"Something feels... hehe, a bit off about today's atmosphere, doesn't it?" During breakfast, Luo Xi seemed to sense something unusual and glanced at the people around the table.
Bai Qianshuang remained silent, quietly eating her rice, but the aura she unintentionally emitted made the surrounding air feel almost frozen.
Ye Chuan didn’t speak either, occasionally smiling as he served dishes to everyone.
As for Lan Xiaoke, she just looked utterly innocent—after all, she had been peacefully asleep until now.
"What’s up with you guys?" Luo Xi asked when no one answered, finally turning to Bai Qianshuang. "Qianshuang, care to explain?"
"Nothing." Bai Qianshuang continued eating without raising her head.
"Oh?" Luo Xi shifted her gaze to Ye Chuan. "What did you do to Qianshuang?"
"Nothing at all." Ye Chuan chuckled.
Luo Xi then looked at Lan Xiaoke but quickly dismissed the idea—it probably had nothing to do with her, given how airheaded she was every day.
"I feel like you’re all hiding something." Luo Xi tilted her head, tapping her chin thoughtfully.
"Aren’t we going to the beach today? Shouldn’t we be in a better mood?" she said to Bai Qianshuang.
"It’s fine." Bai Qianshuang’s expression remained unreadable, though whether her inner emotions matched her calm exterior was anyone’s guess.
Just as breakfast ended, Ye Chuan received a message from Wang Yanran.
Wang Yanran: Good morning, Ye Chuan. Have you eaten? What time are we heading to the beach?
Ye Chuan: Yeah, just finished. Send the driver over.
Wang Yanran: Got it.
Ding-dong. The moment the message arrived, the doorbell rang. Ye Chuan didn’t seem surprised, even though he hadn’t used his spiritual sense to check.
Opening the door, he found Wang Yanran standing outside in casual attire, smiling brightly. "Morning."
"Judging by your outfit, you’re coming with us?" Ye Chuan asked.
"Yep, is that okay?"
"You’re already wearing a swimsuit underneath—how could I say no?" Ye Chuan glanced at her outfit, his spiritual sense easily piercing through to see the red-striped swimsuit beneath.
"Huh?"
"Miss Yanran, have you had breakfast yet?" Suddenly, a fair arm wrapped around Ye Chuan’s neck as Luo Xi popped her head over his shoulder, grinning.
"I have."
"Great! Then we should get going, right?"
"Yeah, everyone grab your swimsuits," Ye Chuan said. "Oh, and call Ke Ning out."
As the group started preparing, Bai Qianshuang’s eyes flickered briefly.
"I think I’ll stay behind."
She turned as if to return to her room to cultivate.
"Aw, come on! Everyone’s going. What’s up, Qianshuang? Join us!" Before she could finish, Luo Xi grabbed her arm.
"Let’s go, let’s go! You look adorable in a swimsuit."
Bai Qianshuang hesitated but didn’t pull away.
Half-resisting, she eventually packed her swimsuit into her storage ring and followed along.
"I’m kinda sleepy… yawn." Ke Ning emerged still dressed in her usual white lab coat, though compared to yesterday, she looked utterly exhausted.
Lan Xiaoke blinked curiously. "Ke Ning, didn’t you sleep well?"
"Well… my body’s full, but my spirit isn’t." Ke Ning yawned again, offering a simple explanation.
"Aren’t you changing into outdoor clothes?" Ye Chuan asked.
"This is my outdoor outfit. It’s different from what I usually wear." Ke Ning gestured to her lab coat.
Ye Chuan scanned her up and down but couldn’t spot any difference.
"What’s different?"
"The hem is one centimeter shorter." Ke Ning adjusted her glasses.
"That counts as a difference?!"
"If an experiment’s margin of error exceeds one centimeter, a 99.99% drop in success rate wouldn’t be surprising."
"..." Ye Chuan had no retort. "Just get in the car."
"Okay."
Ke Ning immediately dozed off in the car, her head plopping unceremoniously onto Lan Xiaoke’s chest. The latter blinked but didn’t complain.
Wang Yanran took the wheel while Ye Chuan sat in the passenger seat.
"Ye Chuan..." Wang Yanran seemed about to discuss something important but paused when her gaze landed on the girls behind him.
"It’s fine. Say what you need to," Ye Chuan assured her.
"Alright." With his permission, she began,
"About the [Players]—we’ve interrogated that girl and learned a lot."
"They come from another world very similar to ours, with modern technology and even comparable history, except familiar historical figures have different names."
