"Come take a look, don't miss out, fresh chicken leg rice wraps here!"
"Volcanic stone grilled sausages, 2 yuan each."
"Takoyaki, classmate, come check it out!"
"Senior's original-flavor stockings, tasty and eye-catching—"
"Spicy skewers, spicy skewers~ only 1 yuan per stick~"
Various stalls lined the school pathway, transforming the entire walkway into a bustling food street. With the constant flow of visitors, it almost felt like a tourist attraction.
"Every year around this time, it gets so crowded… Yuyou… Yuyou?" Tang Keke turned her head, only to find Bai Yuyou already standing in front of a barbecue stall. In no time, the girl was holding a massive grilled squid skewer, bigger than her own palm.
Tang Keke watched as Bai Yuyou nibbled on the squid in small bites and couldn’t help but ask, "Yuyou, didn’t we just have breakfast not too long ago?"
Bai Yuyou’s cheeks puffed up as she chewed expressionlessly, mumbling incoherently, "Mmm… mmm…"
"Finish eating first before talking."
"Stomach… hungry."
"Alright, let’s buy some snacks then." Tang Keke was already used to Bai Yuyou’s appetite, though she couldn’t help but envy the girl’s figure—unlike her own, which the boys in class often teased as being "childbearing-ready."
At that moment, Bai Yuyou suddenly noticed an elderly woman selling candied hawthorns in a corner. The woman, dressed in floral-patterned clothes, sat on a small stool, her half-lidded, cloudy eyes watching the passing students.
"What’s wrong?" Tang Keke noticed Bai Yuyou staring at the corner.
"Elderly… no stall."
"Oh, that kind? Actually, our school doesn’t allow unlicensed vendors to set up stalls here," Tang Keke explained. "But these elderly folks don’t know the rules—they just go where the crowds are. The school usually turns a blind eye since they’re so old."
Bai Yuyou nodded softly and walked over to the old woman.
Seeing a customer at last, the woman’s eyes crinkled with a smile as she pointed to the candied hawthorns beside her. "Young lady, want some? 3 yuan per stick. I made them fresh today… very tasty. Try one."
"Mm." Bai Yuyou nodded and pulled out her phone to scan the payment code.
The old woman suddenly looked flustered, rubbing her calloused hands together. "Do you have cash? This old granny doesn’t know how to use phones…"
She then pulled out her own phone—an ancient button model from over a decade ago, its edges yellowed and held together with yellowed tape.
Bai Yuyou watched silently. Ye Shuang had once told her that many elderly people, left behind by technology, could only survive in their own ways, slowly fading from society’s currents.
"……" Bai Yuyou patted her pockets and finally pulled out a Pikachu wallet.
She took out a red bill and handed it over. "I’ll… take them all."
"All of them?" The old woman was stunned, wondering if she’d misheard.
"Mm."
But the woman hesitated. "Young lady, can you finish all of them?"
Bai Yuyou nodded. "Can…"
"Alright… just give me fifty, no need for a hundred." The woman had over twenty sticks, totaling more than sixty yuan, but she insisted on giving Bai Yuyou fifty in change.
After packing the candied hawthorns for the girl, the old woman hunched over and happily walked away. With this money, she could make more in the afternoon and finally buy her grandson the toy he’d been wanting.
"Yuyou, you’re really kind. I never understood why anyone would ever bully you," Tang Keke sighed.
"Ye Shuang said… helping others is good, even if it’s just a small thing…" Bai Yuyou didn’t elaborate, holding the bag of candied hawthorns as if planning to devour them all herself.
Tang Keke blinked. "You’re not seriously planning to eat all of them alone, are you?"
The girl thought for a moment, then opened the bag toward Tang Keke. "Keke… want some?"
"I still want to save room for other snacks, and who eats candied hawthorns by the handful?" Tang Keke wasn’t hungry after Ye Shuang’s pan-fried dumplings earlier. Then, as if struck by inspiration, she suddenly said, "Yuyou, come with me."
She pulled Bai Yuyou toward the less crowded end of the food street.
They stopped in front of a lemon tea stall.
"Senior Zhixia!" Tang Keke called out.
A voice soon answered from inside the stall. "You guys came!"
