What is a miracle?
To Xu Xi, it was likely the repetition of mundane days—plain and uneventful, devoid of thrilling accidents or sudden upheavals.
Seemingly insignificant.
Yet, over time, it would settle.
Revealing a unique charm.
Xu Xi was content with his current life.
On the way back to the courtyard with Ailei, Xu Xi tilted his head slightly, watching as the wind peeled back a corner of the clouds in the clear sky, revealing birds diving and weaving between the buildings.
"How nice things are now..."
Beside him stood his loyal mechanical maid.
At home, his sister, the witch, and the princess awaited him.
Though he had suffered quite a bit in the simulations, even meeting a sacrificial end five times, Xu Xi genuinely loved the real world.
He cherished the peaceful beauty he had created with his own hands.
Heart full, mind at ease.
This was Xu Xi’s state of being.
"I just wonder how Servia is doing now," he mused. The helpless and pitiful undead girl always left him uneasy.
Xu Xi waited for their reunion in the distant future.
"Master..."
The summer stillness was broken by Ailei’s voice, pulling Xu Xi from his wandering thoughts.
In the sweltering heat, the girl’s fingers tightened around Xu Xi’s, yet her calm gaze remained fixed on a roadside fountain.
Ordinary, commonplace.
Just a clear stream of water, the kind found everywhere in the city.
"Master, may I... use that?" Her pale fingertip pointed at the fountain.
Ailei’s words were vague, her expression blank as she waited for Xu Xi’s response, but he understood.
Long ago.
During the sixth satellite city in the fourth simulation.
Ailei had once "played with water."
The emotionless mechanical maid had, for the first time, glimpsed beauty in the refraction of light through water and became entranced by its brilliance.
"Of course, Ailei."
Xu Xi’s expression softened as he reached out, gently stroking the top of her head.
Her black-and-gold hair had a delicate texture.
Like light made tangible.
Silk-like strands slipped through his palm.
"This is your freedom. Go ahead—I’ll wait for you," he said, his voice warmer than the sun above, giving the mechanical maid the courage to act.
"Thank you, Master."
After a polite bow, Ailei, clad in her maid’s attire, approached the fountain.
Blinking, her expression serious, she extended both hands.
As if conducting a sacred and precise experiment, she cupped the cool, clear water in her palms.
"..."
The water was so transparent.
Yet, under the sunlight, the pooled liquid in her hands began to shimmer with dazzling hues.
First, a pure, blazing white.
Then, a kaleidoscope of colors.
Splash—
Her hands parted, and the water cascaded back into the fountain, the dreamlike glow vanishing—but droplets lingered between her fingers.
"Beautiful."
Tilting her head, Ailei raised her hands to the sky.
With a childlike grace, she flexed and spread them, turning her palms and the backs of her hands back and forth.
It was a scene of innocent wonder, a naive heart chasing after the radiant beauty in the light.
"Master, it’s beautiful."
Kneeling by the fountain, Ailei stretched her hands toward Xu Xi.
Displaying her "achievement."
Her slender, jade-white fingers glistened with droplets.
"Yes, I see. It’s beautiful," Xu Xi replied, crouching beside her. Under the gaze of her dazed silver-blue eyes, he ruffled her hair again.
Water splashed, droplets pattering.
Amid the summer’s quietude.
Xu Xi, with gentle reassurance, affirmed the girl’s discovery.
"Ailei, you really love water."
"Because it’s beautiful..."
The mechanical maid dipped a single finger into the stream, stirring the iridescent glow into a more chaotic, dazzling display.
It was the collision of water and light.
The meeting of cold spring and scorching sun.
A fleeting dream painted at her fingertips.
Back in the sixth satellite city, Ailei had done the same but couldn’t comprehend the feeling.
Now.
With a human body.
She could finally grasp the aesthetics of that radiance.
"Master, am I... closer to being a real human now?" Ailei suddenly asked under the bright sun, her expression calm but tinged with quiet joy.
Closer to being human.
Meant closer to Xu Xi.
That thought pleased her. Her silver-blue eyes reflected Xu Xi’s figure and the prismatic dance of light.
Xu Xi ran his fingers through her black-and-gold hair.
"You already are, Ailei. And... the you now is beautiful."
"As beautiful as the light?"
"No, the Ailei I see is more beautiful than light."
Light was the epitome of beauty in the mechanical maid’s eyes.
But in Xu Xi’s eyes.
She outshone it infinitely.
"You mean... me?" Her voice wavered slightly. Ailei felt she didn’t deserve such praise.
After all, she was the one who had killed her master.
Unable to protect Xu Xi or save his life.
In the past, she could only watch as he died in agony.
Yet Xu Xi affirmed her.
Meeting her gaze.
"Of course. My Ailei is beautiful, isn’t she?"
Ah...
She couldn’t answer. Didn’t know how.
Her mind went blank.
Her cheeks burned under the sun.
Dazed, her body moved on its own as Xu Xi led her back to the courtyard.
Only after a long while did her thoughts return.
In a blind spot where Xu Xi couldn’t see, Ailei quietly pulled out a small booklet.
On its cover: Thirty-Six Stratagems for Love.
Flipping to the last page.
Skipping the dense tactics.
She found a single line in black ink.
The 37th Stratagem: Being Loved.
Those who are loved need not follow the previous thirty-six stratagems to possess love.
Is that so...
Ailei stared at those words for a long, long time.
Once, she had treated this little book as scripture, studying its strategies to earn Xu Xi’s "love."
But now.
She realized.
She didn’t need to.
Whoosh—
Ailei closed the booklet and, with a flicker of flame, reduced the treasured scripture to ashes.
"Ailei," Xu Xi called from ahead. "What are you burning?"
"Pay it no mind, Master. I’m just... bidding farewell to the past."
The past?
What did that mean?
Xu Xi was curious but didn’t press further.
Ailei was her own person.
Privacy was natural.
Though she addressed him as "Master," Xu Xi had always treated her as an equal. He wouldn’t intrude.
"How strange..."
"Even though it’s still summer, my back feels cold."
his freshman year, Su Bai accidentally bound the "Indulgence Tycoon System." 【Sleeping in? Reward: +$1,000】 【Spent $288 at a street barbecue stall? Cashback: +$2,880】 【Dropped $14,396 on in-game skins? Special reward unlocked: A brand-new Porsche Panamera!】 Luxury cars, penthouses, corporate shares, financial empires… College life was all about living freely and doing whatever he pleased! … When the adorably naive academic genius faced family medical bills and financial struggles, Su Bai waved his hand dismissively: "Your future is on me." "Wuwu~ Big Brother is so good to me! I’ll become a scientist to repay you!" When the genius girl got bullied by a shady professor? Su Bai casually dropped a billion-dollar investment, forcing the university to grovel and beg for her return. A company’s funding chain collapsing? Su Bai smirked—cash was the one thing he’d never run out of. Years later, when people traced the rise of the AI prodigy beauty, who was the man behind her success? Not just that—Su Bai also became the tsundere campus belle’s unattainable dream, the contrast senior’s daily necessity, and the beautiful counselor’s emotional anchor…
to panic—he has a system. As long as an investment target dies, he can claim a reward. And since he is immortal, the one thing he has plenty of is time. ... Countless years later. “Immortal Emperor of Longevity? I invested in him.” “Supreme Celestial Venerable? I invested in him.” “Undying Empress? I invested in her.” “...” “Heh. Once they’ve all died, even the Heavenly Dao will have to kneel and call me Dad.”
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.
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...
