Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

The dinner was incredibly lively, filled with the continuous chatter of the Ten Crowns, the boisterous laughter of Huo Yue, and the playful bantering that had naturally become a staple of life at the Falling Blossom Villa.

The dishes prepared by Xu Xiansu were devoured with absolute gusto, the rich, spiritually infused ingredients warming their bodies and subtly reinforcing their meridians from the inside out.

And once they are done with the grand feast, the group immediately decided to head to the luxurious hot springs situated at the back of the estate.

The steaming, mineral-rich waters were the perfect remedy to wash away the accumulated exhaustion of a long week of intense academic and cultivation lectures.

However, Haoran refused to join them.

Despite Huo Yue’s loud protests and Ning Xueli’s questioning glances, he excused himself from the group and just headed straight back to his room.

Currently, he was lying flat on his back on his large, comfortable bed, arms folded behind his head as he stared intently up at the intricate patterns carved into the ceiling.

His mind was racing, entirely consumed by a deep analysis of the words spoken by Ye Hongyan earlier during her morning lecture.

And no, it wasn’t about the whole romance aspect, the tragic history with Elder Mu, or any of that emotional nonsense that he was currently exploiting to manipulate her.

Instead, his focus was entirely locked onto the hidden details embedded within her academic lessons.

Earlier, during the core segment of her lecture regarding the long-term curriculum of the Imperial Academy, he specifically remembered her mentioning that the school administration had carefully prepared four distinct tests over the course of a student’s enrollment.

These comprehensive trials were systematically designed to make sure that the students remained combat-ready at all times and could be thoroughly tempered in the brutal crucible of real battles, preventing them from becoming soft, theoretical scholars.

However, as she went on to detail the schedule of the institution, she only mentioned three specific tests.

A massive faction war that occurred once a year to test internal hierarchy and resource management.

A grueling military campaign into the lower realms once every five years to build real warfare experience against external threats and plunder their realm.

And an all-out battle tournament against rival elite academies hosted once every ten years to maintain regional dominance.

She never mentioned a fourth one.

She had completely moved on to the next topic right after detailing the third trial, leaving a massive, unexplained void in her explanation.

Why would she do that? She was a Heavenly Saint Realm expert, a rank 10 Master Teacher, one of the legendary Ten Sages of the realm, and possessed of an immaculate mind and flawless memory.

It was completely impossible for a cultivator of her supreme caliber to make such a glaring, obvious mistake by accident.

In other words, she deliberately left that as a hint—a hidden riddle dropped into the open for those sharp enough to catch the discrepancy.

He wondered if there are others in the classroom who had noticed it?

Most of the students had been too focused on the daunting timelines of the faction wars or the sheer scale of the lower realm campaigns to count the actual number of tests mentioned.

But as he ran through the list of his peers, he concluded that no, there is definitely one more person who noticed it.

"Hey~"

At that exact moment, as if summoned by his very thoughts, a soft, ethereal voice drifted through the quiet room.

Gu Xunyi appeared beside his bed, her presence completely bypassing the standard spiritual wards of the villa as she leaned over, looming directly over him.

Her long hair was still damp from a hasty visit to the waters, a few stray droplets glistening against her fair skin under the dim moonlight filtering through the window.

Her deep red eyes were shining with a brilliant, highly mischievous light, and she was wearing only a single, pure white towel wrapped tightly around her body to cover herself, leaving her shoulders and legs bare.

Haoran wasn’t even surprised by her sudden, uninvited appearance in his private quarters.

He didn’t flinch, nor did his heartbeat accelerate by a single fraction.

Instead, he just looked up into her crimson eyes and asked directly, "What do you think?"

Gu Xunyi blinked, tilting her head slightly as she feigned an innocent, entirely confused expression. "Hm? What do you mean, Haoran? You’re going to have to be a little more specific than that."

"Don’t play coy with me." He shot her a thoroughly annoyed, unyielding look, refusing to engage in her little game. "You know exactly what I’m talking about. The lecture this morning. I don’t believe you failed to notice that."

Gu Xunyi chuckled, the sound low, melodic, and thoroughly amused by his sharp focus. "Oh, you are always so incredibly serious, even when a beautiful woman drops into your room unannounced. You know how many men would kill to have me enter their room?"

Indeed.

Heiress to the Gu Immortal Clan, one of the most talented genius of this era, a beauty that can topple kingdoms.

Although she was absolutely unhinged, it doesn’t change the fact that she was a beautiful, single young woman.

If she showed up looking like this in another man’s room, they probably won’t be able to stop themselves from pouncing on her.

Though, they’d have to bear the consequences of doing so.

Just then, with a fluid, cat-like grace, she lifted her slender legs and climbed onto his bed, moving without a single sound before sitting directly on his waist.

She pinned his lower body down, her hands moving down to gently caress his stomach over the dark, premium cloth of his everyday robes, her fingers tracing the sharp contours of his abdominal muscles.

