“This way, please.”
President Song led Qi Yuan into the depths of the corridor, then he pushed open the door to the last private room.
“Brother Xiong, Anzhi, take a look what a fine day it is today, we have a distinguished guest visiting.”
Wu Xiong and Kong Anzhi put down their wine glasses. The two of them got up to greet the guest, but their expressions froze for a moment when they saw who it was.
“What a rare visitor indeed.”
“I’ve long heard of your great deeds, and today I finally get to meet you.”
“Still, they didn’t say anything specific. Why did Qi Yuan come to see them?”
Big talkers, little doers.
Qi Yuan nodded calmly in greeting, “Sorry to disturb you two.”
“No, not at all.”
The two of them smiled brightly, but their eyes drifted toward President Song.
“Old Song, what’s going on?”
Song Jing shook his head and said, “Come, let’s sit and chat.”
“We wouldn’t dare accept such an honor.”
The three men were well informed. Things went smoother than imagined, and Qi Yuan didn’t want to waste time or interfere with their business.
Keep a line open for future relationships.
He had just sat down when a glass of wine was placed in front of him. Qi Yuan quickly waved it away, “No need, I’ll only take a few minutes of your time to say what I came here for, then I’ll be on my way.”
They came from the same family, but Qi Yuan’s emotional intelligence was still a bit higher than the rest of his family. He knew how to make small talk, but he reacted poorly in the moment, otherwise he wouldn’t have just parroted his teacher’s words.
Moreover, he had always believed in a simple truth: Proper socializing benefits you, excessive socializing harms you.
He could make others more comfortable, but why make himself exhausted?
Finding a balance where both sides could save face and move on.
That's good enough.
These three reacted quickly as well. To become local overlords, they knew how to match their words to each personality.
Since the Golden Eyes wanted to be brief, they wouldn't insist on being annoying hosts. All three put on listening faces.
Wu Xiong, as representative, said "Please go ahead."
“Thank you. Let me ask, were the Hibiscus Noodles your own research product, or did someone else sell it to you?”
Qi Yuan cut straight to the core without beating around the bush.
“This...”
The three men's faces didn’t look good. The beauty salon was just investigated by the Patrol Team, and now Qi Yuan showed up at their door. Anyone could guess the connection.
They respected the strong, but that didn’t mean they’d smile after being slapped.
No matter if it was true or not, Wu Xiong immediately denied it and brushed it aside.
“You jest. Hibiscus Noodles are mutated plants, they have no relation to human bones.”
“Yes, we’ve sold a lot of Hibiscus Noodles with no problems at all.”
“And we’ve never fed any corpses.”
President Song and Kong Anzhi chimed in to add details.
After speaking, they were certain Hibiscus Noodles couldn't be implicated.
This was a big deal, so the alertness of the Patrol Team and Golden Eyes was understandable. Since it wasn't a deliberate targeting of them, the three let go of their earlier displeasure for now.
Qi Yuan remained silent, quietly listening to their thoughts and piecing together useful information from the fragments.
The atmosphere chilled again. Wu Xiong and the others grew somewhat uneasy.
Unlike earlier when they had taken the initiative to demonstrate their power, this time they were passive.
A few awkward glances were exchanged in the silence.
Under the tense atmosphere, they also started reflecting whether they had overlooked any suspicious points, or if there was anything off about the Hibiscus Noodles.
So they discovered in horror that there were indeed many questionable things.
Fan Gu, the supplier, had said the delicate flowers needed professional care. They needed to provide Fan Gu with customer lists for home visits and maintenance.
Additionally, Fan Gu mentioned that to protect trade secrets, they would need to provide transportation channels for him. Thinking carefully, these channels included hospitals, funeral homes, and routes in and out of the city.
They had coveted Fan Gu's trade secrets before, but failed in their attempts to steal them several times. His strength was considerable.
Now in retrospect, with such great power, why didn't he cooperate with officials?
Instead he approached them specifically.
For certain reasons, mass production of the plants was not possible. But what were those reasons?
And so on. The three felt chills down their necks.
They had been living well as local emperors in Qipan City. Raising monsters brought them no benefits, only harm.
Getting involved in something this big meant they couldn't even keep their Esper identities.
Dragon Country had zero tolerance for raising monsters.
They could investigate this matter later, but for now they absolutely could not admit to anything.
However, Qi Yuan leisurely spoke words that made their hearts tighten.
“The intel I received said that you provided them a route including hospitals, funeral parlors, and exits from the city. And you say there's no problem with this?”
It was intel he just received, so Qi Yuan used it directly.
These people still wanted to conceal information and sever ties, unlike him pretending to be arrogant. They really saw themselves as ancestors.
Qi Yuan found his own mentality wasn't as good as he thought.
The three were crafty and still didn’t plan to cooperate even after he pointed out the problem. They just wanted to shift blame.
Initially he had only come to gather some information without risk, and now he was certain something was wrong.
Qi Yuan didn't want to beat around the bush with them. He said it straight: “Report it now. If there really is a problem, you can redeem yourselves. But if you delay and cause serious losses, I will report you to the Patrol Team.”
After speaking, Qi Yuan realized he was getting carried away and not being rigorous enough, so he added, “Of course, it would be best if there is no problem.”
Having obtained the information, he had shot his mouth off. What was he waiting for if not a quick escape to seek the authorities’ protection?
After he left, Song Jing and Kong Anzhi looked to their big brother, waiting for his decision.
Wu Xiong was silent for a long time. He picked up the wine bottle on the table and chugged half of it, then smashed the bottle down.
“Find Guo Bureau!”
“Brother Xiong, should we really do this?”
“Yes, the Patrol Team must be even more anxious than us. We can still negotiate if we drag our feet.”
Wu Xiong raised his hand to stop their words: “The Eldest Young Master Qi already found out about our transportation route with Fan Gu. Do you still want to cling to false hopes and cut off your own retreat?”
President Song and the other opened their mouths to speak, but were interrupted by Wu Xiong again.
He pointed at the table, breaking down his concerns for them to understand.
“Young Master Qi came today to remind us to cooperate properly, redeem ourselves, and they’ll let us off easy afterwards. Losing face is a small matter, think carefully, if something really happens, even if we run away, can we defend against the Qi family taking revenge?”
transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”
pression Bureau] Transported to a fantasy world overrun by demons and monsters, Gu Qingfeng becomes a jailer in the Demon Suppression Prison of the Great Yan Dynasty's Demon Suppression Bureau. From this point on, bizarre cases frequently occur in the Demon Suppression Prison, once known as hell on earth and infamous for its gloomy, terrifying atmosphere! Why do the demons and monsters in the prison wail miserably every night? Why has the corpse demon, capable of transforming into various beauties, donned black stockings and switched careers to become a foot massage therapist? Why has the eye demon, expert in soul-snatching and illusions, turned into a VR headset? Why is the fox spirit performing otaku dances? Are all these occurrences a twisted expression of demonic nature, or a descent into moral depravity? After peeling away layer upon layer of mystery, all clues ultimately point to a jailer named Gu Qingfeng. Gu Qingfeng: "Hehehe... My dear demons and monsters, whose card shall we flip today?"
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.
] 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.
