Ancient Times in Progress (Daily Life)

Time flowed through his fingers. In the blink of an eye, a thousand years had slipped by since Gu Yue transmigrated to the Douluo Continent.

Within the space, the lush crown of the Ancient Tree of Life swayed without a breeze, and rich vitality fell like rain from its branches and leaves.

Behind the ancient tree, manuscripts and books were piled thick and high, all the work of the four members of Star Dou Publishing House over the past thousand years.

Gu Yue sat cross-legged in meditation, his silver hair hanging loosely down his back.

Over the thousand years, he had fallen from Half-Step God King to below God Level, and had now returned to God Level.

But that was as far as he had come. The injuries inflicted by the Asura God were still difficult to heal. Most importantly, the Goddess of Life recovered too little divine power each time, so he could only take things slowly.

"Injuries inflicted by a God King really can't be healed in a short time."

Gu Yue examined the injuries inside his body. His expression was calm, without a trace of impatience.

In the original story, Di Tian had taken a full thousand years of recuperation to recover after being wounded by the Evil Eye Tyrant's Light of Time and Space.

For him to have stabilized his injuries and returned to God Level in a thousand years was already a great stroke of luck.

As for returning to his peak as a Half-Step God King, Gu Yue knew perfectly well it was only a matter of time. He could afford to wait.

Although a thousand years had passed in the lower realm, only a mere two or three years had gone by in the Divine Realm.

His central goal had never wavered: without changing the course of the later story, he would develop the Soul Beasts' hard power to the greatest possible extent and suppress humanity on every front.

He had no intention of revealing himself prematurely before the era of The Legend of the Dragon King, when the Divine Realm would be swept away by the turbulent currents of time and space. He only needed to keep a steady hand on things from behind the scenes.

In his long-term plan, even Tang San's ascension to godhood was a necessary step.

Sending such a piece of trash of an Asura God up to the Divine Realm would not only weaken the humans on the Douluo Continent, but also diminish the Divine Realm's fighting strength and help shoulder the pressure it placed on him. Why wouldn't he do it?

Once the Divine Realm was swept away by the turbulent currents of time and space, he could stop eating beef.

Just as he was pondering...

"Master, I really can't make sense of the conversion between this function and the flow of elements..."

Beside the desk, the hem of a sky-blue dress swayed gently.

Ah Yin held a thick stack of books in her arms. Her gentle, pretty face was full of bewilderment, and her whole grass brain was nearly smoking.

She flipped through other books as she tried to work it out, only to study herself to the brink of a mental breakdown.

"It's too hard, especially this intersection of curves... I feel like my grass blades are about to wither..."

Seeing Ah Yin so utterly confused, Gu Yue couldn't help laughing.

Over the past thousand years, the humans outside had been in a truly miserable state, still living in small tribes, and there was little else for them to do in this enclosed space.

As the four leading members of Star Dou Publishing House, he, Xiao Lu, Ah Yin, and Little Gu Yuena in the Sea of Consciousness could only stay cooped up here, using the first edition of the Blue Star materials Gu Yue had compiled to work out various adapted textbooks for the Douluo Continent.

Introductory books on the sciences and humanities, along with tales such as Luo Breaks the Firmament and No Love for the Earth Venerable, were all stacked into mountains.

In particular, when it came to ideological development, Gu Yue placed special emphasis on the mandatory subject of fighting love-brained thinking.

"Haji Yin, you're one of the three students under my tutelage, an editor at Star Dou Publishing House, and the most learned and wisest grass in the whole village. Don't give up so easily. You have to lead by example, duck!"

Ah Yin was deeply moved. Her master valued her so highly! Though her whole grass self had been worked until she was dizzy and muddleheaded, she still straightened her slender waist and declared:

"Rest assured, Master. In life, Ah Yin is your grass, and in death, she'll still be your grass. I'll work twice as hard."

With two enormous dark circles under her eyes, the Goddess of Life listened to Gu Yue gaslight Ah Yin and spoke as though she had nothing left to live for:

"Ah Yin and I make two, don't we? Where did the third one come from?"

Gu Yue smiled at her. "Xiao Lu, you ask too many questions. You already have a way to death."

