Zhu Yan could only regret that he hadn’t seen through the red text on the [Player Forum].
He anxiously hovered around Jin Rongxu’s head, circling him until the other man finally stood up with an air of absolute determination.
“If I don’t chop off both his hands, I’ll change my surname!”
……
The [Hunter] sat motionless, hooded and bound to a specially designed restraint chair.
It was a small interrogation room. To the left of the chair was a one-way mirror.
The room was brightly lit, ensuring that Director Jin could see everything inside with perfect clarity.
Without making a sound, Zhu Yan split off a strand of [Mist] and floated it above the interrogation room to observe the situation.
A uniformed player sat opposite the [Hunter]. Zhu Yan recognized him.
He was the same human lie detector Zhu Yan knew so well. When Zhu Yan had first registered under Zhu Zeyu’s identity, this was the player who had sat across from him.
Captain Zheng and another, slightly shorter man stood on either side of the player. They both looked highly capable in combat—probably there to prevent the [Hunter] from suddenly resisting.
“You say you’re Number Three Hunter,” the player in front questioned him. “What does that mean?”
Zhu Yan let out a cold laugh and steered the conversation elsewhere.
“Instead of asking that, why don’t you ask who I am?”
“Answer whatever you’re asked!” Captain Zheng barked sternly.
Downstairs.
Jin Rongxu had already left the room.
He did not notice the [Mist] clinging to his shoulder and simply walked toward the elevator.
……
Inside the interrogation room, Zhu Yan tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“Oh, come on. You may not know who I am, but surely you know about the Qiu family?”
“Our family has such enormous influence. Taking a little money from the Jin family as a kickback isn’t unreasonable, is it?”
Zhu Yan refused to follow the script in the slightest.
Behind the one-way mirror, Director Jin’s face had darkened completely.
“Take off his mask,” he ordered coldly. “Get a high-level player in here…”
The player beside him acknowledged the order, but Director Jin suddenly caught hold of him.
“Wait.”
He seemed to have thought of something.
“Forget it. Remove his hood first and see what we’re dealing with.”
For some reason, a faint sense of danger was rising in Director Jin’s heart.
But in the end, he shook his head and laughed at himself.
He was being jumpy.
The [Hunter] was already locked inside this heavily guarded chamber. What trouble could he possibly cause?
“Just do it. Take off his hood and continue the interrogation with torture. Where is Captain Jin?”
……
Jin Rongxu had already stepped into the elevator.
Zhu Yan clung to him, watching as the elevator rapidly climbed from Floor B23.
Another strand of [Mist] was waiting between Floors B19 and B17.
Jin Rongxu was in high spirits, humming a little tune. He had not even finished one line when the elevator gave a light, subtle jolt.
The pause was so slight that Jin Rongxu merely glanced up.
Floor B19.
He shifted his gaze away without a second thought, catching from the corner of his eye the floor number jumping from B19 to B17.
“Piece-of-shit elevator,” Jin Rongxu muttered with a chuckle. “Who the hell built this thing?”
……
“What kind of torture?” the player respectfully asked Director Jin.
“Electrocution,” Director Jin said flatly. “Why hasn’t Captain Jin arrived yet?”
The player said something into his microphone. Inside the room, Captain Zheng simultaneously adjusted his earpiece and received the message.
Captain Zheng immediately instructed Zhu Zeyu through the [Player Forum] to fetch the electric-shock equipment, then gave an OK sign toward the one-way mirror.
Only then did the player contact Jin Rongxu, smiling as he explained to Director Jin, “I asked him earlier, and Captain Jin said he was already in the elevator.”
“By my estimate, the elevator should be arriving any moment now.”
……
Inside the elevator.
Jin Rongxu glanced up at the newly appeared red text, looking somewhat annoyed.
“Didn’t I say I was taking the elevator? Why are you rushing me?”
“Director Jin is in a hurry,” the player on the other end said plaintively. “My dear captain, you’ve been in the elevator for two minutes now!”
Jin Rongxu still sensed nothing wrong.
He raised his eyes and peered outside through the gaps in the red text, but suddenly froze.
The elevator display showed Floor B19—the very floor he had just passed!
Jin Rongxu narrowed his eyes. The next second, the floor changed back to B17.
Had his excitement made him see things?
“I’m almost there.” Jin Rongxu breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m on Floor B—”
The display changed again, forcibly cutting off the rest of his message.
Floor B19!
Jin Rongxu froze.
He straightened and gripped the Level 13 fake blade in his hand, staring intently at the glowing green floor display.
It kept jumping back and forth between B19 and B17. The changes grew visibly faster and faster until the display began flashing wildly, like it was convulsing.
Jin Rongxu warily took a step back.
“…What’s going on?”
He muttered to himself, then sent a message in the private chat.
“The elevator seems to be broken. No, wait…”
After Zhu Yan’s tireless efforts, the elevator display finally stabilized.
This damned elevator couldn’t display B18 because there was no Floor B18.
He had wasted several more drops of [Trembling Pleasure] before finally succeeding in making the broken display obey his will—
fixing the number at the nonexistent “-18.”
Jin Rongxu’s hand trembled around the blade as he stared at the impossible green number.
Then his gaze shifted nervously to the side, where he saw a crooked metal handle that he had no idea when—or how—it had appeared.
……
Upstairs.
Zhu Zeyu slowly pushed the electric-shock apparatus into the room, then quickly backed out, watching Director Jin’s reaction from the corner of his eye.
Director Jin himself seemed fine, but the player beside him was visibly uneasy.
Biting his lip, he spoke hesitantly.
“Um… Director…”
Director Jin watched Captain Zheng attach the apparatus to the [Hunter], growing increasingly impatient.
“Stop stammering. What did Captain Jin say?”
The player swallowed with difficulty.
He opened his mouth, cold sweat beading on his forehead.
What was he supposed to do?
At a moment like this, in front of everyone, how could he tell Director Jin—who had just finished calculating the MVP results—that Jin Rongxu had been pulled into a dungeon?
Zhu Zeyu stood nearby, thoroughly enjoying the spectacle.
He edged closer, eager to see what would happen. In the end, the player lowered his voice and leaned toward Director Jin’s ear.
His voice was quiet, but Zhu Zeyu heard every word.
“Director, Captain Jin has been pulled into a dungeon.”
“What?”
Director Jin looked as though he could not believe it.
He glanced toward the interrogation room, where the [Hunter] suddenly raised his head and burst into laughter.
The clear, ringing laughter echoed through the speakers and reverberated around the room where Director Jin stood.
Director Jin abruptly seized the player by the collar, his hand trembling uncontrollably.
“Say that again!”
“Hey.”
The [Hunter]’s voice came through the speakers.
Director Jin whipped around, only to find the interrogation chair completely empty. There was not even a trace of the [Hunter].
Only Captain Zheng remained standing beside it, still holding the electric cables, caught completely off guard.
“You didn’t hear me?”
The [Hunter] was gone, but his voice remained unnaturally clear.
The voice let out an arrogant laugh and repeated the key point.
“He said your Captain Jin was dragged into a dungeon.”
“Oh—” The voice showed no respect for Director Jin, its words laced with amusement. “Yes. We. Did. It.”
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
lanned to earn money steadily and take life at a slower pace. But he never expected... his father's remarriage, and the stepmother bringing along a dependent, would completely disrupt his life's plans...
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.
transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”
