence, which should never have existed in the first place, would create a fatal flaw in the entire game.
For someone like Gu Chengyin, a shift in his state of mind would be the greatest weakness of all.
“Xiaoli, do you like Big Brother?”
“I do!”
Gu Xiaoli answered without the slightest hesitation.
Afterward, as if afraid Gu Chengyin might not believe her, she nodded emphatically.
Gu Chengyin smiled. His voice became even gentler than before.
“So, Xiaoli, you like Big Brother, and you don’t want anything to happen to me. That’s only natural.”
“But looking at it the other way around, Big Brother likes Xiaoli too. I don’t want anything to happen to you either, much less have you suffer or lose your life because of me.”
“So…”
Gu Chengyin paused before speaking with firm resolve.
“Big Brother can’t let Xiaoli become my life-bound demon.”
The air fell silent.
The branches of the locust tree swayed gently in the breeze, casting flecks of light across the ground.
Birdsong drifted in from the distance, clear and serene.
The flowers and grasses in the courtyard gave off a faint fragrance mingled with the scents of earth and sunlight.
Everything was quiet and peaceful.
Everything except Gu Xiaoli.
She was a little dazed.
As a member of the demon race, Gu Xiaoli understood all too well what a life-bound demon meant.
In ancient times, countless human experts had longed to possess a life-bound demon of equal cultivation, yet had sought one in vain.
After all, demons were not fools. Their lives were their own, and so was their path to immortality.
Even among those closest to them, demons willing to make such a sacrifice were exceedingly rare.
Almost every life-bound demon represented a bond that crossed the boundaries between races and transcended life and death.
That was why Gu Xiaoli had made this decision only after summoning tremendous courage.
She had already lost someone once. She did not want to experience that wrenching agony a second time—the agony she had felt when she lost Niangniang.
The reason she had not confessed her intentions outright was that Gu Xiaoli understood Gu Chengyin very well.
She knew how cautious her bad brother was, and how accustomed he was to considering every matter from the worst possible angle.
When faced with an opportunity that seemed to come free of charge, Gu Chengyin’s first reaction had never been delight. It was vigilance.
He would wonder whether some greater conspiracy lay hidden behind it, turning the matter over and over in his mind as he extrapolated ten thousand possibilities.
Then he would neither agree nor refuse.
It wasn’t because he didn’t trust others. He had simply grown used to keeping his safety firmly in his own hands.
So Gu Xiaoli’s original plan had been to act first and explain later.
She would become his life-bound demon before saying anything, making the matter a fait accompli. Once the rice had been cooked, no matter how cautious Gu Chengyin was, he would have no choice but to accept reality.
But now, after hearing her confession and learning all the benefits of a life-bound demon…
Gu Chengyin had still refused.
And the reason for his refusal was not that he suspected a conspiracy, nor was it because of his caution.
It was because…
He wanted what was best for her.
Her brother didn’t want her to be hurt—or even lose her life—because of him.
He loves me so much.
When that thought surfaced in Gu Xiaoli’s mind, her heart felt as if it had been struck hard by something.
Even Niangniang had never made her feel this moved, this happy.
Never had she wanted someone so desperately, to the point of madness.
Just as Gu Chengyin was thinking about what to say next to make Gu Xiaoli abandon the idea of becoming his life-bound demon, a terrifying pressure suddenly spread from within his arms.
The sensation was exactly the same as when Lin Qingyan had controlled her.
In fact, it was even stronger.
Before Gu Chengyin could move a muscle, a small hand stroked his cheek.
It was Gu Xiaoli.
But it was not the Gu Xiaoli he knew.
Those beautiful, world-weary eyes had transformed into two narrow, needle-like slits of vertical pupils.
They resembled two bottomless cracks, lending the little catgirl an aura of danger.
Gu Xiaoli tilted her head. The corners of her lips curled upward, revealing a small, sharp canine.
Then she extended the tip of her pink tongue and lightly traced it across her lips.
“Big Brother, did you forget something?”
Gu Xiaoli’s fingers brushed gently over Gu Chengyin’s cheek.
A trace of demonic power pulsed from her fingertips, cold and tingling.
She moved her little face even closer, close enough for Gu Chengyin to see the fine details in her vertical pupils.
“Xiaoli is a half-step Nascent Soul, you know~”
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!
with countless casualties. As a top-tier gamer, Liu Xuan volunteered to join the fight, intending to dominate with his skills, but instead he obtained the hidden class: [Pacifist]. Unable to attack. Unable to use active skills. Fortunately, with each level gained, he acquired a new passive skill. And so, armed with a body full of passives, Liu Xuan slaughtered his way through the battlefield of ten thousand races! [You attacked Liu Xuan] [You gained the debuffs: 'Poison', 'Fear', 'Burning', 'Bleeding', 'Freeze', 'Silence', etc.] [Your attack speed has been reduced by 99%] [Your armor and magic resistance have been reduced by 99%] Warriors of the Ten Thousand Races: How the hell am I supposed to fight this?!
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.
nto another world, I bought a slave for the first time, never expecting the silver wolf girl to be so cute... Lin Feng: I know it's cold, but you don't have to sneak into my bed! Yuna: Just sharing body warmth, if you dare do anything naughty, I'll definitely...
