Chapter 545: It's You Again! Wu Shenyun's Phoenix Eyes Are Sharp!
Looking at Yang Qiuchan who was sitting cross-legged, cultivating in a meditative state, Shen Anyu was quite expectant. After embarking on the path of cultivation, Yang Qiuchan would surely bring him surprises.
This was the first special Physique he had encountered, a blank canvas of immense potential waiting for the right artist to unlock its true power. Since this was Yang Qiuchan's very first foray into the world of cultivation, her first time attempting to guide the spiritual energy of heaven and earth into her body, Shen Anyu knew he couldn't leave her side. The Martial God Art he had imparted was a profound and stable technique, designed to be exceptionally gentle and forgiving, making the chances of Qi Deviation almost negligible. Still, a nascent cultivator was as fragile as a newborn. Shen Anyu resolved to stand guard, at least until she had successfully completed her first full cycle of cultivation and anchored the first wisp of true Qi within her dantian. Only then would he consider leaving her to practice alone.
He watched as the ambient spiritual energy, invisible to the naked eye, began to slowly converge around her. It swirled gently, drawn in by the magnetic pull of her unique constitution, forming a faint, shimmering vortex. Her expression was one of absolute focus, her brow slightly furrowed in concentration, her delicate features serene under the soft light of the room.
'A pure vessel. The Martial God Art will temper her body and will, forging her into a peerless weapon,' Shen Anyu thought, a flicker of satisfaction in his eyes. He wasn't just helping a friend; he was forging an asset, a powerful piece for his chessboard.
Sitting idly grew tedious after a while. With a casual flick of his wrist, Shen Anyu produced his phone. The screen lit up, not with mundane social media, but with the master control interface for his global surveillance network. A web of light spread across the display, each node a nanometer monitoring robot feeding him real-time data on his various targets. He began his routine check-in, responding to a few encrypted messages from his subordinates before turning his full attention to the puppets whose strings he so expertly pulled.
'Let's see… that little Conan, Ye Linyuan, is still cooped up doing his homework at No. 2 Villa of Jiangjing Manor. Look at that mountain of test papers. It's enough for him to write until he dies of boredom.'
A live feed materialized on his screen. On the other side of the city, inside the luxurious No. 2 Villa, the scene was far from serene.
"Damn it! Shen Anyu! He's not human! He's a monster!"
A furious roar echoed within the study. Ye Linyuan, the once-mighty immortal reduced to the body of a high school student, slammed his pen down on the desk. He glared at the veritable mountain of paperwork that towered before him—advanced calculus, theoretical physics, classical literature analysis—a fortress of academic misery designed to cage him. His heart burned with a resentment so hot it felt like it could melt steel.
He had planned it all so perfectly. With Shen Anyu away from the city, it was supposed to be his time to shine. He had envisioned himself making a grand entrance, dazzling his beautiful Senior Sisters—Yang Luoluo, Liu Ruyan, and even the aloof Ye Liyou—with his profound insights and hidden strength. He would subtly guide their cultivation, solve their problems, and slowly win their admiration and affection.
But reality had been a cruel joke. His "goddess Senior Sisters" were all sequestered in the main villa next door, deep in secluded cultivation, their auras potent and inaccessible. They hadn't spared him a single glance. Worse, Shen Anyu's subordinates had descended upon him like prison guards, dragging him to this study and burying him under an avalanche of homework. The message was clear: stay put, stay busy, and don't even think about getting close to the women in Villa No. 1.
"If this continues, when will I ever restore my strength? When will I, Ye Linyuan, return to my peak and win the hearts of my Senior Sisters?" he seethed, his fists clenched so tightly his knuckles turned white. The sheer helplessness of his situation was a poison in his veins.
'Keep dreaming. You won't get the chance in this lifetime, or the next,' Shen Anyu mused, a cold, predatory smile playing on his lips as he watched the boy's tantrum. The plan was already in motion. Once he finished dealing with the Goddess Doctor, Murong Jieyu, his focus would shift entirely to Ye Linyuan. Shen Anyu had already devised a particularly cruel and elegant scheme, one designed to shatter the boy's will and make his mentality completely explode.
And when that happened, when Ye Linyuan's spirit was broken, his coveted Eldest Senior Sister, the ethereal Fairy Pei, would inevitably be drawn into the chaos. She would fall right into Shen Anyu's carefully laid trap, another prized piece for his collection.
