Mingsheng's cultivation was unimaginably profound. Even though she was merely projecting her divine sense into the body of a maid from the Northern Garrison Prince's residence, avoiding Gu Fangchen's grasp would have been an easy matter for her.
Yet, therein lay the problem, she was currently inhabiting the body of a maid.
No matter how solid Gu Fangchen's identity was now, he was still the Heir Apparent of the Northern Garrison Prince's household. For a maid to avoid his hand would have been unthinkable.
Thus, the instant Mingsheng sensed Gu Fangchen's intent, her body only stiffened slightly before she regained control, allowing the young man to grasp her hand.
Still, a faint and almost imperceptible annoyance flickered within her heart.
She had heard of Gu Fangchen's notorious reputation, but she had not imagined that his depravity could reach such absurd depths.
At this very moment, everyone in the prince's residence awaited judgment upon Gu Fangchen, judgment that could very well decide his life or death.
Even with Ning Caiyong protecting him, the title of Northern Garrison Prince's heir came with immense resources, including the precious elixirs that kept his shattered and dying body barely alive.
Without the support of the princely household, Gu Fangchen would never have survived to this day.
And yet, in such a situation, he still had the gall to flirt with a maid.
Such audacity demanded punishment.
Mingsheng's expression remained blank as she lowered her gaze to the hand Gu Fangchen held, unavoidably noticing the strange sensation that came with it.
The young man's fingers were cold against her palm, the alien warmth, or rather, lack thereof, of another's skin so distinct that it was impossible to ignore.
As a disciple of the Heavenly Mandate Sect and as the Nation's Grandmaster, no one had ever dared to touch her hand.
Let alone a man.
Suppressing her strange emotions, Mingsheng's mind suddenly sparked with realization.
Something was wrong.
Ordinarily, a woman's body tended to be colder, while a man's was warmer. Hands and feet especially so.
But Gu Fangchen's hand was much colder than hers.
Her gaze shifted toward him, divine light flashing in her eyes. What she saw made her pupils narrow.
Although Gu Fangchen's spirit burned fiercely, his body was exuding a faint aura of decay and depletion, his life force was all but extinguished.
It was the aura of the dying.
Mingsheng's brows knit together.
Impossible.
By all reason, Gu Fangchen should have had five more years to live. How could his vitality be burning out so suddenly?
This question kept her hand still, she did not strike him as she had first intended.
Then, the next instant, she heard Gu Fangchen's utterly irreverent words, and her expression froze.
Anyone else hearing such words would have deemed them nothing short of obscene.
For him to speak so brazenly in front of the Northern Garrison Prince was madness itself.
Yet the one listening was Mingsheng.
Peace under Heaven...
What a pity, Peace under Heaven.
Mingsheng's own divine mandate was precisely those three words: Peace under Heaven.
Could it be a coincidence?
No.
As the Head of the Heavenly Mandate Sect, she was the one person in the world who least believed in coincidences.
Moreover, Gu Fangchen's tone carried no lecherous intent, only a trace of lamentation, as though he were sighing at the impossibility of achieving Peace under Heaven.
Mingsheng raised her head and met his eyes.
Gu Fangchen arched a brow, insolently rubbing her hand as he smirked.
"But peace has its charms too," he said with mock admiration. "With that fair face of yours, if you were to mark your brow with a red dot and don the robes of a Taoist priestess, I imagine the sight would be rather... distinctive."
Mingsheng glanced at him coldly.
Gu Fangchen's façade of calm nearly cracked; he could feel cold sweat trickling down his back.
As audacious as his act was, it was the surest way to signal to Mingsheng that he had recognized her.
He had guessed she would come here personally to investigate the demonic sect's traces.
And since the Grandmaster preferred to act unseen, often sending her divine consciousness into others' bodies rather than appearing in person, it was a perfect opening.
Few knew this about her. It was one of her divine abilities. Even other second-grade cultivators would not detect it.
The only telltale sign was that faint, cold fragrance unique to her divine presence.
And since Gu Fangchen knew every maid in the residence well, any change in scent was immediately noticeable.
