This isn't how it's supposed to go in a galgame!
By rights, in a galgame you're supposed to meet first, then spar together, feelings gradually warming over the course of that sparring,
then go through a Secret Realm trial or two together, and only then, on some night with the full moon overhead, would you confess to me — two options popping up before my eyes, 'Accept' or 'Reject' — and only once I clicked 'Accept' would we truly become Dao companions!
Why did you just force a kiss on me right off the bat? No galgame works like that!
This string of complaints raced through Gu Chengming's mind, and then a sudden flash of insight stopped him cold.
Oh wait, no — he'd actually been through all those beats himself already. He was only missing that final 'Accept or Reject' option.
The moment he thought this, a dialogue box naturally popped up before his eyes.
[Piercing Insight effect triggered]
[Option One: Push Zhou Qingmu away and angrily demand — how dare you ambush me like this, thief! Are you declaring war on me?]
[Option Two: Push Zhou Qingmu down and shout — how dare you, evil cultivator, try to steal our Director's body! I'll deal with you properly with my great sword!]
[Option Three: Accept Zhou Qingmu's declaration of affection.]
Well, there wasn't much left to agonize over now, it seemed.
Though this Piercing Insight ability of his did seem to enjoy stirring up trouble.
But since the options had already appeared, this relationship was clearly meant to happen naturally... right?
— Option Three.
Once his mind was made up, the moment's earlier shock ebbed away like a receding tide.
Gu Chengming simply closed his eyes, lips meeting lips, breath mingling with breath.
Zhou Qingmu had gone into this with something of an all-or-nothing resolve, but sensing not the slightest resistance from him now, this kiss lingered far longer than her earlier, reckless ambush of one.
A long moment later, their lips parted.
A thin thread of saliva stretched between them before falling onto the collar of Zhou Qingmu's official robes.
Zhou Qingmu stared at Gu Chengming, eyes burning bright. Nervous as she was inside, she put on an air of careless ease. "I know taking without asking is rather shameless of me, but you'll forgive me, won't you, Little Gu?"
Gu Chengming sighed, helpless. "Forgiveness is too strong a word. But isn't this something only Dao companions should be doing? You really don't care for taking things step by step, do you, Director."
"Dao companion is just a title, in the end," Zhou Qingmu argued. "If you ask whether I was your Dao companion before this, the answer is naturally no. But if you ask whether I'm willing to walk this path together with you — even if the Dao itself should crumble and I should perish body and soul — then I would answer without a moment's hesitation."
Having said this much, she blinked. "So then, why fuss over whether the title of Dao companion applies or not?"
It was sophistry, of course, but under the circumstances, there was no wrapping this up without a little sophistry.
Fortunately, Gu Chengming didn't press the point. Seeing not a trace of resistance on his face, Zhou Qingmu quietly let out a breath of relief.
On second thought, though, she felt she'd pushed things a bit too far. That whole speech had been sophistry through and through, and if she didn't add something more dignified to smooth it over, the scene would end up making her look far too grasping.
With that thought, she briskly added a face-saving line: "What just happened only counts as compensation, really. No need to feel any pressure over it, Little Gu."
She'd meant that line to soften the whole situation a little.
Who could have guessed that the words had barely left her mouth before Gu Chengming, to her utter surprise, leaned in and closed the distance himself.
As if. He'd already made his choice through Piercing Insight's option box once — there was no going back now.
And so the second kiss began, just as naturally as the first.
And that was how their office romance came to pass, as naturally as flowing water.
By rights, an office romance ought to be kept under wraps in any ordinary government office. But when it involved the Night-Watch Bureau's current Director and its former Director, it hardly counted as scandalous at all.
Everyone in the Night-Watch Bureau had long grown used to the sight of the two of them huddled together discussing business, and no one had ever been quite sure whether it was a superior-subordinate relationship or something more subtle.
Now that the thin paper screen had finally been torn through, it actually spared everyone else a good deal of guesswork.
As for the two people directly involved, they did seem to genuinely draw a line between work and personal matters.
At least during working hours, Zhou Qingmu sat properly behind her desk reviewing case files while Gu Chengming stood beside it going over documents, both of them looking as composed and proper as any two diligent colleagues.