"One day, a small group of them were suddenly transported to a [Dungeon World]."
"As [Players], they must keep clearing dungeons to survive. Each successful run grants them a safe zone—the harder the dungeon, the better the rewards, and the more comfortable life in the safe zone becomes. Some even get to return to their own world."
"Ye Chuan, is this how you understand [Players]?" Wang Yanran seemed ready to repeat herself in case he hadn’t followed.
"Yeah, no need." The information matched what Ye Chuan already knew.
After all, that coward Tian Xiaogua had once cost him hundreds of millions in mosquito coins—a grudge he still held.
Who knew if that guy was even alive anymore? Probably died in some dungeon.
"That girl said the dungeon they chose—our world—is a low-difficulty, welfare-level one. They didn’t even need weapons; it would auto-clear when the time came," Wang Yanran added.
Heh. Ye Chuan smirked. If he hadn’t shown up, that might’ve been true.
Cackle cackle~
"That’s all the intel we have for now," she concluded.
"Got it." None of this was news to him. After a brief acknowledgment, he shifted topics. "How’s the pharmaceutical company?"
"Progressing steadily."
"Good."
Behind them, Luo Xi and the others listened with nothing but question marks in their heads.
Players? Dungeons?
Is this some kind of game?
"I don’t understand a word of what you’re talking about," Lan Xiaoke chimed in.
"Kids shouldn’t ask too many questions."
"Who’s a kid?!" Lan Xiaoke widened her eyes indignantly.
...
The car soon arrived at the seaside, where a yacht was docked.
"We’ll take that yacht. It’ll take about two hours to reach the island," Wang Yanran said.
"Two hours? Isn’t that too long?" Ye Chuan asked.
"Well, we could use a helicopter, but the winds are pretty strong right now..." She hesitated.
"No worries. I’ve got a better solution." Ye Chuan waved his hand, and a massive flying vessel materialized out of thin air.
Wang Yanran stared up at the looming, shadowy behemoth: "?"
Wait, what is this?!
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...
young master of the Shen family—a figure of immense power and wealth beyond measure—and awakened the "Destined Ultimate Villain System"! His starting scenario? Running into his icy fiancée who shows up with a mountain-descending divine doctor to break off their engagement. The divine doctor arrogantly taunts: "What does your Shen family have besides a bit of stinking money? You're not even worthy of tying Qingxue's shoelaces!" Shen Fei just smiled. He completely defied the usual script: "Fine, I agree to break off the engagement. Also, notify the finance department to withdraw all investments from the Su family." Minutes later, with its capital chain severed, the Su Group teetered on the brink of bankruptcy! The once aloof and proud ice queen CEO was thrown into utter panic. That very night, she went to Shen Fei's villa, casting aside all dignity to beg and plead desperately... From then on, in this world teeming with Sons of Destiny, Shen Fei embarked on a path of extreme dimensional suppression! A mountain-descending divine doctor? Peerless medical skills? Shen Fei: "Reporting you for practicing medicine without a license! I'll gladly take your ancient medicinal cauldron and twin sister assassins." The Crooked-Smiling Dragon King? Commanding a hundred thousand soldiers with a single order? Shen Fei: "Illegal assembly and suspected treason! Let a fleet of attack helicopters sanitize the area and teach you what the state apparatus really means!" A reborn tycoon? Knows all the golden opportunities of the next decade? Shen Fei: "A trillion in capital to reverse and pump the stock market, making you blow your margin and jump on the very first day of your rebirth!" What Chosen Ones? What bearers of Heavenly Fortune? In Shen Fei's eyes, they're all just chives (i.e., suckers/marks) waiting to be harvested! Shen Fei: "Sorry, but as the Destined Ultimate Villain, I don't play by the rules of honor. I only play the game of dimensional suppression."
ose... to cooperate with the protagonist! Shen Yuan: I have a system! Protagonist: What? System: Holy crap, you're just spilling it out like that? Shen Yuan: Let's team up, we'll split the system rewards! Protagonist: Fifty-fifty split? Shen Yuan: No way! Protagonist: What!? I'm the one getting beaten up, and I don't get half? Shen Yuan: Forty-sixty split, I get forty, you get sixty! Protagonist: Deal! Big brother, come on, hit me! As long as it doesn't kill me, beat me like you mean it! Shen Yuan: Don't worry... I will definitely protect all of you! No one but me can lay a finger on you! Guard our Heaven's Chosen Ones! I'm the only one allowed to bully them!
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!
