Standing Next To You - Chapter 53: The Coward and Pathetic Him

Traversing to another world, Lin En is captured right from the start. The captor is the antagonist princess from the original work, intending to control him by using him for hypnosis experiments. In a critical moment, Lin En comes up with a quick-witted plan, feigning the success of the experiment and deceiving her with his acting skills. But this was only a temporary measure. Because in the original story, her ending is very tragic, and none of her associates meet good ends. Hence, Lin En must pretend to be under the hypnosis while secretly being ready to flee at any moment. But gradually things start to take an unexpected turn. ... The Princess’s Diary [The experiment was a success!] [As the sole specimen, I’ve decided to keep him by my side.] [Due to the curse mark on my face, I am loathed by the public, but he says I’m beautiful.] [I’m happy because people tell the truth when hypnotized.] [Alone with him, I impulsively kissed him.] [The feeling was strange and made me lose my composure, fortunately, he won’t retain any memory of it after the hypnosis is lifted.] [So, it’s okay to be a bit bolder, right?]

Meet Gu Yu—a college dropout and a talented incense maker, and at the same time, the rather stoic protagonist of this story. Despite his somewhat introverted manner, he has a tendency to make sarcastic remarks in his thoughts. One day, after saving a squirrel, a windfall (metaphorically and literally) dropped into his lap. Stumbling into the cultivation world with little help, he was not turned into Superman overnight (as he would like). Apparently, becoming a cultivator would not make your life easier, at least in the beginning.

Somewhere along the road, he ran into Jiang Xiaozhai, a young woman who’s got the brains, the beauty, and maybe one or two secrets of her own. As it turned out, the two made a perfect team—Mulder-and-Scully style. Motivated by many unanswered questions, they had been running up and down the country, getting into all kinds of trouble, and learning more of the modern cultivation world, which is by no means the same as in the ages long past…

- Description from Novelupdates

Su Changqing reincarnated into a fantasy world, directly starting with a heavenly advantage, being born into a Great Emperor family.His father is Su's contemporary family head at the quasi-emperor peak, his mother is the sword pavilion's legitimate daughter with Great Saint cultivation, and even a steward of the Su family is a Saint King.Born into such a powerful family, Su Changqing could easily reach the peak just by doing nothing.But his father, Su Nan, was afraid that his son would become a pompous and arrogant wastrel in such an environment, so he established a Truman World for Su Changqing!In a poor family, with no way to cultivate, Su Changqing struggled through hardships and finally joined a small sect.What he didn't know was that his enlightenment teacher was actually the contemporary Confucian Immortal.The taciturn elder teaching him Sword Techniques was actually the Sword Fool famous across the continent.The irritable elder who always blew up the alchemy furnace was known as the Pill Saint.To prevent Su Changqing from being arrogant due to his talents, many famous teachers were extremely harsh, and the Divine Techniques taught were very difficult to master.But soon, these teachers were all panicking.“Sword Fool master, the Nine Yang Sword is too simple, is there any other Divine Technique?”“Pill Saint master, don't leave, I've already mastered the Yin Yang Reversal Alchemy Technique, teach me something more powerful.”“Hey hey hey, Confucian master, don't run, I've finished reading the books you asked me to...”Looking at the retreating masters, Su Changqing sighed helplessly,“A small sect is really a small sect, unreliable...”

After annihilating Han, Zhao and Wei empires in succession, the dynasty of Qin is ushering in an unprecedented flourishing age with powerful cultivators emerging endlessly. People take pride in being part of the Qin dynasty. However, Ding Ning, a young lad of humble origin in Changling, Qin, is determined to subvert this dynasty and kill the emperor who breaks in the Eighth Realm.