Time flew by quickly.
Two and a half hours wasn’t particularly long.
"Yuan, I should head back," Yun Huang murmured softly, her voice barely above a whisper. "What about these...?"
She glanced down at the remaining game tokens in her hand, only a small handful left.
Like grains of sand slipping through her fingers, they tumbled back into the basket.
Liu Yuan didn’t fully grasp Yun Huang’s situation, treating it as nothing out of the ordinary. "Then let’s come back next weekend..."
A flicker of hope flashed in Yun Huang’s eyes, but it was quickly overshadowed by something more complicated.
Next time... might be a distant dream.
Some words, she kept to herself.
After all, the same excuse couldn’t be used twice.
Su Qi’s plan was bound to fail.
Next time, the Yun family could easily set up a makeshift "movie theater" of their own.
That card could just be considered the price of this fleeting taste of freedom.
They say if you don’t hold onto hope, you won’t be disappointed.
But sometimes, allowing yourself to hope a little...
Didn’t seem so bad.
As long as a person was alive, it was impossible to truly live without any expectations.
What if...
...
"Huang Huang, you’re back?"
The moment she stepped through the door, Yun Ting’s voice rang out from the living room.
Yun Huang looked up to see her sitting on the sofa, a teacup in hand, her sharp gaze sweeping over her.
Her fingers tightened slightly, but her expression remained calm. "Yes, I’m back."
Yun Ting set down her cup, her eyes landing on the movie ticket in Yun Huang’s hand. A faint frown creased her brow. "Was the movie good?"
Yun Huang nodded, her tone indifferent. "Not particularly. If it weren’t for cultivation, I wouldn’t have wasted the time."
A trace of satisfaction flickered in Yun Ting’s eyes, as though reassured by her answer.
"Good. Go and cultivate now. Don’t delay any longer."
Yun Huang lowered her head, responding softly, "Understood."
Watching Yun Ting’s retreating figure disappear around the staircase corner, Yun Huang exhaled quietly in relief.
Had that woman noticed nothing unusual?
She returned to her room, shutting the door behind her and leaning against it. Her fingers brushed lightly over the monitoring device hidden beneath her clothes.
"Su Qi..."
She whispered the name, his bright eyes surfacing in her mind.
A brief taste of freedom...
But true freedom meant being able to control her own life.
She walked to the window, gazing into the distance.
The spring breeze of March caressed her cheeks, carrying a crisp chill.
A sudden surge of restlessness rose in her chest—she wanted to do something, to change something.
...
Meanwhile.
Leaving the Yun estate around one, the journey took a little over half an hour. Add in the two and a half hours at the arcade, plus the hour-long round trip to escort Yun Huang back, and it was just about dinnertime.
Su Qi wasn’t so stingy as to skip treating Liu Yuan to a meal.
After dinner, the two found themselves by the window on the mall’s top floor.
By six in the evening, the spring sky had already darkened.
Liu Yuan propped her chin on her hand, watching the slow-moving cruise boats on the lake and the scattered lights along the riverbank, a trace of longing flashing in her eyes.
"Su Qi, how long do you think it’ll take before I can have a little place of my own in this city?" she asked quietly.
That way, she could live in a home she bought herself—and then bring her brother over without a second thought.
Otherwise, with Su Qi still around, even if it wasn’t a big deal, there’d inevitably be awkward moments.
"Here?" Su Qi pondered for a moment before answering. "Right now, property prices in this area range from 35,000 to 40,000 per square meter. If you’re aiming for a 100-square-meter apartment, even with a 40% down payment, plus renovation, furniture, and other expenses, you’re looking at around 1.7 to 1.8 million."
"If a Cardholder doesn’t go to the frontlines, their salary isn’t anything special. Jiangxia’s average monthly income is about 4,000. Of course, you’re way above that average—after graduation, your salary could easily triple. Let’s say 30,000 a month, so 360,000 a year. After living expenses, you might save 200,000-plus annually. Work hard for seven or eight years, and you’ll have enough for the down payment."
"By then, you’ll just be hitting thirty, followed by another decade of mortgage payments. Truly, life gets more hopeful by the day."
Hearing this, Liu Yuan’s mood instantly soured. She glared at Su Qi, irritation flashing in her eyes.
"Su Qi, are you deliberately trying to upset me?"
"You asked when you could have a place here. I’m just giving you a realistic breakdown."
"Thanks so much for that bucket of cold water."
She rolled her eyes and fell silent.
"What? Really that eager to have your own little nest?" Su Qi pressed.
If Liu Yuan moved out, that’d be ideal—he could bring Little Iris home without a second thought.
Otherwise, with Liu Yuan around, even if it wasn’t a problem, there’d always be moments of inconvenience.
His feelings toward this nominal younger sister were... complicated.
Back when he’d just turned eighteen, he hadn’t known how to interact with girls, even keeping a cautious distance.
Over time, conversations between them grew sparse, and their relationship naturally remained lukewarm.
But it wasn’t like they were on bad terms, either.
As for why he refused to let Liu Yuan sell the house to fund her martial exam or offer her any help—his indifference was the greatest kindness.
Did she think the Source Realm was child’s play?
People died in there...
Failing the martial exam and living an ordinary life was still better than vanishing into some forgotten corner of the Source Realm.
Put simply, he admired the heroes who fought on the frontlines.
But he didn’t want himself—or this one person he had left without blood ties—to become one of them.
"Next month’s Source Realm training—I’ll be going as your guardian."
Of course, it definitely wasn’t just so he and Little Iris could keep chatting on the same signal network.
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!"
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?!
with countless casualties. As a top-tier gamer, Liu Xuan volunteered to join the fight, intending to dominate with his skills, but instead he obtained the hidden class: [Pacifist]. Unable to attack. Unable to use active skills. Fortunately, with each level gained, he acquired a new passive skill. And so, armed with a body full of passives, Liu Xuan slaughtered his way through the battlefield of ten thousand races! [You attacked Liu Xuan] [You gained the debuffs: 'Poison', 'Fear', 'Burning', 'Bleeding', 'Freeze', 'Silence', etc.] [Your attack speed has been reduced by 99%] [Your armor and magic resistance have been reduced by 99%] Warriors of the Ten Thousand Races: How the hell am I supposed to fight this?!
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!
