The silver-gray pressure cooker had been sitting still on the cold gas stove for quite some time.
It wouldn’t be long before the warm pot grew as cold as the stove beneath it.
Tang Qinqin and her mother, Tang Yun, sat at the dining table, their expressions long gone from the earlier calm.
Their almost identical slender brows were tightly furrowed, and their eyes flickered anxiously between the clock on the wall and the firmly shut front door. Worry deepened in their hearts.
“Mom, it’s already this late. Why hasn’t my sister come back yet?” Tang Qinqin pouted, her voice tinged with concern.
“Mom doesn’t know either,” Tang Yun replied, her brow tightly knit as she glanced up at the clock again.
8:20.
According to her daughter’s usual schedule, she should have been home by 7:30. Now it was almost an hour past that, and she still hadn’t returned.
Turning toward the still-closed door, Tang Yun asked, “Did your sister say if she was going to a friend’s house tonight?”
“No,” Tang Qinqin shook her head. “She wouldn’t just go to a friend’s without telling anyone.”
“And I told her this morning that I’d make something delicious for dinner, so she should come back early. She even nodded and agreed. She wouldn’t suddenly go off to someone else’s place.”
Hearing this, Tang Yun’s worry deepened even further.
After a while, as the minute hand finally pointed to the six, Tang Yun could no longer hold back.
She stood up, took down an old black cotton jacket from the coat rack, slipped it on, and prepared to head out in haste.
While putting on her shoes, she reminded Tang Qinqin inside the house, “Qinqin, wait here for me. If your sister comes back, call me right away.”
“I won’t,” Tang Qinqin stood up from the plastic stool stubbornly.
“I’m coming too.”
At that moment, Tang Yun had already put on her shoes. She straightened up, frowned, and asked her daughter, “What are you going to do?”
“Obey,” Tang Qinqin said.
“Be good and wait at home. If your sister comes back and neither of us is here, won’t we miss her?”
“No,” Tang Qinqin shook her head. She grabbed the phone her sister had left at home and slipped it into her pocket while putting on her coat.
“If sister comes back and finds neither of us home, she’ll definitely call us on the landline.”
“We won’t miss her.”
Seeing she couldn’t persuade her daughter, Tang Yun finally gave in with a helpless sigh and reminded her once more, “Dress warmly. It’s cold outside.”
...
...
The night was windless, yet the biting cold was everywhere.
Tang Qinqin tugged her cotton hat down a little more until its soft, warm brim completely covered her ears. She hunched her shoulders and continued taking quick, small steps toward the school.
The streetlights cast a dim yellow glow over the patches of snow that hadn’t melted yet.
Tang Qinqin glanced left and right as she walked. Thanks to the deep chill of the night, there were very few people on the streets, so it wasn’t hard for her to look for someone.
Soon enough,
In a park not far from home, Tang Qinqin spotted a solitary figure sitting alone on a bench.
Walking toward that slender figure, Tang Qinqin’s heart surged with a flicker of hope as she recognized the No.3 Middle School uniform on the person ahead. Her steps quickened without her even realizing it.
Drawing closer, she spotted the familiar black backpack beside the silhouette. At that moment, the weight in Tang Qinqin’s heart finally lifted.
She hurried over to the bench and looked down at her sister, whose head hung low. Tang Qinqin’s voice carried a hint of gentle reproach as she said,
“Sis, why are you just sitting here? Why aren’t you going home?”
At last, Tang Manman stirred. She lifted her head, revealing a delicate nose and exquisitely beautiful face flushed red from the cold. But what caught the eye most were her eyelashes.
Her long, curled lashes were stiff and tangled like icy spears, dusted with tiny shards of ice—clear evidence of how long she had been crying here.
Seeing her sister in such a state, Tang Qinqin suddenly panicked, and all the little complaints she had just now vanished.
She sat down beside Tang Manman, gently wiping away the few tear drops already frozen on her sister’s cheek.
Feeling the chilling coldness of her sister’s skin, robbed of all warmth by the biting wind, Tang Qinqin grew increasingly anxious. Furrowing her delicate brows, she asked,
“What’s wrong, sis?”
“Did someone bully you?”
Tang Manman shook her head. Her lips trembled but she quickly pressed them together. She sniffled, and tears quickly welled up in her swollen, red-rimmed eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
“Qinqin.”
“I’m sorry...”
...
...
Under the streetlamp at the alley’s entrance, the girl stood quietly.
She lowered her head slightly, staring blankly at the patch of pristine snow untouched by pollution, her brows knitted with a sorrow that seemed impossible to unravel.
Suddenly, the sound of hurried footsteps crunching on snow approached from afar, snapping the girl back to reality.
Seeing her mother hurrying over, she ran up to meet her.
“Where’s your sister?”
In just a short while, Tang’s mother’s face was flushed red from the cold, but she clearly didn’t care. Her voice was sharp, laced with an anger that weighed heavily in the air.
“She’s at home.”
Tang Qinqin answered.
Seeing her mother ready to storm home and give her sister a piece of her mind, Tang Qinqin quickly stopped her, pleading,
“Mom, wait a moment, please.”
“For what?”
Tang’s mother halted, her anger simmering as she asked.
“Mom, please don’t be mad at sister when you get home, okay?”
Tang Qinqin’s voice was full of earnest pleading.
“She’s already very upset today.”
“She didn’t do well on her exam and was so scared of you getting mad that she hid in the park all evening, afraid to go home.”
“Me? Mad at her?”
“When have I ever scolded her?”
Hearing her youngest daughter’s words, Tang’s mother felt a bit wronged. She hadn’t scolded Tang Manman once since she was little—not even a few harsh words. When had she ever gotten angry at her?
Though, truth be told, she had planned to give her a good scolding once they got home.
Not coming home late at night—
It made the whole family worry, and that was simply too much!
Tang’s mother was very angry, but upon hearing that her beloved daughter had done poorly on her exam and was hiding in the park out of fear, she couldn’t help but feel a pang of heartache.
At the same time, she was filled with curiosity.
How many points did she actually get on this exam?
How could she possibly have scored so poorly that she didn’t even dare to come home?
Tang’s mother stared at her youngest daughter, took a deep breath, and swallowed the anger welling up inside her before asking,
“How did your sister rank this time?”
Tang Qinqin opened her mouth, hesitated, then pressed her lips together, looking at her mother timidly as if the ranking was something she had personally caused.
“Tell me, quickly!”
Tang’s mother urged impatiently.
Under her mother’s pressure, Tang Qinqin shrank back slightly and stammered,
“Fifty-seventh place...”
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!
【Prologue: The Beginning of It All – Use holy water to heal the saintess tainted by demonic energy, then converse with her.】 Shen Nian stared at his older sister sipping yogurt, lost in thought. So you’re telling me my sister is the saintess, and yogurt is the holy water? 【Main Quest 1: Brave Youth, Become an Adventurer! Reward: Rookie Adventurer Title.】 【Side Quest 1: Find the Adorable Kitty! Reward: 1000 Gold Coins.】 Shen Nian: "Wait, I’m a high school senior here—did some guy who got isekai’d accidentally bind his system to me?" Hold on, completing quests gives gold rewards? Titles even boost stats? Is this for real? (A lighthearted, absurd campus comedy—not a revenge power fantasy.)
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.
