When Situ Yunshu woke up, she was still in the car.
Her eyelids were heavy and her consciousness hadn't fully returned, but the sensation on her hand was exceptionally clear.
A warm, large hand was tightly grasping hers, their fingers intertwined without a single gap between them.
Her head was resting heavily against a broad shoulder.
She didn't struggle immediately, only opening her eyes a tiny crack.
A faint, almost imperceptible scent drifted into her nose. It wasn't any kind of perfume, but rather a clean scent unique to a certain someone, much like a freshly washed shirt baked in the sun.
It was so familiar that her heart tightened.
She was safe here.
Having reached this conclusion, Situ Yunshu no longer had any reservations. She abruptly sat up straight, simultaneously pulling hard to free her hand.
This slight movement instantly awakened the person beside her.
Jiang Chengshan practically bounced up, all sleepiness vanishing as he reflexively grabbed her wrist.
"Sister Yunshu, this time, I won't let you go no matter what."
That familiar form of address was like a poisoned key, violently picking the lock on her heart.
Those photos surged in her mind once again, each one like a steel needle viciously piercing into her flesh.
But that young man named Lin Mo had said they were all fake. She didn't know if she should believe him.
With reason and emotion turning into a chaotic mess in her head, Situ Yunshu simply chose the most direct method to suppress these roiling feelings.
She was never a weak woman to begin with.
In terms of combat skills, even a hundred Jiang Chengshans might not be her match.
Situ Yunshu's gaze sharpened. With a clever twist of her wrist, she turned the tables, directly and firmly pinning Jiang Chengshan's entire body against the backrest of the rear seat.
The entire motion was as smooth as flowing water, so fast it left no time to react.
She bent one leg, pressing her knee against his lower abdomen, and looked down at him from a commanding height.
"I haven't forgiven you yet, so don't get so close to me!"
Situ Yunshu lowered her voice, carrying a fierce edge.
"If you move again, I'll blow your damn head off..."
Before she could finish her harsh words, her voice caught in her throat.
Only at this moment did she truly get a clear look at this face.
The silhouette of the green youth from her memory slowly overlapped with the mature, handsome face before her, finally solidifying into one.
Only, on this face, those eyes were frighteningly red, the sockets brimming with moisture, exactly the same as when they had last met over a decade ago.
He was clearly a man in his thirties, so why was he still acting like a teenage boy, getting red-eyed at the drop of a hat?
Pinned beneath her, Jiang Chengshan did not resist in the slightest.
He simply tilted his head back, letting her do as she pleased, his gaze greedily tracing her features.
Then, he reached out with his unpinned hand, slowly and with a hint of cautious probing, gently caressing Situ Yunshu's cheek.
The pad of his finger was a bit rough, bearing thin calluses, yet its touch was scalding hot.
"I really missed you, Sister Yunshu."
His voice was terribly hoarse, as if it had been ground against sandpaper.
As his words fell, a scalding drop of liquid smashed onto his face.
It wasn't his.
It was Situ Yunshu's.
She herself was stunned.
Why did seeing those photos hurt so much she couldn't breathe? Why did the thought of him being with another woman make her hate everything enough to want to destroy the world?
Wasn't it because, for the past dozen years, she had spoken of hating him, yet loved him to death in her heart?
Therefore, upon reuniting, all her disguises and strength instantly crumbled before a single fragile murmur from him.
Once the floodgates of her tears opened, they could no longer be stopped.
Her vision blurred by tears, Jiang Chengshan's face also became hazy.
She still maintained the dominant posture of pinning him down, but at this moment, she was the defeated soldier, utterly routed.
A long-suppressed whimper escaped her throat.
"Jiang Chengshan... you bastard..."
--System: Lin Mo, do you want a wife or not? What?! Too many? Then forget it.--
After sending everyone back to their rooms, Lin Mo didn't leave immediately.
Only a bedside lamp was turned on in Xie Yuling's room. Its warm yellow halo stretched their shadows out long, overlapping together.
There was an indescribable quietness in the air.
"Tell me, Jiang Yunlu... would she know about your uniqueness?"
Xie Yuling's voice was very soft, as if she were asking him, yet also like she was muttering to herself.
She kept her head down, her fingers unconsciously twisting the hem of her shirt.
