11:30 PM.
Daxing Airport arrivals.
Lin Wanwan wore a black baseball cap, her face covered by a mask and sunglasses. She was bundled up tightly from head to toe.
Su Man dragged a small suitcase, following behind her and lowering her voice as they walked.
"My dear lady, slow down."
"The paparazzi are all dying to get a scoop on you right now. What if you get photographed coming back to Beijing at a time like this?"
Lin Wanwan didn't say a word.
She held her phone, the screen still paused on the video of Chen Zhi's press conference.
In the video, Chen Zhi was wearing a suit, standing on stage with the help of a crutch.
The entire internet was praising him.
A nineteen-year-old genius CEO.
The founder of Deep Space Technology.
A single press conference that absolutely crushed Qiandu.
The screen was densely packed with rolling comments.
"Boss Chen is awesome!"
"Godfather!"
"This is the true light of domestic technology!"
Looking at those comments, Lin Wanwan felt a mix of sourness and pride.
She had known since childhood that Chen Zhi was smart.
But she never expected that the boy who used to fight her for spicy strips, trick her into doing his homework, and call her out to play every day, had already reached such great heights.
Yet, whenever she thought about how Chen Zhi had been smiling cheekily in their video calls every day for the past half month, claiming he would be able to run on the ground in no time, she was furious.
Liar.
Big liar.
His leg was hurt that badly, and he still kept it from her.
Seeing her stay silent, Su Man sighed again.
"Wanwan, you're heading over there right now. Are you really not going to give him a heads-up?"
Lin Wanwan turned off her phone screen.
"No."
"Why?"
"Isn't he so good at lying?"
Lin Wanwan's voice was muffled. "I'm going to lie to him once, too."
Su Man paused for two seconds, unable to resist reminding her.
"You better think this through. It might not be convenient around Chen Zhi right now."
Lin Wanwan stopped in her tracks.
She turned her head.
"Sister Su Man, what do you mean?"
Su Man coughed dryly.
"I don't mean anything by it. It's just... he did just get out of the hospital, after all. He might have assistants, employees, or caretakers around him."
Lin Wanwan stared at her.
"Do you know something?"
"I don't know anything."
Su Man immediately denied it. "I'm just giving a normal, adult reminder."
Lin Wanwan didn't press the matter. She pulled at her mask and continued walking outside.
"I don't care."
"He lied to me about his injury, so he has to let me see it with my own eyes."
"After I see it, I'll decide how to punish him."
Su Man knew Lin Wanwan too well.
To the outside world, this girl was an aloof yet sweet new-generation singer whose mere smile on camera could make fans scream.
But the moment it came to Chen Zhi, her IQ simply went offline.
She called it a punishment.
But in all likelihood, she would just end up hugging him and crying.
Outside the airport, a pre-arranged commercial van was parked by the curb.
After the two got in, Su Man gave the address.
"Wanliu House."
The driver nodded and started the car.
Lin Wanwan sat in the back row, looked down, and opened Chen Zhi's video again.
In the video, Chen Zhi leaned against the podium, speaking in a relaxed tone.
"Starting today, the smartphones in your hands will all become antiques."
As Lin Wanwan watched, she felt both proud and angry.
She sniffled.
"Sister Su Man."
"Hmm?"
"How long was he standing?"
Su Man opened her tablet and checked the playback progress of the press conference.
"Almost an hour."
Lin Wanwan bit her lower lip.
"Didn't the doctor say he shouldn't stand for long periods?"
"In theory, yes."
"Then why did he?"
"You know your boyfriend's temperament better than I do."
Lin Wanwan couldn't argue with that.
Chen Zhi had been like this since they were kids.
The more critical the moment, the more he loved to push through the pain.
Even as a child, he acted like a little adult, keeping everything bottled up inside and never telling her or the grown-ups.
Now that he was grown up, it was even more ridiculous.
His leg was broken, yet he still ran off to hold a press conference.
The more Lin Wanwan thought about it, the angrier she got. She opened her chat with Chen Zhi.
[I have obediently laid down, the organization can rest easy.]
It was followed by an emoji of a little dog saluting.
Lin Wanwan stared at that line of text, her fingers hovering over the input box for quite a while.
In the end, she didn't send a single word.
She was going to do a surprise inspection herself.
...
Wanliu House
Chen Zhi drank the last mouthful of bone broth and let out a comfortable burp.
Li Zhiyi pulled out a tissue, helped him wipe the soup off his chin, and picked up the white porcelain bowl to wash it in the kitchen.
"Zhiyi, wait a sec," Chen Zhi called out to stop her.
Li Zhiyi stopped and turned her head. "What's wrong? Do you want more? There's still some in the pot."