Hence, his certainty.
Still, teasing the Grandmaster herself, even through another's body, was enough to make his heart pound like a war drum.
Fortunately, Mingsheng did not pull her hand away.
Instead, Gu Lianqian finally lost her patience. She slapped his hand away, her pretty face flushed with fury.
"Gu Fangchen! Do you still think you're the heir? You'd better remember, you're nothing but a fake who's stolen someone else's body! You've no right to act so arrogant in this house!"
Gu Fangchen leaned back lazily, grinning shamelessly.
"So what? The results aren't out yet, are they? Until the imperial decree says otherwise, I'm still the heir."
"Besides," he added, "even if I'm not the heir anymore, I'm still the Martial Sage's only true disciple. Don't you think that earns me a bit of swagger?"
That struck Gu Lianqian right in her sore spot. Her teeth clenched.
"You, !"
Gu Yuye sipped his tea, glancing sideways at Ning Caiyong. "Look at the fine 'son' you've raised."
It was a reminder, in truth, a subtle warning for his wife to recall his earlier words and reflect on whether they might hold some truth.
Was it really wise to let such a disgraceful "son" remain in their household?
But Ning Caiyong had already resolved herself the night before. Her fingers tightened around the handkerchief in her lap, but she ignored her husband's cold taunt and instead turned to gently scold Gu Fangchen.
"Chen'er! This is a serious matter. Stop fooling around."
At any other time, such conduct would have been scandalous.
But thanks to the persona the original Gu Fangchen had built, no one found it strange, only tiresome.
Such was the depth of his infamy.
"Oh."
Gu Fangchen sat up straight, all innocence, until a cool female voice echoed within his mind.
"You have never seen me."
Mingsheng had spent decades atop the Pillar of Silence, gazing upon the heavens and the earth. Aside from the Emperor, no one had seen her true face.
Yet this man had spoken of the red mark between her brows.
Gu Fangchen replied smoothly with a grin, his divine sense answering hers.
"Wrong, Grandmaster. Not only have I seen you, we've even talked all night."
Divine path cultivators could exchange thoughts directly through spirit sense. Normally, Gu Youren, her disciple, would have noticed it.
But since Mingsheng herself initiated the exchange, Gu Youren wouldn't detect a thing.
Thus emboldened, Gu Fangchen spoke freely.
Mingsheng fell silent.
A lesser soul could hide nothing before a higher one, she could instantly discern whether he lied.
And he wasn't.
Yet that was impossible. How could she forget such a thing?
Unless his cultivation surpassed all logic, able to glimpse every strand of causality across time and space,
But such a thing could not exist.
Mingsheng's true body opened its eyes. She reached into the water-born starfield before her, seeking the threads of Gu Fangchen's fate.
But when her slender hand emerged from the rippling stars, it held nothing.
Her composure shattered.
When Emperor Yong'an had first sought her counsel, she had divined Gu Fangchen's fate, he was indeed a demonic imposter, destined to die within half a year.
That was her original result.
But now his fate had vanished.
He stood alive before her, his karmic lines as tangled as ever, yet his destiny could no longer be read.
Why had his future disappeared?
Mingsheng's expression darkened.
She suddenly recalled the strange theft and disappearance of the empire's national fortune.
The two were far too similar.
Such mastery of the Art of Causality and Fate could only belong to a first-grade cultivator.
Then... was Gu Fangchen one of the Sixth Division Star Lord's agents?
No, that man was cautious to the extreme, not the type to flaunt himself this way.
Could there be a third person in this world who had reached such heights with the Art of Causality and Fate?
Gu Fangchen asked with a grin, "So, did you find anything?"
Mingsheng, looking through the maid's eyes, met his gaze without answering.
Instead, she said, "Since you know who I am, you should also know that your life or death rests on my whim."
Gu Fangchen chuckled. "But Grandmaster, you've already seen it, I don't have much time left. Threatening a dying man with death is rather pointless, isn't it?"
Indeed, in his condition, even gods would be hard-pressed to save him.
Mingsheng fell silent.