It was a pity, however, that Ye Linyuan's sixth Senior Sister, Lu Chanxi, had vanished from the board. Intelligence reports suggested she had been whisked away by a regal, palace-dressed woman from a mysterious faction known as the Ice Snow Immortal Palace, a power from the Xuanhuang World. For the time being, she was beyond his reach.
But Shen Anyu was patient. He would journey to the Xuanhuang World sooner or later. It was a higher-level plane, a world brimming with dense spiritual energy, a true paradise for cultivators. Many of the lingering mysteries on Earth—Huangfu Xian's true origins, the enigmatic and seductive Su Muyue who resided within Susan's soul—likely had their roots tangled in that very world.
When the time came, he would simply find Lu Chanxi and capture her then. All loose ends would be tied.
With a swipe of his finger, Shen Anyu dismissed Ye Linyuan's feed and moved down his list of targets.
Next was Xu Pingan, the Son of Destiny blessed with a Damage Reflection Aura. The poor fool, caught in a 'true and false young master' drama, was now working diligently for Shen Anyu's own Dark Shadow Society. He was pouring his heart and soul into strengthening the very organization that would one day be used to crush him, completely oblivious to his role as a pawn. He had even earned a promotion to small team leader and was currently mustering the courage to confess his feelings to the beautiful half-demon, Feng Kelei. Shen Anyu watched the earnest young man with detached amusement.
Then came Wei Yunteng, the protagonist armed with black technology. The feed showed him hunched over a complex array of machinery in a cluttered workshop, his eyes bloodshot with obsession. He was still trying to build his own lithography machine, all for the ridiculous goal of upgrading his junior college degree. He posed no immediate threat.
Two other Sons of Destiny remained ghosts. Master Chen of Jiangbei and the mysterious Jing River Corpse Fisher were still off the grid, leaving no clues for his network to follow. They were annoyances, but minor ones. Zhao Hao, the wilderness survival challenger, was still deep within some primeval forest according to his last known coordinates, though his scheduled return was imminent.
His gaze then fell upon the file for Zhang Zhiyun, the disciple of the Tianshi Sect. The boy had descended the mountain with righteous fury, only to be utterly dismantled. The live feed showed him lying comatose on a bed within the Tianshi Sect's infirmary. Zhang Tianen had managed to get him back, but the curse of the Myriad Curses Sword was not so easily purged. A dark, necrotic energy still clung to his soul, a signature of the Master of Myriad Dharma Sect's power. Any ordinary Tianshi Master would have dissolved into a pool of blood upon impact. Only Zhang Zhiyun's thick protagonist's luck was keeping his heart beating. Waking up, however, was another matter entirely.
Finally, he checked on Zhao Tao, the song-plagiarizing transmigrator. This one was proactive, Shen Anyu had to admit. He had already released a perfect replica of "Blue and White Porcelain," a masterpiece from his original world. The song had exploded overnight, causing a sensation across the nation's music scene.
Compounding this was the fact that Zhao Tao was the son of a Hangzhou billionaire. With a virtually unlimited marketing budget, he was aggressively buying his way onto every chart and trending list. The combination of classic, timeless music and a tidal wave of cash was a royal flush in the entertainment industry. It was easy to see him becoming a household name very soon.
'But what does it matter if he becomes a national sensation?' Shen Anyu scoffed. In the face of true power, such mortal fame was as fragile as a soap bubble. He didn't even need the Destiny Plunder System to deal with this one. As the Young Master of the Yanxia Shen Family, a behemoth that dwarfed the provincial Hangzhou Zhao Family, he could crush the boy and his entire lineage with a single, dismissive command.
What truly interested him was the Destined Heroine connected to two of these protagonists: Zhang Yaqian. She was the nexus linking the righteous Tianshi disciple, Zhang Zhiyun, and the opportunistic plagiarist, Zhao Tao.
Shen Anyu pulled up the detailed intelligence dossier his subordinates had compiled. His eyes, scanning the lines of text, flickered with a faint, knowing light.
"Zhang Yaqian is not Zhang Zhiyun's biological sister? How utterly predictable. Of course, she isn't," he murmured to himself. "There are certain lines that cannot be crossed. Whether you're a Son of Destiny destined to suppress the heavens, a Heavenly Venerate of boundless love, or even a Great Villain of Destiny like myself... you touch that taboo, and you're guaranteed an ominous old age filled with growing red hair."