"No, this cast is tied too tight. It's covered in sweat inside, stuffy and itchy." Chen Zhi pointed to his left leg suspended in mid-air, looking pitiful. "Help me loosen it just a tiny bit so it can breathe."
Li Zhiyi put down the bowl and walked over to the sofa.
After showering today, she had changed into one of Chen Zhi's gray hoodies as loungewear. The piece of clothing was far too large for her; the hem directly covered her thighs, and the neckline hung loosely off her shoulders.
She half-knelt on the edge of the sofa, leaning in close to the leg bound in a heavy cast.
"The doctor said you can't move it around. What if the bone gets dislocated?" Li Zhiyi hesitated.
"It's fine, just loosen the edge of the bandage a little. I'm dying of heat, really," Chen Zhi continued to play the victim.
Li Zhiyi had no choice but to carefully untie the outermost layer of the bandage, extend two fingers, slip them in along the edge of the cast, and gently scratch it for him.
"Here?" she asked, looking up.
Looking down from Chen Zhi's angle, the wide neckline was slightly open, revealing a dazzling expanse of pale skin and delicate collarbones.
"A little to the left," his voice was somewhat hoarse.
Li Zhiyi leaned in closer, her warm breath hitting Chen Zhi's calf.
She carefully wiped away the sweat at the edges, and as her gaze traveled up the cast, she saw a large, shocking patch of dark purple bruising on Chen Zhi's thigh.
Li Zhiyi's hand stopped.
"Why are you crying again?" Chen Zhi sighed, reaching out to pinch her cheek. "You really look like a little dirty cat."
"How exactly did you do this?" Li Zhiyi's voice trembled, a teardrop falling with a patter onto the back of Chen Zhi's hand. "Can a reckless kid riding a modified scooter really crash and get an injury like this? Are you hiding something else from me?"
Chen Zhi's heart skipped a beat.
Although this girl was usually soft and mild, she was very observant. She had probably sensed something was wrong a long time ago.
"I really didn't lie to you." Chen Zhi wiped away the tears on her face with his thumb. "Stop overthinking it. With you taking care of me so closely every day, I couldn't be happier."
Li Zhiyi sniffled.
The evening news was still playing on the TV. Its main purpose was just to set the mood; neither of them cared about what was actually broadcasting.
The distance between the two of them grew closer and closer.
Li Zhiyi's eyelashes fluttered, and she slowly closed her eyes. Her breathing quickened a bit, and a blush crept across her cheeks.
Chen Zhi lowered his head, leaning in toward those soft lips.
Right at this critical, hair-trigger moment.
"Ding-dong~."
A doorbell suddenly rang out from the entryway.
Li Zhiyi opened her eyes, hastily pushed Chen Zhi away, and stood up from the edge of the sofa, somewhat frantically adjusting the hem of the oversized hoodie.
"Who is it?" Li Zhiyi turned her head, looking toward the entryway in confusion. "Is President Dai here?"
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!
transmigrates into the role of a villainous rich second-generation kid in an urban fantasy novel, and gets bound to a god-tier choice system. Right at the start, he catches the female lead stealing exam papers! This triggers the villain's choice options! [Choice 1: Pretend you didn't see anything] [Choice 2: Loudly call her out, drawing everyone's attention] [Choice 3: ...] And thus, a twisted villain is born. To avoid getting killed by the protagonist, he has no choice but to take down all the protagonists first. Jiang Che: Nobody understands being twisted better than me!
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?!
ive and Ruthless] Before his transmigration, Ye Xuan was playing a game called "Severing Emotions to Attain the Dao." The game's core wasn't about leveling up by fighting monsters, but about conquering various "bad women" with wicked personalities and cold, fickle natures. There was only one method to conquer them: stay unwaveringly by their side, then die at a critical moment, driving them to madness after losing the protagonist. The higher their level of regret, the higher the player's score. To dominate the server, Ye Xuan conquered all the bad women. In the early stages, he showered them with boundless tenderness, only to choose to sacrifice himself for them later, making them weep bitterly and drown in regret. Among them were: Xia Lengyue, the unfaithful immortal wife who chased after powerful men and discarded her husband like trash. Ye Qingcheng, the Demonic Venerable of the Joyous Union Sect, who appeared pure and innocent but was, in reality, promiscuous. Wu Lingxiao, the Empress of the Great Xia Dynasty, who lusted after men and loved maintaining a harem. Bai Qiangu of the Endless Demonic Sect: a bloodthirsty mass murderer. However, when the protagonist transmigrated into the game world, he made a horrifying discovery. Eight hundred years had already passed. The bad women he had conquered had now each become deities and revered ancestors. Faced with the endless stream of toxic women coming for him, Ye Xuan could only rely on his god-tier acting skills to carve a path of survival through this world of treacherous women.