But naturally, matters weren't going to stop there.
After all, the roots of the Dharma-Station Free Heaven were still far from being fully understood.
One afternoon, the two of them sat facing each other in a side hall, a scroll of Dharma-Station projections sent over by the Imperial Astronomical Bureau spread open on the table between them.
Gu Chengming pinched the corner of the scroll, brow furrowing slightly. "If Free Heaven is truly Jiahao Sovereign's Dharma-Station, then it means the other Dharma-Stations on the same trunk will gradually be breaking free as well."
Zhou Qingmu nodded. "Mm, that's what the Imperial Astronomical Bureau's projections say too."
"Jiahao Sovereign once proved Free Heaven, and he left this whole arrangement behind in the Capital. If this Dharma-Station is showing signs again now, what's behind it may not simply be the Heavenly Dao running its natural course."
Gu Chengming looked at her. She considered for a moment before continuing. "To understand Free Heaven, there's no getting around the old affairs of Jiahao Sovereign's era. But after the Tribulation, most records were left incomplete — the Night-Watch Bureau's files on the period around the last Great Tribulation are mostly vague at best. It's already remarkable that even a name survived."
Her brow creased slightly. "Perhaps we could ask the Master."
By Zhou Qingmu's usual description, the Master was a classic riddler — clearly hiding who-knew-how-many astonishing secrets in his heart, yet stubbornly unwilling to reveal a single one.
Even after all the years Zhou Qingmu had worked alongside him at court, in most cases he still wouldn't say a single unnecessary word.
But there was really no safer path available right now. Rather than search for a needle in a haystack among the Imperial Academy's old records, it made more sense to go try their luck with the Master directly.
With that decided, the two of them set a time that very day and went together to call on the Master.
In a side courtyard of the Imperial Academy, bamboo shadows lay dappled across the ground.
The afternoon sun, filtered through the lush bamboo leaves, scattered into fine flecks of light across the bluestone paving.
The courtyard was quiet enough that only the rustle of wind through bamboo leaves could be heard, echoing faintly against the distant murmur of recitation drifting from the Academy's main hall.
The Master sat properly behind a low table. Once Gu Chengming and Zhou Qingmu had roughly explained their purpose, his expression turned thoughtful.
After a long moment, the Master finally spoke, slowly.
"If the two of you wish to learn what happened in the era before the last Great Tribulation, the ancient texts here at the Imperial Academy — indeed, every ancient text that could be gathered from across the entire Capital — can scarcely meet that need anymore."
He raised his teacup and took a sip, his gaze settling back on Gu Chengming's face.
"Because of the Tribulation, history has been blurred incident by incident, and most of what was ever recorded in writing has been destroyed by causality itself."
The Master paused, his thoughtful expression gradually giving way to candor. "If you truly wish to know what happened in that era, the safest way is to ask someone who actually lived through it."
At this, Gu Chengming's expression turned subtly complicated.
Someone who had lived through that era?
He silently ran through the seniors he knew.
The Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing Sovereign, if he had to name someone, technically counted as being from an even earlier era — but her seniority went back a bit too far. She'd already been trapped in a seam of time before the previous Great Tribulation even happened, so she didn't know much about what went on around it.
Aside from the Flowing Cloud Moon-Tracing Sovereign...
The image of Jiahao Sovereign suddenly surfaced in Gu Chengming's mind.
By rights, Jiahao Sovereign was exactly a person of that era. If he were willing to come forward, most of the present doubts could be resolved easily.
The problem was that Jiahao Sovereign's whereabouts were simply too unpredictable to pin down.
Based on the scraps of evidence Gu Chengming had pieced together over the past while, Jiahao Sovereign did indeed still exist in some form in this world — but the manner of his existence was so bizarre that even Gu Chengming himself couldn't pin down exactly where the man was hiding now.
The problem was, in order to find any clues from Jiahao Sovereign, he'd first have to find the Sovereign himself.
And that landed him in a rather awkward loop — to understand Free Heaven's roots, he had to find Jiahao Sovereign, but to find Jiahao Sovereign, he first had to understand Free Heaven's roots.
