Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

“The system lost half of its energy just by absorbing the cave! It’s so hard to maintain spatial stability…” The system spirit floated out of the void and pouted at Gu Xiqiao.

Gu Xiqiao: “…”

Xixi was in the middle of spewing fire, and it turned over immediately in Gu Xiqiao’s direction when she dropped onto the ground, so it didn’t have time to stop the flames.

“Careful!” Yin Shaoyuan shouted, knowing that Xixi’s flames were very strong, and with that pillar of flame shooting towards Gu Xiqiao who seemed to be unguarded, he truly had a great shock.

As soon as he shouted out, the girl in question only flicked her finger, and the dragon-like flame pillar disappeared.

Yin Shaoyuan: “…”

He looked around at everyone else’s calm expressions, and for a moment, he thought that he was the one that was abnormal here.

“Didn’t you say that you weren’t coming?” Yin Shaoyuan asked as if to cover up his embarrassment.

“Well, I’m here now aren’t I?” Gu Xiqiao waved everyone off to their own devices, before walking over to them. “You told me something happened, yesterday. What was it?”

“Many riots have happened in this city recently, and yesterday I led some people to help when one such riot happened in the slums.” Yao Jiamu’s expression became serious as he explained what happened, “There were less than ten people there, but they were very much stronger than a regular person. What’s most confusing, or worrying, should I say, is that these people were all regular people before the riots happened…”

It was because of this abnormality that he was quite anxious at the moment. These people in the arena were handpicked by him and taught by Gu Xiqiao, so for those rioters to be able to match them in battle was quite worrying.

Gu Xiqiao squinted slightly, before saying, “You said that there were many of these incidents in the Imperial Capital?”

Yao Jiamu sighed and nodded. “There are already three that I know of, and the victims were all innocent civilians.”

“Alright, I understand.” Gu Xiqiao nodded and smiled. “Split everyone in the arena into groups of ten and pick out a leader from each of these teams, and have them go on patrols to protect the civilians from getting harmed by these riots!”

Upon hearing this, Yin Shaoyuan’s eyes brightened at the prospect of being able to fight. “Qiao Qiao, can I go?”

Gu Xiqiao glanced over at him and shook her head. “No, you have something more important matters to attend to.”

Upon hearing this, Yin Shaoyuan was both disappointed and curious as to what Gu Xiqiao wanted him to do.

“That being said, they’re not strong enough…” Gu Xiqiao rubbed her chin, before snapping her fingers and ordering Yao Jiamu, “Go get a pot of water for me.”

Yao Jiamu immediately had someone bring over a pot of water, and Gu Xiqiao sent a few gray pills into it, the pills dissolving as soon as they hit the water.

Upon seeing this, Yao Jiamu knew what she was planning and dispatched someone to get a hundred bowls, before distributing the medical water evenly.

“Huh, I don’t have much time.” Gu Xiqiao looked at the time, before snapping her fingers again.

The hundred people on the training arena all felt themselves being pushed aside by a gentle force, and before they could react, a strong aura spread out in the area and it dimmed, as something was blocking the sunlight.

The next second, a thunderous bang rumbled in the arena, and after the dust settled, there stood a cave at the southern side of the arena, taking up over half of the space.

Where did this come from?!

Everyone looked around to find that Gu Xiqiao had disappeared, but it was clear that this was her doing.

Yao Jiamu seemed to have already become used to this, and he was the first that reacted. “… Aaand she’s gone.”

What was this cave even for? Yao Jiamu heaved an anguished sigh, before taking charge of the situation again.

“Young Master Yao! Is… Is this magic?” Someone asked dumbly.

Yao Jiamu walked over to him and pat his shoulder, before looking at everyone else. “If you are willing to work hard, everything is possible! Now, go get yourselves a bowl of water each!”

Lu Qi stood there, still stunned by the scene from earlier. When could she be able to do something like that?

***

Gu Xiqiao arrived at the studio at two o’clock on the dot.

She glanced at Song Guanjing and Du Yixin that were in the middle of their first take before walking straight into the makeup room, and Sister Yu immediately got her into costume and helped on her makeup. Gu Xiqiao’s face didn’t need much touching up in the first place because of her supple skin and good shape, so she finally decided on just tapping on foundation and doing some contouring to make her features stand out more under a camera.

Hence, Gu Xiqiao was already done in a short twenty minutes.

Outside, Song Guanjing had already finished her shoot, and Sheng Yin immediately came up to her. “Sister Song.”

They were all in the same industry, but Song Guanjing didn’t feel anything towards Sheng Yin in general so she only smiled cordially. “I’m looking forward to the scene we’ll be taking later.”

“It’s an honor!” Sheng Yin seemed to be quite excited at the prospect of acting together with Song Guanjing whose popularity had become on par with Li Yu after the incident. “But I think our scene might have to be postponed…”

“Postponed?” Song Guanjing raised her eyebrows in question.