Haoran didn’t react to the sudden, intimate proximity. He didn’t push her off, nor did he lean into her touch; he just stared blankly up at her, waiting with an immense, icy patience for her to speak her true thoughts.

"Hmm," Gu Xunyi closed her eyes in deep thought, her fingers momentarily stopping their movement as she analyzed the tactical situation. "Well, if a Master Teacher of her status deliberately left those specific words for us to hear, omitting the final puzzle piece entirely, it can only mean one thing. She wanted the truly perceptive elite among the disciples to catch the hint and immediately get prepared."

Haoran nodded slowly beneath her weight. That was exactly what he had deduced as well.

It wasn’t an omission of forgetfulness; it was an act of selective filtration to see who was truly paying attention to the undercurrents of the academy.

"In other words," Gu Xunyi opened her eyes, their deep crimson depths locking onto his golden gaze with absolute intensity, "the fourth test will not be a scheduled, orderly event like the others. It will come quite unexpectedly, hitting the student body out of nowhere, and it will probably happen much, much sooner than any of those idiots out there think."

"Hmm." Haoran hummed softly, his mind mapping out the potential scenarios of a sudden, unannounced institutional trial—perhaps a sudden lockdown, an unexpected wilderness survival test, or an unscripted invasion simulation.

He considered the high probability of her hypothesis and nodded. "Indeed, that possibility is exceptionally high. The leadership wants to catch the new generation off guard to see how we react under pure, unscripted pressure."

Gu Xunyi chuckled again, apparently satisfied with their alignment of thought.

"Well, enough of that. Whatever trial that comes, we can easily pass them anyway."

They are heirs of Immortal Clans. They might as well cut off their heads if they fail a test from an academy whose foundations were less than their own.

Moving with a strange, sudden pliancy, Gu Xunyi suddenly lowered her upper body and lay down directly on the left side of his chest.

She rested her cheek right over his heart, silently listening to the steady, rhythmic thumping of his heartbeat while her right hand continued to slowly caress the smooth fabric covering the right side of his chest.

"You’ve gotten much more muscular since the last time I checked," she whispered against his robes, her voice carrying a soft, almost domestic warmth that contrasted sharply with her usual volatile nature.

Haoran remained entirely silent, letting her listen to his heart without offering any verbal confirmation or emotional reciprocity.

He simply allowed the seconds to tick by in the quiet room.

Just then, the fragile peace shattered.

She abruptly raised her head, her movements turning sharp and erratic as she cupped his cheeks firmly with both of her hands, forcing his face to remain locked forward, and stared straight into his eyes from mere inches away.

"Can you let go?" asked Haoran, his voice dropping an octave as he looked visibly annoyed by the sudden restriction of his movement.

Gu Xunyi didn’t say a single word in response to his demand. Instead, the chaotic depth within her crimson eyes seemed to shift, gaining a brilliant, utterly manic and unhinged light that radiated a terrifying, possessive intent.

"I envy those girls so much, Haoran. I watch them laugh with you, eat with you, and share your space every single day. They get to be with you constantly while I have to watch from the sidelines. I’m sure that if it wasn’t for the academy, you probably won’t even bother showing yourself in front of me again, right?"

She leaned down further, bringing her lips directly to the shell of his ear, her hot breath brushing against his skin as she whispered a chilling, dark question.

"Hey... is it alright if I... just kill them? If I erase them from existence, you’ll only look at me, right?"

The very millisecond the words left her mouth, the casual atmosphere in the room vanished completely.

Haoran’s hands shot out like twin lightning bolts, his powerful fingers wrapping tightly around her slender neck.

He gripped her throat with an iron, unyielding force, slamming her upper body back slightly as his golden eyes flared with a lethal, incredibly dangerous light.

The pure, unadulterated intent to kill radiated from his form, pinning her in place.

Gu Xunyi’s arms immediately went entirely limp at her sides, offering absolutely no resistance to his choking grip.

Her oxygen was being cut off, yet instead of panicking or fighting back, her smile only widened into a ecstatic, thoroughly twisted grin as she looked down at his furious face.

"Yes... that’s it. You know I absolutely love it when you look at me like this, right? This expression of yours... it’s perfect," she gasped out, her voice raspy but filled with an intense, masochistic pleasure. "Ah, the way you choke me, it’s just like the old times."

Haoran frowned deeply, the absolute madness of her reaction causing him to slowly loosen the crushing grip on her throat, though his hands remained firmly placed around her neck to keep her controlled.

"You are really, truly crazy, Gu Xunyi."

Gu Xunyi raised a single, elegant eyebrow, her smile turning incredibly sharp, a mixture of profound sorrow and dark triumph dancing within her eyes as she stared down into his soul.

"Oh? And tell me, Haoran... who exactly made me like this? Have you completely forgotten the past?"

She leaned down, her face stopping just a hair’s breadth away from his, her voice a beautiful, haunting echo of their shared history.

"It was you, Haoran. You were the one who broke me, so don’t be surprised when you see me act like this."

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