"No, I just want to keep you company," Ye Shuang said.
"..."
"I don't need it." Alice buried her face in the pillow, her voice muffled.
The sound beside her seemed to fade away. Alice’s face was pressed against the pillow, making it hard to breathe. After a few seconds, she let go of the pillow and brushed aside the strands of hair stuck to her face from tears.
She lifted her head slightly.
Ye Shuang was still there, quietly saying nothing.
"I need some time alone," Alice said.
"I don't know anyone named 'Alone,'" Ye Shuang replied.
"..." Alice looked annoyed. "That joke is way too old!"
"Well, I'm not exactly young anymore," Ye Shuang said. "I don't really get what you young folks like to do."
"I want to be by myself."
"That's not impossible."
Even though Ye Shuang said that, he didn't leave. He just sat there.
"Ugh." Alice’s cheeks puffed up again. She knelt on the bed, staring at Ye Shuang’s perpetual smile. Frustrated, she lunged at him like an angry cat, biting down directly on his hand.
"Annoying jerk, I'll bite you to death!"
One bite in, but there was no scream or struggle as she expected. Instead, Alice felt a hand resting gently on her head, softly stroking her. "If this makes you feel better, you can borrow this hand for a while."
Feeling the warmth of his palm, Alice kept biting, but big teardrops kept falling. She sat up straight. "I hate it! I hate all of you!"
Ye Shuang watched Alice cry her heart out, took a tissue from his pocket, and helped wipe the tears from her face.
After a good few minutes of crying, Alice’s sobs finally softened. She took deep, heavy breaths, trying to calm herself down.
Then, silently, she curled up at the foot of the bed, hugging her knees, looking like a little kitten abandoned under a streetlamp—golden, tiny, and pitiful.
"What does she even want? She obviously doesn't like me," Alice muttered, her voice soft and mumbling, making her seem both pitiful and adorable.
"I think it's because she cares too much that she's like this," Ye Shuang said, sitting cross-legged on the bed.
"I don't understand."
"Aunt Xian cares about you so deeply that when she found out the truth, it hurt her tremendously," Ye Shuang said, shuffling closer to sit beside Alice.
"If she didn't care at all, knowing the truth wouldn't have bothered her, right?"
"..." Alice felt Ye Shuang had a point.
"Everyone makes mistakes in this world," Ye Shuang continued. "Sometimes, when parents make mistakes, it's hard for them to apologize to their own children."
"Hmph, I don't care about her apology." Alice snorted, but a long string of snot suddenly drooped down, dangling visibly.
"Ahhhh?!"
"Here's a tissue."
Ye Shuang didn't laugh at Alice. Instead, he handed her a tissue. She quickly wiped her nose, blew it hard, and then turned her flushed face away. "You... you didn't see anything just now! Delete it! Delete it all!"
"Fine, I deleted it. Formatted the whole thing," Ye Shuang said along with her.
"Pfft, you idiot, that sounds so dumb," Alice said, seeming amused by Ye Shuang.
"As long as you're happy, that's what matters," Ye Shuang said softly.
Alice paused.
The air went quiet for a few more seconds. Then Alice glanced at Ye Shuang’s hand, reached out, and grabbed it. She looked at the teeth marks left behind and asked,
"Um, does it hurt a lot?"
"Yeah, a little, but it's fine," Ye Shuang said.
"Stop pretending. It's bleeding, and you say it doesn't hurt." Alice took a tissue to wipe the blood off Ye Shuang’s hand—but it was the same one she’d just used to blow her nose. Ye Shuang found it both amusing and exasperating, but seeing her calm and gentle now, he didn’t interrupt.
After wiping the blood clean, Alice seemed to realize the issue with the tissue. "That was not on purpose, you know!"
"I know."
"You know everything. Ugh, I hate you so much." Alice puffed out her cheeks.
"Do you really hate me that much?" Seeing her pout, Ye Shuang found it funny and poked her cheek with his finger.
"I hate everyone! You're just—just at the very bottom of the list!"
"Alright, last place isn't bad. On a reversed list, that would be the most liked, wouldn't it?" Ye Shuang smiled.
"No way!"
After a little more teasing, Alice seemed to calm down. She glanced at Ye Shuang and said, "I want you to hold me."
"Hold you?"
"F-Forget it if you didn't hear me." Alice looked away.
The next second, Alice felt a pair of arms reach out and pull her into an embrace.
She sat on Ye Shuang’s lap for a few quiet seconds before reaching out to grab his sleeve and whispered, "I don't know how to get along with her."
"Actually, just a few words here and there, and you'll slowly make up," Ye Shuang said gently, stroking her head.
"Aunt Xian may not be perfect in many ways, but the care she’s shown you—I think you remember that, don't you?"
"She just gave me the love she had for that other person," Alice said.
"Maybe it started that way, but sticking with it for so long—that can't be the case," Ye Shuang said. "Love born out of a whim doesn’t last through time."
"I think you already know that Aunt Xian’s love for you is genuine. She truly sees you as her own daughter."
"She just lost control of her emotions when she found out the truth and hurt you."
"..."
"Everyone makes mistakes, right?" Ye Shuang smiled.
"What about you?" Alice asked.
"Me..." Ye Shuang paused thoughtfully, then said, "Because of my mistake, I lost my parents forever."
Alice opened her mouth, hesitated for a moment, and said, "I-I didn’t know... I'm sorry."
"It's okay."
"You can bite me too if you want." Alice held out her hand for him to bite, but she closed her eyes, as if afraid of the pain.
She looked oddly cute.
"Ha ha ha ha." The sight made Ye Shuang laugh.
"I was just trying to cheer you up!"
"I know. I appreciate the thought," Ye Shuang said, pulling out his phone. "Let me show you something."
Alice looked at his phone and saw a diary file.
"A diary? Whose?" Alice asked curiously, but Ye Shuang stayed silent, just tilting his chin to urge her.
And Alice realized whose diary it was.
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!
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.”
ts me of treason?" "Correct. The host must return to the capital and gradually build up influence." "Wait—I have half a million soldiers, and you want me to go back to the capital to 'build influence'?" "Host, you are currently the Northern Garrison General, loyal to the Great Xia Dynasty." "Of course I am loyal to Great Xia! Absolutely loyal!" "But you keep referring to yourself as 'We'..." "Never mind the details! Summon all the regional commanders and military officers! We suspect treacherous officials are manipulating the court! They shall march with Us to the capital and purge the corrupt!" "......"
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!"
