School is great.
But Ye Chuan didn’t want to go to school.
While the boys and girls at school were basking in their youth, he had to worry about his next meal—or rather, where to scrounge up some money. After all, his phone was a seven- or eight-year-old Blue Rice model, bought for 70 bucks at a secondhand shop.
Enjoying youth? That seemed a little too luxurious for him.
He just needed to be a sewer rat and quietly die, whether from starvation or illness.
But even such thoughts were quickly tossed aside by Ye Chuan. At the very least, he didn’t have to worry about three meals a day anymore. Two thousand bucks a day was way too good to be true. And with some elixirs or other items, he might even have a shot at curing his terminal illness.
As long as Bai Qianshuang didn’t run away.
Wait… she wouldn’t, right?
Just as Ye Chuan was starting to doubt himself, he suddenly noticed footsteps approaching, followed by a sharp elbow to his arm.
"Hey hey, morning, Chuanchuan!"
The voice was as crisp and lively as a silver bell. When Ye Chuan turned, he saw a ponytailed girl grinning at him. She wore the same style of school uniform as him, and with every light step of her long, straight legs, her high ponytail swung with energy.
"Morning, beauty Luo," Ye Chuan replied, looking at the girl in front of him.
"Glad to see you’re still alive."
"Pfft! I’ll outlive you, no question." Luo Xi stuck out her tongue playfully, then leaned in closer, her bright eyes darting around. "Huh? Why do you look so worn out? Did you… relieve stress last night?"
"Yeah, using you as material." The moment the words left his mouth, Ye Chuan’s arm was met with a swift punch from her small fist.
Having grown up together, the two of them bantered back and forth before Ye Chuan suddenly remembered something. He pulled out his phone and transferred a thousand bucks to Luo Xi.
"Here’s the thousand I owe you. Consider it repaid."
Luo Xi seemed genuinely surprised when she received the money. This was the sum Ye Chuan had borrowed from her long ago when he couldn’t afford tuition. She knew his situation—how did he suddenly have money to pay her back?
Hesitating, she finally asked, "Uh… did you… sell yourself?"
"Actually, I found a sugar mommy." Ye Chuan deadpanned.
Luo Xi clearly wasn’t buying it. She lowered her head slightly, her eyes blinking as if to say, Keep spinning tales, I’m listening. Ye Chuan rolled his eyes. "I rented out a room, so I got some rent money. Figured I’d pay you back first."
"Really? How much?" Luo Xi looked genuinely surprised. In Ye Chuan’s neighborhood, plenty of places were up for rent, but his was in a mediocre location and condition, making it hard to find tenants.
"Two thousand."
"Wow." Luo Xi’s eyes widened. Seeing her reaction, Ye Chuan naturally didn’t mention that it was two thousand per day—no way she’d believe that.
Luo Xi stared at the transfer on her phone but shook her head and refunded it. "Keep it for now. You need it more than I do."
"Why?" Ye Chuan was taken aback. Luo Xi’s family wasn’t well-off either. After her parents divorced, her mother remarried, but she was bedridden, leaving her stepfather to scrape by with a street stall.
If anything, Luo Xi was only slightly better off than him, an orphan—at least she had someone to lean on.
"You’re poorer than me. What if you snap one day and check out early? Daddy here would be heartbroken." Luo Xi crossed her arms and shook her head, then patted Ye Chuan’s shoulder solemnly.
"Promise me you’ll stay alive."
Ye Chuan: "…"
A second later, he lifted his foot and kicked Luo Xi square in the butt.
"Ow! What was that for?!" She jumped back, clutching her rear with a flushed face. "I’ll bite you!"
"No reason. Just felt like it."
"So mean!"
After walking side by side for over twenty minutes and taking a ten-minute bus ride, they finally arrived at the school gates. Their academy was the most prestigious in the area—sprawling in size, packed with students and teachers alike.
The massive stone archway bore the engraved words: Silver Mountain Academy, grand and imposing.
"Oh yeah, Chuanchuan, I heard you and Zhao Ruyan broke up?" Luo Xi asked as they strolled along the tree-lined path circling the campus lake.
"You’re that well-informed?" Ye Chuan’s lips twitched. It had only happened yesterday—how did Luo Xi already know?
"Of course! I’m the academy’s little gossip hub. Ears everywhere." Luo Xi grinned. "So? Did you do something to wrong her?"
"Got cheated on." Ye Chuan kept it blunt.
"Huh?!" Luo Xi’s smile froze for a few seconds before twisting into indignation. "How could she?! If she fell out of love, she should’ve broken up properly! That’s just cruel!"
"Come on, let’s go confront her!" She grabbed Ye Chuan’s hand and started dragging him toward the classroom.
"Forget it. It’s over." Ye Chuan shook his head.
"How can you just let it go? She trampled all over your feelings!"
"I never gave her my feelings." Ye Chuan scoffed. "I was just in it for the free meals. Saved on food costs."
Luo Xi: "…?"
"Now I’ve lost my free meal ticket. Eh, it’s a shame, but whatever. I don’t really care." He shrugged, feigning indifference, only to notice Luo Xi staring at him intently.
"What?"
"Liar." Luo Xi said firmly.
Ye Chuan fell silent for a moment before muttering, "At least let me save face."
Luo Xi released his hand and studied his expression. "You about to cry? I can lend you a shoulder."
Ye Chuan glanced at her. "Your backpack’s too big. I’d suffocate."
He smirked. "Or do you have a thing for me? Trying to take advantage?"
Luo Xi’s cheeks puffed up instantly. "Hmph! I wasted my worry on you!"
With that, she kicked Ye Chuan in the shin, her ponytail bouncing as she stomped away.
Watching Luo Xi’s retreating figure, Ye Chuan’s expression gradually settled into quiet contemplation as he gazed at the scenery beyond the walkway.
"You really are the worst at being honest." A voice came from behind. He turned to see a short-haired girl staring at him.
Dressed in the same school uniform skirt, her shoulder-length hair cut sharp and neat, she looked at him with undisguised disdain.
"Always here to mock me, An Shiyu," Ye Chuan said. "Your bestie’s pissed. Go comfort her."
An Shiyu shrugged. "Price is lunch."
"Deal."
"Oho? Rolling in cash now?"
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...
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!
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?!
close your eyes and open them again, only to find yourself transmigrated into the role of a villainous male supporting character. Readers familiar with urban wish-fulfillment novels know that it is only through the relentless antics of the villainous male supporting character that the plot between the male and female leads can progress. As the villainous male supporting character, Long Aotian not only has to bully the female lead, harass the second female lead, and flirt with the third female lead, but he also has to go all out to antagonize the male lead. In the end, when his body is discovered, he is still clutching half a moldy fried dough stick in his hand. Fully aware of the plot, Long Aotian is determined to change his fate, starting with the female lead! In the beginning, the female lead lacks confidence: "Big brother, I hope I didn't scare you?" In the middle, the female lead treads carefully: "Brother Long, please don't hit me, okay?" Later on, the female lead becomes coquettishly clingy: "Aotian, it's time to pay the 'public grain' tonight." Long Aotian's legs go weak, and he feels like crying: "I taught you to be thick-skinned, not shameless!"
