"What did you say?"
"Mental illness?"
Lin Yu held the phone to his ear with one hand, his brow furrowed so tightly it could crush a fly.
"Yeah!"
"That bastard somehow found a lawyer who claims he was mentally unstable due to the shock of his mother's death, leading him to act impulsively without control over his actions when he committed the crime."
Xia Yueshan's indignant voice crackled through the phone.
"Like hell he couldn’t control himself!"
Lin Yu couldn’t hold back a curse, grumbling angrily:
"Someone who can’t control their actions wouldn’t come up with such a meticulous plan!"
"Wouldn’t think to hire someone to steal your sister’s wallet!"
"Wouldn’t use returning it as an excuse to get her to open the door!"
"Where in any of that does it look like he’s mentally ill?"
Xia Yueshan agreed vehemently, seething:
"Exactly!"
"But the damn hospital actually issued him a mental illness certificate."
"Fuck!"
"Bunch of idiots."
"They’re the ones who need their heads checked!"
Listening to Xia Yueshan’s relentless swearing, Lin Yu was stunned by the diagnosis—but not entirely surprised.
When determining mental illness, doctors tend to err on the side of caution.
It’s the opposite of how judges rule.
In court, the principle is "innocent until proven guilty."
If there’s no concrete evidence, the accused walks free.
But with mental illness, it’s the reverse.
If someone seems even slightly unstable, doctors will likely diagnose them.
Because if they’re wrong and the person causes harm later, the doctor could face unnecessary trouble.
And given what he did—
Even planning to have someone else assault Xia Muzhu after he was done—
It’s proof enough his mind wasn’t right.
Suppressing his rising anger, Lin Yu steadied his voice and reassured Xia Yueshan:
"Don’t worry."
"He won’t get off on insanity."
"Our evidence is airtight."
"Enough to prove premeditation."
"Even if he’s mentally ill, it won’t save him. He’ll be convicted, guaranteed."
Xia Yueshan’s tone calmed slightly.
"Yeah, the police said the same."
"I just called to vent about this mess."
"It’s infuriating!"
"And that motherless bastard somehow hired a scumbag lawyer!"
"He showed up demanding we drop the charges and forgive him."
"When we refused, he started mocking my sister—got her so upset she almost cried!"
"Goddamn it!"
"If she hadn’t stopped me, I’d have kicked his teeth in!"
"This time, I’d make sure he never stood up again!"
Xia Yueshan’s voice burned with fury.
"Wait—he made her cry?" Lin Yu cut in, alarmed.
"What exactly did he say?"
Then a darker realization struck.
"Hold on—how the hell did he afford a lawyer?"
Xia Yueshan didn’t hesitate:
"Police said he had an accident insurance policy."
"Back when his mom was sick, he planned to injure himself to claim money for her treatment."
"Either he chickened out or changed his mind, but nothing happened, and the policy stayed active."
"Then recently, that piece of shit got what he deserved—someone in jail smashed his balls!"
"He’s still hospitalized. Rumor is he’ll need a catheter for life."
"Ha! Serves him right!"
"But it also got him classified as 'severely disabled.' The insurance paid out big, so that’s probably how he hired the lawyer."
Lin Yu’s frown deepened.
So his own revenge plot had indirectly funded the enemy.
The irony felt like fate itself was screwing with him.
After that horrific day, Lin Yu had developed a paranoia—like the universe was watching, twisting every coincidence against him.
But this? It didn’t matter.
The case was rock-solid. No lawyer could change the outcome.
The man would rot in jail until sentencing, then prison.
Nothing could go wrong.
Meanwhile, Xia Yueshan was recounting the lawyer’s insults:
"Lin Yu, you wouldn’t believe how vile that guy was!"
"At first, he acted polite. But when my sister refused to back down, he turned nasty."
"Leered at her and said, 'No wonder my client targeted you.'"
"Claimed she was mostly to blame!"
"Even insulted me—said hitting him proved I was raised without parents!"
"Fuck!"
"If she hadn’t held me back, I’d have broken his face!"
"Your sister was right to stop you," Lin Yu said. "That’s exactly what he wanted."
"He knows the case is unwinnable, so he’s resorting to dirty tricks."
"If you’d hit him, he’d have used it to pressure her into dropping charges."
A long sigh came through the phone.
"I know," Xia Yueshan muttered. "That’s why I held back."
Then, hesitantly, his voice softened:
"Lin Yu… can’t you come back?"
"Look how much my sister’s suffering."
"If you were here, that lawyer wouldn’t dare speak to her like that."
Lin Yu fell silent.
Truth was, he missed Xia Muzhu.
Not just because she was kind, gentle, beautiful, a fantastic cook, with a figure that turned heads and a scent like heaven…
Okay, maybe partly because of that.
But what he truly longed for was the sense of belonging she gave him.
Ever since crossing into this world, Lin Yu had felt like an outsider—
Like living abroad, where everything feels foreign and disconnected.
It left him aching for a place that no longer existed.
During the time spent at Xia Muzhu's home, Lin Yu genuinely felt a warmth that came from the heart, allowing his perpetually tense nerves to finally relax.
Though he lived in constant fear of Xia Muzhu coming to harm during those days, for some inexplicable reason,
being with her and Xia Aodi made him miss home a little less.
The world no longer felt so unfamiliar. Though anxiety and worry lingered in his heart, the tightly wound string deep within him remained loose, bringing him comfort and peace.
But ever since leaving Xia Muzhu, that sense of alienation—of being out of place in this world—returned.
Unavoidable. Inescapable.
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!
Cheng's father told him he was getting remarried—to a wealthy woman. Cao Cheng realized his time had finally come: he was about to become a second-generation rich kid. Sure, it might be a watered-down version, but hey, at least he'd have status now, right? The wealthy woman also had four daughters!! Which meant, starting today, Cao Cheng gained four stunning older sisters?? But that wasn't even the whole story... "My name is Cao Cheng—'Cheng' as in 'honest, smooth-talking gentleman'!"
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?!
