Xu Da snatched the bag, pouring out the bits of silver in his palm and weighing them. He was clearly dissatisfied, but he had no time to dwell on it. He turned and left, then took two steps before looking back.
"My good daughter, if you ask me, you should find a way to trick that silly girl out of all her money. When that's done, your father can come live with you."
Xu Xiaocao said nothing, but Xu Da's words kept echoing in her mind.
Yeah, why did Xu Xiaoya get to live so well? She must have been up to something shady! When Xu Xiaocao had asked her what exactly she had done for the Huang family, she just looked mysterious and refused to say a thing.
Xu Xiaocao's eyes gradually turned ruthless.
She needed money too!
She slipped through the door, deep in thought. Just as she was about to go upstairs, she heard something hit the floor. It startled her. When she focused, she saw the boy with the broken leg sitting in the corner, staring at her, his face full of panic.
Had he seen her go out? Had he seen her give the money to Xu Da?
No, he couldn't walk. He must not have seen anything.
But what if he told Xu Xiaoya about her sneaking out? What if Xu Xiaoya started to suspect her? If it were her, she would definitely kick Xu Xiaoya out...
She stared blankly at the boy, then suddenly walked over.
The boy, thinking he was about to be beaten again, curled up and covered his head.
"Don't worry, big sister isn't going to hit you today. I'll take you out to buy some treats..." Xu Xiaoca squeezed out a stiff smile.
The next morning at breakfast, Xu Xiaoya noticed someone was missing. She asked around, but none of the children had seen their companion.
"He probably ran off. Don't worry, sister. I'll go look for him later," Xu Xiaocao said, her face relaxed.
"His leg is broken. How could he run? Is he trapped somewhere?" Xu Xiaoya wanted to search the house. These children had suffered enough already.
But a shout from outside stopped her in her tracks.
"A child drowned in the river! Come see whose it is! Get him fished out!"
The voice carried no emotion—floating a few dead bodies in the river was all too common.
Xu Xiaoya was terrified and dashed outside. Xu Xiaocao curled her lips and followed behind.
To bury the child, Xu Xiaoya spent a fair amount of money and even bought him a thin coffin. A neighbor said that someone who drowned needed to lie in state for a day before burial. Xu Xiaoya listened and hired people to carry the coffin into the yard. She sat there, dazed, keeping vigil.
Xu Xiaocao frowned. "Sister, this is so unlucky!"
"I brought them out... and now he's dead..." Xu Xiaoya murmured.
"It just wasn't his fate. He probably jumped into the river because he didn't want to be a burden to you," Xu Xiaocao said.
Xu Xiaoya suddenly turned to her. "No, that can't be. When those beggars tormented him, he never tried to kill himself..."
Xu Xiaocoa felt uneasy under her gaze. She hadn't bothered to ask about the children's backgrounds—she just saw them as invaders on her turf.
Luckily, Xu Xiaoya quickly turned back and stared straight at the coffin.
"Could it be that the beggars' gang came back for revenge?" she muttered. "Because Gousheng killed one of their own, they came for revenge..."
Xu Xiaocoa's heart leaped. Fang Zhiyi had killed someone???
Night slowly fell. She urged Xu Xiaoya to go to sleep, but Xu Xiaoya wouldn't listen. To keep up appearances, Xu Xiaocao had to lean against the wall and pretend to doze, her mind full of resentment—but mostly guilt.
After all, no one wanted to spend the night with a dead person she had drowned herself.
Luckily, Xu Xiaoya told her to go to bed. After a bit of fake protest, she went.
Xu Xiaoya glanced back, slowly reached her hand toward the bell Fang Zhiyi had left her, and lightly tapped it with two fingers. A tall, dark figure shot out from the bell.
Looking at the face she once feared, Xu Xiaoya said, "Do you know why this happened? I was trying to help him..."
Gao Mingzhi couldn't understand her words and had no thoughts. It only knew that this person could control it. But when it turned, it saw the coffin and reached inside.
"What are you doing?"
Xu Xiaoya was shocked. She had forgotten that the dark soul’s instinct was to feed. She had summoned Gao Mingzhi just to talk, but now it started devouring the child’s soul!
Just as she was about to forcibly recall Gao Mingzhi, her gaze froze.
"Big sister going to take you to buy some treats."
A girl was struggling to carry a boy with both legs broken. Her face bore a nearly twisted smile, making her look like a madwoman. The boy was too terrified to move. When the girl reached the river, she suddenly threw him in. The boy thrashed desperately, but she knelt by the bank and pressed his head down firmly...
Gao Mingzhi patted its chest contentedly, clearly satisfied with its meal.
As it consumed the child's soul, Xu Xiaoya saw in her mind the truth of his death.
"Why... Xiaocao wouldn't do this..."
Gao Mingzhi still said nothing. Full, it stood quietly, waiting for orders.
The next few days passed as usual. Xu Xiaoya seemed to give up on finding Fang Zhiyi and instead focused on the disabled children's daily needs. The Huang family’s gratitude gift was enough to support them for a long time.
To keep her deeds from being exposed, Xu Xiaocao often volunteered to care for the children, then turned around to threaten and intimidate them. The children, already traumatized by the beggars, cowered whenever they saw her and dared not say a word.
Xu Da came to ask for money a few more times, each time greedier than the last.
Xu Xiaocao played the dutiful daughter.
Finally, when Xu Da complained about only getting some small bits of silver, she suggested he sneak in at night.
"Xu Xiaoya has a lot of money. I can't handle it alone. How about you come with me, Father..."
Xu Da hesitated only a moment before Xu Xiaocao’s persuasion won him over. He nodded on the spot.
That night, he came to the courtyard door. He gave one cough, and the door creaked open. Behind it, Xu Xiaocoa looked both excited and nervous.
They went upstairs, one after the other.
"Father, she's inside."
Xu Da nodded, having no suspicion of his daughter. He tiptoed in through the door.
The person on the bed was sleeping soundly, steady breaths making him nervous. But when he saw the small chest on the cabinet, greed surged in his heart.
Just as he turned to urge his daughter for help, he saw Xu Xiaoca’s eerie smile. It made him freeze.
"You..."
"Thief!!! A thief!!!"
Xu Da's scalp went numb. What the hell was happening?
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."
ap a wealthy young lady? Or else I'll be eliminated by the system? Ye Feng, who awakened the Kidnapper System, originally wanted to live a peaceful life but never imagined he would become a kidnapper of young women. However, after some time, he discovered that all the girls the system ordered him to kidnap were far from ordinary. "Big brother Ye Feng~ You've kidnapped my heart, and now you're not allowed to leave me ever again~" "Ye Feng~ You kidnapped me back then, now it's my turn to capture you♡" "Little Feng, you're mine! You can only be mine!" "Ye Feng, none of them deserve you. Only I love you the most♡" ... This is madness, they've all gone mad! Wait, what? Why are all the girls I kidnapped yanderes?!
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.
