The world of cultivation has never lacked for wondrous sights, such as the scene currently unfolding.
Statistically speaking, what is the survival rate for someone hit by Love Infinite?
The answer is zero.
Although many did not die directly under the strike of Love Infinite, it is undeniable that everyone who has ever been hit by it has ended up dead. In other words, every mortal enemy who forced Gu Chengming to use this method has essentially perished.
In a sense, it could be considered a conceptual ability.
But right now, a problem has occurred with this conceptual ability.
The first cultivator to survive after being hit has appeared: Near Heaven of the Babbling Branch.
Fighting against the Babbling Branch has always been considered extremely troublesome, the reason for which lies entirely in the phrase “Law from the Tongue.”
In the current capital, this difficulty has been further amplified.
This is because her natal Jiahao can turn lies into truth and establish the false as law.
Thanks to this, having foreseen her potential death, Near Heaven of the Babbling Branch employed every means at her disposal to evade this strike.
Watching the fist grow larger and larger, Near Heaven of the Babbling Branch used her most powerful technique, gritting her teeth as she spoke: “I am not here!” Immediately, at the very instant the punch landed, her entire body turned into a wisp of a phantom and vanished with a whoosh.
The crimson-gold punch slammed into empty air. There was no sound of crushing flesh or breaking bones as expected, and Gu Chengming blinked in surprise.
Huh?
He looked down at his fist, then at the patch of void beneath him that was slowly solidifying again, and clicked his tongue.
Hundred Bones Resonating puffed out her cheeks, looking quite annoyed at having the plot skipped halfway through a fight.
“Emperor Gu! One got away!”
Gu Chengming thought to himself that she certainly ran fast. He then shifted his gaze from the empty ground to the circle of Fifth Realm cultivators standing frozen in place.
The atmosphere had originally been pushed to its peak.
Between Near Heaven’s “If I do not speak, the world shall fall silent” and Gu Chengming’s “I want this Heavenly Dao to be held within my palm,” it looked like the two sides were about to have a grand collision. Instead, these two high-level Jiahao finished in a single move, the plot turning faster than a storyteller flipping a page. The field full of Fifth Realm cultivators was left unsure of how to react.
Gu Chengming stood in the center of the field with his hands behind his back. He didn’t actually need to speak further, but he wasn’t the type to leave people guessing riddles.
“Do you all still wish to fight?” He paused. “If not, then the Dao Throne belongs to my Director.” Oh, that wasn’t right; he was the Director now. He quickly corrected himself: “My Vice Director.”
Standing behind him, Zhou Qingmu’s heart stirred. For some reason, she found the words “my Vice Director” even more pleasing than the thought of Gu Chengming calling her “Xiao Qing.”
However, before this pink atmosphere could spread, it was interrupted by the unromantic people nearby.
The Zhongzhou Sect Leader was the first to provoke them after Near Heaven, and he was currently the one most reluctant to give up this Dao Throne.
He gritted his teeth and was about to say something polite like “Wait a moment,” but then he saw Hundred Bones Resonating’s gaze shift toward him, and he immediately swallowed the words.
Hundred Bones Resonating hummed. “Emperor Gu, they don’t want to fight anymore. What should we do?”
Gu Chengming thought that would be a happy ending for everyone.
Hundred Bones Resonating pouted. “But this Emperor still wants to fight.”
She looked at the Zhongzhou Sect Leader and then at her own empty fists, looking quite unwilling to put away the toy she had just taken out.
Gu Chengming figured it was fine. In the next moment, he tilted his chin up. “Then hit a few more.”
Zhongzhou Sect Leader: “?”
Hundred Bones Resonating was overjoyed and lunged forward with a flurry of “Ora Ora!”
The Zhongzhou Sect Leader finally managed to squeeze out the words “Wait—a—moment,” but before the second half of the sentence could leave his throat, it was smashed back in by a fist.
He rolled three times on the ground and scrambled up, looking disheveled. Just as he was about to speak again, he was floored by another punch from Hundred Bones Resonating.
Seeing things go south, Frost Cloud Immortal Lady was about to cast a spell to leave, but she was pinned in place by Gu Chengming’s flying swords.
She widened her eyes and looked back, meeting Gu Chengming’s smiling face that seemed to ask, “Senior, where are you going?”
The Eastern Wandering Swordsman tried to kowtow. “I admit my mistake!”
Gu Chengming nodded and gave Hundred Bones Resonating a look. Her fist promptly slammed into him.
The Eastern Wandering Swordsman was sent bouncing away like a ball.
