Seeing that she had recognized it, Shen Yi wasn’t surprised. His intention had always been to make Shu Yunyi drink less, but he still argued stubbornly,
“It’s really low-alcohol. Look, it’s labeled on the bottle.”
“Ugh, do you really think I’m a three-year-old you can fool?”
Shu Yunyi had been struggling without alcohol for days, and now, feeling tricked by Shen Yi, she began to grow restless and uneasy.
“I see it now. Everything you did before was on purpose, wasn’t it?”
“Beer, wine—you were just lying to me!”
Her anger wasn’t just about being deceived; there was also a rising sense of panic, a fear of facing the truth that made her lash out uncontrollably.
Seeing that he had been exposed, Shen Yi decided not to pretend anymore. Shu Yunyi needed a harsh wake-up call.
“Lying to you? Me? Aren’t you the one lying to yourself?”
Shen Yi’s expression was cold, his words sharp as he criticized her mercilessly.
“Have you looked in the mirror lately? Look at yourself! Messy hair, unwashed face, unchanged clothes—is this still the person you used to be?”
“You’re in your thirties, but you’re regressing. What kind of life is this? You’ve become a child who can’t even take care of yourself!”
“Every day, you wake up and drink, pass out, then wake up and look for more alcohol. Don’t you realize you’ve become a slave to alcohol?”
“Do you think I’m doing this for no reason? If you keep drinking like this, I’m afraid you’ll drink yourself to death within six months!”
Shen Yi’s piercing gaze bore into Shu Yunyi, as if he wanted to expose her completely under the scorching sun.
His harsh words left Shu Yunyi stunned. Her face burned, and her heart trembled.
Even in her drunken state, she still had some pride, especially since Shen Yi had once been her student. She instinctively retorted with anger:
“So what if I like drinking?”
“If I drink myself to death, so be it. It’s my body, my choice!”
Shen Yi sneered,
“Oh? So you’re proud of it? I didn’t know you were so fearless about death!”
“I had no idea this was the kind of mindset you were teaching your students back in the classroom. To give up? To self-destruct?”
With that, Shen Yi slammed the table and stood up, towering over her with an intimidating presence.
“What are you running away from?!”
Shu Yunyi was forced to avert her gaze. Her body felt as if it were crawling with insects, making her squirm uncomfortably.
As long as she still had a sense of shame, there was hope. If she had lost even that, Shen Yi wouldn’t know what to do.
Seizing the moment, Shen Yi wasn’t ready to let her off. This time, he wanted to strip away her last shred of dignity and trample on her pride.
“Shu Yunyi, Teacher Shu, Professor Shu! Do you even deserve the title of a teacher?”
“Look at what you’ve done. To satisfy your cravings, you’ve lowered your standards, your posture, even your dignity—just to beg a former student for a few drinks.”
“Don’t you feel pathetic letting a few glasses of alcohol control your life?”
Under the table, Shu Yunyi’s hands trembled as she clenched her fists tightly, gripping the hem of her clothes. Deep down, she was just lonely and wanted someone to drink with.
But Shen Yi’s words were like a sharp blade, cutting deeply into her heart.
The atmosphere grew heavy, the room eerily silent.
Shu Yunyi hung her head, a dark cloud of despair hovering over her.
Taking a deep breath, she tried to maintain the last bit of dignity she no longer had, stubbornly insisting,
“Why do you care?”
“Who are you? What right do you have to meddle in my life?”
As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted them.
Wasn’t Shen Yi doing all this for her? Shu Yunyi’s heart churned, her lips moving as if she wanted to say something to make amends, but no words came out.
She looked up and met Shen Yi’s gaze, freezing in place. His eyes were filled with disappointment, pain, regret, and anger, all intertwined.
Her words had hurt him deeply. Shen Yi stood there, his emotions a tangled mess, feeling as though his efforts had been wasted. For the first time, he understood the frustration of watching someone you care about throw their life away.
After a moment, Shen Yi let out a bitter laugh and softened his tone.
“You’re right. I’m not anyone important to you, and I have no right to interfere. Consider me foolish.”
“Perhaps the teacher I admired that summer has long been carried away by the evening breeze…”
“Goodbye, Teacher Shu.”
The softer his voice, the more respectful his tone, the colder Shu Yunyi’s heart grew.
Seeing no point in continuing, Shen Yi turned and left without hesitation.
The door clicked shut. Shu Yunyi reached out, her mouth opening as if to call him back.
“You…”
Her arm froze mid-air, her words cut off by the closed door.
Turning back to the table, she stared at the bottle of alcohol, the clear liquid sloshing inside. Suddenly, she swiped it off the table.
“Crash!”
The bottle shattered, liquid splashing everywhere, shards of glass scattering across the floor.
She stomped on the broken pieces, venting her regret and anger.
The cold liquid evaporated, releasing a strong smell of alcohol that made Shu Yunyi gag.
Covering her face, she slowly crouched down, tears streaming uncontrollably as she sobbed.
Shen Yi’s departure left her heart burning with torment, the pain almost unbearable.
A flood of negative emotions overwhelmed her, leaving her in a tangled mess, unable to see any light in the future.
The cicadas chirped outside, and the evening breeze gently swayed the curtains.
Shu Yunyi looked toward the window, her lifeless eyes flickering with a faint light. She murmured to herself,
“Maybe it’s better to let the evening breeze carry it all away…”
She stood up, moving like a lifeless shell.
Slowly, she climbed onto the balcony railing and sat down, gazing at the moon as if it could reveal the truth within her.
Her legs dangled over the edge, swaying slightly. She took out her phone and typed a long message to her mother, confessing her thoughts and expressing remorse for her actions.
Then she typed a short message to Shen Yi:
“I’m sorry for disappointing you.”
She hit send, then looked down at the neatly trimmed lawn below and leaped.
“Ah!”
Her scream pierced the night.
“Thud!”
A crystal-clear sandal fell from over ten stories high, landing with a muffled thud.
Shu Yunyi’s upper body dangled over the edge, her sandal slipping off. The cool wind made her heart race, her hands and feet sweating, her strength failing.
“Are you insane?!”
Shen Yi’s furious shout came from behind her. Shu Yunyi realized that an arm was wrapped around her waist, preventing her from falling.
Unbeknownst to her, Shen Yi had secretly returned just in time to witness this scene.
Cursing, Shen Yi used both hands to grip her waist tightly, pulling her back onto the balcony with all his strength.
As soon as her feet touched the ground, Shu Yunyi collapsed weakly against Shen Yi.
Her heart pounded like a drum, filled with the relief of having narrowly escaped death.
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!
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.
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?!
m back to his original world. In the end, he realized he had overthought things. [Hey, why is Shen Manni, the female lead, acting strange? Shouldn't she be fawning over the male lead at this point?] [Zhou Qiaoqiao, are you sick? Weren't you supposed to break off your engagement today?] [Damn it! An Youyi, please do your job as an undercover agent and sell my information to the protagonist, you idiot!] ... At this moment, Xu Mo himself didn't know that these female leads had already heard his inner thoughts. Then they decided not to play by the rules. Xu Mo: Please respect my profession as the big villain!
