"Indeed, there are still many things in this world that can't be explained."
"Yeah, true."
But everyone chose not to dwell on it any longer.
"It was just an illusion, nothing more than an illusion." Even Tang Keke hypnotized herself that way — their collective mindset was so in sync that as long as they believed it didn't exist, it didn't.
"So what's the prize?" Ye Shuang turned to Chen Hai and the others, since they were the fastest.
"A cotton-padded jacket." Chen Hai said as he pulled out a white one.
"…"
Are you people insane?
"Pretty awesome prize, right?" Anshi Yi added, "After all, the whole point was the contrast."
"You really went out of your way to find a winter jacket as a prize in the middle of summer." Even Ye Shuang was speechless.
Still, the fun of the game was what mattered most — the experience was the real takeaway.
Back at the original campsite, it was already quite late. Everyone returned to their tents, ready to turn off the lights and go to sleep.
…
Late at night.
"…"
"Yu You…"
"Yu You?"
"Mmm… roasted goose…" Bai Yuyou groggily opened her beautiful eyes, only to find Tang Keke propped up on her arms. In the dim tent, her expression was hard to make out, but her trembling voice was clearly audible. "I… I can't hold it in anymore."
Bai Yuyou blinked, looked around, and whispered back, "If you can't hold it, just lie down. Don't do any exercise."
"No, no — it's not that. I need to use the bathroom." Tang Keke's face was red.
"The bathroom?" Bai Yuyou paused, then pointed at herself. "I'm not a bathroom."
"Ugh!" Tang Keke's expression grew even more pained. "I want you to come with me to the bathroom. I'm scared of the dark, especially after tonight's whole thing."
"Okay."
Bai Yuyou nodded gently.
The two of them tiptoed out of the tent, Tang Keke shuffling along with slow steps. "Ugh, I shouldn't have drunk so much juice. This is so uncomfortable—"
"The yacht over there is still a ways off." Bai Yuyou looked at the dock in the distance — walking there would take at least a few hundred meters.
"I'll just find a bush." Tang Keke glanced around.
"Oh, then I'll keep watch for you."
"Great!"
Tang Keke grabbed some toilet paper and ducked into a nearby bush, then called out a little anxiously, "Yu You, are you still there?"
"I'm right here." Bai Yuyou replied.
After a moment, Tang Keke awkwardly shuffled back out. "Woo."
"You okay?" Bai Yuyou asked.
"Yeah, just a little embarrassed." Tang Keke said. "Don't tell anyone about this, okay?"
"Sure."
Just as the two girls were about to head back to the tent, Bai Yuyou suddenly paused mid-step, her gaze catching something in the distance. "Over there—"
"Over there?" Tang Keke followed her line of sight and spotted a dark figure sitting on a rock by the shore, seemingly staring at something.
"Eek?!" Tang Keke's face went pale in an instant.
"Demons and ghosts, go away. Demons and ghosts, go away." She began mumbling under her breath.
"Let's go check it out." Bai Yuyou started walking over.
"Yu-Yu You, don't go over there!" Tang Keke was terrified, but seeing Bai Yuyou move, she scrambled to follow. Wasn't this exactly how horror movies started?!
Curiosity killed the cat.
…
As they drew closer, under the faint moonlight, the figure sitting on the rock turned to look at them, a little puzzled. "You two — why aren't you asleep at this hour?"
Bai Yuyou and Tang Keke took a closer look and realized it was Chen Hai sitting on the rock.
"Huh?"
"What's wrong?" A voice came from beside him. Ye Shuang, sitting next to him, asked, "Did something happen?"
"Uh, what are you two doing out here this late?" Tang Keke relaxed instantly once she saw it was Ye Shuang and Chen Hai.
By then, they also noticed some peanuts and a few bottles of beer on the rock.
"Having a heart-to-heart, man to man." Ye Shuang smiled mildly. "Couldn't sleep, so we came out for a drink and some conversation. What, did we scare you two?"
"No way — could we really scare anyone all the way over there in the tents?" Chen Hai chimed in. "What are you two doing out here?"
"Keke just…" Bai Yuyou started, but then remembered her promise to keep the secret, so she said, "Keke was just sleepwalking."
"That is the lamest excuse ever?!"
