I Only Wanted to Lie Flat and Live as a Wealthy Man

North Spring Mountain lay six hundred li from the Great Gan Imperial Capital.

The mountain was exceptionally precipitous, with cliffs on three sides and only one road down, guarded by soldiers.

This had once been the mountain gate of the North Spring Sword Sect. Forty years ago, the sword sect had been destroyed, and this place had become a land of ruins.

"By His Majesty's verbal decree, North Spring Mountain shall be your residence from this day forth. You are not permitted to descend the mountain without an Imperial Decree. Defy this order... and be executed!"

A thin young man with a pale face coughed painfully several times. Enduring his discomfort, he bowed. "Gu Yuanqing accepts the decree."

"Young Master Gu, there is one more thing this servant must remind you of. Some matters are best left to rot in your belly. If word gets out, it will not be good for you, nor for those who know. That you have been allowed to keep your life is already His Majesty's mercy."

"I understand. Thank you, Eunuch Xu." Gu Yuanqing smiled bitterly. He was a concubine-born son and grandson of Prince Gu's Manor. His parents had died early, and he had lived under the main branch's roof. Lacking any talent for cultivation, he had originally planned to wait until he came of age and was granted a separate residence, receive some low-ranking noble title, and live freely as a wealthy man with the Gu Family at his back.

Who would have thought that on the day he opened his residence, Prince Gu's Heir Apparent would suddenly take an interest in attending the banquet? Along the way, he spotted a woman dining alone in a tavern. Her accent was unlike that of the Capital City, and her looks were rather delicate. On a whim, he secretly used some tricks to abduct her and conveniently gave her to Gu Yuanqing as a coming-of-age gift.

Midway through the banquet, Gu Yuanxuan eagerly dragged the drowsy, half-drunk Gu Yuanqing to the bed, only to suddenly discover that the woman had a Dragon Pendant hidden at her waist. She was of the Great Gan Imperial Family.

Realizing he had caused a catastrophe, he conceived a venomous scheme. He knocked Gu Yuanqing unconscious and fed the two of them Joyous Union Powder, Dragon Yang Pill, and Drunken Immortal Wine.

When these three drugs were used together, they would cause sudden death within two hours. As long as everyone who knew was killed, leaving no evidence behind, he could make it seem that Gu Yuanqing himself had been overcome by lust. Then it would have nothing to do with him, and he could escape unscathed.

He had thought his plan flawless, but how could such immature tricks deceive the Imperial Family?

Several days ago, Gu Yuanxuan had been stripped of his cultivation on some pretext and sent to the frontier. Before he had traveled three hundred li, bandits had ambushed and killed him.

His father, Prince Gu's Heir, had failed to teach his son properly. He was implicated and demoted, losing his position as heir.

Prince Gu's rank was reduced by one grade.

As for Gu Yuanqing, his survival had already been a stroke of immense fortune. How could he dare say more?

"It is good that Young Master Gu understands. North Spring Mountain was originally a Great Gan Forbidden Ground. No one will come up to disturb you. Supplies will be delivered every half month. If Young Master Gu has any requests, you may raise them. So long as they do not violate the Imperial Decree, everything can be discussed."

"This Gu offers his thanks!"

Eunuch Xu led the soldiers down the mountain, and in the blink of an eye, only three people remained atop the mountain.

Gu Yuanqing looked at the elderly male servant and the middle-aged female servant before him. "How should I address you two?"

The gaunt old man opened his mouth, revealing that his tongue had been cut off at the root. The middle-aged woman pointed to her ears, opened her mouth, and made no sound.

"They have certainly thought this through." Gu Yuanqing sighed softly and cupped his hands. "I shall have to trouble you both from now on."

The two servants hurriedly knelt.

Under the gaunt old man's guidance, Gu Yuanqing came to a small courtyard that was still intact. It had been cleaned rather thoroughly.

After dismissing the servants, Gu Yuanqing sat in a chair. Following another fit of coughing, he sighed helplessly. "If things go badly, I may have to spend the rest of my life here."

Resting at sunset, rising at dawn.

In the blink of an eye, ten days had passed. Gu Yuanqing's health had improved considerably. As he walked through the mountains, he saw a young eunuch of fifteen or sixteen leading soldiers carrying supplies. The two old servants were taking the burdens from the soldiers' shoulders, and he quickly walked over.

"Young Eunuch, please wait."

The eunuch at the front stopped and turned around without saying a word.

Gu Yuanqing cupped his hands in salute. "The next time you come up the mountain, could you bring some books? Biographies, storybooks, or writings from the various schools of thought—anything will do."

The young eunuch nodded, still without uttering a word, then turned and led his men down the mountain.

Gu Yuanqing opened his mouth to speak, but ultimately said nothing. In truth, he merely wanted someone to talk to, even if it was idle chatter. Ten days on the mountain had nearly driven him mad from suffocation.