Lin Mo wasn't surprised by this question.
He merely gave a slight shrug, breaking the heaviness.
"If she knows, she knows. It's actually fine."
He paused, then added, "Don't you know too?"
It was exactly this sentence that made the air in the room instantly freeze.
Xie Yuling abruptly raised her head, looking as if something had shattered in her eyes.
She stared at Lin Mo's face, her chest feeling so tight and stifled that she could barely breathe.
"You!"
She raised her hand and punched Lin Mo on the shoulder. There wasn't much force behind it; it was more like venting.
"Get out. I don't want to see you right now."
Her voice carried a barely detectable tremble as she turned her head away, not letting him see her expression.
Lin Mo opened his mouth, seemingly wanting to explain something, but swallowed the words back down.
He knew he had said the wrong thing.
But there were some things that couldn't be said right now.
Lin Mo took a deep breath, suppressing the strange feeling in his heart, turned around without a word, and opened the door.
Click.
The door lock gently clicked shut.
That sound was like a switch, and Xie Yuling's tense body instantly collapsed.
Her eye sockets grew hot as a mist quickly clouded her vision.
She stomped her foot hard, screaming silently in her heart.
"Damn you, Lin Mo! You blockhead! Can't you even say a couple of nice things?"
What did he mean by "Don't you know too?"
How could she and I be the same!
The more she thought about it, the angrier and more wronged she felt. She turned and threw herself onto the bed, burying her face deep into the soft pillow.
Shifting her gaze, she saw the fluffy fox plushie on the bed. It was the one Lin Mo had caught for her from a claw machine last time.
Xie Yuling grabbed the plushie and held it up to her eyes.
The fox's two beady black eyes seemed to be looking at her innocently.
"What are you looking at! Your master is a giant idiot!"
She clenched her fist and delivered a vicious punch to the fox's fluffy head!
Bam!
The plushie bounced from the impact and rolled back onto the bed.
Outside the door.
Lin Mo hadn't gone far. With his back leaning against the cold wall, he heard that muffled thump inside the room loud and clear.
He didn't use his divine sense to investigate, but he could imagine exactly how Xie Yuling looked right now—angry, aggrieved, and sulking while hugging her pillow.
Lin Mo naturally thought of this, but he couldn't say too much. A scumbag had to act like a scumbag.
Nor could he go back in.
A scumbag had to have the awareness and methods of a scumbag.
This was the precious experience summarized through the blood and tears of the relationship master, senior Handsome Chen.
Women were the kind of creatures where sometimes, the more you tried to explain, the more chaotic the situation became.
The best method was to say nothing at all and let them figure it out themselves.
Once they figured it out, all problems would be easily solved.
The only thing he could do, and absolutely had to do, was to maintain the delicate ecosystem of his fish pond.
He absolutely could not allow their numbers to increase any further.
Lin Mo let out a heavy sigh. If even one more were added, he truly feared that his little fish pond would be turned completely upside down.

saw a female celebrity tied up and stuffed in the trunk! Little did he know, countless cameras were aimed at him at this moment - this was a new type of reality show. The first randomly selected passerby was caught in less than an hour. But when Xu Moru was selected, things started to take an unexpected turn. "Damn, this isn't how the script goes. This Xu Moru is too bold, he's not following the rules at all." "Crap, is this guy taking it seriously?" "The female celebrity has been scared to tears!"

iemie, male, Race: Moon. Hobby: Collecting anomalies. At first, he thought he possessed two systems: the Crimson Rainbow Moon and the Clear Cold Frost Moon. One day, he discovered that he himself could also become a system for others, holding the chessboard of fate. The Eighth Epoch, also known as the Eternal Moon Epoch. Humans, witches, elves, bloodline descendants, specters, demons, and spirits together compose a new history. Walking the path on behalf of the moon, before he knew it, Chen Miemie's footsteps were followed by all manner of strange and wondrous anomalies. As time passed, many titles circulated about him—The King in Yellow, Lord of Anomalies, Heart of the Eternal Moon, and more. "Me? I'm just a traveler who enjoys collecting interesting creatures," Chen Miemie said.

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?!

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!