These students participating in the competition had, for the most part, received basic education in China before being brought to America as children. After all, America is an immigrant nation that accepts immigrants from other countries. Many people, driven by the pursuit of greater benefits, willingly left their original homeland. Some lowered their heads, others averted their gaze, and one young man, seemingly around the age of ten, met the eyes of the Chinese team for a brief moment before quickly looking away.
That expression was subtle.
It wasn’t hostility, nor goodwill.
It was more like a feeling so complex that even he himself couldn’t sort it out—something stuck in his throat like a fishbone.
The Chinese team, on the other hand, was far more straightforward.
Those who were chatting kept chatting; those reading kept their noses in their books.
Wang Jie’s mouth twisted downward slightly as he leaned close to Lin Mo and lowered his voice.
“See that tallest one? Chen Zhiyuan. He defected from China last year. Didn’t make it past the selection trials on our side, but over in America, he suddenly became a key player.”
Lin Mo glanced over.
“His skill level?”
“Just so-so. They say he has the strength of a selection-level contestant, but the Americans are happy to use him. He’s still young, after all.”
Lin Mo let out a quiet laugh, unconcerned.
The elevator arrived.
The American team tried to step forward, but Teacher Bai wasn’t one to tolerate rudeness.
He asked coldly in English: “Are Americans these days so lacking in manners? Or does moving to America make people lose their decency?”
That was practically a slap in the face.
“Ha, Team Leader Bai has quite the temper, don’t you—”
Before he could finish, Lin Mo cut in. “What dog is this, embarrassing its master? What kind of trash dares to speak here? Can’t even queue properly? Don’t know how? Then go ask your American daddy how it’s done.”
Lin Mo said all this in Chinese. He knew they all understood it, so he saw no need to hide his words.
The American Team Leader’s face cycled through shades of red and green.
But he couldn’t step forward now—that would only confirm the accusation of being a disrespectful mutt.
The Chinese team, glad that Lin Mo could dish it out so effectively, filed into the elevator.
There was still space inside, but not a single American dared step in.
As the elevator doors slid shut, Lin Mo looked up.
Chen Zhiyuan happened to be looking at him too.
Their eyes met. The doors closed.
The American Team Leader stood there, breathing heavily. He turned to his contestants and said earnestly in his thick American English:
“No matter what, you must give it your all in this competition. Otherwise, your value won’t be proven.”
“Yes, sir.”
They then waited for the next elevator.
Inside the elevator, with only Chinese people present, more than a few let out long sighs of relief.
“In the upcoming matches, it’s up to you to do your best. I believe you can beat them. Although China is still a developing country, I trust that one day we will catch up to America and become a nation that no one bullies!”
The tone was stirring. Meanwhile, Lin Mo had already confirmed that none of those people were from the Bureau of Divine Sight.
At the restaurant, Teacher Bai scanned the buffet offerings, lowered his voice, and said: “Everyone, try to stick to the Western section. The Koreans are the Americans’ lapdogs, and they wouldn’t dare mess with the American team openly. The Western food section is relatively safe.”
The logic was sound.
A few nodded and split up to get food.
Lin Mo walked the entire length of the buffet, his expression growing increasingly strange.
Kimchi. Kimchi. More kimchi.
Perilla leaves, napa cabbage, bellflower root, radish...
There was fried chicken, but it was the kind drenched in glossy sauce, glistening with oil—looked like it’d be cloying as hell.
Instant noodles were plentiful, too, lined up in colorful packaging, with two stacks of paper bowls beside a hot-water dispenser.
Lin Mo finally returned to his seat with a plate.
On it: one bowl of chicken soup, a few pieces of fried chicken, and a scoop of rice.
“That’s all you’re eating?” asked Dongfang Shuye, holding a cup of freshly brewed hot tea, his own spot completely empty.
“That’s not like you.”
Lin Mo poked at the fried chicken with his chopsticks. “You’re not eating either?”
“I’m fine with just tea.”
“...Alright. You really live up to your name.”
Lin Mo was someone who loved eating and would always look for local specialties wherever he went. But here in Korea, with just that little on his plate, it was a first.
Wang Jie, however, came back with a tray piled high.
“Heh, I found some grilled meat over there. At least it’s edible.”
