Chen Zhi walked out of the arrivals corridor with his backpack slung over his shoulder. He looked up and immediately spotted a figure in black.
It was Pei Ningxue.
She was wearing an impeccably tailored, form-fitting black trench coat. Her long hair was tied back in a low ponytail, and she wore flawless full makeup.
At past nine in the morning, Daxing Airport was swarming with hurried travelers dragging their suitcases. She stood there all by herself, directly opposite the exit, holding an Americano that looked like it had only been sipped once.
One look was enough to tell she had not come with good intentions.
Chen Zhi slowed his pace.
According to his initial expectations, today Lao Zhao would simply drive the car over, and he would sit in the back seat enduring a few sarcastic remarks on WeChat, and then the matter would be over.
But Pei Ningxue had come in person bright and early today.
Pei Ningxue had spotted him from a distance. She casually tossed the Americano into a nearby trash can and walked toward him.
Taking a deep breath, Chen Zhi hoisted his backpack a little higher, put on a nonchalant expression, and took the initiative to meet her halfway.
Pei Ningxue stopped half a meter in front of him.
"You..." Pei Ningxue was just about to start her attack.
"What are you doing here?"
Chen Zhi cut her off instantly. Frowning slightly, he preempted her and took control of the conversation.
Pei Ningxue was stunned for a moment.
"Heh."
After recovering, Pei Ningxue sneered, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Boss Chen is actually questioning me first?"
Chen Zhi didn't take the bait at all. He took a half-step forward, took Pei Ningxue's right hand, and expertly slipped his five fingers through hers, intertwining them.
"You're usually so busy with work, why did you wake up so early to pick me up?"
Chen Zhi's tone carried three parts heartache and seven parts blame.
"Did you stay up late looking at financial reports again last night? Why didn't you sleep a little longer?"
Pei Ningxue's hand was very soft, with slender joints, tender and smooth from her fingertips to her wrist.
One touch was enough to tell that these were hands that had been pampered since childhood and had never done any rough work.
Pei Ningxue looked down at their tightly clasped hands.
She paused for two seconds.
Then she forcefully pulled her hand away.
"Why do you think I'm so tired?"
She took a step back to create some distance and said sarcastically:
"Isn't it because a certain someone decided to be a hands-off boss and ran off to rendezvous with another woman?"
Chen Zhi shut his mouth.
Pei Ningxue stared at him for three seconds. Seeing him playing dead and staying silent, she turned around and walked out.
"Let's go, busy man."
"The company still has a mountain of critical matters waiting for you to handle."
Chen Zhi followed obediently behind her.
Outside the terminal by the VIP lane, a Rolls-Royce Phantom was parked quietly by the curb.
Lao Zhao stood by the car door. Seeing the two walking out one after the other, his years of professional intuition told him that the atmosphere today was very off.
"Mr. Chen, Miss Pei."
Lao Zhao quickly stepped forward to open the door, his eyes fixed firmly on his own shoes.
Pei Ningxue didn't look at Lao Zhao. She bent down and got straight into the car, sliding all the way to the left window seat. She picked up the tablet on the seat and immediately entered work mode.
Chen Zhi closely followed and sat on the right side.
Lao Zhao returned to the driver's seat and smoothly started the car.
The soundproof partition for the back seat hadn't been raised yet, but Lao Zhao was very tactful. He kept his eyes straight ahead, not even glancing at the rearview mirror.
The car merged into the morning rush hour traffic.
Pei Ningxue's fingers continuously swiped across the screen, her brows slightly furrowed.
Her lips were pressed tightly together, and she didn't say a single word.
Chen Zhi felt like he was being subjected to the silent treatment.
He sat on the right for about three minutes, turning his head to sneak a couple of glances at her.
After a while, Chen Zhi leaned forward, reached out his finger, and pressed the button on the center console to raise the partition.
Buzz—
The black soundproof partition slowly rose, completely isolating the front and back rows.
In the front, Lao Zhao let out a long sigh of relief.
The moment the partition closed, Chen Zhi made his move.
Pressing against the wide, soft seat, he inched toward Pei Ningxue bit by bit, pushing his luck.
Pei Ningxue noticed it immediately.
Without taking her eyes off the screen, she shifted her body closer to the left car door.
Chen Zhi moved another ten centimeters.
Pei Ningxue shifted again.
This continued until her left shoulder was completely pressed against the door panel, leaving her with nowhere left to retreat.
Pei Ningxue finally dropped the act. She snapped her head up and glared at him with an unfriendly gaze.
"What are you trying to do?"
Chen Zhi didn't waste words. He reached out his right hand and directly covered her left hand, which was resting on the edge of the tablet.
Pei Ningxue instinctively tried to break free, yanking her wrist back hard.
It didn't budge.
Chen Zhi's grip was incredibly strong. His five fingers clamped down on her wrist, giving her absolutely no room to escape.
"Let go," Pei Ningxue's voice turned cold.
"No."
Chen Zhi decided to take his shamelessness to the extreme. He squeezed right into Pei Ningxue's space and pulled her into his arms.
Pei Ningxue's entire body stiffened.
"You..."
"It's been a long time," Chen Zhi said, hugging her a little tighter. "Let me hold you for a while."
Being held by him so shamelessly, Pei Ningxue ultimately stopped struggling violently, though her breathing became a bit hurried.
But her mouth remained unforgiving.
"Why don't you go hug your championship-winning girlfriend?" Pei Ningxue's voice was laced with sarcasm. "What are you doing coming over here to hug me now?"
"You're my girlfriend too," Chen Zhi answered self-righteously, his eyes closed.
"Scumbag."
