"Mom!"
Seeing her mother's eyes widen with anger as she stormed toward the house, Tang Qinqin knew things had taken a turn for the worse.
She hurried after her mother, wanting to say something more, but the moment she tried to call out again, Tang Yun cut her off sharply.
"Shut up!"
Tang Qinqin flinched at the shout. Faced with her mother's fury, she didn’t dare say another word, sticking close behind her, afraid the situation might spiral out of control.
Once they were back inside, Tang Qinqin noticed her older sister was already in bed.
Curled up under the blankets, she looked peaceful, as if she’d already fallen asleep.
Her heart leaped into her throat as she watched her mother stride over to her sister’s bedside.
She was terrified her mom might do something irrational in her anger.
After all, her sister had already been through enough today...
But to her relief, her mother just stood there, her expression dark, breathing heavily from rage—yet she didn’t take any further action. Tang Qinqin exhaled slightly in relief.
It was clear her mother was furious with her sister this time.
But Tang Qinqin was also burning with curiosity.
How had her sister’s grades dropped so badly?
The decline was shocking.
No wonder Mom was so mad...
...
After a while, when her mother’s breathing had steadied, Tang Qinqin relaxed a little.
Just as she thought the night would pass without incident, her mother suddenly reached out and gently shook her sister’s shoulder.
Tang Qinqin’s stomach dropped. She was about to speak up and try to calm her mother down when she heard her say softly:
"Manman, get up and eat something before you sleep."
Her sister stirred awake, struggling to open her eyes before closing them again. Her voice was muffled as she mumbled:
"I’m not hungry."
"Even if you’re not, you should eat a little. You’ll be hungry later if you don’t."
Her mother continued coaxing gently.
This time, her sister didn’t even open her eyes. She shook her head faintly and whispered:
"Don’t wanna eat."
Her mother seemed at a loss. With a helpless sigh, she looked up and said:
"Let’s go eat, then."
"Mm-hmm."
Tang Qinqin nodded eagerly, inwardly relieved.
At least Mom didn’t yell at her sister. That would’ve broken her heart even more...
...
After a tense but hearty dinner, Tang Qinqin tiptoed back to their shared bedroom and carefully slipped into bed.
Winter nights were always eerily quiet—so quiet that even breathing sounded loud.
Tang Qinqin lay awake, staring at her sister’s back. The same question from earlier resurfaced in her mind.
What had happened to her sister?
How had her grades fallen so hard?
Was she being bullied at school?
Or was there some other reason?
Frowning, Tang Qinqin had no clues to go on, leaving her to speculate wildly.
Time crawled by, the night deepening, but Tang Qinqin remained wide awake.
Beside her, her sister seemed trapped in a nightmare—her breathing uneven, occasionally letting out soft, distressed whimpers, as if on the verge of tears.
Tang Qinqin hesitated, wondering if she should wake her sister to pull her out of the nightmare, when suddenly, she heard her sister mumble something incoherent.
The words were too slurred and quick for Tang Qinqin to catch.
She shifted slightly, scooting closer to her sister.
Feeling the warmth radiating from her, Tang Qinqin instinctively held her breath, straining to listen.
"Lin Yu..."
"Don’t go..."
!!!
Tang Qinqin’s eyes widened in shock at the tearful, muddled words.
But soon, shock gave way to blazing fury.
Lin Yu!
That damn Lin Yu again!
She gritted her teeth in anger.
So, he’s the reason my sister’s like this?!
That bastard!
That absolute jerk!
How dare he hurt my sister like this?!
I won’t let him get away with this!!!
...
...
"Achoo!!!"
Kneeling on his bed, Lin Yu rubbed his nose with his index finger.
Why had he been sneezing so much lately?
He couldn’t make sense of it, so he blamed it on fate—something else he couldn’t understand.
Might as well pin everything on it.
Worthless thing.
Setting down the tape, he leaned closer to the window, checking the gaps he’d sealed to ensure no more chilly drafts could sneak into his poorly heated room. Satisfied, he stripped off his clothes and burrowed under the covers.
Homework was done, but it wasn’t bedtime yet, so he naturally picked up his phone and started scrolling.
For some reason, nighttime always brought out an abundance of live-streaming dancers.
Each one more alluring than the last, their moves growing bolder by the second.
Occasionally, he’d stumble upon a particularly well-endowed streamer, and the way they moved was enough to make him regret paying that hefty heating bill.
Damn it.
Why waste money on warmth when he could just watch this?
This kind of heat was way more intense than any radiator.
Just as he was getting engrossed, a barrage of text messages flooded in.
Watching the notifications pile up, he absentmindedly tapped to open them.
Three Virtues Student:
...
A string of emojis from Gu Yue greeted him. Lin Yu replied with a single question mark.
Dragon Overlord: ?
Three Virtues Student: Bro!
Three Virtues Student: My mom gave me 500 bucks as a reward for improving my grades this time!!!
?
Now it was Lin Yu’s turn to be baffled.
Rewarded for not passing a single subject out of nine?
What kind of mom was this?
Way too easily pleased.
Dragon Overlord: You got money for THAT?
Dragon Overlord: Jealous.
Three Virtues Student: Hehe. (oˇ?ˇo)
Three Virtues Student: It’s ‘cause my school ranking went up!
Three Virtues Student: Bro, you free this weekend?
Three Virtues Student: Let me treat you to a meal?
"Hmm..."
Lin Yu rolled his eyes, thinking it over. Realizing he had nothing planned, he typed out his reply.
Dragon Overlord: Sure.
Three Virtues Student:
Three Virtues Student: Saturday morning, then.
Three Virtues Student: Don’t bail.
Dragon Overlord: Sure.
lanned to earn money steadily and take life at a slower pace. But he never expected... his father's remarriage, and the stepmother bringing along a dependent, would completely disrupt his life's plans...
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.
orn and Humiliation】【Forced Love】 In his past life, Lin Ran was betrayed and murdered by his girlfriend and family, while the yandere female aristocrat, who had treated him as a mere plaything, avenged him by doing in his enemies. Upon seeing the yandere female aristocrat lying in the same coffin, ready to die with him, Lin Ran realized how profoundly mistaken he had been. Reborn, he abandoned the fickle campus beauty and wholeheartedly embraced the yandere female aristocrat's arms. "Ran! If I dig out your eyes and turn them into a specimen, you'll only be able to look at me!" Lin Ran: "Darling, kiss me!" "Ran! If I break your legs, you won't run away anymore, right?" Lin Ran: "Love, hold me tight!" "Ran! If..." Lin Ran: "Hush now! Love me more!" Luo Yao: ... Seeing his scumbag dad: "Take him out!" Seeing his stepmother: "Get rid of her!" Seeing his brother: "Eliminate him!" Seeing his white moonlight: "Send that to Southeast Asia!"
transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”