Without another word, he sat down, spread a lettuce leaf, placed a piece of grilled meat on it, added a pickled radish slice, rolled it up, and stuffed the whole thing into his mouth, chewing with obvious satisfaction.
Lin Mo glanced at his tray. “You got a stomach made of iron?”
“Ah, what’s the big deal when you’re traveling? Just fill your belly,” Wang Jie mumbled through a mouthful of meat. “You guys are too picky.”
Dongfang Shuye held his tea without responding, only the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth.
The others gradually returned, but their portions were modest.
No one was sure how their bodies would react to the local food on their first day. The last thing anyone wanted was an upset stomach before the competition.
Teacher Bai ate a proper meal while flipping through some documents.
Scattered around the restaurant were contestants from various countries. The atmosphere wasn’t exactly tense, but it was far from relaxed.
Eye contact between teams would be broken quickly.
Just then, two people walked in through the restaurant entrance.
They clearly hadn’t come to eat.
Without glancing at the food, their eyes swept across the seating area with purpose.
They weren’t looking for seats. They were looking for people.
Their gaze paused on several tables before locking onto Lin Mo.
They exchanged a glance and headed straight toward him.
Lin Mo’s chopsticks paused mid-motion.
He looked at Wang Jie, still buried in his grilled meat, then at Dongfang Shuye across the table. He said nothing and went back to sipping his soup.
Dongfang Shuye set down his tea.
He turned his head, fixing a calm stare on the two approaching figures.
It was a look of warning.
But they didn’t slow down.
They didn’t even acknowledge Dongfang Shuye’s gaze, advancing directly toward Lin Mo’s table.
Eight steps.
Five.
Three.
Thump.
Both stopped abruptly.
But not of their own will.
They had run into something.
They weren’t battered and bruised, but they were clearly stunned.
One of them reached out and felt a solid surface, like touching an invisible wall.
It was obvious: Lin Mo didn’t want anyone near him right now.
The other tried going around.
It was useless.
Still blocked.
Dongfang Shuye raised an eyebrow, looked at Lin Mo, who was calmly eating, and couldn’t help but laugh.
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!
e, Immortal Body, Transmigration, System, Progression Fantasy, Academy Setting, Third-Person Perspective. Alternate Title: Transmigrating into a High Martial World and Reading Live Comments. Bad news: I transmigrated. This is a terrifying high-martial world, and my original, pathetically weak body fell into a coma and never woke up. Good news: I got a Popularity Points system upon arrival. I can see live comments and even create an unkillable alternate identity. Starting out, the alternate identity has all stats at 1. The system tells me that to grow stronger, I must participate in the plot, gain popularity points to allocate stats and grow stronger, and ultimately awaken my original body. And so, carrying my original body on my back, I officially entered Huaqing Academy, where the story's protagonist resides. From that moment on, Chen Guan kicked the original plot to pieces. Live Comments: [Doesn't anyone find this mysterious coffin guy creepy? He can summon indescribable grey misty hands.] [Is this guy a hero or a villain? What kind of onion became a spirit?] [By the way, does anyone know who's in the coffin? Shouldn't the debt for saving his life be repaid by now?] [According to unofficial histories, the person in the coffin was Chen Guan's first love. Their love was once passionate and earth-shattering, but they were separated by life and death due to worldly circumstances. What a star-crossed pair.] ... Years later, the world knew of a demon god born from a coffin, shrouded in grey mist, impossible to gaze upon directly. His foremost divine emissary often wielded a scythe, reaping lives like the god of death. As war approached, facing former friends and a boundless sea of enemies, Chen Guan merely raised his scythe. "Would you like to dance as well?"
lity and could only live as an ordinary mortal. He only wished to live a peaceful life. Yet he didn't know— The dog he adopted, because it ate his food, became a legendary demon king. The kitchen knife he casually forged became a peerless divine weapon, causing numerous experts to fight desperately for it. The young disciple he took in became an immortal lord that led an era, due to cultivating the techniques Ye Feng taught him. Even the skeletons he looked down on the most were ominous demon kings that suppressed countless worlds. Many years later, looking at the void shattered with a punch, Ye Feng murmured to himself: It turns out the peerless kings were myself all along...
