Brushing teeth, washing face, shaving, applying makeup, styling hair, picking out an outfit...
After a busy morning routine, Lin Yu looked at his reflection in the mirror and flashed a satisfied smile.
Not bad, not bad at all.
With a little effort, he could still clean up pretty well!
Once ready, Lin Yu checked the time on his phone—8:30 AM.
His meeting with Tang Manman was scheduled for 9:30 AM, and it would take about twenty minutes to get from home to the mall.
Hmm...
Heading out now seemed a bit too early.
Realizing he had time to kill, Lin Yu sat on the edge of his bed, wondering how to pass the agonizing wait.
Spotting a foreign language textbook on his desk, he picked it up and skimmed a few pages, only to feel increasingly restless. He couldn’t focus at all.
Maybe scrolling through his phone would help.
Changing his mind, Lin Yu put the book back and lay down on the bed, still fully dressed. After watching a couple of short videos, even the usual appeal of curvy beauties seemed dull today.
After some thought, he decided to just leave early.
Even if he arrived ahead of time, he could wander around the mall.
Better than sitting at home getting more and more irritated!
Grabbing his phone, he headed out, hailing a cab straight to the mall.
A short while later, the car pulled up smoothly by the curb. Lin Yu checked his phone again.
9:01 AM.
Still about half an hour until Tang Manman arrived.
Well.
Might as well grab a bite—he hadn’t eaten breakfast yet.
Paying the fare, he stepped out, hands in his pockets, and walked toward the mall entrance.
As he passed through the revolving door, his gaze locked onto a girl sitting obediently on a bench outside a McDonald’s.
She wore a slightly worn black winter coat over a pair of faded blue-and-white jeans—both looking older than they should.
Yet her simple, unadorned outfit couldn’t hide her delicate, almost ethereal beauty.
Even without makeup, sitting there quietly, she effortlessly drew the attention of passersby...
Wait.
Not entirely without makeup.
Had her lips always been this pink?
Did she put on lip balm this time?
Seeing Tang Manman arrive even earlier than him, Lin Yu was momentarily at a loss for words.
Beyond touched, what he felt most was joy—being valued like this was always nice...
No!
It was downright amazing!!!
Just as the revolving door turned to let him out, Lin Yu, smiling to himself, was about to step forward when he noticed a group of thuggish-looking guys loitering near Tang Manman suddenly swagger toward her.
???
What, some kind of innate bullying magnet?
Acting up again, huh?
Hold on—
Lin Yu’s brow furrowed.
Did this "bullying magnet" thing only activate when he was around?
How else did he always manage to witness it?
...
Or maybe she faced this kind of trouble often.
But with no one to help, she could only shrink back, dodging and hiding as best she could?
...
Spotting the approaching group, Tang Manman stood up to leave.
But the moment she moved, the guys sped up, encircling her.
With no escape, she sat back down, curling her already slight frame inward.
A red-haired man in the group grinned, revealing a set of less-than-pearly whites, and drawled,
"Hey pretty, all alone?"
Tang Manman tensed, looking up at them. She was about to use her usual excuse—"My dad and uncle went to buy cigarettes, they’ll be back soon"—when she froze, her eyes locking onto someone behind the group.
In an instant, her fear vanished, replaced by the faintest hint of a smile tugging at her lips.
She blinked.
The newcomer ignored her, striding up behind the thugs. Without a word, he swung a brutal slap straight across the redhead’s face, snarling,
"Waiting for your daddy, huh?"
"Got a problem with that?"
The force sent the redhead stumbling back, landing hard on his rear.
Grimacing in pain, he clutched his nose, then pulled his hand away to see blood. Glaring up at the stranger, he spat,
"You got a death wish or somethin’?"
Before he could rally his friends, a blond crew-cut guy in the group lunged first.
A swift kick to the groin and another thunderous slap later, two more thugs hit the ground. The remaining two froze, suddenly rethinking their life choices.
Still fuming, Lin Yu eyed the redhead, itching to teach him another lesson.
Reading his intent, the redhead scrambled back, blustering,
"You dare hit me?"
"You know who I am?"
"I’m with the Black Blood Gang!"
At the name, Lin Yu paused.
Black Blood Gang?
You’ve gotta be kidding me.
If you were really with them, you’d know who the hell I am!
"You’re Black Blood Gang but don’t recognize me?"
Lin Yu pointed at himself, his smile edged with menace.
"Y-you—"
The redhead stuttered but held onto his bravado, jutting his chin out.
"Why the hell should I know you?"
"I roll with Brother She!"
"Who the fuck are you?"
That did it.
Lin Yu cracked up.
"Alright."
"Brother She, huh?"
"Fine."
"Go on."
"Call your precious Brother She to come find me."
The redhead clambered up, one hand staunching his bloody nose, the other jabbing a finger at Lin Yu.
"Fine!"
"Don’t you fucking move!"
"If you’ve got any balls, you’ll wait right here!"
After the tough-guy act came the backup summoning.
But before that, Lin Yu had unfinished business.
Grabbing a fistful of red hair, he yanked the guy back. When the thug resisted, Lin Yu drove a fist into his gut.
"Apologize first."
"No rush to leave."
Doubled over, the redhead hissed through the pain, his curses fragmented.
Lin Yu wasn’t having it. Finding a pressure point, he dug in.
The agony worked wonders—soon, the redhead was gritting out an apology.
Still not satisfied, Lin Yu kept "adjusting" his attitude.
A few rounds later, the thug finally bowed, apology dripping with forced respect.
With the redhead dealt with, Lin Yu turned to the other four.
Wisely, they skipped the drama and delivered flawless apologies on the spot.
After feeling satisfied, Lin Yu let the group go and walked further into the mall with Tang Manman.
Before they had gone far, a loud shout suddenly rang out from behind. Curious, Lin Yu turned his head and saw the red-haired guy—still being supported by two others—standing at the mall entrance, pointing at him and yelling:
"If you're a real man, don’t you dare walk away!"
Lin Yu stared at the red-haired guy for a moment, then suddenly bent forward, pretending to charge at him.
Terrified, the red-haired guy’s legs stopped wobbling. He shoved aside the two helping him and bolted out of there in a flash.
'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.
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?!
iaobai: "Councilor Dad, front me some funds. I want to hire ten thousand professional miners for a project!" [Five-Star Mission Issued: Capture the leader of the Blood Heaven Pirate Gang, who is on the run in the Radiant Star Sector. It is said the gang has over a hundred members. Proceed with caution.] Lu Xiaobai: "Councilor Dad, lend me the family's hundred-thousand-strong Lu Army!" [Seven-Star Mission Issued: Subdue a juvenile Void Dragon Beast.] Lu Xiaobai: "Councilor Dad, I'm taking your tamed Void Dragon Beast King out for a family reunion!" I said, System, don't you have any slightly more challenging missions? You're just not up to par! [Nine-Star Mission Issued: Become the Human Councilor.] Lu Xiaobai: "Dad, there's a small matter I'd like to discuss with you..."
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!
