This subtle understanding eased Gu Chengyin’s mind. The second step had succeeded as well.
Though the two women were still at odds, they had tacitly accepted the situation.
As long as they were willing to sit down, there was room for discussion.
As long as they were willing to remain in his arms, there was still a chance for them to make up.
Lin Qingyan, however, had not gotten up, and her mouth was still very much occupied.
She narrowed her eyes. A trace of the chill that had not yet completely faded remained in her gaze.
The corners of her lips tilted slightly downward, and in a voice cold enough to freeze one’s bones, she slowly spat out three words:
“You little slutty cat.”
The sarcasm was so thick it might as well have been wrung from the air.
Its destructive power was comparable to the golden thunderbolt that had just split the barrier apart.
Gu Xiaoli’s eyes flew wide.
Two little flames instantly ignited in them, while her pupils shrank rapidly in anger until they became razor-thin vertical slits.
Her cat ears shot straight up, and she opened her mouth to retort.
But before the words could burst from her throat, she felt something poke her side—not hard, but not exactly lightly, either.
More precisely, it was a pinch.
The spot had been chosen with astonishing precision: the softest area between the bottom of her ribs and the top of her hip.
It was exactly the tiny patch of skin Gu Xiaoli was most ticklish around.
A tingling, prickling sensation spread through her entire body like lightning from the spot that had been pinched.
Gu Xiaoli’s body trembled uncontrollably. Her mouth was still open, but all the breath she had gathered to hurl back an insult had already leaked away.
She was like a balloon that had been punctured, her momentum visibly deflating by the second.
Moisture quickly welled up in her large eyes, and her lips began to pout.
They stuck out even farther than they had when she had demanded that Gu Chengyin take responsibility earlier.
Her expression practically spelled out four words: Big Brother’s playing favorites.
The sight immediately improved Lin Qingyan’s mood by more than a little.
The anger and jealousy lingering between her brows dissipated by more than half the moment she saw Gu Xiaoli pouting pitifully, too aggrieved to dare make a scene.
She even found it somewhat amusing.
That wretched cat had always relied on her sister’s affection to act arrogantly in front of Lin Qingyan.
And now look at her. Gu Chengyin had completely tamed her. She could not even manage to curse at anyone.
Truly, what goes around comes around.
The corners of Lin Qingyan’s lips lifted for an instant before she quickly forced them back down, once again assuming an indifferent expression.
Gu Chengyin still caught it with his sharp eyes.
Excellent. The third step had succeeded too.
On the surface, his pinch of Gu Xiaoli had been meant to stop an argument from turning into a full-blown verbal battle. But his deeper purpose had been to give Lin Qingyan an outlet for her emotions.
Lin Qingyan’s anger needed to be released. If she kept bottling it up, sooner or later it would erupt again.
Now, with one tiny gesture, he had vented that anger on her behalf. Naturally, most of her frustration had faded.
“All right.”
Gu Chengyin’s voice broke the brief silence, his tone turning exceptionally stern.
His left arm tightened around Lin Qingyan, while his right arm tightened around Gu Xiaoli.
He firmly held both women in his embrace before continuing:
“You’re all family. Is there anything you can’t discuss properly?”
His gaze rested on Lin Qingyan’s face for a moment, then shifted to Gu Xiaoli’s.
There was no reproach in his eyes, but the seriousness there was impossible to ignore.
“Have you forgotten what you promised me before?”
Those words were like a basin of cold water, dousing the last remaining embers in both their hearts.
Lin Qingyan’s expression changed, and the chill in her eyes receded a little further.
Gu Xiaoli had no time to feel aggrieved anymore. Her cat ears drooped, and she began to avert her gaze.
Seeing their reactions, Gu Chengyin knew that this step had worked too.
With these women, kind words were useless.
Every one of them stood at the pinnacle of the world.
Every one of them had grown up surrounded by people who worshiped and catered to her.
They had heard too many sweet words—so many that they were already immune to them.
So, compared with speaking gently and negotiating politely, with making tactful and indirect suggestions, it was far more effective to assume the bearing of the head of the household: reprimand them when they needed reprimanding, and be stern when sternness was called for.