Returning to his courtyard, Gu Yuanqing sat in his chair and recalled what had happened that night, only to realize that he could not even remember the other person's face clearly.

Even now, he did not know her name or exact identity. All he knew was that Dragon Pendant, the symbol of the Imperial Family.

Without realizing it, the sun had climbed to its zenith. In his daze, he heard a ding, and a line of words slowly unfolded in his mind.

"Detected that the host has remained in ownerless territory for ten days, satisfying the conditions for residence binding. Bind?"

Gu Yuanqing froze. At first, he thought it was an illusion, but after confirming the words in his mind again, joy and shock surged through him. Had his system, twenty years late, finally arrived?

Only after quite a while did he barely calm himself. He silently chose to bind. In an instant, light flowed through his mind. He felt as though his soul had left his body and drifted upward. Everything he saw grew larger and larger, until the entirety of North Spring Mountain gradually came clearly into view.

The next moment, his consciousness returned to his body. The phantom of North Spring Mountain appeared in his mind, with another line of words beside it.

Host: Gu Yuanqing

Title: None

Cultivation Talent: Mediocre and Untalented (Outstanding Among the Mediocre)

Sword Dao Talent: Mediocre and Untalented (One in a Hundred)

Comprehension: Outstanding Among the Mediocre (Exceptional)

Residence: North Spring Mountain (Mortal Mountain)

Residence Empowerment: Cultivation Talent +1, Sword Dao Talent +2, Comprehension +2. Gain one wisp of heaven and earth spiritual energy daily.

The corner of Gu Yuanqing's mouth twitched.

Mediocre and untalented? There seemed to be no lower evaluation than that. At least his comprehension was fairly normal.

No wonder he had been born into a prince's manor, lacked neither Cultivation Methods nor cultivation resources, yet after more than ten years of cultivation, he remained at the third level of the Small Heavenly Cycle Origin Scholar realm.

"Fortunately, I did not stubbornly cling to cultivation. Otherwise, these past twenty years would have been entirely wasted."

"Now I can give it a try. If the residence undergoes Spirit Imbuing, it can become a mountain gate. When that time comes, my cultivation talent will rise again. If I can achieve Grandmaster, what would the soldiers at the foot of North Spring Mountain have to fear?"

Hope rekindled in Gu Yuanqing's heart, and he smiled.

In his previous life, he had died suddenly from overwork under the 996 schedule. In this life, he had no talent for cultivation and had wanted to lie flat with the prince's manor at his back. But no matter what, he was unwilling to be imprisoned in these deep mountains, with his life and death left in another's hands!

He pondered the system information again, then could not resist sitting down cross-legged and circulating his heavenly cycle.

He immediately sensed the change. In the past, when he drove his Cultivation Method, the True Qi within his body moved with difficulty. After one cycle, he would be exhausted, and his True Qi would not increase in the slightest.

But now, his True Qi was light and nimble. The clogged feeling in his meridians had vanished. Compared to before, it was as different as heaven and the abyss.

The Cultivation Method Gu Yuanqing practiced was called the Profound Heaven Art, one of the Gu Family's five top-grade Foundation Establishment methods. It could temper thirty-six acupoints and form the Profound Heaven Formation, achieving True Martial.

Though he was concubine-born, he was still of Gu Family blood, and he barely qualified to learn the earlier portions of the method.

At a thought from him, a wisp of heaven and earth spiritual energy flowed from the North Spring Mountain Phantom and dispersed into his meridians. The True Qi within him rapidly grew, flowing through his organs and nourishing the body that had been damaged by the drugs several days ago.

Cough, cough, cough!

After a string of coughs, he spat out a mouthful of clotted blood. His body suddenly felt unblocked, much lighter than before.

He did not stop there. As Vital Energy propelled him onward, he felt the realm that had been stagnant for three years loosen. The Danzhong Acupoint in his chest flickered with faint light, echoing with the other six opened acupoints. His qi channels connected, merging into one.

"I've reached the fourth level of Origin Scholar just like that? Is this the difference talent makes? No wonder Great Gan's Princess Li Miaoxuan achieved True Martial at ten years old!"

Body Tempering, Origin Scholar, True Martial, Grandmaster—these were Great Gan's cultivation realms. Below Grandmaster, every major realm had nine levels.

When he was young, he had also cultivated with painstaking diligence, but gained little. The gap between him and those his age had only grown wider. If not for that, how could he, reborn into this world, have willingly given up cultivation and chosen to lie flat?

"But now, everything is different!"

He opened his eyes and sprang to his feet. He practiced a set of punches in the open space, then stood at the doorway, drenched in sweat, gazing at the distant horizon with incomparable exhilaration.

The new book begins! This time, I'm returning to the Xianxia genre...