Sheng Yin pursed her lips slightly, before looking towards the dressing room. “Miss Gu left the studio earlier and only came back now to get made up…”

In the industry, even the most high-brow actors and actresses tended to come on set to get prepared early in the morning and only left at night after all their scenes for the day were completed, so as to not drag the progress of the shooting.

Upon hearing this, Song Guanjing only looked at her with an unreadable expression, not saying anything in response.

At that time, Gu Xiqiao had already come out of the dressing room in a light green classical dress, with bamboo motifs embroidered at the hem of the dress. In her hand, she held a white, folded fan, and she was quite expressionless at the moment, which made her seem especially tired.

“Didn’t you have any rest?” Song Guanjing walked towards her with a concerned expression. “If you need some time, I can go tell Director Cheng.”

Upon hearing this, Sister Yu walked out of the dressing room too. “Yeah, she even closed her eyes and fell asleep when I did her makeup earlier.”

It wasn’t rare in the least for actors to be tired in the entertainment industry—In fact, it was even a common sight to see actors falling asleep in the middle of reciting their lines, but when it came to Gu Xiqiao, everyone seemed to be particularly lenient, and even Cheng Zhou asked if she needed some rest.

“It’s alright.” Gu Xiqiao waved the fan in her hand and smiled. “Let’s go.”

She was only tired because she expended too much mental power.

As they walked past Sheng Yin without even acknowledging her, Sheng Yin was so embarrassed that she wanted to bury a hole and hide, especially upon seeing Song Guanjing’s expression.

She hadn’t expected Song Guanjing to be acquainted with Gu Xiqiao, and from the looks of it, they seemed quite close too. Sheng Yin knew that Song Guanjing was as straightforward as a stick and didn’t fake her emotions at all, and she told Song Guanjing that Gu Xiqiao was acting high and mighty right to her face!

“Miss Sheng?” Sheng Yin’s assistant asked carefully.

Sheng Yin’s expression was thunderous, but she responded. “What is it!”

“Uhm.” The assistant took out her phone. “Miss Fu called you when you were shooting, earlier.”

“Miss Fu?” Sheng Yin’s expression brightened considerably, and after making sure that it was Fu Xuejun’s number, she immediately scurried out with her phone in hand.

Cheng Zhou checked on the wires again to make sure that there was no problem, before helping her put it on.

Song Guanjing stood at a side together with Du Yixin. “I only have one scene together with her, aren’t I the tritagonist? Why do I only have one scene with her…” Song Guanjing continued to mutter in a regretful tone.

“Guanjing, are you unsatisfied with me?” Du Yixin squinted at Song Guanjing at this statement, because most of their scenes were with each other.

“No, it’s just that I’ll always have new realizations when I act with her.” Song Guanjing sighed. “Director Cheng was right, she really was born for acting. I think the only one that can allow her to unleash her true acting prowess is Li Yu, though.”

He hadn’t expected Song Guanjing to say this, and so she glanced over towards Gu Xiqiao again, his hands clenching unconsciously. He knew better than anyone that when he acted with Song Guanjing, the latter always had to suppress her skills.

“Speaking of which, did you learn anything when you acted with her?” Song Guanjing asked.

Du Yixin shook his head. “She always takes the lead when we’re in the same scenes, and she either discusses with Director Cheng or the crew or just sits there with her phone, so.”

In other words, the two of them didn’t have any conversation at all outside of their lines and roles.

“By the way, are you close with Sheng Yin?” Song Guanjing asked curiously.

“We’re acquaintances, I guess.” Du Yixin replied nonchalantly. “She’s my junior in the company, but I’m not really all that close with her. Why?”

Song Guanjing: “…” She can see that!

Gu Xiqiao’s scenes were more or less all accepted in one take, and since Song Guanjing didn’t have a lot of scenes, she took a chair and sat down to watch Gu Xiqiao act out her scenes after she was finished.

“Sister Guanjing, when are you going to go back home? It hasn’t been safe around the city, lately.” After finishing her shoot, Gu Xiqiao took a cup of warm milk tea that a crew member bought her and sat next to Song Guanjing, staring at her.

Song Guanjing couldn’t help but rub her face self-consciously. There was nothing strange on it, right? “I’m going to go home soon.”

Gu Xiqiao nonchalantly retracted her gaze, taking out a post-it note and setting her cup of milk tea on the table, before starting to fold it, her hands attracting the attention of the ones that passed by.

These were a pair of good looking hands with lithe and pale fingers that were trimmed nicely, and under the shine of the studio lights, she folded the post-it note that was the size of a palm into a talisman the size of a penny.

After she did, she handed it to Song Guanjing.

“This is for me?” Song Guanjing accepted the folded post-it note before keeping it well upon seeing Gu Xiqiao nod. At that moment, her manager walked over. “Guanjing, the company is looking for you.”

