But the murderer they were looking for was at that moment stroking his own belly, having changed clothes and already left the county town.
"How is Xu Xiaoya now?" Fang Zhiyi turned to ask Xiaoxiaohei.
Xiaoxiaohei, after a brief pause as usual, replied, "Uncertain, host. You'd better find a safe place to stay for now..."
"Useless," Fang Zhiyi shot it a dismissive glance, then spotted figures in the distance—clearly officials sent by the county court to hunt him down. After a moment's thought, he plunged into the wilderness and quickly vanished into the desolate woods.
"Warning, warning... the host's assimilation rate with the world is increasing. For the host's safety, please immediately cease current activity..." Xiaoxiaohei continued its mechanical broadcast.
Fang Zhiyi picked at his ear and turned to look back at the thing.
"Say what you will, you're nowhere near as good as your old man," he said, scanning the area. "Assimilation rate? What the hell is that? Go ask your father—does it look like I'm the kind of guy who takes a beating and doesn't fight back?"
Xiaoxiaohei tried to process his words, but Fang Zhiyi didn't dwell on it. Instead, he kept moving through the woods and underbrush.
Elm Tree Village had lost many people in the wars of earlier years, and now only a few households remained. But on this evening, a convoy of wagons slowly entered the village. The man at the front directed his men to set up a simple stage and then began beating a gong.
The sudden commotion lit up lamps in the few surviving homes. The villagers came out to see what was happening and found out it was a traveling opera troupe passing through, hoping to earn some tips by performing in the village.
The troupe's old-sheng actor looked at the sparse crowd and showed clear disappointment on his face.
"Boss, there are only a few families in this poor village. Looks like we'll be working for nothing again today."
The troupe leader frowned, not expecting that the village had no more than twenty-odd people in total. Before he could speak to the bewildered gazes, one of the younger martial-art actors said, "If you ask me, we might as well call it quits. Let's stay the night and head to Chaoyang County tomorrow. I hear there are plenty of rich squires over there—maybe we can find a good husband for Little Moon."
The half-grown girl heard this and, hands on her hips, said, "Bah! I'm not marrying anyone! I want to follow my father and sing opera!"
The troupe leader waved his hand. "Enough arguing! The gong has been sounded—there's no rule saying we don't perform after striking it!" He grabbed a drumstick; since the troupe was small, he served in multiple roles, even handling the musicians.
"These poor folks can't afford to tip," muttered the martial actor. But seeing the troupe leader's stern look, he just shook his head. "Fine, fine, free work it is. Let's sing! Nowadays, who cares about rules anyway..."
The troupe leader pretended not to hear his complaints and began drumming in a strict, measured rhythm.
The others quickly fell into character with his beats. The performance was simple—an ordinary piece called "Yue Hua Seeks the Immortal." The story was about a young man named Yue Hua, raised by his mother since childhood, whose family suffered a series of misfortunes: their land was seized by a bully, his mother was imprisoned when she tried to file a complaint with the magistrate, and Yue Hua himself set out to appeal directly to the emperor. On the way, the bully's thugs intercepted him, and he accidentally fell off a cliff. When he woke up, he found he had been rescued. After some questioning, he was shocked to discover that the person who saved him was his biological father—a man who had abandoned his wife and child years ago to seek immortality.
Yue Hua demanded to know why the immortal had let his family suffer so much. Moved at last, the immortal sent his father down the mountain to seek justice for his wife and son. The ending was a happy one, satisfying the common people's hopes for fairness and for evil to be punished.
The performers on stage noticed that the villagers sitting below showed no reaction, which only deepened their irritation—their movements and gestures grew half-hearted. The troupe leader, playing the music off to the side, saw this but only turned his face away. It was hard to motivate anyone for a job with no pay.
Yet he felt something was off. Even if his troupe's performance was subpar, there ought to be some reaction from the audience.
The troupe leader turned to look at the crowd below. The twenty or so people sat motionless, staring at the stage, their faces utterly blank. A chill crept up his spine. Having led the troupe far and wide, he had seen his share of strange occurrences. Based on experience, they were in for trouble tonight.
