Chapter 30: I Have Long Held the Grand Preceptor in My Heart

Gu Fangchen had no idea he used to be such a libertine...

What on earth was this?

He realized quickly, however, that this must have been an arrangement by Ning Caiyong, and he couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of it. Although his original self had been a profligate womanizer who frequented brothels, Ning Caiyong had actually kept him on a very tight leash. If he said he was going to listen to music, he was truly just listening to music.

Ning Caiyong’s strictness was entirely for his son's sake. Gu Fangchen suffered from a virulent poison that left his constitution so frail that he was essentially willing but unable... Moreover, any agitation of his blood or qi risked triggering the poison, leading to him coughing up three liters of blood on the spot.

Part of the original body's dark, twisted personality stemmed from people whispering about his shortcomings behind his back. Of course, the original was no saint, and he would often lash out at those poor souls, committing acts that were, quite frankly, beneath even the beasts. Now that he had inherited this life, Gu Fangchen had to clean up the mess left behind.

Setting that aside, he wasn't truly afraid that Xu Fu would kill him over this. After all, he held the key to the Six-Department Star Lords' whereabouts, and they had essentially reached an agreement. No matter how angry she was, Xu Fu would never destroy her own lead.

But that didn't mean she wouldn't be furious. A Human Immortal is still human, after all. At the end of the day, Xu Fu was a woman—she might claim to be indifferent to worldly concerns, but it was impossible for her to be entirely detached. The Grand Preceptor’s favorability rating didn't need to be high, but it absolutely could not drop below the red line. Otherwise, she had too many ways to make his life miserable from the shadows. She might not kill him, but thwarting him at a crucial moment would be worse than death. Especially in a game filled with probability-based events and skills; if she applied a debuff that lowered his success rates, he would be left crying under his covers.

Those who practice the Way of Causality are, every last one of them, conniving old foxes. Yet, Xu Fu was an outlier among outliers. To many, her personality remained utterly erratic; she could have completely opposite reactions to the same situation depending on the person or the timing. It seemed to defy all logic.

In reality, her motivation was simple and brutal: would one's influence in a given situation bring the situation of the Great Wei closer to the vision of "universal peace"? If yes, she would let it pass. If no, it moved to the next assessment: would it push the Great Wei further away from "peace"? If yes, she would kill them. If not, only then would her personal will come into play. People who thought Xu Fu was temperamental simply made the mistake of treating the Grand Preceptor like a normal human being.

Disciples of the Way of Destiny are, without exception, all madmen. It was just that Xu Fu’s madness appeared so "normal," and the development of the Great Wei was currently so stable, that people mistook her for a sane person.

But while others hadn't seen it, Gu Fangchen had witnessed her true form in the "Descent of the Myriad Demons" ending—the worst possible outcome. To trigger that ending, a player had to join the demonic cults or the Qingman forces, annex the Great Wei, and slaughter ninety percent of its top experts, plunging the world into a hellish, chaotic nightmare. In that ending, even when the imperial court was waiting for the Emperor’s decision, Xu Fu simply cut off his head. Using the Great Wei’s Jade Seal and the Emperor’s head as anchors, she channeled the national destiny to forge the "Heaven and Earth Crucible," a supreme-grade array that bolstered the strength of all Great Wei cultivators. She sat at the center of the crucible herself, calculating the shifts in the world’s fate. Despite internal strife and external threats, she single-handedly held the Great Wei together for thirty years.

It was the equivalent of holding back a pressure that would cause an average player’s "True Ending" route to collapse in five years, yet she sustained it for thirty. She was, in the truest sense, a player who only challenged the highest-difficulty content. When Gu Fangchen first played that route, he was left dumbfounded; "legendary" was the only word for it.

This didn't mean Xu Fu was enslaved by her destiny. A disciple of the Way of Destiny must seek their own destiny; only an ideal they personally acknowledge and pursue becomes their fate. It was just that their ideal superseded all personal interests, rendering their private desires infinitely small. Thus, in a moment governed entirely by personal desire, it was crucial that her reason override her emotions. To put it simply, the key to manipulating the Grand Preceptor was to use a higher-level logic to overwrite the lower one.

Gu Fangchen’s eyes darted around. He decided to play it cool, openly inspecting the little beauty before him with a mischievous grin.

"Grand Preceptor, I am a vulgar man, and I truly have only these minor hobbies."

"Gold is fine, but beauty is better."

"While there are many beauties in this world, your celestial grace is pure and untainted, far above the mundane. To be honest, had I not seen your true form, I would never have risked my life for this so-called 'universal peace.'"

That wasn't entirely a lie. If he hadn't seen Xu Fu playing the high-stakes game in that ending, he might well have defected to the demonic cults in his current situation... but now, well, never mind.

"I have long admired you in my heart, Grand Preceptor, but knowing you are high above, I could only satisfy my cravings in private." Gu Fangchen sighed, feigning a pathetic, rogue-like grievance. "Our dynasty does not advocate for the total suppression of human desire; you wouldn't deny me even this, would you?"

Xu Fu remained silent. Her intuition told her this was sophistry, yet his words were technically true. That he had demanded ten thousand taels of gold as payment showed just how vulgar he was. She had been suspicious before, but seeing this display, she felt fairly certain. These few sentences were seventy percent truth and thirty percent lies.

But overall, it was sincere—he truly loved gold and beauty. A thoroughly crude and vulgar man.

Only... this was the first time someone had spoken to her of "admiration." In this world, few could converse with her as an equal. Because she practiced the Way of Destiny and Causality, no one could hide anything from her; who would dare speak such words? He was incredibly bold.

Yet, as soon as Xu Fu heard it, she knew it was a lie. Utter nonsense, truly ridiculous. She stared at him for a moment before saying coldly, "Let go."

She could, of course, refuse, but his existence was too bizarre, and his greed for gold and beauty was a leash. By utilizing this, perhaps she could control him to serve her own ends. To take one step closer to universal peace.

Gu Fangchen released her slender wrist and let out a sigh of relief inside. It seemed the Grand Preceptor’s balancing mechanism was still in effect.

Xu Fu pushed against his chest to stand up, turned around, and said indifferently, "I have ordered the ten thousand taels of gold to be delivered. If you do not know the whereabouts of the Six-Department Star Lords, then the tiger skin you are wearing may as well be stripped off."

Gu Fangchen pulled back the quilt and looked at the little maidservant standing before him with her hands behind her back, her demeanor completely transformed. He wondered, in truth, why such a coincidence had occurred. The most unlikely thing in the world was for something to happen outside of Xu Fu’s expectations. Gu Fangchen didn't know that he had been asleep, but surely Xu Fu couldn't have been asleep too? No matter how urgent things were, she wouldn't have thrown herself into his arms.

Yet, why had she ended up there? Unless... she couldn't calculate it.

Gu Fangchen’s eyes flashed. If that were true, perhaps he could cautiously exploit it. It might just become the key to everything in the future.