The two went to watch the dolphin show next. For Bai Yuyou, who had never experienced anything like it before, she watched with rapt attention.
Ye Shuang, however, wasn’t visiting for the first time. Instead, he found himself more focused on Bai Yuyou’s reactions—as if trying to pluck a few strands of fur from the time she had lost.
After the dolphin show ended, Ye Shuang took Bai Yuyou to the souvenir shop and bought her a large dolphin plush.
Seeing Bai Yuyou hugging the plush with her usual expressionless face, Ye Shuang found it oddly endearing.
“What’s that?” Bai Yuyou pointed at a rectangular structure near the souvenir shop—more accurately, a photo booth. But the girl had no idea what a photo sticker was.
A flicker of something unreadable passed through Ye Shuang’s eyes. He turned to her and asked, “It’s for taking photos. Want to try?”
“Photos?”
Bai Yuyou tilted her head, confused. Couldn’t phones take photos too?
“Yeah, photos.” Ye Shuang led her to the booth and pointed at the scrolling screen above. “The pictures taken here print out immediately—they’re physical copies. You can even choose different frames.”
“Look, this one’s a collaboration with the aquarium. Aren’t the dolphins on the border cute?”
Then, he gestured to the sample photos rolling on the screen. One glance would be enough for Bai Yuyou to understand.
But the next second, Ye Shuang’s smile froze.
Because he saw a familiar photo among them.
One of them was him. The other…
“Ye Shuang?” Bai Yuyou noticed the abrupt shift in his tone and followed his gaze to the screen. There, she spotted a familiar face.
Ye Shuang was in the picture, though he looked younger, brimming with vitality.
Beside him stood a girl with a calm expression. She wasn’t particularly beautiful, but there was a hint of pride in her delicate features. The two stood at a measured distance, yet the composition felt harmonious.
“Ye Shuang… is in there,” Bai Yuyou murmured.
She turned to look at him, only to find an expression she had rarely seen—a trace of weariness and sorrow, no different from the night he had collapsed outside the convenience store in the rain.
“Hah. Using someone’s photo for promotion without permission… If I weren’t too lazy to bother, I’d sue them.” Ye Shuang muttered to himself, exhaling slowly. He reached into his pocket for a cigarette but pulled out a box of candies instead.
His frown deepened.
He poured four or five candies into his palm and shoved them all into his mouth, crunching down hard, as if trying to suppress the turmoil inside.
The candies tasted bitter.
Chaotic emotions surged from all directions, and Ye Shuang felt a sharp pain pierce his skull. He had always suffered from chronic headaches, but he hadn’t expected it to flare up now—like a drill stabbing into his brain and twisting violently.
The agony was so intense it even made his stomach cramp. Waves of nausea rose in his throat.
“Ye Shuang.”
Just then, warmth enveloped him. He lifted his gaze slowly—Bai Yuyou had wrapped her arms around him, her small face tilted up to meet his eyes.
“What…?”
“Ye Shuang, you’re sad.” Bai Yuyou didn’t understand what was happening, but she held him tighter, as if trying to share some of her “energy” with him.
Strangely, the pain in Ye Shuang’s stomach began to fade. Even the splitting headache dulled. Her faint body heat felt like something warm enough to melt everything cold inside him.
“Yuyou… Can I hug you?” he suddenly asked, snapping out of his daze.
“Mm.”
Ye Shuang wrapped his arms around her in return, holding her tightly.
Bai Yuyou didn’t know what was wrong with him, so she clumsily imitated how he had once comforted her to sleep—gently stroking the back of his head.
Gradually, Ye Shuang felt his heart settle. When he pulled away, he found her watching him with concern.
People around them cast curious glances, but Ye Shuang paid them no mind. When he looked back at the scrolling screen, the storm inside him had quieted.
“She was my ex-girlfriend. We came to this aquarium once and took photo stickers together.” He smiled self-deprecatingly at the image. He had thought he’d moved on, but it turned out he was still fragile.
