After playing the piano for a while to soothe his mood, Ye Shuang stood up and walked to his computer, ready to begin his daily writing session.
"Recent results have been pretty good—seems like more readers are tuning in," Ye Shuang mused after finishing his writing and skimming through the latest comments. He closed the author dashboard, though most readers just closed the page after reading. "If only they could help recommend my book when they’re looking for something to read..."
"Ah, even some free gifts to boost engagement would be nice," Ye Shuang stretched and figured it was about time to head to school.
Just then, his phone rang again.
Glancing at the screen, he saw it was another local number.
Zhao Mengyao had just been chewed out by him, and given her personality, she probably wouldn’t call back so soon. Answering the call, it turned out to be the phone shop owner, informing him that the battery for the button phone had arrived and could be replaced now.
"If that’s the case, I’ll skip school for now," Ye Shuang decided, still intrigued by what might be hidden in that phone.
Driving to the shop, the owner quickly replaced the battery.
Older phones had removable back covers, and the batteries could be swapped out in seconds.
Ye Shuang held down the power button, and soon the handshake logo appeared on the screen.
"It’s booting up—so it really was the battery," he muttered. After paying, he returned to his car.
Tapping through the phone, he searched for any valuable information. The inbox had a trash folder, and when he accidentally opened it, he found a single message lying inside:
[This isn’t your concern. Just follow the plan. The child’s family won’t notice. Remember—delete this message after reading.]
Ye Shuang: "..."
So, it wasn’t the Zhou family after all?
He sat in silence for a while, turning the small phone over in his hands before combing through its contents again—but found nothing else.
"Guess I’ll have to find a chance to question that trafficker. But they’d never admit it, and since they’re already serving time… snitching wouldn’t even get them a reduced sentence." After some thought, he tucked the phone away.
So why did Bai Yuyou disappear?
If she vanished, who stood to gain the most?
"Hmm…" Ye Shuang suddenly thought of Alice, but after a moment, he shook his head.
Headache.
Shifting gears, he drove toward Yinshan Academy.
Along the way, he spotted a familiar figure—a girl with shoulder-length hair holding a cup of milk tea, surrounded by several men who seemed to be talking to her.
The men’s outfits didn’t exactly scream "upstanding citizens," and Ye Shuang frowned before signaling and making a U-turn.
...
"You’re a student at Yinshan Academy, right? And you’ve got the latest Huawei flagship—how about lending us some cash, huh?"
"Bro, that’s the HuiFan Master Edition—over ten grand and still hard to get."
"Whoa."
Surrounded by these men, An Shiyu remained utterly unfazed. She sipped her milk tea with one hand while the other stayed tucked in her pocket.
Only when the cup made a [slurp~] sound—signaling it was empty—did she lazily speak up.
"Borrowing money? Sure."
"Hand me your phone," An Shiyu stretched out her hand.
The man blinked. I’m asking you for money, and you want my phone?
"How else am I supposed to lend you cash without your phone?" An Shiyu’s eyes, half-hidden under her straight bangs, carried a hint of disdain. "Large transfers require identity verification."
"Fine." The man handed over his phone, unconcerned about any tricks—after all, she was surrounded. It wasn’t like she could ninja-flip over a wall or swing away like Spider-Man.
After tapping on the phone for a bit, An Shiyu handed it back. "Scan your face."
"Okay."
"Done." She returned the phone. "Take a look."
The man took it back, then froze. "Fifteen thousand?!"
His throat bobbed as he stared at An Shiyu in disbelief. "This much?!"
"How much? Fifteen grand?!" The others crowded around, equally stunned.
An Shiyu gave a casual hum.
"That’s a 150,000-yuan loan I just got you from an online lending platform. Don’t mention it—spend it freely. My treat."
"Online loan?!"
The men snapped out of their daze, eyes bulging. "Holy shit, you took out a loan for me?!"
"Problem?" An Shiyu asked.
"You—do you even know how deadly those loans can be?!" The man slapped his thigh in agitation.
An Shiyu stayed calm. "Money’s money. What’s the difference between borrowing from me or a platform?"
"Borrowing from you doesn’t need to be paid back!" he yelled.
"Tch." An Shiyu clicked her tongue, looking at him like he was an idiot. "Then don’t pay back the platform’s either. Simple."
The men exchanged glances. Huh. That kinda made sense. They were lone wolves anyway—what could anyone do once the money was spent?
"I got you all that cash—how about tossing me a thousand for my trouble?" An Shiyu said.
"Sure thing!" The man, now holding 150,000 yuan, suddenly found a thousand insignificant. With a grand wave, he scanned her the money.
Beep.
"Hahaha! Dinner’s on me tonight, boys!"
"Woo!"
"Bye." An Shiyu waved lazily as the men left.
Just then, a car pulled up to the curb. An Shiyu tilted her head and spotted a familiar figure stepping out.
"Pervert Uncle? What are you doing here?" She raised an eyebrow, clearly not expecting Ye Shuang to show up.
Ye Shuang walked over, glancing at the retreating group before asking, "You okay?"
"About what?"
"I drove past and thought you were being harassed by some thugs." Seeing her relaxed demeanor, he chuckled. "Friends of yours?"
An Shiyu’s eyes turned into dots. "Friends… well, they were nice. Gave me a thousand bucks."
"Why would they give you money?"
"Who knows?" She shrugged. "Maybe they struck gold somewhere?"
"That so?" Ye Shuang couldn’t shake the feeling something was off.
"Come on, I’ll drive you to school."
"Nope."
"Huh? Why not?"
"I’ll go later. Got something super important to do first," An Shiyu said.
"Super important?"
"Need any help?" Ye Shuang asked.
An Shiyu thought for a second, then nodded. "Actually, yeah. Means you can buy an extra one."
"An extra… one?" Ye Shuang blinked.
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.”
ive and Ruthless] Before his transmigration, Ye Xuan was playing a game called "Severing Emotions to Attain the Dao." The game's core wasn't about leveling up by fighting monsters, but about conquering various "bad women" with wicked personalities and cold, fickle natures. There was only one method to conquer them: stay unwaveringly by their side, then die at a critical moment, driving them to madness after losing the protagonist. The higher their level of regret, the higher the player's score. To dominate the server, Ye Xuan conquered all the bad women. In the early stages, he showered them with boundless tenderness, only to choose to sacrifice himself for them later, making them weep bitterly and drown in regret. Among them were: Xia Lengyue, the unfaithful immortal wife who chased after powerful men and discarded her husband like trash. Ye Qingcheng, the Demonic Venerable of the Joyous Union Sect, who appeared pure and innocent but was, in reality, promiscuous. Wu Lingxiao, the Empress of the Great Xia Dynasty, who lusted after men and loved maintaining a harem. Bai Qiangu of the Endless Demonic Sect: a bloodthirsty mass murderer. However, when the protagonist transmigrated into the game world, he made a horrifying discovery. Eight hundred years had already passed. The bad women he had conquered had now each become deities and revered ancestors. Faced with the endless stream of toxic women coming for him, Ye Xuan could only rely on his god-tier acting skills to carve a path of survival through this world of treacherous women.
d intelligence to keep the plot moving, and sometimes even the protagonists are forced into absurdly dumb decisions. Why does the A-list celebrity heroine in urban romance novels ditch the top-tier movie star and become a lovestruck fool for a pockmarked male lead? Why do the leads in historical tragedy novels keep dancing between love and death, only for the blind healer to end up suffering the most? And Gu Wei never expected that after finally landing a villain role to stir up trouble, she’d pick the wrong gender! No choice now—she’ll just have to crush the protagonists as a girl!
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?"
