Inside the abandoned factory.
The masked man placed the last chess piece into its box.
Click.
The soft sound of the piece landing echoed unnervingly through the empty space.
He slowly closed the lid.
"It's about time."
No sooner had the words left his lips than a deafening crash erupted.
Not an explosion—more like something solid being violently torn apart.
BANG—!
The rusted rolling shutter let out a metallic groan of protest.
Then, the entire door caved inward before collapsing at a twisted angle, kicking up a choking cloud of dust.
A figure stood bathed in the sunlight flooding through the doorway.
His face, slightly weary, came into view.
Jiang Xia, the Guardian of Jiangxia.
His gaze swept across the dilapidated factory interior before locking onto the masked man, who stood unfazed beside the chessboard.
Dust still swirled in the air.
Jiang Xia didn’t strike immediately. His eyes narrowed in scrutiny.
"I’ve been looking for you."
The masked man didn’t answer.
He didn’t even turn toward the entrance.
Instead, he calmly raised a hand and set the chessbox aside.
"I’ve been waiting for you."
His voice, muffled by the mask, carried an eerie serenity.
This wasn’t an intruder kicking down the door—it was an expected guest.
Jiang Xia’s eyes flickered imperceptibly.
The man’s composure was unexpected.
No panic, no threats—just an unsettling… calm.
"You knew I’d come?"
Jiang Xia took a few steps forward.
Finally, the masked man turned, the demonic visage of his mask now facing Jiang Xia.
Through the slits of the mask, his eyes gleamed with an indescribable amusement.
"Of course." The masked man chuckled, a hint of delight in his tone. "A fish taking the bait is always something to look forward to."
"You leaked your location on purpose?"
Jiang Xia’s voice darkened.
They’d paid a steep price tracking this lead—if this was just a trap…
"The bait must be tempting to lure a big catch." The masked man spread his hands in a mockingly inviting gesture.
"A little ‘surprise’ to keep you busy, to keep the city on edge."
He paused. "And to sift through which pieces are worth keeping… and which to discard."
A chill ran down Jiang Xia’s spine.
This man’s way of thinking… it wasn’t right.
"What do you really want?" Jiang Xia demanded. "The martial exam attacks? The chaos? For what?"
The masked man tilted his head slightly, as if hearing an amusing question.
"For what?" His voice softened suddenly, laced with strange nostalgia. "For the ideals of the past, Jiang Xia."
"We once believed so fervently in a brighter tomorrow."
Jiang Xia’s body tensed as he caught the implication. "You know me?"
The masked man took a step forward. Then another.
He moved into the light, letting Jiang Xia see the demon mask more clearly.
"More than know." A trace of laughter colored his words. "We were… classmates. Roommates. Old Shen."
Hum—!
A surge of energy erupted from Jiang Xia.
His pupils constricted as he stared at the masked man.
"You—" His voice was thick with disbelief.
The masked man didn’t respond. He simply stood there, silent.
Jiang Xia’s mind raced.
Same academy. Same class.
Only one person had the capability to go this far…
"Old Shen?"
The masked man’s voice remained steady, but the sarcasm in it deepened. "That’s right. Has it only been ten years since graduation? Have you already forgotten your old friend’s voice?"
"Surprised?" he continued. "That the diligent, idealistic youth who dreamed of protecting the future would become the ‘Harbinger’ before you?"
"Yes…" Jiang Xia’s jaw clenched, unwilling to accept it.
A memory—a voice, a face—overlapped with the masked figure before him.
"Remember those late-night talks in our dorm? Discussing humanity’s future, how we’d defend it? We were so pure back then."
"But after graduation? What did we see?" His tone turned icy. "The higher-ups sacrificing ordinary lives for power struggles."
"Resources hoarded. ‘Fairness’ just a pretty lie for the masses. The Source Realms? Tools for profit and control."
"And us? The ‘hopes’ of the academy? Shoved into their pre-designed roles. Pawns on their board."
"Look at this city. At those lofty figures. Do they care about the people? No. They only fear losing their grip. Fear their precious ‘order’ crumbling."
"The martial exams? Just a stage to pick obedient, talented pieces. Mold them into new pawns to prop up this rotting system."
He gestured at the chessboard.
"My goal? To flip the board."
"To show everyone how fragile their ‘order’ truly is."
Jiang Xia’s voice burned with restrained fury. "You weren’t like this before."
"Before?" The masked man chuckled again. "And you? The Jiang Xia who buried the scandal of that gifted student’s shattered soul sea—just to protect the academy’s reputation? To protect your own?"
"Because back then, powerless as you were, you were just another pawn. Unable to defy the academy’s will. A mere ant beneath the wheel of fate."
"All you could do was offer him some private compensation. Nothing more."
Jiang Xia had no rebuttal.
That was exactly how it had been…
"Jiang Xia, remember when my thesis was rejected?"
"Yes… but you never said why."
The masked man sighed. "Then let me tell you now."
"I wrote…"
"One man plays Go. Another plays Gomoku. Before even seeing their strategies, someone declares—"
"The Go player is smarter."
"See? Everything is assigned its ‘expected’ value."
"And so are we, from childhood."
"If we stray from those expectations? We’re the fools who only play Gomoku—the ‘mediocre’ ones."
"I refuse to live caged by those rules. I have my own judgment."
"If we don’t tear down the old framework, we’ll forever live in the shadows of the past."
"The ancients said, ‘Scholars are the most useless of all.’"
"Yet they also said, ‘All trades pale beside scholarship.’"
"Two contradictory sayings, both passed down through ages."
"So why can’t I, living now, choose my own path?"
"Sacrifice is noble. Flight is shameful."
"Is such meaningless, foolish sacrifice still noble? Is enduring humiliation to survive still shameful?"
"So, it got rejected."
"The reason? The ideas were deemed heretical, incompatible with mainstream values."
"On the contrary, I believe my thesis succeeded. Since when are 'mainstream values' the benchmark?"
"Are they the values of the professor who failed me?"
"Or—?"
"So I dropped out. I’ve found the path I’m meant to walk."
"The world is blind and ignorant. I don’t need validation from fools."
Jiang Xia cut him off: "That’s utter nonsense!"
"Aren’t you just deluding yourself into thinking you’re enlightened?"
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?"
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.
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?!