“Ex-girlfriend?”
“Yeah. A woman I loved for many years. I gave up a lot for her.” Ye Shuang glanced at the girl beside him.
“But you know what? In that relationship, I had no dignity. I thought I could melt her heart, but in the end, it was just my own wishful thinking. All that effort only moved myself.”
“An unequal relationship never works out.”
“And in the end… I realized my feelings for her weren’t entirely love.”
“It was just unwillingness.” Ye Shuang chuckled.
Bai Yuyou listened quietly. She didn’t understand these things, but she knew Ye Shuang was hurting.
If Ye Shuang was sad, she was sad too.
“Don’t worry about me. I just need a little time.” Ye Shuang reached out and gently ruffled her hair.
“I thought I had nowhere to go, but now… I have something I want to do.”
The candies in his mouth had turned sweet again. What warmed him wasn’t the sunlight outside the glass—it was the lingering warmth from the girl who had just held him.
“Want to take a photo sticker?” He pointed at the machine with a smile.
Bai Yuyou nodded.
The two stepped into the booth and posed in front of the camera.
Five quick shots.
Bai Yuyou still struggled with looking directly at the lens. Ye Shuang suddenly wondered if she’d finally look at it if he had a camera growing out of his head.
Seriously, is it normal for a 27-year-old to not have a built-in camera yet?
When they stepped out, the stickers printed almost instantly. Ye Shuang trimmed the edges and handed one to Bai Yuyou. “Here, this is a photo sticker. Physical photos feel different, don’t they?”
Bai Yuyou stared at the tiny picture in her palm, then lifted her gaze to Ye Shuang. “I… want to keep it.”
“This one’s yours.” Ye Shuang pressed a button on the vending machine nearby and spent ten dollars on two sticker albums.
After slipping the photos inside, Bai Yuyou cradled the album like a treasure.
“Fun, right?”
“Mm.”
“Ready to go?”
“……”
But Bai Yuyou remained rooted in front of the machine. “More.”
“You want to take more?” Ye Shuang blinked.
She nodded.
“Alright.”
And so, they took photos to their hearts’ content.
ng to die together with you." Lin Xuan is dead, his body thrown into the river by his scumbag lover and her accomplice. She, the president of the Su Group, is decisive, ruthless, and ice-cold. For three days and three nights, she had his body fished out of the river, and without hesitation, she kissed the bloated corpse of Lin Xuan. She laid down beside him in a cold coffin, their fingers intertwined, a smile lingering on her lips as she closed her eyes. The noble and cold-hearted woman, only bending for one man—Lin Xuan. Lin Xuan, with his golden finger, is reborn and returns to the day of his wedding to the treacherous woman. Su Qiang comes to steal the bride. Lin Xuan's eyes light up, eager to pledge his loyalty on the spot, but instead, her kiss transfers a glass of drugged wine into his mouth, causing him to pass out... 【Male Protagonist with Single Female Lead】【Yandere Tycoon】【Action-Packed】【True vs. Fake Heir】
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
ine. During your journey, you save an abandoned baby girl and become her elder brother】 【You rely on each other, becoming each other's support】 【At the end of the simulation, you shield the now-grown girl with your life, sacrificing yourself to block numerous demonic cultivators. You die, and the light in the girl's eyes fades】 …… 【Second Simulation: You are transported to a world where steam and magic coexist】 【You immerse yourself in the study of magic, obsessed with its research. One day, while out, you encounter a half-blooded demon girl wandering the streets. You take her in as your student】 【You teach the demoness what it means to be human, show her the beauty of the world, and nurture her into a miracle that surpasses even the gods】 【At the end of the simulation, you die of old age in front of the nearly immortal demoness due to your mortal lifespan】 …… One simulation after another, one encounter after another. Xu Xi suddenly felt something was off: "Wait, you said you're coming to the real world to find me?"
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