Zhixia and Linlin, both wearing aprons, had rented a stall to sell hand-shaken lemon tea—a great way to raise club funds before their performance later.
"Wow, so many candied hawthorns! Are you setting up a stall?" Zhixia noticed the bag in Bai Yuyou’s hands.
Tang Keke explained what had happened earlier. Linlin suggested, "In that case, why not sell them here? There’s no way you can finish all of them."
"Exactly what I was thinking!" Tang Keke grinned. "How about giving a free candied hawthorn with every lemon tea?"
"Here, Yuyou."
Bai Yuyou seemed reluctant to part with her treats, her eyes fixed on the bag as it was taken away—until Tang Keke noticed and handed her three sticks back. Only then did the girl brighten up.
"Such a foodie," Tang Keke teased. "If I hadn’t brought you here, would you really have polished off all of them?"
Bai Yuyou nodded.
"Uh…"
Meanwhile, Zhixia arranged the remaining candied hawthorns neatly and wrote "Free candied hawthorn with purchase" on a small blackboard. She then asked, "By the way, where’s Teacher Ye?"
"Brother’s at home writing novels for his side job."
"That’s tough. Is he short on money?" Zhixia was surprised Ye Shuang had a side gig.
Tang Keke thought for a moment. "Dunno. He doesn’t seem that poor—he drives a sports car, after all."
Bai Yuyou added, "Ye Shuang’s car… was a gift from Sister Chen Qin."
"Oh right, that big sister gave it to him…" Tang Keke suddenly remembered.
"Should we ask Teacher Ye to come help? We could share the stall’s profits with him."
"Wouldn’t that be awkward? I heard men have pride about these things."
"Then how do we help him?"
The three girls huddled together, deep in thought, while Bai Yuyou stood to the side, tilting her head in confusion.
Crunch. She bit into a candied hawthorn, savoring the crispy sugar coating in small, deliberate bites.
pression Bureau] Transported to a fantasy world overrun by demons and monsters, Gu Qingfeng becomes a jailer in the Demon Suppression Prison of the Great Yan Dynasty's Demon Suppression Bureau. From this point on, bizarre cases frequently occur in the Demon Suppression Prison, once known as hell on earth and infamous for its gloomy, terrifying atmosphere! Why do the demons and monsters in the prison wail miserably every night? Why has the corpse demon, capable of transforming into various beauties, donned black stockings and switched careers to become a foot massage therapist? Why has the eye demon, expert in soul-snatching and illusions, turned into a VR headset? Why is the fox spirit performing otaku dances? Are all these occurrences a twisted expression of demonic nature, or a descent into moral depravity? After peeling away layer upon layer of mystery, all clues ultimately point to a jailer named Gu Qingfeng. Gu Qingfeng: "Hehehe... My dear demons and monsters, whose card shall we flip today?"
close your eyes and open them again, only to find yourself transmigrated into the role of a villainous male supporting character. Readers familiar with urban wish-fulfillment novels know that it is only through the relentless antics of the villainous male supporting character that the plot between the male and female leads can progress. As the villainous male supporting character, Long Aotian not only has to bully the female lead, harass the second female lead, and flirt with the third female lead, but he also has to go all out to antagonize the male lead. In the end, when his body is discovered, he is still clutching half a moldy fried dough stick in his hand. Fully aware of the plot, Long Aotian is determined to change his fate, starting with the female lead! In the beginning, the female lead lacks confidence: "Big brother, I hope I didn't scare you?" In the middle, the female lead treads carefully: "Brother Long, please don't hit me, okay?" Later on, the female lead becomes coquettishly clingy: "Aotian, it's time to pay the 'public grain' tonight." Long Aotian's legs go weak, and he feels like crying: "I taught you to be thick-skinned, not shameless!"
tions: attribute allocation, analysis, proficiency, and simulation. Specializing in mechanical alchemy, from crafting sorcerous battle armor to handcrafting mechanical maidens, his mechanical legion conquers endless realms... Relying on his wits, he begins with a student-teacher romance, wins over a female director, enslaves a female assassin and a underworld queen, becoming the husband of a Grand Duchess... He enslaves the Goddess of Magic from the divine realm, developing his power simultaneously in both the Wizard World and the Realm of Gods...
transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”