The Master held his teacup, and only once Gu Chengming's expression finally shifted from pensive to clear did he leisurely add one more line.
"Though there is one item hidden within the Imperial Academy that might help resolve this puzzle for you, young friend."
Gu Chengming blinked, caught briefly off guard.
When the Master led Gu Chengming deeper into the Imperial Academy, Zhou Qingmu didn't follow along.
She didn't ask further questions about this matter touching on secrets of a bygone dynasty — she only told Gu Chengming to 'be careful,' then sat with her teacup, watching the two of them go.
Gu Chengming followed the Master through several bamboo-shadowed corridors, then turned down a few out-of-the-way paths.
It had been quite a while since he'd last set foot in the Imperial Academy, and the layout hadn't changed much. The one thing that struck him as new was that he'd never walked this particular path the Master was leading him down.
He quietly worked out their bearings in his head and grew more and more convinced that this 'item hidden within the Imperial Academy' was no ordinary thing.
Sure enough, after about the time it takes to burn an incense stick, the Master stopped before an utterly unremarkable stone wall.
He raised his hand and pressed lightly on a hidden pattern in the wall. Without a sound, the stone split open into a gap just wide enough for one person to pass through.
The Master stepped through first, and Gu Chengming followed.
Beyond the wall lay a long, narrow passage, at the end of which was a sealed chamber roughly three zhang square.
The chamber held none of the array-formations and artifacts one usually found in such places. In its exact center stood only a stone platform about waist-high, covered in a heavy layer of sealing array patterns.
And at the very center of those layered sealing patterns—
— sat a single book, imprisoned.
Gu Chengming: ?
He straightened his expression and studied the layered sealing patterns, then let his gaze settle on the seemingly unremarkable, worn old book sealed beneath them.
A distinct question mark rose above his head.
By rights, whatever object in the Imperial Academy warranted sealing patterns of this caliber ought to be some extraordinarily dangerous treasure.
And yet what sat at the center of these sealing patterns was, of all things, a battered old book whose very spine had frayed from use.
Sensing his confusion, the Master explained.
"What's sealed here is, in truth, the remnant soul of a senior — or rather, a resting place for his will."
His fingers, still holding the teacup, tapped lightly on the edge of the stone platform. "This senior was, in his time, a Seventh Realm Sovereign — a figure of the very same era as Jiahao Sovereign."
At this, Gu Chengming's brow twitched slightly.
A Seventh Realm Sovereign? The same era?
That meant this person, too, dated back to at least before the last Great Tribulation.
The Master went on. "But because of his incompleteness, this senior's state isn't quite like an ordinary cultivator's. He tends to display rather..."
The Master considered his wording and settled on a rather delicate phrase: "A deep, stubborn obsession."
Gu Chengming wondered privately just what sort of obsession that meant — surely not the kind that involved wanting to body-snatch his way to a new life?
The Master seemed to sense his faint unease and added, "This senior resides within a cultivation technique. In his time, he was the foremost body cultivator in the entire cultivation world."
Huh? A body cultivator?
[Hundred Bones Resonance grows highly excited at this title]
[Doesn't that mean, once we beat her, we'll be the foremost body cultivator, Heavenly Emperor Gu!]
Hold on. Never mind whether we could even win — this senior's most likely been dead for thousands of years already. Even if I wanted to fight, there's no one left to spar with.
The thought had barely risen in Gu Chengming's mind when the layered sealing patterns atop the ancient book at the platform's center suddenly trembled.
The next instant, the air throughout the entire chamber gave a single humming shudder.
The seemingly unremarkable old book suddenly rose from the center of the sealing patterns, tearing free of the seal binding it to the platform, and turned into a streak of light shooting straight for the point between Gu Chengming's brows.
Gu Chengming's pupils contracted sharply.
— Why is this thing charging at me on its own?!
The next instant, the streak of light struck true, slamming precisely into the point between his brows.
A moment later, two lines of text appeared before Gu Chengming's eyes.
[Cultivation Technique recorded] [Arnold's Invincible Technique]
A question mark rose above Gu Chengming's head.
Arnold's Invincible Technique?
— What on earth is that?
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