"Thank you for the compliment, Boss Pei."
Pei Ningxue was so angered by this remark that her chest heaved violently a couple of times.
The cabin fell into a brief silence.
"Stop joking around with me." Pei Ningxue finally broke the silence. She turned her head, trying to put some distance between their faces. "Does Deep Space Technology have too much money in its accounts? Just to make a beauty smile, you give away tens of millions of dollars without a second thought?"
"That wasn't to make her happy," Chen Zhi braced himself and explained. "Taylor signed a global exclusive endorsement. For Moss to break into the North American and European markets, we need a top-tier Western celebrity with massive traffic to open things up. This money had to be spent sooner or later. Making a guest appearance at the finals along the way was just making the most of it."
"Boss Chen's business logic is truly flawless."
Pei Ningxue sneered, clearly not believing a single punctuation mark of what he said.
She stopped struggling and instead, following Chen Zhi's pull, slowly turned her body to face him directly.
This position brought them within mere inches of each other.
Pei Ningxue's gaze moved down from Chen Zhi's two obvious dark circles, gliding past his nose and lips, before finally landing on his neck.
Right there on the skin, just below the left artery.
There was a conspicuous red mark.
It was thin, very red, and the edges showed signs of slightly broken skin.
It absolutely couldn't be a scratch he made himself while sleeping. It was a mark left by someone pinching or scratching forcefully while in a state of extreme tension, excitement, or some uncontrollable condition.
For example, last night in that business suite in Changsha.
The battle scar left on his collarbone by Lin Wanwan's restless hands, nervous from trying a certain something for the first time.
The moment Pei Ningxue's eyes met that red mark, the temperature of her gaze plummeted.
The atmosphere in the cabin, which had just softened a tiny bit, instantly grew tense again.
Chen Zhi had been resting with his eyes closed, enjoying this brief moment of peace, when he suddenly felt the person in his arms stiffen. Her breathing pattern had also become incredibly eerie.
He opened his eyes and followed Pei Ningxue's gaze downward.
Shit.
He had been in such a rush this morning, completely focused on leaving a note, that he hadn't bothered to check the mirror for any lingering evidence.
"Well, this..." Chen Zhi swallowed hard. His brain went into overdrive, desperately trying to concoct a logical medical or physical explanation within a split second.
But it seemed it was a little too late.
Pei Ningxue reached out her slender, fair fingers and gently pressed against the red mark.
Her red lips curled up slightly, revealing a breathtaking smile devoid of any warmth.
"Spending a fortune to invite a global pop diva as a guest... I thought Boss Chen simply wanted to hand her a championship title."
Pei Ningxue's finger slowly traced down the red mark. Her voice was soft, but it made Chen Zhi's blood run cold.
"But looking at it now, it seems that last night in that hotel in Changsha..."
She raised her gaze, staring dead into Chen Zhi's eyes.
"You claimed your own championship reward, didn't you?"
] This is a dark fantasy-themed dating simulation game. The main gameplay involves containing various monster girls and investigating the truth of a world shrouded in mist alongside your companions. However, due to his love for the dark and bizarre atmosphere, Luo Wei ended up turning a dating game into a detective mystery game. Women? Women only slow down his quickdraw! To Luo Wei, the female leads in the game are more like tools to perfectly clear levels and squeeze out rewards. For Luo Wei, flirting with every girl he meets and then discarding them is standard procedure. Worried about characters losing affection points? No need. With his maxed-out charm stat, Luo Wei is practically a "human incubus." A little psychological manipulation and those points come right back. It's a bit scummy, but the paper cutout heroines in the game won't actually come at him with real cleavers. However... Luo Wei has transmigrated. He's accidentally entered the second playthrough of this game. His past actions have caused all the girls to transform into terrifying yanderes. Due to the game's setting, most of the heroines he once contained are "troubled girls." Obsessive, twisted, mentally unstable, all aggressive yanderes... The type who will kill you if they can't have you... Luo Wei wants to cry but has no tears left. "I really just want to survive..." In short, this is a story of battling wits and engaging in a love-hate relationship with yanderes.
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
he colors of other people’s emotions. Light red meant anxiety. Gray meant exhaustion. Orange meant excitement. Yellow... meant repression. At the same time, he could gain unlimited control over one of those colors. Pale cyan: relaxation. Using this ability, he started offering “two-yuan hugs,” spending an afternoon exchanging emotional-color experiences with others. Then came his final female customer of the day— a girl whose emotional color was pure black... —— A week later, Xu Chuan had become skilled at using pale cyan—Relaxation—treating it like a bottle of menthol balm whenever he needed it. That was when he discovered he had unlocked another unlimited emotional color: Purple, the color of fear. So these emotional colors refresh every week? Fine, I take it back—I’ll never call you useless again... —— Much later, after Xu Chuan had accumulated countless emotional abilities, one night, he suddenly found himself inside someone else’s dream. There, he could use the emotional colors he possessed to paint. And in her dream, he painted her a shower of pink shooting stars, spreading across the depths of the night sky...
ions, keeping it grounded and realistic】 After quitting his job, office worker Su Yang accidentally binds with the "Enjoy Life System." As the name suggests, simply by indulging in life's pleasures, he can earn random rewards from the system—no need to spend money on beautiful women or grovel before anyone. Just enjoy, and the money follows, making it all about effortless fun. The system comes with a scanning feature, allowing him to establish a favorability bond with women rated 85 points or above. Every 20-point increase in favorability unlocks additional rewards. After suffering through over twenty years of hardship, Su Yang trembles with excitement, his dull eyes suddenly gleaming with newfound hope. "Enjoy life? How hard could that be?"