Song Guanjing nodded, before looking back at Gu Xiqiao. “That’s my cue to leave, then.”

Gu Xiqiao stood up and sent her away with her gaze, and only after the figure disappeared did she sit back down and take out her phone, seeing the 99 messages from Zhu Yuan.

Even though she knew that she couldn’t get mad at Zhu Yuan for what Rong Feishuang did, but she couldn’t resist.

Now that a few days had passed, she became much calmer and tapped open Zhu Yuan’s WeChat…

Zhu Yuan: ‘This is a matter of life and death, Beauty Gu! You can’t ignore me like this!’

Zhu Yuan had almost been driven crazy by his master in the past few days, the man carrying around a pot of wine and not caring about anything but getting drunk. Rong Feishuang still had a few patients in the Imperial Capital, and so Zhu Yuan had to take over their treatment while he was out of commission like this.

One of said patients was a national leader that had a very obscure disease that couldn’t even be detected with any of his machines or apparatus, so he couldn’t even think of a way to treat it. Rong Feishuang and Gu Xiqiao were probably two of the only people in the ancient martial arts world that could tell what was wrong, but the former wasn’t in a good state of being while the latter didn’t was too busy ignoring him!

Gu Xiqiao had always been a little unreliable, but never when it came to matters that involved the wellbeing and health of others.

Therefore, Zhu Yuan guessed that something went wrong when she met Rong Feishuang.

He had thought that she wouldn’t reply this time too, but the next second, his phone vibrated.

For A Millennium: ‘I understand.’

Zhu Yuan was so elated he almost cried.

***

Meanwhile, Song Guanjing was in the car together with her manager, with the manager driving while she sat in the front passenger seat.

All of a sudden, the brakes screeched.

“What happened?” Song Guanjing woke up blearily, and upon looking out the window, she saw a dozen people surrounding the car with metal bats in their hands, the metal glinting coldly under the street lights.

Bang! The baseball bat swung down, and the front of the car crumpled, and the car door was ripped away from its hinges.

Song Guanjing and her manager were dragged onto the ground, and Song Guanjing closed her eyes in fear as someone swung the metal bat towards their heads.

There was a muted thunk, but not the pain that she thought that she would have felt, and Song Guanjing opened her eyes slightly to see the person that was about to swing the bat onto them sitting on the ground as if he were repelled by a strong force, his body charred as if he were struck by lightning.

A minute later, a car rushed onto the scene. Taking the lead was a woman who ordered the nine people behind her to beat the perpetrators up, before tying them up with rope.

The criminals that seemed to have supernatural strength and power were all beaten up as easily as helpless chicks.

“Just leave them at the entrance of the police station, as Miss Gu told us to.” After tying them up, the woman waved for them to be hoisted onto the car before looking back at Song Guanjing.

Song Guanjing immediately asked, “Who are you people?”

The woman hummed, before replying, “Please call us the Peace Squad!”

“The Peace Squad…” Song Guanjing muttered, before looking back up and seeing the cars drive away.

Meanwhile, the manager was still laying on the ground weakly. “G-Guanjing, what happened…?”

His voice was trembling as he asked, and even though he already knew that some such incidents had been happening recently, he hadn’t expected it to happen to himself—He thought he was going to die!

Song Guanjing suddenly remembered something and reached towards her pocket where she placed the talisman that Gu Xiqiao gave her, and all she could feel was a bunch of ash.

***

At the same time, in the ancient martial arts world.

“Why did you come back?” The elders of the Tang Family, and Jiang Family, and the Murong Family sat together at a table and were worrying over something when the law enforcement team that they sent out came back, and they all frowned. This team was created according to the orders of Jiang Shuxuan’s subordinates in an attempt to keep things in order, but why did they come back so quickly?

The leader of the team looked as if he was going to cry. “We couldn’t humiliate ourselves anymore!”

There were many rioters lately, and every time their team got wind of something happening, the perpetrators had been defeated and sent to the police station before they could even get there, apparently by a team called the Peace Squad.

They had thought that it was just a team made by civilians, so they lowered their guard towards the riots in the city, but when they actually met them they were all beaten easily by their monstrous strength and their usage of a strange, black chi!

After that, it was the Peace Squad that saved them, and the ‘civilian team’ that they looked down on earlier were all stronger than them!

“Elder, even the weakest one among of them could beat me, and they have many such squads patrolling the city! What would they need us for?” The leader of the team sat down on the floor, not willing to embarrass themselves any further.

The other elders all looked at each other with astonished expressions.

The team leader was at the Chi Induction stage, but he was considered to be higher than average in the ancient martial arts world, where the majority were only at the Beginner stage.

If even their weakest could beat him, it meant that all of these squads had members at the Chi Induction stage at the minimum? Almost more than a hundred of them? Such power could even be compared with the three great families!