"Sleepwalking?" Ye Shuang blinked, then noticed the tissue crumpled in Tang Keke's hand. A knowing smile spread across his face. "Well, go get some rest, then."
"Oh…" Tang Keke and Bai Yuyou exchanged a glance before turning back.
Ye Shuang watched them return to the tent, then glanced at Chen Hai. "Probably Keke's too timid to go to the bathroom alone at night."
"Yeah, typical for young girls."
Tossing a peanut into his mouth, Chen Hai took a big gulp of beer against the sea breeze. "You think once I lose some weight and turn into a handsome guy, hot chicks will start throwing themselves at me?"
"You already have some now."
"The kind that chase money is different, man. I want pure love."
"Oh, so chasing looks is fine?"
"Well…" Chen Hai smacked his lips, realizing it was pretty much the same thing.
"How about giving Feng Shan another shot?"
"No way." Chen Hai shook his head. "Bridges burned. No point anymore."
"Just make sure you don't regret it."
Chen Hai looked at Ye Shuang and suddenly asked, "What about you? Would you regret anything?"
"Me? Why do you ask?" Ye Shuang was caught off guard.
"Is Chen Qin the one you love most?" Chen Hai asked. "Honestly, man, I always thought you and Chen Qin were never gonna work. Is it really because of the amnesia thing?"
"If you really had feelings for Chen Qin, you'd have gotten together long ago."
Ye Shuang paused for a few seconds, then shook his head. "I don't know. I just know that dragging things out endlessly…"
"Being with Chen Qin — I don't regret it. We're both doing fine."
"How could you not regret it? That little Yuyou girl has stuck by you through thick and thin." Chen Hai clicked his tongue. "And those twins — they follow you everywhere you go."
"…" Thinking about An Shiyu's situation, Ye Shuang's expression turned a little complicated, probably because of the lab incident.
"Those kids all went through a lot back then."
"You talk like you experienced it yourself."
"More or less?" Ye Shuang munched on peanuts. "I'm planning to do something."
"What?"
"Travel through time."
"You're seriously drunk. Next you'll say you're reborn."
] [Lone Wolf, No Male Gaze] [Protagonist is pursued early on; extreme protagonist-stans, stay away!] The "Carnival Paradise" descends and slowly devours the real world in the form of a game. By chance, Zhu Yan awakens the talent [Roleplay], becoming one of the first beta players. He thought he could develop safely, but after clearing the first instance, he is branded by humanity as the chief culprit behind the game's spread—a traitorous villain. A villain? Who would ever... become one! He'll be the villain! From then on, Zhu Yan is not only a player but also a lackey for the Carnival Paradise. Between the straight path and the crooked path, he chooses the con. With his left hand, he dons the villain's mantle, staging scenes within instances, infuriating players who decry him as a despicable traitor, all while the game happily promotes him. With his right hand, he joins the non-human organization "Fangcun Mountain," which opposes the Carnival Paradise, transforming into a mysterious player who slaughters game bosses, earning cheers of "Long live the expert!" from fellow players. Gradually, Zhu Yan rises to become an S-rank human player in Fangcun Mountain's archives, while also being the Carnival Paradise's certified top game Boss. But when the final war erupts and both major factions place their hopes in him— Players tag his various aliases: "Experts, this offensive depends on you." The Carnival Paradise's supreme Boss throws an arm around his neck: "Bro, you're the iron, I'm the steel; you can't let me down again!"
. As long as he maintains the villain image and follows the plot to the grand finale, he can obtain generous rewards and return to the real world. So Gu Chen'an entered the role and began to act as a scumbag villain, but who would have expected that the female leads could hear his inner thoughts. Miss Su from the Su family was shocked: "I originally thought Gu Chen'an was a scumbag, but I didn't expect he turned out to be a gentleman! What? You said I have to call off the engagement? I definitely won't, I'll piss you off!" Bai Yuan Tian was dumbfounded: "Young Master Gu is usually unreasonable and a complete brat, but he actually calls me little sweetie in his heart? What, Young Master Gu even said he likes me?" As the female leads' images collapsed more and more, the plot also collapsed with it. Gu Chen'an looked at all this chaos. "Ladies, don't aggro me, if you keep this up the male lead really will stab me, I still need to survive to the grand finale!"
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!
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
