"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.
ose... to cooperate with the protagonist! Shen Yuan: I have a system! Protagonist: What? System: Holy crap, you're just spilling it out like that? Shen Yuan: Let's team up, we'll split the system rewards! Protagonist: Fifty-fifty split? Shen Yuan: No way! Protagonist: What!? I'm the one getting beaten up, and I don't get half? Shen Yuan: Forty-sixty split, I get forty, you get sixty! Protagonist: Deal! Big brother, come on, hit me! As long as it doesn't kill me, beat me like you mean it! Shen Yuan: Don't worry... I will definitely protect all of you! No one but me can lay a finger on you! Guard our Heaven's Chosen Ones! I'm the only one allowed to bully them!
. As long as he maintains the villain image and follows the plot to the grand finale, he can obtain generous rewards and return to the real world. So Gu Chen'an entered the role and began to act as a scumbag villain, but who would have expected that the female leads could hear his inner thoughts. Miss Su from the Su family was shocked: "I originally thought Gu Chen'an was a scumbag, but I didn't expect he turned out to be a gentleman! What? You said I have to call off the engagement? I definitely won't, I'll piss you off!" Bai Yuan Tian was dumbfounded: "Young Master Gu is usually unreasonable and a complete brat, but he actually calls me little sweetie in his heart? What, Young Master Gu even said he likes me?" As the female leads' images collapsed more and more, the plot also collapsed with it. Gu Chen'an looked at all this chaos. "Ladies, don't aggro me, if you keep this up the male lead really will stab me, I still need to survive to the grand finale!"
rowess are unmatched, commanding a million-strong army! Yet, the Emperor wants to depose him for the sake of a false prince? Hold on, are you throwing me into some female-oriented romance plot? How can I tolerate this? With a grand wave of his hand—the Nine Clan Extraction Technique! Slander the Emperor? Very well, all of you shall die! ... The False Prince: "Although I am not the biological son, Father and Mother love me more. The throne should be mine!" The Female Lead: "Qin Xiao, you are the Emperor, and I am a commoner. If you wish to marry me, you must abdicate. Otherwise, you will never have me!" The Empress: "After we divorce, you must give me half the empire!" The Transmigrator Consort: "You worthless Emperor, why should I kneel to you? All men are equal—I advise you to be kind!" The Great General: "The enemy general is my childhood sweetheart. For her sake, I willingly abandon the frontier defenses!" The Retired Emperor: "Although Yu'er was adopted, I prefer him. Qin Xiao, you should abdicate and let him become Emperor!" ... Very well! So this is how you want to play? Facing this twisted world of female-oriented tropes, Qin Xiao grins and raises his hand to unleash—the Nine Clan Extraction Technique! I am the Emperor. Why would I bother reasoning with you? Seal the gates! Leave none alive!
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.”
