After a simple meal in the hotel restaurant, Lin Yu returned to his room to wait for Buzzcut's call.
Buzzcut's call didn't come; instead, an invitation message from Tang Manman arrived first.
Tang KuaiKuai: Are you there?
Long Aotian: I'm here.
Tang KuaiKuai: I just got out of class. Want to come out and grab a bite to eat together in a bit?
Faced with Tang Manman's invitation, Lin Yu calculated the time.
The four members of the Black Blood Gang weren't scheduled to make their move until late at night. It was barely evening now, and the sun hadn't even set yet. He actually did have time to join Tang Manman for some food.
After a moment's thought, Lin Yu typed out a line on his phone screen.
Long Aotian: No, I've got things to do tonight. Maybe next time.
Lin Yu turned Tang Manman down.
Previously, Lin Yu had been constantly afraid that Tang Manman might take things too hard and do something foolish, so he had followed Tao Yaoyao's advice and comforted her with a tenderness that slightly crossed the line.
But now, she seemed to have pretty much recovered.
She was eating well, attending classes, and even had the presence of mind to ask him out for dinner. This proved she was fine.
He shouldn't keep hanging around her anymore; otherwise, it just wouldn't be right.
Last night, during a video call with Xia Muzhu, Lin Yu had told her absolutely everything.
Including the fact that he had hugged Tang Manman.
Lin Yu had expected Xia Muzhu to be angry, or at least show some signs of displeasure.
But to Lin Yu's surprise, not only was Xia Muzhu not upset, she was actually happy that Lin Yu was willing to share these things with her.
At the end of the video call, she expressed great concern for Tang Manman, specifically urging him to counsel her well and prevent her from doing anything foolish.
She was as gentle and empathetic as always.
But the more she was like this, the more Lin Yu felt he had to be worthy of her trust and tenderness, and the more he felt he should keep a proper distance from Tang Manman.
She was such a good person; he shouldn't let her down.
Sitting in the hotel chair, Lin Yu lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, and slowly exhaled a white plume of smoke from his lips.
It was about time.
Lin Yu felt the moment had come.
Once this current business was resolved, he needed to come clean to Tang Manman about Xia Muzhu.
But...
Lin Yu scratched his head in agony.
Just the thought of telling Tang Manman this face-to-face made him feel an immense weight on his shoulders, making it hard to even open his mouth.
Having dragged it out until now, Lin Yu was starting to regret it.
Perhaps he should have confessed to Tang Manman long ago.
Opening up now meant that, in addition to the matter itself, his shoulders also bore the weight of over a year of deliberate alienation and concealment, making it even harder to speak.
Although Lin Yu had always comforted himself with the excuse that "It's not that I deliberately didn't say anything, it's that Tang Manman didn't ask," he knew deep down that this was nothing more than a self-deceptive pretext.
Since he had Sister Zhuzi, logically, he should have announced her on his WeChat Moments and social media platforms long ago. Yet, because of Tang Manman, he had delayed doing so.
When it came down to it.
He simply couldn't bring himself to say those words.
Was he unwilling?
Or was he afraid?
Perhaps it was a bit of both.
Worried, Lin Yu took another drag of his cigarette.
Lin Yu had always been afraid—afraid that if he told Tang Manman the truth, she would refuse to let go and cling to him with tear-filled eyes.
Rejecting her then would be incredibly painful.
Because he wanted to avoid that pain, Lin Yu had never dared to be straight with her.
Instead, he planned to use the "cold shoulder" method, hoping Tang Manman would silently realize that their budding, undefined romance was over.
But what made Lin Yu want to scream was that after giving her the cold shoulder for over a year—long enough for fresh meat to turn into zombie meat—Tang Manman still had a soft spot for him.
This was something Lin Yu hadn't anticipated.
To be honest.
Even today, Lin Yu still believed there was nothing wrong with his cold shoulder approach.
In this day and age, if you don't reply to a text for a week, it's already considered a default breakup.
Let alone for the kind of undefined, puppy-love feelings between him and Tang Manman!
The problem was Tang Manman!
She was truly dense!
It had been over a year; did she still not understand what he meant?
When it came to these things, she really was clueless—completely and utterly clueless!
...
...
Lin Yu's hand holding the cigarette suddenly trembled. Thinking of that possibility, his entire body went stiff.
Or was it that...
She wasn't actually as dumb as he imagined?
What if she was just like him, deceiving herself and refusing to face reality...?
The cigarette between his fingers was gradually consumed by the flame. He sat dazed in the chair for a long time, and it wasn't until the heat of the fire radiated through the air to his skin that Lin Yu snapped out of it, tapping the ash into the ashtray.
Taking one last drag from the filter, Lin Yu stubbed out the cigarette in the transparent glass ashtray.
He couldn't go on like this.
Even if he couldn't say it, he had to say it!
Confessing the truth would be best for himself, for Tang Manman, and for Sister Zhuzi.
If he really couldn't bring himself to say it to Tang Manman's face, he could announce his relationship with Sister Zhuzi on WeChat Moments and social apps after returning to H City.
In any case, he couldn't keep giving her the cold shoulder.
Tang Manman seemed to have a nuclear reactor inside her; the cold treatment was useless on her!
After making up his mind, Lin Yu didn't feel relieved. Instead, his heart beat even more heavily.
He felt like a prisoner who knew exactly when his execution was scheduled—his heart was filled only with torment.
Picking up his phone again, Lin Yu saw that Tang Manman had sent two more messages.
Tang KuaiKuai: Alright.
Tang KuaiKuai: Then when will you have time?
Lin Yu looked at the two messages and steeled his heart, typing a line on the screen.
Long Aotian: I don't know. I've been really busy lately. We'll see.
Tang KuaiKuai: ...
Tang KuaiKuai: Okay...
After brushing off Tang Manman, Lin Yu lay on the large hotel bed, used the remote to turn on the room's TV, and selected a movie to kill time.
After one movie ended, Buzzcut, whose ID was Z, still hadn't called.
Checking the time, he saw it was only a little past eight, so Lin Yu selected another movie and watched it leisurely.
It wasn't until the second movie was drawing to a close that Lin Yu's phone finally rang.
He picked it up and saw it was a video call from Z.
He tapped to answer. The image on the phone shook before revealing the scene on Buzzcut's end.
The camera showed a reddish-brown wooden door. Judging by the wall next to the door and the exquisite floor tiles, they appeared to be at Wang Nian's home.
Lin Yu had already turned off the TV. In the quiet hotel room, he could even hear the sound of footsteps and a lock turning coming from the other end of the line.
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!
【Prologue: The Beginning of It All – Use holy water to heal the saintess tainted by demonic energy, then converse with her.】 Shen Nian stared at his older sister sipping yogurt, lost in thought. So you’re telling me my sister is the saintess, and yogurt is the holy water? 【Main Quest 1: Brave Youth, Become an Adventurer! Reward: Rookie Adventurer Title.】 【Side Quest 1: Find the Adorable Kitty! Reward: 1000 Gold Coins.】 Shen Nian: "Wait, I’m a high school senior here—did some guy who got isekai’d accidentally bind his system to me?" Hold on, completing quests gives gold rewards? Titles even boost stats? Is this for real? (A lighthearted, absurd campus comedy—not a revenge power fantasy.)
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?!
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.
