Having cultivated myself into an immortal, all I want to do is raise female disciples.

“However, he sent a text message yesterday and will be able to return to Lake City tomorrow. If you are not in a hurry, you can wait for the city lord to return before paying your respects.”

tomorrow?

Huang Luo's expression suddenly changed. Recalling what Huang Yisi had said earlier, he couldn't help but shudder.

He silently turned around and looked at Yunping and the others with deep regret.

"It seems there's no other way now..."

Yun Ping glanced at Huang Yisi, who was always smiling behind Huang Luo, and asked softly, "Why don't you go and ask your fourteenth uncle again? He seems to be in a good mood right now."

"No, that won't work..."

He recalled the one-hour rule set by Huang Yisi earlier, and couldn't help but smile wryly. He lowered his voice and whispered:

"My fourteenth uncle always keeps his word. He's the most inflexible person in the family. Given his temperament, there's absolutely no way he'd let us stay..."

"In that case, let my nephew stay in my house for the time being!"

"See, I told you he would never... eh?"

Huang Luo paused for a moment, then turned around, only to see his fourteenth uncle's infinitely magnified smiling face.

The latter immediately put his arm around Huang Luo, patted Huang Luo's shoulder with one hand, and laughed, "After all, you are my nephew, and we haven't seen each other for a long time. It's only been a day, it's not a big deal."

Huang Luo: "...???"

Looking at Huang Yisi's incredibly sincere smile, Huang Luo suddenly felt a chill.

Because it was an absolutely genuine smile, not a fake one.

If it were the latter, Huang Luo would feel more at ease, because it would seem fake... much better than a genuinely fake one.

On the other side, Huang Yisi smiled and looked back at the man with a commanding presence, saying, "I don't think there's anything wrong with me doing this, right?"

"Of course, no problem, after all, he's your nephew~ Hahahaha..."

"Hahahahaha..."

Smile.

Smile.

The two looked at each other and laughed, as if they were laughing simply because of Huang Luo's presence.

The laughter of the two echoed across the lake in front of the gates of Lake City, lingering for a long time.

That wasn't a fake smile.

But precisely because of this—

Only then would Ye Yuchan and the others feel genuine terror.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

If I'm feeling good, I might add another update tonight, depending on the situation.

I feel like I'm sick again...

42. Everyone has various strange inherent attributes.

"It feels so disgusting."

Sitting in Huang Yisi's cave, recalling what had happened before, Ye Yuchan felt her hair stand on end and had an indescribable sense of unease.

The group was located in a corner of the city in the heart of the lake.

As mentioned before, Lake City contains a large number of spatial arrays. It would take at least half an hour to walk from one end of a long corridor to the other, and this is only a tiny part of the entire castle.

There are nearly ten thousand cave dwellings for the cultivators of the Immortal Capital to rest in.

Huang Yisi's cave dwelling is one of them.

Looking around, it appears somewhat luxurious compared to ordinary cave dwellings. At least the decorations hanging on the walls are priceless, but they are not for enhancing cultivation; they are purely decorative items that highlight the gap between the rich and the poor.

The entrance gates are carved with images of bronze vessels, the artist of which is unknown.

The bed beneath her seemed to be made of extremely rare materials. Ye Yuchan wasn't interested in that, but she knew that sitting on it allowed her to feel her spiritual energy slowly replenishing.

The furniture was fairly tidy, and the whole cave dwelling looked much like an ordinary study—except that the space had expanded to the point where it could accommodate more than a dozen people without feeling crowded.

The "disgusting" that our Yuchan girl mentioned is naturally not referring to this cave.

"Ruoxue, you saw it too, right? The expressions on those people's faces."

“Hmm.” Zhang Ruoxue nodded in agreement. Even though she was not very good at reading people, she could tell that “their face was all smiles…it looked quite strange.”

Along the way.

Ye Yuchan and the others followed behind Huang Yisi and the man who seemed to be of high status. On their way to Huang Yisi's cave, they encountered many cultivators from the Immortal Capital.

Without exception.

Everyone's face was beaming with happiness. Some were just smiling, which at least didn't seem too much, but some smiles gave off a creepy feeling, with mouths stretched to their ears, revealing two rows of teeth, and snickering.

Upon seeing Ye Yuchan and these obvious outsiders, they showed no reaction whatsoever. In fact, several cultivators from the Immortal Capital came up to fawn over Ye Yuchan and Zhang Ruoxue.

