……
Zhu Yan climbed the stairs, the small shards of glass crunching beneath his feet.
After returning from Jin Rongxu, he had spent a full day recuperating.
The previous night, he had skipped his memory-modification potion and slept deeply—so deeply that he didn’t have to worry about a single thing.
He scratched at his hair and took a bite of a barbecued-pork bun.
The [Metabolism Module] had sucked in all the buildings and spat them back out again. That rough treatment had left the art students’ teaching building in complete disarray.
Nearly every classroom window on both sides had been shattered—
The soft soles of Zhu Yan’s sneakers kept squeaking against the glass shards, the sound echoing eerily through the long corridor.
Several large pieces of broken glass were still lodged in the window frames. On them, Zhu Yan saw dark-brown, rust-colored bloodstains and a few scraps of rotting flesh.
He hurriedly quickened his pace and jogged toward the end of the corridor.
The familiar vending machine soon came into view. One side had been badly dented, while the edges and all four corners on the front had been scraped bare of paint.
It looked utterly miserable.
Zhu Yan took out a bone-copper coin, unsure whether the thing still worked.
He stepped forward and was just about to insert the coin when the vending machine suddenly let out a loud clang and toppled straight toward him.
“Holy shit!”
Zhu Yan nimbly leaped aside.
The vending machine crashed to the floor with a deafening clatter, and the glass covering its display shattered into countless pieces.
Zhu Yan stared blankly at it. Then he turned his head and met the equally stunned gaze of the art student, An Xuyin.
“Uh… ugh!”
An Xuyin let out a wail.
His curly hair was piled messily on top of his head, and two streaks of grime marked his face. It was obvious that some filthy, exhausting work had put him through the wringer.
“The vending machine!! If it’s completely smashed like this, I’ll have to report it to the organization and make them rebuild me another secret room!”
Zhu Yan glanced at the wall.
It was seamless. There was no sign that a room existed behind it.
“Let’s get inside first. It should still hold up for one last time,” he consoled him. “Besides, don’t you have plenty of secret locations?”
An Xuyin closed one eye and shot Zhu Yan a sidelong glance with the other.
“Oh, well, well. If it isn’t Mr. Zhu Zeyu.”
“Not a word from you for so long. Those in the know would say you had too much to deal with. Those who don’t know better would think you were dead.”
He rapped three times on the wall.
“Come in. You still haven’t claimed your reward from last time.”
Zhu Yan waved a hand, then pulled out three cups of milk tea and some white clay and paints purchased from the [Witch’s Department Store].
An Xuyin’s tone immediately softened, and the baby fat on his face lifted into an uncontrollable grin.
“Oh, all right. I won’t hold it against you, bro! You must have done a whole, whole lot over such a long time… I heard you got your hands on a fragment of [Chaos Order]. My God, you’ve really worked hard!”
The moment they entered the narrow foyer, An Xuyin enthusiastically snatched the bag of milk tea from Zhu Yan’s hands.
The door closed automatically behind them and turned back into a wall. An Xuyin, meanwhile, eagerly rummaged through the bag and picked out an expensive iced chocolate.
“It reminds me of the rivers outside Italian cities in the fourteenth century… Oh!”
Zhu Yan didn’t understand this thunderous analogy at all.
He surveyed the little room and was surprised to find that many things had been moved. The sofa had suffered especially noticeable damage: its outer covering had been slashed open, exposing the yellow sponge inside.
“What happened here?” Zhu Yan asked.
An Xuyin turned into a beautiful white cat and began noisily slurping down his milk tea.
Zhu Yan took the hard-won fragment of [Chaos Order] from his ring and placed it beneath An Xuyin’s fluffy chest.
He had no intention of telling An Xuyin about what had happened in the [Human Alliance]—not unless An Xuyin asked.
It was difficult to say exactly why.
For one thing, the matters concerning Jin Rongxu and Director Jin were difficult to explain in just a few words. For another, Zhu Yan wasn’t used to voluntarily laying everything about himself bare before someone else.
Although he knew the art student meant him no harm, he still wanted to keep a few secrets of his own—even if those secrets might be exposed with only a little investigation.