Hundred Bones Resonating lifted her head proudly. “Begging for mercy doesn't grant damage reduction!”
In less than three breaths, the circle of high-spirited Fifth Realm cultivators who had surrounded the ruins of the Le Palace had turned into a pile of rogue cultivators barely maintaining human form. They lay on the ground, trying their best to look like they were already dead so they wouldn't be hit again.
Hundred Bones Resonating patrolled the area once and looked quite satisfied.
“Stage cleared!”
She reached out her small hand to Gu Chengming and said with great expectation, “Emperor Gu, this Emperor wants a reward.”
At that moment, from within the vermilion-lacquered gates of the Le Palace ruins, a wisp of misty purple-gold light quietly seeped out.
The light slowly spiraled in mid-air, condensing into an emblem shaped like a spirit insect. It was the Dao Throne—Foolish Joy Gu!
Zhou Qingmu’s gaze flickered. Gu Chengming smiled and said, “Director, go ahead. I will protect you.”
Hearing this, a strange emotion rose in Zhou Qingmu’s heart.
From childhood to adulthood, she had always relied only on herself. This was the first time she had experienced the feeling of relying on someone else.
But now was clearly not the time to dwell on such emotions. She tucked away her gratitude, nodded to Gu Chengming, and stepped forward, her hands already forming the seals to refine the Dao Throne.
Sensing Zhou Qingmu’s aura, the purple-gold emblem turned into a streak of light and darted into her brow.
The so-called refining of a Dao Throne is a confrontation between one’s state of mind and the Great Dao. To an outsider, it is but a brief moment of standing still with eyes closed; but for the cultivator within, it often involves a long trial of the heart.
In the next instant, Zhou Qingmu felt the world spin, and she vanished from where she stood.
Gu Chengming watched this scene thoughtfully.
This was his first time seeing a Fifth Realm cultivator refine a Dao Throne. It seemed they needed to go to a separate, exclusive secret realm? It was quite ceremonial.
Hundred Bones Resonating stood on her tiptoes to peek at the empty space, but she quickly lost interest and returned to her previous topic:
“So, where is this Emperor’s reward?”
...
When Zhou Qingmu regained her senses, she found herself standing on a theater stage.
The stage wasn’t large; the red paint was peeling, and a thin layer of dust covered the floor.
The area below the stage was empty, save for a single lantern hanging between the pillars, gloomily illuminating her alone.
She instinctively reached for the Broken Night blade at her waist, but her hand found nothing.
She looked at her robes. The purple-gold official robes of the Night Guard Division had turned into a set of plain white pleated clothes, with a thick red silk belt tied around her waist. She looked very much like a clown character on a stage.
Zhou Qingmu frowned.
Just as she was about to speak, a curtain on the opposite side of the stage was pulled open with a swish.
Someone else was standing there.
That person was also wearing white pleated clothes with a red silk belt, and even their hairstyle was identical to Zhou Qingmu’s.
The only difference was that the person wore an exaggeratedly smiling mask, with a red dot on the nose and a grin that stretched to the ears.
That “Zhou Qingmu” bowed to her, her posture so exaggerated it was almost comical.
“I am Zhou Qingmu,” she said in a drawn-out tone. “I have come to perform a play!”
Zhou Qingmu: “?”
That “Zhou Qingmu” didn't wait for her response and began to perform on her own.
The first segment she performed was from when Zhou Qingmu was seventeen. Having just graduated from the Imperial Academy, Zhou Qingmu entered the court as a rising star. On her first day of reporting for duty, she was so nervous that she mispronounced a single character of her superior’s surname.
Then the scene shifted, and she began to act out the year Zhou Qingmu was promoted to vice centurion.
That day, she took on her first independently handled case—a missing cat in an alley in the south of the city.
The case file still sat in the bottom drawer of the Night Guard Division’s archives, titled 《The Case of the Black Cat Missing from the Chen Family in the South City》. She had stood guard at the alley entrance for three whole days, only to finally find the cat on a roof.
When the cat saw her, it had rubbed against her, getting a face full of fur. The “Zhou Qingmu” on stage recited the beginning of the case file while exaggeratedly tilting her head back to mimic being rubbed by cat fur, even letting out an exaggerated sneeze.
“A—choo!”
Zhou Qingmu felt quite vexed, a sense of shame spreading from her heart.
The phantom before her continued to perform, and every subsequent segment was a piece of embarrassing history that Zhou Qingmu herself was most reluctant to remember.
