Outside the window, snowflakes fluttered down, while inside, the room was as warm as spring.
Perhaps someone had reported them.
Or maybe the recent temperature drop had been too drastic.
The shameless heating company had finally decided to burn a few more shovels of coal, allowing the residents of this old neighborhood to feel some long-lost warmth.
Pushing the blanket aside, Lin Yu sat up, scratched his stomach, and prepared to get out of bed to wash up.
He had promised Gu Yue they’d go out today.
Hmm.
Perfect timing to do some shopping too.
A lot of things at home were running low.
Walking into the bathroom, Lin Yu brushed his teeth while silently making a mental list of what they needed. After hanging out with Gu Yue, he’d swing by the supermarket to stock up.
Ding.
A text notification chimed from his phone on the sink. Instinctively, Lin Yu assumed it was Gu Yue messaging him—after all, they had plans today.
After spitting out the toothpaste foam and rinsing his mouth, he reached for the phone and turned on the screen.
?
Staring at the grinning, borderline terrifying Pikachu avatar, Lin Yu was slightly surprised.
Not Gu Yue.
Xia Yueshan?
What did he want this early in the morning?
Was something up?
Curious, Lin Yu tapped open the chat. A string of messages flooded the screen.
Xia Aodi: Lin Yu, urgent matter!
Xia Aodi: Emergency! Room 603, Jiashi Hotel!
Xia Aodi: Come quick!
Xia Aodi: COME QUICK!!!
???
Lin Yu stared at the messages, his head full of question marks.
Seriously?
What kind of nonsense was Xia Yueshan up to now?
Couldn’t he just say whatever it was over the phone?
Why meet in person?
And in a hotel room, no less?
Some kind of spy rendezvous?
Lin Yu had no intention of trekking all the way there just to humor Xia Yueshan’s antics. Without hesitation, he tapped the voice call button.
But the moment the call connected, the other side immediately hung up.
Lin Yu was baffled. He sent a single question mark in response.
Long Aotian: ?
Xia Aodi: Can’t talk over the phone! Meet in person!
?
What couldn’t be said over the phone?
Was his line being tapped or something?
Lin Yu sighed internally, unable to fathom what went on in Xia Yueshan’s head.
But since he was so insistent, Lin Yu figured he might as well go.
What if it really was something important?
Despite his occasional unreliability, Xia Yueshan was usually pretty dependable.
After replying that he’d be there soon, Lin Yu checked the time.
9:00 AM.
He and Gu Yue had agreed to meet at 10:00. If he moved quickly, he could still make it on time.
Though there was still some leeway, time wasn’t exactly abundant. With a heightened sense of urgency, Lin Yu sped through the rest of his morning routine.
Once ready, he threw on his coat and headed for the door.
Just as his hand touched the doorknob, his phone rang.
"Makka pakka, akka wakka, mikka makka, moo~"
"Makka pakka, akka yakka~"
The absurdly catchy ringtone echoed through the room.
Lin Yu paused and pulled out his phone.
Unknown number.
Hmph.
He didn’t even need to think—this was definitely that stalker, the third female lead!
Her persistence was honestly impressive.
Shaking his head in exasperation, Lin Yu silenced the call and stepped outside.
Downstairs, he looked up at the sky.
Snowflakes drifted down in a slow, endless dance. Judging by the intensity, this snowfall would likely be heavier than last weekend’s.
Zipping his padded jacket all the way up, Lin Yu hunched his shoulders slightly and trudged through the fresh, untouched snow, heading toward the busier main road.
...
?
Lin Yu suddenly stopped in his tracks, an inexplicable sense of unease creeping over him.
He turned, scanning his surroundings.
Snowflakes the size of fingernails fluttered down, settling on the ground, on the shoulders and heads of passersby, on everything in sight.
A perfectly ordinary winter scene. Nothing seemed out of place. No strange sense of familiarity.
Scratching his head, Lin Yu turned back and continued toward the road.
Not long after he turned away, a man in an oversized black coat, carrying a rusty metal bucket, lifted the edge of his hood just enough to reveal a pair of bloodshot eyes brimming with bone-chilling hatred.
His gaze locked onto Lin Yu’s retreating figure, and he took a step forward—only to freeze abruptly, his body stiffening in pain.
His face twisted in agony as his entire frame trembled, as if he’d aggravated some unbearable wound.
Gritting his teeth, the man bent down with difficulty, placing the bucket on the ground before fishing out a bottle of painkillers from his pocket.
Without bothering to measure the dose, he dumped a handful of pills into his palm, shoved them into his mouth, and washed them down with a swig of water from his jacket.
After catching his breath, he picked up the bucket again and forced himself forward, limping after Lin Yu’s fading silhouette...
...
Inside Room 603 of Jiashi Hotel, a cash-strapped girl exhaled softly in relief after reading the message on her phone.
"Be there soon."
Good. She wouldn’t have to extend the room rental.
But almost immediately, her heart clenched again.
Nothing would go wrong, right?
Her pulse raced as nervousness took hold. She took deep breaths to steady herself while double-checking her preparations.
Pulling back the covers, she glanced at the items laid out on the bed—her tension eased slightly at the sight.
Stun gun. Pepper spray. Personal alarm. And...
She turned toward the potted plant in the corner, where a hidden camera was aimed at both the bed and the door.
Satisfied that everything was in place, she slipped off her thin coat and climbed under the covers, concealing the self-defense tools beneath the blanket.
Wrapped tightly in the hotel’s pristine white sheets, her bright, lively eyes flickered with fear.
Nothing would go wrong... right?
It shouldn’t...
ive and Ruthless] Before his transmigration, Ye Xuan was playing a game called "Severing Emotions to Attain the Dao." The game's core wasn't about leveling up by fighting monsters, but about conquering various "bad women" with wicked personalities and cold, fickle natures. There was only one method to conquer them: stay unwaveringly by their side, then die at a critical moment, driving them to madness after losing the protagonist. The higher their level of regret, the higher the player's score. To dominate the server, Ye Xuan conquered all the bad women. In the early stages, he showered them with boundless tenderness, only to choose to sacrifice himself for them later, making them weep bitterly and drown in regret. Among them were: Xia Lengyue, the unfaithful immortal wife who chased after powerful men and discarded her husband like trash. Ye Qingcheng, the Demonic Venerable of the Joyous Union Sect, who appeared pure and innocent but was, in reality, promiscuous. Wu Lingxiao, the Empress of the Great Xia Dynasty, who lusted after men and loved maintaining a harem. Bai Qiangu of the Endless Demonic Sect: a bloodthirsty mass murderer. However, when the protagonist transmigrated into the game world, he made a horrifying discovery. Eight hundred years had already passed. The bad women he had conquered had now each become deities and revered ancestors. Faced with the endless stream of toxic women coming for him, Ye Xuan could only rely on his god-tier acting skills to carve a path of survival through this world of treacherous women.
't think I'm that capable, I'm just trying my best to stay alive. I've been kind all my life, never did anything bad, yet worldly suffering spared me not one bit. The human world is a nice place, but I won't come back in my next life. A kind young man, who wanted to just get by singing, but through repeated deceits and betrayals, has gone down an irredeemable path.
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!
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?!