“There’ll be an open-beta dungeon in a little over half a month,” Zhu Yan said, speaking more to himself than to anyone else. “I wonder what it’ll be like.”
An Xuyin gulped down his iced chocolate.
Only after his cat mouth was smeared with brown stains did he finally lift his head, satisfied, and turn back into a human.
“I don’t know either. But you did beautifully.”
He carefully picked up the fragment. Its milky-white glow illuminated his catlike pupils.
“This thing is very important to us. I’ll hand it over to the higher-ups in [Fangcun Mountain]. With your help, we’ll soon be able to try entering [Carnival Paradise] and establish a contact point down there.”
Zhu Yan was stunned. “Didn’t you say there was no way to get down there, and that was why you needed me?”
“That’s right.” The art student’s expression turned solemn. “Even with a fragment of [Chaos Order], we still can’t simply go down there and start a fight. Especially since, to this day, we still don’t know where [Carnival Paradise]’s ultimate weakness lies…”
An Xuyin looked at Zhu Yan.
“You know, this is the first time it has descended on such a massive scale. Do you know what the fragment of [Chaos Order] is for?”
Zhu Yan thought back to what the monsters in the [Metabolism Module] dungeon had said.
“I know it can disrupt or block certain rules. It’s pretty much exactly what its name suggests.”
“Exactly.”
An Xuyin nodded solemnly and continued explaining. “It can block rules, but the area it can affect is extremely limited. We can combine it with some items we already have and use it to enclose a small area down there as a place for communication.”
“But leaving that area recklessly would still get us discovered.”
“And we couldn’t defeat all the things down there anyway. Some of them are incredibly powerful, while others will return even if they temporarily perish.”
An Xuyin carefully put away the fragment.
“I’ll submit it to the higher-ups. Now, about your reward…”
He walked over to the desk and rummaged out a heavy cloth bundle.
“I heard the higher-ups agonized over this for a long time before finally deciding to give it to you.”
“There’s also a mission card inside. It’s a task you’ll need to complete in the open-beta dungeon.”
Zhu Yan felt the bundle. It was soft and pliable, almost like clothing.
He opened it and, sure enough, found a magnificent, heavy robe inside.
A bottle resembling insecticide was pressed into the middle of the robe. The bottle was pure white, with no words indicating what it was for.
Beside the aerosol can lay a sandalwood bookmark. The next [Fangcun Mountain] mission had been printed in neat lettering on the back.
“Member, we are grateful for the contributions you have made, and hereby reward you!”
“We understand that you may be facing the [Hunter]’s baptism, so we are additionally presenting you with one can of waterproof aerosol.”
“Before undergoing the ‘baptism,’ please spray it thoroughly over your entire body!”
Oh, wonderful.
Zhu Yan thought to himself, “What a brilliant calculation.”
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
ts me of treason?" "Correct. The host must return to the capital and gradually build up influence." "Wait—I have half a million soldiers, and you want me to go back to the capital to 'build influence'?" "Host, you are currently the Northern Garrison General, loyal to the Great Xia Dynasty." "Of course I am loyal to Great Xia! Absolutely loyal!" "But you keep referring to yourself as 'We'..." "Never mind the details! Summon all the regional commanders and military officers! We suspect treacherous officials are manipulating the court! They shall march with Us to the capital and purge the corrupt!" "......"
for mindless slaughter, this isn't for you.] My name is Ye Shu, and I'm a transmigrator. It seems I'm supposed to be the protagonist, but that feels pretty unlikely. This world has been invaded by a system. The antagonists on the other side have suddenly become pure, flawless saints. The female leads have been force-fed the so-called "original plot," making them think they've been reborn. Now, everyone thinks I'm scum. Including the old lady in my ring. And here I am, in the Monster Beast Mountain Range, braising pork. To put my situation in perspective— It's as if, the moment Xiao Yan stepped into the Monster Beast Mountain Range, the Soul Emperor already knew he would become the Flame Emperor, and Yao Lao had been turned to the enemy's side. I have nothing right now. Oh wait, that's not true. I do have a white-haired loli child-bride who's the Heavenly Dao, and her only skill is acting cute. So, tell me guys... what are my chances of making it to the end?
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