Add to that the contrast between Huang Yisi's appearance before and after... the difference in their demeanor is striking—

"Smile~"

The young man in white, sitting on a soft bed in the distance, silently stretched out his finger, pressed it to the corner of his mouth, and then lifted it upwards.

An extremely fake smile appeared on that ordinary face.

With a strange smile in his dark eyes, he slowly said, "I think this city should be renamed the City of Smiles."

Unexpectedly, Yuan'er didn't sit in Yunping's lap, but instead obediently sat on the bed next to him, tilting her head and looking rather pale: "Teacher... do you also find it a bit scary?"

Yunping was not surprised by Yuan'er's refusal to sit on his lap.

—After all, Yuan'er's two disciples (Lu Yingqiu and Ning Xuchen) are still watching, and the little girl probably wants to maintain her dignity as a teacher.

He smiled slightly and continued, "People who are immersed in a paradise are all like this. They only smile like this because they feel an unparalleled sense of wonder."

"This feels really awful—"

Just recalling Huang Yisi's smiling face gave Ye Yuchan goosebumps.

"But no one doesn't yearn for an incredibly wonderful world, and for them, this is it."

Even if it's fake...?

Yunping glanced at Ye Yuchan, a glint of shrewdness flashing in his eyes.

After a few seconds of silence, he turned the question around and asked, "[This messed-up life is so terrible. If I could, I would really like to stay in the world alone in peace and quiet, without having to worry about anything.] Have you ever had such a thought?"

……

Ye Yuchan blinked, then lowered her head: "Yes, there is..."

“That’s right. Even if they know this thing is fake, they can’t help but want to immerse themselves in it. The Paradise of Living Beings exists precisely to cater to this desire to escape.”

"This is why such a drug-like substance still exists today."

"Besides... what if our original world was just an illusion? Would you just give up on life? Or become despondent? That wouldn't work either."

"So whether it's real or fake, it's the same for everyone in the Azure Secret Realm. They only need to care about this endless pleasure."

Ye Yuchan was stunned by what the old rogue said.

She blinked in confusion, and after a brief moment of daze, blurted out, "You old scoundrel..."

Under the watchful eyes of everyone.

Based on her intuition, she asked a question that shocked everyone else.

"You really weren't influenced by the Paradise of Living Beings before?"

Although Yunping once said that he had been to the Land of Living Beings, he was never affected by its characteristics.

But Ye Yuchan's intuition told him that it was a lie.

Yunping's answer didn't sound like someone who had only been to the Azure Secret Realm a few times.

Gu Xingzhuo's gaze also fell on Yun Ping. In his memory, he only knew that Yun Ping had been to the Land of Living Beings once and had not been affected by it, and should have come out quickly.

Yunping narrowed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then said, "In terms of results, there are none."

“But I lived there for a while.”

Ye Yuchan was surprised: "You lived here for a while?"

"Because of some troublesome things, I hid inside for a while."

"Could it be that he has offended some enemy again... and has run away to hide in the Azure Secret Realm?"

That's how it is.

Yun Ping chuckled, a wicked grin on his face: "Later, those with weak wills, although they found me, were also bewitched by the Azure Secret Realm and died right there inside. Only I swaggered out."

"This can be considered a strategy."

His smile was quite broad.

but--

Scenes from the past flashed through his mind, and the smile on his face slowly faded.

How do you say that?

He once had a sincere love placed before him, but he did not cherish it, and only regretted it when he lost it.

That ghost marriage, that wedding with the dead, created a crack in his already weary heart.

The former Martial Emperor, the former Human Emperor Gu Tianren, the first immortal of all ages who inherited the great destiny of heaven and earth... In order to calm his mind, he stepped into the Azure Secret Realm, which is known as the paradise of peach blossoms.

With no enemies or adversaries, he lived peacefully in the Azure Secret Realm for a long time.

Enjoying that fleeting pleasure, enjoying that illusion that is always around you.

Only after he had enjoyed it enough and felt satisfied did he leave this azure secret realm to face the terrible reality.

Gu Tianren was not truly bewitched by Peach Blossom Paradise; he simply wanted to take advantage of its unique characteristics to spend a little more time with the person known as the Moonlit Saint.

Memories are just memories.