The moment he finished speaking, Gu Yue shot both hands out toward her slender waist.

"Don't, stop... Hahahaha! Don't tickle... Haha..."

The Goddess of Life shrank back and waved her hands to fend off Gu Yue's arms.

After spending a full thousand years together day and night, the two had long since shed the initial hostility of kidnapper and captive.

Gu Yue had loosened the restrictions inside her to the level of a Limit Douluo and hadn't mistreated her in the slightest. Instead, they spent their days bickering and playing around.

After all, if they stayed here all the time, even if they didn't get bored, Gu Yue himself would.

Now the group got along exceptionally well, with even a touch of peculiar warmth.

The Goddess of Life rubbed her aching waist and shot him a reproachful glare, grumbling inwardly, This inherently evil young dragon forces me to work overtime every day. Otherwise, life here would really be quite pleasant and comfortable.

Speaking of which, she couldn't help recalling how, back in the Divine Dragon Realm, Xiao Zi had kept such a close eye on her that he wouldn't allow ordinary male beings anywhere near her.

Besides, back then they had spent almost all their time in secluded cultivation, with little entertainment. Their days had been so dull she could see straight to the end of them.

This young dragon, on the other hand, always had a head full of strange ideas and had even put together quite a few entertaining tales in his spare time.

One of them was called Oxygen-Inhaling Goat and Soul Wolfy, and it featured beings called Boiling Yang Goat and Enchanting Itchy Goat.

Now the Goddess of Life quietly recalled how Xiao Zi had behaved back then. Apart from cultivating, he had spent all day circling around her and showering her with attention, acting as though he faced a great enemy whenever another male came half a step closer. The more she thought about it, the more fitting it seemed.

Her elder brother Xiao Zi really had acted a bit like Boiling Yang Goat in the past.

Poor Lao Zi probably couldn't have imagined even in his dreams that Lao Lu had inexplicably labeled him Boiling Yang Goat in her heart.

After breaking free, the Goddess of Life couldn't help letting out a dainty huff and retorting irritably:

"What can you do besides bully me? The current co-ruler of the beast race spends all day either making me work overtime or tickling people. Aren't you being childish?"

Seeing her challenge and provoke him, Gu Yue stretched out a fair, slender index finger and lifted her chin. His purple eyes narrowed, and he gave a cold laugh in a deliberately deep voice.

"Woman, you're playing with fire. You've succeeded in attracting my attention."

"Pfft..."

Looking at the silver-haired young dragon in front of her, who didn't even come up to her chest, the Goddess of Life was both annoyed and amused. She slapped his hand away.

"What kind of nonsense fills that little head of yours all day?"

Before Gu Yue could indulge his acting any further, Little Gu Yuena spoke excitedly from the Sea of Consciousness.

"Daddy, I know this one. That's a line from chapter seven of volume three of 'The Overbearing Dragon King Fell in Love with Me,' right?"

The little one bobbed her head and even recited the next famous line with perfect enunciation:

"The weather's turning cold. It's time to bankrupt the Divine Realm."

Hearing Little Gu Yuena eagerly jump in with the answer, Gu Yue didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

He didn't know whether it was because dragons naturally took a long time to develop or because Little Gu Yuena had spent so much time asleep. As one of the members of Star Dou Publishing House, the little one rarely worked and spent almost all her time sleeping soundly. Even after a thousand years, her mind was still that of a child.

There was nothing Gu Yue could do about it, so he treated it as Little Gu Yuena being responsible for nursing the Silver Dragon King's body back to health, while he was responsible for the beast race's future.

Picking up on the little one's words, he immediately showed off to the Goddess of Life.

"Do you understand what it means to build spiritual civilization? Didn't Ah Yin tell you about the cultivation system of later generations? When Soul Beasts undergo Soul Beast Transformation and go to the human world in the future, what if they don't understand these tropes and get fooled by humans' sweet talk?"

The Goddess of Life had been curious about the future too, and had repeatedly tried to coax information out of Ah Yin, even at the risk of being suppressed by Gu Yue.

But although Ah Yin was a silly blade of grass, she hadn't breathed a word about how Gu Yue had brought her back. She, Ah Yin, was loyal to her master, orange to the core!

