Su Qi didn’t say anything about prying into matters that weren’t his business. Everyone had their own secrets. He just patted Old Li’s shoulder and said, “I’ll be off then.”
“Go ahead.”
……
On the way back, Liu Yuan was burning with curiosity, biting back her questions several times.
Finally, Su Qi couldn’t take it anymore. “Just ask if you want to. That ‘curious kitten’ look of yours is driving me nuts.”
“Hmph… More like you just want to show off how much you know…” Liu Yuan muttered, but quickly dropped the act. “Is it about last night? Was it that serious?”
She suddenly remembered Su Qi’s message had mentioned something.
“Go to sleep. I doubt this training camp will continue. We’ll probably be evacuated first thing tomorrow—don’t oversleep.”
And today, for once, Su Qi woke up early instead of lazing in bed. Clearly, he was certain the training wouldn’t proceed.
Su Qi spoke slowly, “You know about cultists, right?”
Liu Yuan shook her head.
Su Qi’s prepared explanation froze midair. “Did you not pay attention in class?”
Liu Yuan did have a habit of texting him during lectures. No amount of scolding had changed that.
“No, it wasn’t in the textbooks.”
Su Qi wondered if the curriculum had been revised. He tried another term. “What about the Descendants?”
Liu Yuan shook her head again.
Su Qi quickly switched tactics. “The Cornered?”
“The Fugitives?”
Seeing Liu Yuan’s increasingly dazed expression, Su Qi felt a pang of defeat. What kind of education system was this now? Teaching them nothing?
He took some time to explain what cultists—or the Descendants—were.
“Last night, it was a seventh-tier cultist.”
“Luckily, I was a step ahead.”
Liu Yuan’s heart clenched.
The way Su Qi said it so casually…
But that was seventh-tier.
Su Qi was only sixth-tier…
A single misstep, and he might not have come back.
“Who knows what they’re scheming? Investigations take time, so this Source Realm is off-limits for now.”
Liu Yuan nodded vaguely. This wasn’t a topic she could contribute to. So she steered the conversation her way.
“Brother, what are the Cornered?”
Su Qi’s tone was light. “We are the Cornered.”
Liu Yuan blinked, confused. “Huh?”
“No need to be surprised. We’re the ones fighting with our backs against the wall.”
“Think of Blue Star as one big arena.”
“The Source Realms are the endless beasts thrown at us…”
“The Fugitives are self-explanatory—those who flee, find another human civilization, settle down, and assimilate.”
“Honestly, these are just textbook terms.”
“In reality, these groups have nastier names for each other: Cultist mutts, Cornered pigs, stinking rats.”
But Su Qi didn’t say this mockingly.
A realization struck him.
Liu Yuan’s generation’s textbooks had even stripped out such fundamental knowledge?
Coupled with the brainless education reforms these past few years…
All the clues pointed to one thing.
Something catastrophic must have happened on Great Xia’s frontlines recently.
So catastrophic that the nation was on the verge of collapse.
Forcing Great Xia to rush the training of new recruits while suppressing panic among the populace…
Heaven…
Was it about to fall?
No, no—Su Qi, why bother with this?
Even if the sky falls, it’s not your problem.
Someone will shoulder the burden.
But…
What if there’s no one left at the front?
“Brother…”
“Brother…”
Su Qi snapped out of his thoughts at Liu Yuan’s voice. “Hmm?”
Liu Yuan looked worried. “I was about to ask you the same thing…”
“You looked… kind of…”
“You’ve been spacing out the whole way. Didn’t sleep well last night?”
“We’re home.”
Liu Yuan pushed the door open and paused at the entrance.
But Su Qi made no move to enter. “I’m heading out.”
“Where to?”
“To ask your ‘future sister-in-law’ a few things.”
Liu Yuan: ???
Liu Yuan’s face flushed crimson—for the hundredth time!
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!"
young master of the Shen family—a figure of immense power and wealth beyond measure—and awakened the "Destined Ultimate Villain System"! His starting scenario? Running into his icy fiancée who shows up with a mountain-descending divine doctor to break off their engagement. The divine doctor arrogantly taunts: "What does your Shen family have besides a bit of stinking money? You're not even worthy of tying Qingxue's shoelaces!" Shen Fei just smiled. He completely defied the usual script: "Fine, I agree to break off the engagement. Also, notify the finance department to withdraw all investments from the Su family." Minutes later, with its capital chain severed, the Su Group teetered on the brink of bankruptcy! The once aloof and proud ice queen CEO was thrown into utter panic. That very night, she went to Shen Fei's villa, casting aside all dignity to beg and plead desperately... From then on, in this world teeming with Sons of Destiny, Shen Fei embarked on a path of extreme dimensional suppression! A mountain-descending divine doctor? Peerless medical skills? Shen Fei: "Reporting you for practicing medicine without a license! I'll gladly take your ancient medicinal cauldron and twin sister assassins." The Crooked-Smiling Dragon King? Commanding a hundred thousand soldiers with a single order? Shen Fei: "Illegal assembly and suspected treason! Let a fleet of attack helicopters sanitize the area and teach you what the state apparatus really means!" A reborn tycoon? Knows all the golden opportunities of the next decade? Shen Fei: "A trillion in capital to reverse and pump the stock market, making you blow your margin and jump on the very first day of your rebirth!" What Chosen Ones? What bearers of Heavenly Fortune? In Shen Fei's eyes, they're all just chives (i.e., suckers/marks) waiting to be harvested! Shen Fei: "Sorry, but as the Destined Ultimate Villain, I don't play by the rules of honor. I only play the game of dimensional suppression."
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.”
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.
