Liu Jiangfusheng felt a hint of doubt.
Was it true?
By doing this, would Gu Junshi truly regret him to the point of unbearable pain?
But thinking of the misunderstandings, blindness, disfigurement, and falling off a cliff that she mentioned… what if he killed himself before he could even get revenge on that heartless person?
Liu Jiangfusheng hesitated to be ruthless with himself. He asked with a troubled expression, "Will doing this really make a heartless and unfeeling person fall in love?"
Heartless and unfeeling?
Sister Shi's eyes widened.
This character setting… wasn't it the male protagonist of the book "The Tyrannical Sword Cultivator Falls in Love with Me" that she had just read?
He was devoted only to the path of the sword, willing to abandon family and love, but in the end, didn't he still go through the series of angsty love affairs, falling madly in love with the female protagonist?
Sister Shi quickly recommended it to him, "You might not understand this by just talking about it. Here, Sister has a book… I'll lend it to you. After you read it, you'll know the answer yourself."
After a brief exchange, Sister Shi belatedly realized the problem, "Huh? Junior brother, why are you asking these things? Did someone you know get abandoned?"
"Oh," Liu Jiangfusheng pursed his lips and smiled, his eyes cunningly feigning innocence, a shallow dimple appearing at the corner of his mouth. "Yes."
At this moment, Liu Jiangfusheng and Gu Junshi, in their different locations, were in perfect sync.
When she (I) falls in love with me (him), this entanglement can finally end!
—
In the hazy night, amidst secluded bamboo groves, a row of bamboo huts was erected. Under a dim light, a lone tear trickled down, illuminating the interior that could be measured in ten steps. Gu Junshi sat cross-legged on the bed, her eyes closed, entering meditation.
Her consciousness entered a dark, scorched earth where everything had been reduced to ashes. Fiery flames consumed the clouds, and scorching air filled the sky. It was a barren land where nothing grew. Here stood a tightly shut, pitch-black gate, named "Yellow Springs." It was fused with her divine soul. Unless her divine soul was completely extinguished, it would follow her no matter how many times she reincarnated.
The moment she saw the "Gate of Yellow Springs," she was reminded of the Human Emperor.
An emperor poisoned to death on his throne by his most beloved concubine. After his death, protected by dragon qi, he accidentally became the Soul Master. Then, using the breath of the Yellow Springs, he gradually cultivated a bone body in the underworld. When she met him, he was still a skeleton, blind in heart and mind. Because of a dying obsession, he foolishly came to the cultivation world to find his reincarnated lover…
Suddenly, her cheek felt a sharp sting. Gu Junshi frowned and touched it. The flesh and blood on her fingertips felt as if they had been scorched, but she did not stop. She continued to meditate, capturing the malevolent intent within the "Soul Locking Curse" and using the deathly aura emanating from the "Yellow Springs" to entwine and tear it apart, finally chewing it up and swallowing it.
Concurrently, her cultivation realm was steadily rising. Unlike traditional cultivation realms, she did not need to progress step-by-step from Qi Condensation to Foundation Establishment. She broke through smoothly, eventually stopping at the Great Perfection of Foundation Establishment.
If anyone were to witness her monstrous rate of advancement at this moment, they would surely be astonished.
People had heard of geniuses who achieved Foundation Establishment in a hundred days, but no one in the entire cultivation world had ever seen someone reach the Great Perfection of Foundation Establishment, just one step away from Golden Core, in less than an hour!
After establishing her foundation, Gu Junshi's body was tempered, and a layer of greasy impurities and toxins was secreted onto her skin. She stood up, casually formed a purification incantation, and conjured the "Halo Technique" in front of her. The proper use of the "Halo Technique" was for reconnaissance of the surrounding environment, but she used it as a mirror.
She shifted her position slightly and glanced at the "Fox" character curse mark on her face. Its color had clearly faded considerably, and the skin that had been burned by the previous activation of the curse spell had also healed.
Now, the core damage of the "Soul Locking Curse" had been completely absorbed by her. It only remained as a mark. As long as Nine Tails did not activate the "Soul Locking Curse," he would never know that it had long since become ineffective.
As long as she wished, she could prevent anyone from detecting her true cultivation. To stay by her little husband's side and cultivate the path of love, she didn't mind being a "normal person" this lifetime, accompanying him and progressing step-by-step.
So, what was the first step of "sweet pampering" that Little Yuan had mentioned?
She felt no sleepiness and walked to the bedside, retrieving a book titled "The Cold-hearted Immortal Lord's Runaway Little Wife" from under her pillow and began to read it seriously…
—
As dawn broke, the name tag on Gu Junshi's waist lit up. She woke up and saw that the pale blue sky outside the window still had a few stars clinging to its edges.
Picking up the name tag, she heard Little Yuan's cheerful voice, "Junshi, are you awake? Come quickly! There's a mission, it's easy work with high contributions, hurry up!"
Gu Junshi hadn't expected her to receive a handyman mission so soon. Oh, it wasn't that she received it, but someone else kindly accepted it for her.
She changed into a handyman's purple-blue two-tone short outfit. The outer sect disciples of the Dayuan Sect, both male and female, wore the same uniform: a top and trousers, tied at the waist with a cloth belt, making the whole outfit neat and convenient for work.
Gu Junshi had a good memory, and the route from the handyman quarters to the assembly point was not complicated. Passing through a lush thicket of short bamboo, she saw Little Yuan, dressed in outer sect disciple robes. Besides her, there were several other women dressed similarly as handymen.
When these women saw Gu Junshi walking leisurely from the bamboo forest, the bamboo leaves covered in morning dew, appearing tender like jade, while she seemed like water winding through the mountains, illuminated by the sunlight within, clear as a mirror, exceptionally clear and translucent.
They were momentarily lost in thought.
Wearing the same rough handyman attire, why did it make her appear several shades more noble when she wore it?
Little Yuan's large eyes were bright, and a big smile spread across her face as she called out, "Junshi."
The others snapped back to reality and quickly greeted her enthusiastically.
"You're Junshi, wow, you're really as beautiful as Little Yuan described."
"Your skin is also good."
"Your temperament is also good."
They surrounded her like a swarm of honey-loving butterflies, praising her incessantly.
Gu Junshi was usually indifferent when interacting with strangers, but why did these strangers look at her so strangely, as if… with pity, concern, affection, and closeness.
She looked at Little Yuan and asked for an explanation with her eyes.
Little Yuan pushed them aside and told her, "You're new here, so you don't know what to do. These people will lead you today. They are all my acquaintances, and they are all good people. They just have a bit too much sympathy. After they learned about your situation, they all wanted to meet you."
No wonder.
Gu Junshi asked, "So, what is my task today?"
"Moving… cough, moving corpses," Little Yuan scratched her nose.
Gu Junshi was stunned for a moment, "Moving corpses?"
A handyman girl with twin braids replied for Little Yuan, "Alas, today is the Dayuan Sect's outer sect disciple assessment for promotion to the inner sect. A brutal competition with a one-in-a-hundred chance. Who wouldn't fight desperately to eliminate their opponents? Who knows how many people will die unexpectedly later. So, our task as handymen is to wash the Sendai and clean up the unnamed corpses before the second round of selections."