Gu Fangchen knew at once that she had found nothing.
His identity as an otherworlder was beyond this world's causal order, no wonder even she could not read him.
Still, the Grandmaster was one of the few upright souls in this story; even when unable to see through him, she wouldn't act rashly.
Gu Fangchen seized the chance, sighing dramatically.
"What a pity. It seems I'll never live to see Peace under Heaven."
That phrase struck at her deepest conviction.
To move Mingsheng, one had to appeal to her ideals.
Yet even as she sensed he wasn't lying, she remained unmoved.
"In this world," she said softly, "few truly desire peace, and fewer still possess the power to bring it."
Though Gu Fangchen defied all expectation, she trusted what she saw.
After all, his cultivation was still that of a ninth-grade spirit cultivator, little more than illusion without foundation.
For all she knew, this concealment of fate might just be a trick.
With the missing sliver of the nation's fortune still unexplained, she could not yet link it to him.
But Gu Fangchen's lips curved slightly.
Her words meant she was already weighing the possibility of trusting him.
If it had been the real Gu Fangchen, he wouldn't even have entered her consideration.
A few words, and he had multiplied his worth hundreds of times.
Then he pressed further.
"Grandmaster, maybe my methods are petty tricks, but what if I could locate the Sixth Division Star Lord?"
Mingsheng's pupils contracted.
Even if he served that Star Lord, the man would never allow his whereabouts to be exposed.
But recalling all the strange phenomena surrounding Gu Fangchen, even she hesitated.
Still, she said coldly, "With those paltry tricks?"
"With those paltry tricks."
Gu Fangchen smiled confidently.
"You and the Sixth Division Star Lord both walk the path of true causality. You divine me, I divine you, and in the end, neither can read the other."
"But I'm different. I walk the crooked path, finding the gaps others miss. Naturally, your rules can't guard against me."
Of course, he already knew exactly where the Star Lord was, but saying so outright would ruin everything.
Better to make it sound like his own "ability."
You had to paint the illusion to hook the fish.
Mingsheng, burdened by her obsession with that elusive foe, could not help but waver.
How could she ignore such a chance?
Gu Fangchen continued smoothly:
"I might as well be honest, just as you suspect, I'm not Gu Fangchen. I've merely borrowed his karma. There were... difficulties that made me call you here."
Mingsheng skipped the useless question of who he was and asked directly, "What do you want?"
"As expected of the Grandmaster, so decisive." Gu Fangchen grinned. "I only wanted to help you win a little peace. But as things stand, my future is uncertain, and I find myself a little uneasy..."
He paused deliberately.
"Speak plainly."
He chuckled. "If the Grandmaster would be so kind as to bestow upon me ten thousand taels of gold, I will serve you with all my heart!"
Mingsheng: "...?"
The Grandmaster was momentarily dumbfounded.
Of all the things she had expected him to ask for, gold was not one of them.
To cultivators of their level, gold and silver were meaningless.
And yet, this was his demand.
Even more shocking than his earlier riddles, this one left her completely speechless.
So this false Gu Fangchen truly was what he seemed, a vulgar man with small tricks and smaller ambitions.
Still, the world was vast, full of strange men and stranger tales.
She would humor him and see what he intended.
Given what she knew of Gu Yuye, even if Gu Fangchen used her name, he would not abandon his own motives.
...
Regardless of Gu Fangchen's antics, the proceedings continued. Gu Youren was just about to examine the curse of the Art of Causality and Fate on him when a soldier hurried in and whispered to Gu Yuye.
Gu Yuye frowned.
"The alchemy acolyte from the Pillar of Silence? With several boxes? What for?"
He waved his hand. "Let them in."
A moment later, a young boy's clear voice rang out from outside the hall.
"Bring them in!"
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Heavy chests were carried in and set upon the floor, their weight shaking the dust into the air.
Gu Yuye's brows furrowed deeper. "May I ask, little one, what is the Grandmaster's meaning in this?"
The porcelain-faced boy in a Taoist robe bowed and replied clearly, "By the Grandmaster's command, to gift the heir, ten thousand taels of gold."