"The excitement begins now! Don't leave! Just a few more pages and you won't want to go! The best part is coming right up!"
"Son, get up and eat. Your dad just called—someone will be here soon to pick you up for your new assignment. Stop sleeping and get out of bed!"
Li Ming groggily heard his mother calling him. Fighting off his drowsiness, he forced his eyes open.
"What assignment? So soon? I don’t even know which department I’m being assigned to yet! How am I supposed to start already?"
Li Ming was completely baffled.
"You know how your father is—always swift and decisive. Stop complaining and hurry up. They’ll be here soon to pick you up."
Hearing this, Li Ming had no choice but to quickly get dressed. Watching his mother drag out a large suitcase and stuff his clothes inside one by one, he couldn’t help but protest.
"Mom! You don’t need to pack so much. It’s not like I’m moving. I’ll just take a backpack with a couple of things—I can buy whatever else I need there!"
"Don’t worry about it. Go eat first! Breakfast is ready, hurry up!"
Unable to argue with his mother, Li Ming gave in and went to wash up before eating.
Before long, the sound of a car horn echoed from the villa’s front gate.
Beep beep beep!
Hearing the noise, Li Ming’s eyes lit up. He grabbed his suitcase and slowly made his way to the door, his mother following close behind.
Outside, a black Jeep SUV came into view.
He knew this must be the car sent to pick him up.
The Jeep’s door slowly opened, and out stepped a stunningly beautiful woman—her expression cool and composed, her skin flawless and fair, her figure perfectly curvaceous.
The woman stepped out, glanced at Li Ming holding his suitcase, and then approached his mother with a polite greeting.
"Auntie Jiang, hello! It’s been a while. I’m Lin Xi—my father is Lin Aiguo." A warm smile graced Lin Xi’s lovely face as she spoke.
"Oh! Little Xi! I didn’t even recognize you! My, how you’ve grown! It hasn’t been that long, but you’ve become so beautiful—like a fairy!" Li Ming’s mother took Lin Xi’s hands in hers, showering her with astonished praise.
"Hehe, Auntie Jiang, you’re just as beautiful as ever! You haven’t aged a bit—still so youthful!" Lin Xi replied.
"Oh, I’m already old. It’s your generation’s time now! So, Xi, do you have a boyfriend yet? You used to play house with my Li Ming when you were little!" Jiang Wan teased, wiggling her eyebrows playfully.
"Ahem! Mom, stop embarrassing her! You should head back now. Lin Xi and I probably have a long trip ahead." Seeing his mother teasing Lin Xi, Li Ming quickly stepped in to rescue her.
"Tch! You brat! Just like your father—once you leave home, you’re like a wildcat, never knowing when to come back!" Jiang Wan rolled her eyes at her son, though she wasn’t truly upset. After all, a grown son needed to venture out into the world.
"Auntie Jiang, Li Ming is right. We really do have a long way to go. Our destination isn’t in City A—it’s quite far from here," Lin Xi added with a smile.
"Alright, alright. I won’t keep you for a meal then. Drive safely, and be careful on the road!" Jiang Wan stuffed the luggage into the trunk and watched as Li Ming and Lin Xi got into the car.
"Goodbye, Auntie Jiang!" Lin Xi said politely.
"Don’t worry, Mom! It’s not like I’m never coming back. Once I settle in, I’ll visit you soon!" Li Ming, on the other hand, was completely unfazed. With transportation so advanced these days, he could easily come home on leave.
"Go on, then! You ungrateful brat!"
……
On the road!
Once inside the car, Lin Xi reverted to her earlier cool and aloof demeanor, exuding an air of effortless confidence.
Li Ming felt a little awkward striking up a conversation, but with just the two of them in the car, he had no one else to ask the countless questions swirling in his mind. Swallowing his hesitation, he finally spoke up.
"Lin Xi, where exactly are we going?"
Keeping her eyes on the road, Lin Xi replied,
"Somewhere good. You’ll find out when we get there. I can’t say anything on the way—your father’s orders."
Hearing this, Li Ming felt an inexplicable chill run down his spine.