In truth... she herself didn't know the reason. Having failed to get even the slightest answer, the Goddess of Life eventually gave up.

Beside them, Ah Yin blinked her big eyes, as innocent and foolish as a college student's. Though she hadn't quite understood, she still nodded repeatedly in admiration, feeling that her master truly was farsighted.

"That's right, that's right! Daddy's right."

Little Gu Yuena seized the moment in the Sea of Consciousness, her tender little face full of pride.

"And your tales inspired me. The great work I wrote myself is finally finished too!"

The little one stuck out her little chest, and the words "praise me" were written all over her adorable face.

Gu Yue entered the Sea of Consciousness, stroked her little head, and smiled as he asked what great work she had come up with.

Little Gu Yuena condensed a panel of light in the center of the Sea of Consciousness.

Gu Yue looked closely-"General Principles of the Way to Death."

"First: Never let someone you cannot trust completely know the full extent of your true strength."

"Second: Once you have determined that an opponent is an enemy, show no mercy as long as they have a way to death. Otherwise, you'll only bring trouble upon yourself."

"Third: Never try to play the pig to eat the tiger, or you may easily turn into a pig for real."

"Fourth: No member of the beast race should lightly stir up trouble, but any who take the initiative to invade may be struck down with the force of thunder."

"Fifth: If Mount Tai collapses before you, your expression must not change; if the Yellow River bursts over your head, your face must show no alarm. A true beast-race Grandmaster keeps a cool head at all times."

The little one raised her exquisitely carved little face and waited smugly for praise.

Gu Yue stared, dumbfounded. Looking at her as she sought credit, he asked, "This? How did you come up with it?"

Little Gu Yuena said proudly, "I distilled it from the way to death you're always talking about, Daddy."

Gu Yue couldn't help wondering whether she really possessed world-shocking wisdom. He smiled and said earnestly, "An excellent summary. Don't summarize anything next time."

"Hmph! Daddy's the worst. Nana obviously did a super good job." The little one puffed out her cheeks in anger and snorted haughtily.

Gu Yue felt helpless. For some reason, he found this Little Gu Yuena, who spent all day sleeping soundly, rather cute.

He withdrew from the Sea of Consciousness and saw the Goddess of Life sitting upright, her expression unusually serious.

At first, when Gu Yue had brought out one strange set of materials after another and asked her to work out adaptations, the Goddess of Life had found it nothing but dull and tedious.

But as she worked through them and read day after day, looking at the ocean of study materials before her, an unprecedented sense of pride quietly rose in her heart.

She tried studying them in depth and was surprised to discover that many of the theories in them really did make some sense.

Inside this space, she could neither cultivate nor leave, and could only spend her days buried in working things out and writing books.

After a long time, she had even developed a measure of genuine admiration for the young dragon before her.

A young dragon who had been born only a thousand years ago could conceive of such a vast and intricate system. Without her noticing, her impression of Gu Yue had quietly changed.

Even the Dragon God, ruler of the Divine Dragon Realm, had possessed no such wisdom. For countless ages, he had relied entirely on his overwhelming strength to beat everything into submission.

Over the years, she had instead occasionally immersed herself in the pleasure of compiling books.

Besides helping with the adaptations, she wrote down everything she had seen and heard of in the Divine Realm, as well as the strange stories she imagined in her daily life.

As editor-in-chief, Gu Yue was always picky when reading through them. He threw out anything hollow and padded, and crossed out everything detached from reality.

Then Gu Yue opened a thin booklet, and his brows immediately drew together.

The Goddess of Life leaned closer, her eyes lighting up and her face full of anticipation. "I put a great deal of thought into this one. The feelings run deep and true; it's quite moving."

Gu Yue slowly read out the introduction at the beginning.

"The tribal saintess was won over by a bowl of hot porridge. In pursuit of love, she secretly revealed the entire defensive layout to the young master of her people's mortal enemies. Even when the enemy razed her home and her people were almost all killed or wounded, the two still embraced tenderly before the raging flames, for this mutual dash toward love that broke through worldly prejudice..."

Gu Yue didn't read the rest. His temples throbbed, and he burned the book to ashes on the spot.

"Ah! What have you done? The work I poured my heart into!!"