"Haah."
"Haah."
"Haah."
Panting heavily, the red-haired boy struggled up the final step and stepped into the school building's lobby.
Twenty minutes of forced running had left his calves stiff and aching, his mood thoroughly soured.
When he looked down and saw the black slush stains splattered across his brand-new white sneakers, his anger flared to murderous levels.
Distracted by his ruined shoes, he took a few more steps without watching where he was going—until he slammed straight into the person who had stopped in front of him.
The collision ignited him like a lit fuse.
Without hesitation, the red-haired boy shoved the person blocking his path and snarled,
"What the hell are you standing here for, waiting to die?!"
Maybe it was the arrogance of being a school bully, or maybe he was just too pissed off.
His push carried full force, and he even raised his leg as if to deliver a vicious kick to the guy in his way.
But the kick never landed—because something felt off.
Even after that hard shove, the guy hadn’t budged an inch.
Not even a stumble.
The red-haired boy instinctively looked up, his stomach dropping at the sight of the tall, lean figure in front of him.
Then his gaze traveled higher—to the slicked-back, shoulder-length blond hair—and his heart began hammering.
When the face turned toward him, twisted with disbelief and menace, his pulse outright skipped a beat.
His furious expression melted into something close to tears.
"L-Long Ge," he stammered.
Lin Yu gave the stranger a once-over. But with more pressing matters on his mind, he let it slide—mostly.
"Listen here, you little shit," Lin Yu growled. "Clean up that filthy mouth of yours."
"One more word of that garbage, and I’ll beat you into the ground."
Instead of taking offense, the red-haired boy looked almost grateful for the leniency. He scrambled away, while Lin Yu turned his attention back to the electronic display screen in the lobby, showing the latest exam rankings.
He’d already checked a few times, but he still couldn’t believe it.
Tang Manman—ranked 54th in the school?
No way.
She almost never fell out of the top ten.
It couldn’t be her.
But just to be sure, Lin Yu waited, watching as the rankings cycled through again. When the first page of the school’s top scorers reappeared, he scrutinized it carefully.
His stomach twisted when he confirmed it—Tang Manman’s name wasn’t there.
What the hell?
How had her grades dropped so badly?
Was that natural-born bullying magnet being targeted again without him knowing?
Lin Yu’s worry spiked.
When it came to Tang Manman, he couldn’t just stand by.
It wasn’t just because she was the main heroine of some manga-like scenario, or because she had feelings for him.
It was because of that one time she’d saved him.
Because of her, he owed her everything.
If not for her—
Given my condition that night, if the Fire Scorpion gang had found me and given me a few more beatings, I might have really ended up transmigrating to another alternate world.
A three-day tour of the hentai world, so to speak.
Speaking of which, why did Tang Manman's grades drop so drastically?
Lin Yu felt utterly bewildered, like Louis XVI—completely clueless.
After some thought, Lin Yu decided to ask Gu Yue about it.
She was responsible for looking after Tang Manman, so she must know a lot about her recent situation, right?
Back in the classroom, after two forty-five-minute lessons, Lin Yu didn’t rush to the cafeteria this time. Instead, he waited for Gu Yue, planning to ask her about Tang Manman.
Seeing Gu Yue step out of the classroom, Lin Yu approached her and pulled her toward the quieter stairwell.
Once there, Lin Yu turned to look at Gu Yue, a question mark practically floating above his head as he asked,
"What are you grinning about?"
At that moment, Gu Yue was pressing her lips together, trying to suppress a smile, but the amusement still seeped through every expression on her face. She looked excited, her big, sparkling eyes blinking rapidly as she offered a completely unconvincing reply:
"Huh?"
"I’m not grinning."
Lin Yu frowned, unable to fathom what went on in Gu Yue’s head day in and day out.
What was there to deny?
If she was happy, so what?
Was he going to stop her from being happy?
Shaking off those random thoughts, Lin Yu got straight to the point:
"Have you noticed anything unusual about Tang Manman lately?"
...
The light in Gu Yue’s eyes dimmed visibly.
The barely contained smile that had lingered at the corners of her lips and eyes vanished in an instant.
She looked dejected for a moment but quickly pulled herself together, shaking her head as she replied,
"No, nothing."
"Did something happen to her?"
Lin Yu nodded gravely.
"Her grades this time were terrible."
"She only ranked 54th."
At this, Lin Yu eyed Gu Yue skeptically and asked,
"Are you sure no one at school is bullying her?"
"I’m sure!"
Gu Yue said loudly.
Pouting slightly, her tone carried a hint of grievance.
"I ask my friends every day how Tang Manman is doing at school, whether anyone’s giving her trouble."
"She’s doing fine now—no one dares to bully her."
"Not even the usual snide remarks."
"Besides,"
"with you watching her back,"
"who would even dare...?"
Gu Yue muttered under her breath.
"That’s weird,"
Lin Yu mused, stroking his chin.
"If no one at school is bullying her, how did her grades end up like this?"
"It’s not like her performance would just plummet for no reason."
"Could someone outside school be bothering her?"
"Or is there trouble at home?"
While Lin Yu was still analyzing, Gu Yue lost patience.
Her face fell as she snapped irritably,
"I don’t know."
"I’m leaving."
"Going to eat."
With that, she stomped down the stairs, the heavy thuds echoing through the stairwell.
The sound of her footsteps disrupted Lin Yu’s train of thought.
He watched Gu Yue descend, his frown deepening.
What was her problem?
She was fine just a second ago.
Why the sudden mood swing?
So inexplicable.
After silently complaining about Gu Yue's mood swings, Lin Yu also headed downstairs.
Her mind was preoccupied with possible reasons behind Tang Manman's declining academic performance...
...
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...
ine. During your journey, you save an abandoned baby girl and become her elder brother】 【You rely on each other, becoming each other's support】 【At the end of the simulation, you shield the now-grown girl with your life, sacrificing yourself to block numerous demonic cultivators. You die, and the light in the girl's eyes fades】 …… 【Second Simulation: You are transported to a world where steam and magic coexist】 【You immerse yourself in the study of magic, obsessed with its research. One day, while out, you encounter a half-blooded demon girl wandering the streets. You take her in as your student】 【You teach the demoness what it means to be human, show her the beauty of the world, and nurture her into a miracle that surpasses even the gods】 【At the end of the simulation, you die of old age in front of the nearly immortal demoness due to your mortal lifespan】 …… One simulation after another, one encounter after another. Xu Xi suddenly felt something was off: "Wait, you said you're coming to the real world to find me?"
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?!
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.”
