The main hall of the Celestial Master’s Residence.
The atmosphere inside the hall had become taut to the breaking point, as though someone had drawn the air away inch by inch, leaving behind only a thick, oppressive silence.
Portraits of the Celestial Masters of ages past hung along both walls, silently watching everything that transpired. Some figures in the paintings held swords, while others clutched writing brushes, their gazes blazing.
It was as if, having crossed thousands of years, they were wordlessly asking:
Had the disciples of later generations brought shame upon the reputation of the Celestial Master’s Residence?
Luo Zhao sat at the head of the hall.
Her dark, almost black Crown Princess robes set off her cold and breathtaking beauty all the more strikingly. Her back was perfectly straight, her chin slightly raised, and both hands rested flat upon her knees. Her composed bearing bordered on arrogance.
There was not the slightest trace of panic on her face. Her beautiful phoenix eyes stared coldly at the several people standing below.
Her gaze was as sharp as a blade. Anyone who met it would feel as though an invisible sword had been pressed against their throat, ready to draw blood at the slightest misstep.
Behind Luo Zhao, several female officials from the Internal Affairs Office stood in a fan-shaped formation. Although the strongest among them was only at the Foundation Establishment Realm, every one of them stood ramrod straight, their eyes resolute. Not a single one took even half a step back.
Cui Zilu stood closest to Luo Zhao, at her side.
She gripped the dossier of records from the Internal Affairs Office tightly in her hands, her expression exceptionally calm. She appeared ready to shield Luo Zhao from any danger that might arise.
Five people stood below the dais.
The leader was an old man dressed in a russet Daoist robe. He appeared to be around sixty, with a lean face, high cheekbones, and a gray-white beard beneath his chin trimmed with meticulous care.
His hands were clasped behind his back, and he stood with a loose, casual posture, as though he were not in the main hall of the Celestial Master’s Residence but in the rear garden of his own sect.
Most striking of all was the spiritual energy faintly circulating around him.
It was not the crude, outwardly released pressure of a Foundation Establishment cultivator. Instead, it was a deep and restrained aura, heavy with power yet held firmly in check, like magma buried beneath the earth. The surface was calm and undisturbed, but beneath it churned a destructive force.
This old man was Fang Nu, Vice Cult Master of the Sun-Moon Cult.
He was in the late Golden Core Realm, an old veteran of the Golden Core stage whose name ranked among the foremost in the entire cultivation world of Great Luo.
Although he had little hope of ever reaching the Golden Core Grand Perfection Realm, his many years of cultivation at this level had given him spiritual power far denser and more abundant than that of ordinary cultivators.
Behind Fang Nu, one Sun-Moon Cult elder stood on either side. Though their cultivation was inferior to Fang Nu’s, both were in the middle Golden Core Realm—strength enough to make any faction think twice.
The Sun-Moon Cult alone had sent three Golden Core cultivators to the imperial capital to watch the battle.
Such a foundation placed them among the very strongest sects in the entire cultivation world of Great Luo.
It was precisely these three Golden Core cultivators who, taking advantage of Lin Qingyan’s absence, had forcibly barged into the main hall and challenged Luo Zhao on the spot.
Fang Nu’s demand was simple and overbearing:
Golden Core cultivators from the cultivation sects were to be permitted to participate in the Taihe Battle.
The Taihe Battle was originally an internal competition within the Celestial Master’s Residence. The reason the various cultivation sects had been invited to watch was, on the one hand, to display the strength and magnanimity of the Celestial Master’s Residence and, on the other, to use the opportunity to maintain ties and exchange resources with the various sects.
But watching was watching. No one had ever imagined that members of the sects would be allowed to participate as well.
That would be tantamount to turning the Celestial Master’s Residence’s private affair into a public martial tournament.
Not only would it violate the rules left behind by the founding patriarch, it would also trigger a chain of consequences that would be extremely difficult to contain.
As Vice Cult Master of the Sun-Moon Cult, Fang Nu could not possibly fail to understand any of this.
Yet he had chosen this moment to make his demand in precisely this manner.
Luo Zhao knew exactly what scheme lay behind it.
He was not truly targeting the Taihe Battle. He was targeting the authority of the Celestial Master’s Residence.
To put it more precisely, he was targeting her—the Crown Princess.
The imperial decree had been issued publicly, declaring that this Taihe Battle would be overseen by the Crown Princess. Everyone under Heaven knew it.