The story laid out in the file was a catalog of tragedies. Zhang Yaqian was the daughter of Zhang Zhiyun's mother's best friend. After a bitter divorce, she was left in her mother's care, only for her mother to die in an unexpected accident. The Hangzhou Zhang Family, Zhang Zhiyun's parents, adopted the orphaned girl out of kindness. But misfortunes, as they say, never come singly. The entire Hangzhou Zhang Family was later exterminated by cultivators from the Wan Fa Sect, a brutal act of vengeance. Zhang Yaqian was spared only because she happened to be out playing with friends that fateful day.
She was simply a magnet for disaster. Eventually, her biological father, Zhang Haiwei, found her. But he had already started a new family and was consumed by his career, leaving little time or emotional space for the daughter he barely knew. Her stepmother treated her with a cool, superficial politeness, a constant, chilling reminder that she was an outsider.
Such a childhood, steeped in loss and abandonment, had forged a deeply troubled young woman. She was a problem girl, even more rebellious and self-destructive than Ji Xiaolin had ever been.
The dossier included photos. The first set made Shen Anyu's mouth twitch. They showed a girl in a nightclub, her eyes heavily lined with smoky makeup, a defiant sneer on her lips, dressed in torn fishnets and leather. 'What in the world is this mess? A little demoness trying too hard.'
He almost dismissed her as uninteresting, but then he scrolled further. The next set of photos were from her school days, taken before the worst of her tragedies. In them, a completely different girl smiled at the camera. Dressed in a clean school uniform, her face was fresh and youthful, her eyes bright with an innocent beauty. Shen Anyu nodded slowly, a genuine spark of interest kindled. That was the girl underneath the armor. Without that glimpse of purity, he wouldn't have bothered conquering some random, chaotic demon.
The file also detailed her connection to Zhao Tao. The Hangzhou Zhao Family and her father, Zhang Haiwei, were business partners, which had led to a marriage arrangement between the two children. But the relationship was a sham. Before his transmigration, Zhao Tao had been a pathetic simp, orbiting Zhang Yaqian, running her errands, and doing anything for a crumb of attention, yet he had never even managed to hold her hand. The new, transmigrated Zhao Tao was no longer a simp, but his arrogant new personality was equally useless. He now had zero chance.
Shen Anyu pinched his chin, his mind already spinning with various scenarios, contemplating the most effective way to approach this wounded, rebellious girl. But just as he was formulating a plan, his senses twitched. A subtle notification from his network drew his attention elsewhere. A playful, dangerous arc formed on his lips.
"Only daring to sleep during the day, are we? You think you can avoid me by not sleeping at night?" he chuckled softly. "How unfortunate for you. I happen to be free during the day, too."
He switched the feed to a new target: the Southern Border Goddess, Wu Shenyun. She was an absolute vision of exhausted paranoia. For several days straight, Wu Shenyun hadn't dared to sleep, terrified that he would invade her dreams again. Her formidable dual cultivation in both martial arts and witchcraft at the Heavenly Human level allowed her to endure the sleep deprivation for a time.
However, the Divine Grade Love Dream Talisman he had planted on her was a subtle but relentless poison. Its primary effect was to induce a powerful, inescapable drowsiness. Even a powerhouse like Wu Shenyun couldn't resist its pull indefinitely. After holding out for days, her willpower finally frayed. Believing he would be too busy to bother her during daylight hours, she decided to risk a short nap.
She was far too naive.
With a mere thought, Shen Anyu's consciousness detached, plunging through the ethereal plane, homing in on her dreaming mind. He immediately entered her dream.
The world around him solidified. He found himself in a dream space of her own making. Before his eyes stood a magnificent, ancient hall, vast and echoing with silent grandeur. At its very center, atop a dais, rested a huge and ornate throne.
And on that throne, a peerlessly beautiful and noble woman reclined. She wore a long, flowing red dress embroidered with golden phoenixes, the fabric clinging to her perfect curves. She was lying on her side, one slender, jade-like hand supporting her cheek. The pose outlined her shapely and exquisite body, an image of captivating, soul-stirring allure.
"It's you again!"
Her narrow Phoenix eyes, previously closed in a fitful slumber, snapped open. From her throne, Wu Shenyun glared down at him, her gaze as sharp and deadly as a drawn sword.
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