Lin Mo's gaze lingered on her face for two seconds before he spoke calmly, "You might know me, because I took first place in the provincial Math Olympiad."
His tone held not a hint of showing off; he was merely stating a fact.
"Huh?"
The smile on the girl's face stiffened for a moment before she forced it back to a natural look.
She gave a masking light laugh, reaching out a hand and waving her fingers slightly in front of Lin Mo. Her tone was probing, "I'm Ye Qiaolin. Can we get to know each other?"
Lin Mo didn't reach out. He just tilted his head slightly, looking straight into her eyes, his ink-black pupils bottomless. "If you can tell me what the sum and difference formulas for sine functions are, then I'll get to know you."
Ye Qiaolin's smile completely froze. She withdrew her hand, her face instantly turning ugly as embarrassment and anger flashed in her eyes.
"You... who knows what the hell you're talking about!" she snapped in humiliation and anger, stomping her foot so hard her high heel ground a shallow mark into the dirt.
Ye Qiaolin turned around. The sound of her high heels was no longer crisp and pleasant, but rather hurried and flustered as she quickly walked back.
Her companion, the boy with dyed red hair, was watching from afar. He smiled playfully, seemingly unsurprised by this outcome.
Halfway back, Ye Qiaolin noticed her companion's gaze and felt her face burn even hotter.
She quickened her pace, almost jogging back to their camp.
Before she could even stand steady, a gloating voice drifted over.
"Sis, your charm is slipping. You can't even handle a greenhorn?"
The one speaking was Ye Qiaolin's biological younger brother, Ye Minghui, the one with the eye-catching red hair.
He sat on a folding chair with his legs crossed, shaking a can of some unknown beverage in his hand, his face plastered with a highly punchable "I told you so" expression.
"Ye Minghui, shut your mouth! Believe it or not, I'll pluck all that red hair right off your head!" Ye Qiaolin fumed, glaring at him and looking ready to charge over.
Her proud charm had actually hit a wall with a boy today; how could she swallow this frustration?
The boy in sportswear next to them hurriedly stood up, stepping between the two and smiling politely to smooth things over.
"Alright, alright, Minghui, say less. Sister Qiaolin, calm down too. You aren't RMB, you can't expect everyone to love you."
"Who said I liked him!"
Ye Qiaolin exploded even more, kicking away a small pebble by her foot. "I was giving him a chance to pursue me! Hmph, ungrateful guy, blind as a bat!"
The more she thought about it, the angrier she got. Imitating Lin Mo's tone, she said sarcastically, "He even babbled to me about some function's some angle some formula, saying he was first place in some competition. Pfft, who cares!"
Hearing this, Ye Minghui didn't hold back at all. Instead, he laughed even harder, slapping his thigh.
"Sis! You just don't get it. This is a smart guy! An absolute blue-chip stock!"
He leaned in, lowered his voice, and said mysteriously, "Think about it, if you go have a kid with him, you'll directly improve our Old Ye family's genetics. The next generation will crush others right from the starting line, saving us so much on tutoring fees!"
"Get lost!" Ye Qiaolin raised her foot, pretending she was going to kick him.
Ye Minghui nimbly dodged behind the sportswear-clad boy, poking his head out to continue provoking her: "She's mad from embarrassment, she's mad from embarrassment!"
The boy in sportswear shook his head helplessly, pressed Ye Qiaolin back into her chair, and handed her a bottle of water.
The three of them joked and scuffled, and the atmosphere eased up quite a bit.
For people in their circle, a failed pickup attempt really wasn't a big deal.
Ye Qiaolin chugged a large mouthful of water. The fire in her heart was suppressed a little, but that sense of unwillingness still lingered.
She took out her phone and absentmindedly scrolled through Weibo. The handsome men and beautiful women on the screen failed to arouse even a bit of her interest.
Just then, the roar of an engine approached from a distance.
A top-tier RV with sleek lines and a massive frame slowly drove over. The sense of oppression it brought made the several expensive sports cars around it seem somewhat small.
"Oh??? Are there other big shots coming here to play?" Ye Minghui whistled.
The RV parked steadily next to a Bentley not far away.
The car door opened, and a slender figure couldn't wait to jump down from the passenger seat.
The girl was wearing a simple white T-shirt and jeans. Her long black hair swayed slightly with her movements, and her whole person was as clean as morning dew.
As soon as she landed, those bright eyes immediately began searching the camp, her target clear.
The next second, her line of sight locked firmly with another gaze in the air.
The two gazed at each other from a distance.
The corners of the girl's lips curled up uncontrollably, her gaze slowly moving down to land on Lin Mo's raised wrist.
There, an exquisite wristwatch refracted a low-key, steady luster in the sunlight.
It was the birthday gift she had given him a few days ago.
He was indeed wearing it.
A dense, fine sweetness exploded from the tip of her heart without warning, instantly surging through her limbs and bones.
Jiang Yunlu's heart warmed, and her feet were already preparing to start, to run toward that figure she had been yearning for.
"Ahem!"
A light cough of feigned authority came from inside the car.
Jiang Chengshan poked his head out from the driver's seat. Looking at his daughter's utterly smitten expression, he scolded her out of a desire to see her do better, "You are a girl, show some restraint!"
Jiang Yunlu turned her head and playfully stuck her tongue out at her dad.
"No can do."
Her voice was full of unhidden joy, "If I show any more restraint, he's going to be snatched away by someone else!"
Before her words even fell, she couldn't wait any longer. Like a butterfly breaking free from its restraints, carrying a body full of sunshine, she sprinted toward Lin Mo's direction.
A gust of wind swept by. Ye Minghui, who had just sat down on a beach chair, only saw a figure flash past his eyes.
"Old Zhou! Look! A beauty!" he shouted at the top of his lungs, his voice carrying uncontainable excitement.
Zhou Nianqian, who was brewing tea, slowly turned his head. Curling white smoke rose from the teapot. He replied absentmindedly, "What kind of beauty could make even you, Young Master Ye, think she's a beauty?"
His gaze followed the direction Ye Minghui was pointing, and the next second, his pupils shrank imperceptibly.
That figure, carrying the scorching heat of the sun, was charging straight toward Lin Mo not far away. Golden light danced on her loose hair, making her whole person look bright and dazzling.
Zhou Nianqian only felt that this young girl before his eyes was God's proudest masterpiece, an angel who had strayed into the mortal realm.
However, the angel's pace seemed a bit too eager. She stepped onto some loose gravel, her foot slipped, and her whole body pitched forward uncontrollably.
Zhou Nianqian abruptly stood up and shouted, "Careful!"
But just as his voice left his mouth, a figure had already moved faster than him.
Lin Mo almost teleported in front of Jiang Yunlu, his broad arms steadily gathering the young girl into his embrace.
Using the momentum, he spun in a light circle mid-air to dissipate the impact before gently setting the girl back down on the ground.
The entire process was as smooth as flowing water and moving clouds, so fast it dazzled the eyes.
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?!
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
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!
lities. One day, Qi Yuan was buying groceries when he unfortunately came face-to-face with a monster. Just when he thought he was going to die on the spot, he suddenly heard the monster's thoughts... "This aura, he's definitely not an ordinary master!" "So terrifying, so terrifying." "A fight with my back against the wall, I can't take it anymore." Qi Yuan: Ah, no one told me that my awakened ability isn't telepathy, but rather the stronger my enemies imagine me to be, the stronger I truly become. PS: Zhou Hai in the first chapter is not the protagonist.