As the final drumbeat died away, the characters Yue Hua and his father on stage joined forces to punish the bully and the corrupt official, and the family was finally reunited.
The villagers below remained deathly silent.
"What's wrong with these yokels? Not only do they not tip, they won't even cheer? Have they never seen an opera before?" muttered the martial actor, who was playing Yue Hua's father.
Just as he finished speaking, something was tossed up onto the stage, bouncing a couple of times.
The martial actor looked down and froze. It was a gold ingot!!!
He quickly picked it up, bowing repeatedly to the audience below.
But the villagers still stared at them with wide eyes, showing no sign of leaving.
The martial actor turned to the troupe leader, asking with his eyes what to do next.
But the troupe leader's face had turned pale as death.
The other performers were puzzled until the troupe leader suddenly started playing music again.
Confused, they wondered if this meant they were to continue singing. But remembering that someone had just given them a gold ingot as a reward, they went along.
Who would have thought such a small village had people with money?
Yet the longer they performed, the more uneasy they felt. The people below were like... corpses, sitting there staring at them. No cheers at the good parts, no jeers at the mistakes. It was impossible not to feel that something was eerily wrong.
During a costume change, the martial actor asked the troupe leader, "Old Gong, are we really going to keep going? These people are strange."
But the troupe leader stared at him in terror and said after a moment, "Keep singing. Sing until dawn, and we can leave."
"Dawn?" The martial actor was shocked. Even his best stamina couldn't last a whole night!
The troupe leader's voice trembled. "The last row—the last row!"
The martial actor craned his neck to look. "Last row? There's no one..." He stopped mid-sentence. They had set out some small stools in front. The villagers sat in the first two rows, leaving the last two rows empty. But in the middle seat of the last row stood a tiny figure on a stool.
As if sensing his gaze, the figure turned its head directly—without moving its body.
Just then, the clouds parted and moonlight spilled down again.
The martial actor felt his blood run cold.
It was a child in a red vest, squatting on the stool. Its face was eerily pale, and it wore a small skullcap. When it met the martial actor's eyes, it grinned. A tongue at least a foot long slid out of its mouth, quickly licked its lips, and retreated back in.
"Boss... Boss..."
"I see it! Don't say a word—keep singing!" The troupe leader shoved him. It was obvious now that all the villagers sitting in front were being controlled by this strange little creature.
close your eyes and open them again, only to find yourself transmigrated into the role of a villainous male supporting character. Readers familiar with urban wish-fulfillment novels know that it is only through the relentless antics of the villainous male supporting character that the plot between the male and female leads can progress. As the villainous male supporting character, Long Aotian not only has to bully the female lead, harass the second female lead, and flirt with the third female lead, but he also has to go all out to antagonize the male lead. In the end, when his body is discovered, he is still clutching half a moldy fried dough stick in his hand. Fully aware of the plot, Long Aotian is determined to change his fate, starting with the female lead! In the beginning, the female lead lacks confidence: "Big brother, I hope I didn't scare you?" In the middle, the female lead treads carefully: "Brother Long, please don't hit me, okay?" Later on, the female lead becomes coquettishly clingy: "Aotian, it's time to pay the 'public grain' tonight." Long Aotian's legs go weak, and he feels like crying: "I taught you to be thick-skinned, not shameless!"
uld barely embark on the path to immortality. Just as he was on the verge of death, his golden finger awakened. No matter whether it was poison, drained blood and vital energy, diminished lifespan, or any other physical debuff caused by paying a price—once midnight passed, everything would be refreshed. From then on, whenever someone asked what kind of person Chu Ran was, the answer was simple: Forbidden arts that other cultivators dared not learn? Chu Ran would learn them. Prices that even demonic cultivators dared not pay? Chu Ran would pay them. Lifespan that even righteous cultivators dared not burn? Chu Ran would burn it. All the blood essence in his body? Take it. Want both his hands and feet? He would cut them off and send them to you. You say he’s finished? He wasn’t built to sit idle. You think he’s gone mad? No—he was simply waiting for midnight. From that day onward, Chu Ran would respect neither Heaven nor Earth, bow to neither gods nor ghosts. He had only one wish: For midnight to arrive a little sooner.
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.
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