If she backed down and compromised, the dignity of the Celestial Master’s Residence would be torn down and thrown to the ground by her own hands. Her political credibility would plummet as a result.
But if she refused outright, the other side would produce the arguments they had prepared long ago and pin one accusation after another upon her.
They could elevate the matter directly into a political incident, then fan the flames through public opinion. She would be unable to escape unscathed either way.
This was a carefully designed trap.
Advancing meant falling into a trap. Retreating meant falling into a trap. No matter what she did, the other side had prepared a countermove.
Luo Zhao saw all of it clearly in her heart.
Gu Chengyin had trained her for so long. If nothing else, she had witnessed far too many political maneuvers of this sort.
Gu Chengyin had used this tactic against others, and she had learned to use it against others as well.
Now that someone had turned the same tactic against her, she could see through their hand at a glance.
And so Luo Zhao spoke:
“Vice Cult Master Fang.”
“The Taihe Battle is an internal affair of the Celestial Master’s Residence.”
“We invited the various sects to observe in order to demonstrate the openness and tolerance of the Celestial Master’s Residence.”
“But those who are not members of the Residence may not participate in the Taihe Battle. This is an ironclad rule left behind by our founding patriarch.”
Luo Zhao paused, then swept her gaze across Fang Nu’s face like the edge of a blade before emphasizing each word:
“So whether viewed from sentiment or reason, public interest or private interest…”
“I cannot agree to Vice Cult Master Fang’s demand.”
“Otherwise, I would become a sinner of the Celestial Master’s Residence—unable to answer to the Celestial Masters of past generations above, and unable to answer to the common people below.”
The moment these words left her mouth, Cui Zilu’s eyes brightened noticeably.
Luo Zhao had not invoked her status as Crown Princess to intimidate anyone, nor had she said anything that could easily be seized upon and used against her.
Instead, she had simply dropped a massive accusation upon them.
First, she had invoked the founding patriarch’s ironclad rule—a banner no one could shake. Then she had elevated her refusal to the level of morality.
Finally, she had fashioned herself into a defender of the rules and a faithful guardian of the ancestral precepts.
This was the most useful tactic Luo Zhao had learned from Gu Chengyin.
Pin the accusation first, then seize the moral high ground—a forceful and highly effective approach.
In the past, she had known only how to clash head-on by invoking her status: I am the Crown Princess. If I say no, then no it is. If you dare contradict me, you are committing an offense against your superior.
That method was not necessarily wrong, but it was too blunt.
It made her seem as though she were using her authority to oppress others, which in turn gave her opponents an opportunity to win sympathy.
This approach was different.
She was still refusing them, but she had placed herself on the moral high ground, leaving the other side with no way to argue.
As for Fang Nu, he had expected Luo Zhao to refuse.
What he had not expected was that she would refuse with such seasoned skill.
She had not relied on the bearing of a Crown Princess. Instead, she had directly sealed off every avenue of rebuttal from the moral high ground.
Even more surprising to Fang Nu was the presence she exuded as she spoke.
Luo Zhao’s status was exalted, but judging solely by her cultivation, she was nothing more than a junior at the Foundation Establishment Realm in the cultivation world.
Faced with the combined pressure of three Golden Core Immortals, one of whom was a veteran late-stage Golden Core powerhouse, most people would have been so frightened that they could barely speak coherently.
Yet Luo Zhao’s gaze had not wavered even once from beginning to end.
he colors of other people’s emotions. Light red meant anxiety. Gray meant exhaustion. Orange meant excitement. Yellow... meant repression. At the same time, he could gain unlimited control over one of those colors. Pale cyan: relaxation. Using this ability, he started offering “two-yuan hugs,” spending an afternoon exchanging emotional-color experiences with others. Then came his final female customer of the day— a girl whose emotional color was pure black... —— A week later, Xu Chuan had become skilled at using pale cyan—Relaxation—treating it like a bottle of menthol balm whenever he needed it. That was when he discovered he had unlocked another unlimited emotional color: Purple, the color of fear. So these emotional colors refresh every week? Fine, I take it back—I’ll never call you useless again... —— Much later, after Xu Chuan had accumulated countless emotional abilities, one night, he suddenly found himself inside someone else’s dream. There, he could use the emotional colors he possessed to paint. And in her dream, he painted her a shower of pink shooting stars, spreading across the depths of the night sky...
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?!
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.