That “Zhou Qingmu” performed with great relish. When she got to the part where Zhou Qingmu first met Gu Chengming and pretended she was just “passing by the Night Guard Division and stopped to see the new junior banner,” she even winked at an imaginary “Gu Chengming” in the air.
That wink was incredibly greasy, looking like some street thug flirting with a girl from a good family.
Zhou Qingmu’s face flushed red instantly. She instinctively went to draw her blade, feeling so angry she wanted to strike, but her hand found nothing. Only then did she remember she was currently in the trial of the Dao Throne; she had no blade, and even her true essence was suppressed.
She could only finish watching this play before she could reach the next step of proving her Dao.
Zhou Qingmu gritted her teeth and suppressed the urge to rush out and twist that clown’s head off.
The “Zhou Qingmu” on the stage grew more and more spirited. With each segment finished, one of the lanterns at the four corners of the stage would light up.
Zhou Qingmu kept her face stern at first, but for some reason, the anger in her heart dissipated quite a bit.
She remembered that black cat that had rubbed fur all over her face. She remembered the day her master’s wife had said through a curtain, “Qingmu, reading storybooks isn't a mistake; getting caught reading them is the mistake.” She remembered the sneeze she couldn't hold back in court that day. She remembered when she first met Gu Chengming...
Well, maybe not that last part.
But as she thought about it, the corners of her mouth unconsciously twitched upward.
In the next instant, all the lanterns on the stage lit up simultaneously.
The “Zhou Qingmu” in the center of the stage stopped. She bowed to Zhou Qingmu; her posture was still exaggerated, but this time it didn't seem comical.
“I am Zhou Qingmu.” She paused. “I have come to return your original heart.”
The clown mask shattered into a wisp of purple-gold smoke, and the white pleated clothes turned back into the familiar purple-gold official robes.
The phantom bowed to her and darted into her brow.
Zhou Qingmu stood dazed, suddenly understanding that the words “Foolish Joy” did not mean the joy of making a fool of others, nor laughing at the foolishness of others. Only one who can laugh at their own foolishness knows true joy.
What True Monarch Wangyue’s original intention was when leaving this Dao Throne, Zhou Qingmu could not guess.
But this “Foolish Joy” that fell into her hands seemed like someone was teaching her to have a bit more “life” in her.
Zhou Qingmu took a deep breath. The power of the purple-gold Dao Throne poured down from her brow, and the bottleneck of the half-step Sixth Realm was gently nudged by this wisp of Dao Throne power.
The Sixth Realm was achieved!
...
Outside.
Hundred Bones Resonating didn't know how long Zhou Qingmu had been watching the play inside. She looked up at Gu Chengming with longing eyes. “Emperor Gu, this Emperor wants a reward.” She stomped her foot. “Even though one ran away, I hit more than one. Logically, the reward should be double!”
“Emperor Gu, kiss me!”
The moment Zhou Qingmu returned from the Dao Throne, the ruins of the Le Palace were still the same ruins, the pile of beaten Fifth Realm cultivators still lay on the ground, and Gu Chengming still stood in place.
The only thing different from when she left was that the white-haired girl Gu Chengming had summoned earlier was now standing on her tiptoes with her chin raised, and she was... kissing Gu Chengming?
Zhou Qingmu: “...?”
She had originally returned with a heart full of excitement, thinking, “Little Gu, I’ve reached the Sixth Realm, I want to share this with you.”
She had even rehearsed in her head several times how to speak so she wouldn't sound too boastful.
She had even considered whether she should just give Gu Chengming a hug, but she eventually rejected that as being too bold.
How had they ended up kissing in the blink of an eye!
And it wasn't just a kiss—why was there a string of saliva between them?!
This was too enviable... no, this was too much! How could they be so indecent in broad daylight? It was scandalous, simply scandalous!
Hundred Bones Resonating kissed him for a while with her eyes closed, then suddenly felt a gaze.
She opened one eye and peeked toward the Le Palace out of the corner of her eye, meeting Zhou Qingmu’s wide-eyed stare.
Hundred Bones Resonating blinked, wearing a proud expression that seemed to say, “See? This is this Emperor’s reward. You can only be jealous.” She gave a proud huff toward Zhou Qingmu.
Then her figure slowly dissipated.
A somewhat desolate autumn wind blew across the scarred ruins of the Le Palace, kicking up a bit of dust and fallen leaves.
Won the Dao Throne, lost Little Gu.
Zhou Qingmu suddenly felt that the Sixth Realm she had just achieved wasn't making her happy at all.
Rate on N.U.