As for why a mere Foundation Establishment cultivator dared to lecture someone invincible among Golden Core cultivators and someone who had half a foot into the Nascent Soul realm…
Did that matter?
It didn’t.
Because whether it was Lin Qingyan or Gu Xiaoli, Luo Zhao or Shangguan Yunying…
This was exactly the sort of treatment they responded to.
A weak man’s gentleness was worthless, while a powerful man’s shamelessness was especially alluring.
Gu Chengyin might not be powerful in terms of cultivation, but the control he displayed was precisely what these top-tier women lacked most—and craved most deeply.
They did not need a man with a higher cultivation level, because they themselves were already strong enough.
What they needed was a man who could remain clear-headed and true to himself, who would not be overwhelmed by their presence, and who would even dare to turn around and reprimand them.
So when Gu Chengyin adopted the bearing of the head of the household, Lin Qingyan immediately softened, without even giving Gu Xiaoli time to react.
She voluntarily raised her arms and slipped them around either side of Gu Chengyin’s neck, pressing herself against him.
“I’m sorry, Chengcheng.”
As she spoke, her voice was as soft as snow melting in spring.
She was completely different from the aloof and noble Fairy Jingzhe who presided over the Celestial Master’s Residence and had made countless Golden Core cultivators too intimidated to lift their heads.
Every syllable carried a sweet, lingering note. Her tone was filled with undisguised pleading and dependence, even softer than when she was in bed.
“It was all my fault. Please don’t be angry, okay?”
Lin Qingyan lifted her face slightly, her beautiful eyes filled with tenderness and remorse.
Her lashes trembled lightly, and her lips pressed together in a faint pout. Not a trace of Fairy Jingzhe’s fierceness or sharpness remained.
Instead, she looked even more like a little cat trying to please its owner than Gu Xiaoli did.
The sight left Gu Xiaoli completely dumbfounded.
She was sitting on Gu Chengyin’s right thigh, close enough to see every tiny downy hair on Lin Qingyan’s neck.
Her large eyes were now round as saucers, her pupils dilated to the extreme.
Her clever little mind was racing at full speed, desperately trying to understand what was happening before her.
Wait, what?
Lin Qingyan hadn’t been like this the last time they argued.
Gu Xiaoli remembered that previous quarrel with perfect clarity.
Back then, they had also been standing in this courtyard, facing off with swords drawn.
Lin Qingyan had kept her face cold the entire time, her tone cold enough to kill a person with frost. Every word had carried a sharp, cutting edge.
Every pore on her body had radiated the unmistakable message that she would not yield. She had been as hard as a thousand-year-old block of ice that no chisel could touch.
So how had she become like this now?
It had only been a few days. How had she suddenly become so good at acting coy?
Just how many chapters of the story had Gu Xiaoli missed?
That tone, that expression, those little gestures…
She was clearly a fox spirit with higher cultivation, a deeper level of mastery, and far more experience!
Who had turned Lin Qingyan into this?
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.
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!
rowess are unmatched, commanding a million-strong army! Yet, the Emperor wants to depose him for the sake of a false prince? Hold on, are you throwing me into some female-oriented romance plot? How can I tolerate this? With a grand wave of his hand—the Nine Clan Extraction Technique! Slander the Emperor? Very well, all of you shall die! ... The False Prince: "Although I am not the biological son, Father and Mother love me more. The throne should be mine!" The Female Lead: "Qin Xiao, you are the Emperor, and I am a commoner. If you wish to marry me, you must abdicate. Otherwise, you will never have me!" The Empress: "After we divorce, you must give me half the empire!" The Transmigrator Consort: "You worthless Emperor, why should I kneel to you? All men are equal—I advise you to be kind!" The Great General: "The enemy general is my childhood sweetheart. For her sake, I willingly abandon the frontier defenses!" The Retired Emperor: "Although Yu'er was adopted, I prefer him. Qin Xiao, you should abdicate and let him become Emperor!" ... Very well! So this is how you want to play? Facing this twisted world of female-oriented tropes, Qin Xiao grins and raises his hand to unleash—the Nine Clan Extraction Technique! I am the Emperor. Why would I bother reasoning with you? Seal the gates! Leave none alive!