What kind of job assignment required this level of secrecy? Wouldn’t he find out once they arrived anyway? Why couldn’t she just tell him now?
"Fine. If my dad won’t let you say where, then can you at least tell me why you’re the one picking me up? Are you assigned to that department too?" Li Ming asked curiously.
Back when they were kids, he and Lin Xi had been close friends. Their fathers were practically inseparable, like brothers. But as they grew older, the distance between boys and girls naturally widened. It had been six or seven years since he’d last seen Lin Xi. He never expected her to have changed so much—the sweet little girl from his memories had blossomed into this stunning woman.
"Way to hit a sore spot. But yes, you guessed right. I’ve been there for two years already." Lin Xi shot him a brief glare before refocusing on driving, ignoring him again.
Li Ming was baffled. What’s with the sudden mood swing? I was just asking a question. Such an overreaction. What a waste of a pretty face—so cold and distant. She was much cuter as a kid.
With Lin Xi ignoring him, the car fell into silence. Li Ming played with his phone for a while before drowsiness crept back in. Reclining his seat, he dozed off before he knew it.
He was jolted awake by the bumpy ride.
Rubbing his bleary eyes, he realized it was already pitch-dark outside. There wasn’t a single city light in sight—just endless darkness, broken only by the faint glow of the car’s headlights on the road ahead.
Li Ming blinked in confusion before suddenly sitting bolt upright.
"Holy crap! Where the hell are we? Why are we in the middle of a forest?!"
His eyes widened in disbelief. Beside him, Lin Xi remained unfazed, calmly driving without so much as a flinch at his outburst.
"Your workplace, of course. We’re almost there—just another ten minutes or so." For once, Lin Xi’s voice was soft.
"Huh? My workplace? What kind of office is built in the middle of nowhere? Did my dad exile me to the borderlands or something? He’s not even my stepdad!!" Li Ming rolled down the window and stuck his head out, scanning the surroundings. No matter how he looked at it, this place was just a desolate mountain.
The ground was nothing but dirt and gravel. Forget streetlights—there probably wasn’t a living soul for miles around.
Now wide awake, Li Ming sat stiffly in his seat, bracing himself as Lin Xi drove onward.
Finally…
After another ten minutes of winding mountain roads…
A towering perimeter wall loomed into view at the end of the path. With Li Ming gaping in shock, Lin Xi drove straight through the gates into the compound.
The row of large characters mounted on the wall left Li Ming frozen, unable to process what he was seeing.
Black Mountain Women’s Prison!!!!!
(Thousands of daily reminders to update aren’t a joke! Stay tuned for more!)...
"Just you wait—seven trips in and out of the dark room!"
【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.)
] [Lone Wolf, No Male Gaze] [Protagonist is pursued early on; extreme protagonist-stans, stay away!] The "Carnival Paradise" descends and slowly devours the real world in the form of a game. By chance, Zhu Yan awakens the talent [Roleplay], becoming one of the first beta players. He thought he could develop safely, but after clearing the first instance, he is branded by humanity as the chief culprit behind the game's spread—a traitorous villain. A villain? Who would ever... become one! He'll be the villain! From then on, Zhu Yan is not only a player but also a lackey for the Carnival Paradise. Between the straight path and the crooked path, he chooses the con. With his left hand, he dons the villain's mantle, staging scenes within instances, infuriating players who decry him as a despicable traitor, all while the game happily promotes him. With his right hand, he joins the non-human organization "Fangcun Mountain," which opposes the Carnival Paradise, transforming into a mysterious player who slaughters game bosses, earning cheers of "Long live the expert!" from fellow players. Gradually, Zhu Yan rises to become an S-rank human player in Fangcun Mountain's archives, while also being the Carnival Paradise's certified top game Boss. But when the final war erupts and both major factions place their hopes in him— Players tag his various aliases: "Experts, this offensive depends on you." The Carnival Paradise's supreme Boss throws an arm around his neck: "Bro, you're the iron, I'm the steel; you can't let me down again!"
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?!
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!
