To maintain his persona, Fang Zhiyi grabbed a quick bite and then wandered outside, aimlessly strolling around.
Hu Xiulian, having slept her fill, went to the kitchen to find something to eat but was greeted by a complete mess. Before leaving, Fang Zhiyi had specifically told the elderly couple not to bother with it, so Fang's Father and Fang's Mother didn’t say much. Fang's Mother grumbled as she went to help her second son tend to the vegetable seedlings in the field, while Fang's Father silently tinkered with his old antiques.
Hu Xiulian cursed under her breath as she started cleaning up, but no one paid her any attention.
This routine continued for several days.
Fang Zhiyi still kept up his habit of scolding his daughter at the slightest provocation, though he rarely resorted to physical punishment anymore. Instead, after yelling, he would shut her in her room to reflect on her behavior.
This frustrated Hu Xiulian. She was lazy by nature and had hoped to boss Fang Xiaolian around with chores. But seeing Fang Zhiyi’s lingering anger, she inexplicably felt a bit intimidated. She thought about asking Fang Zhiyi’s mother for help, but remembering the money the old woman had, she could only mutter to herself and do the work alone.
Once or twice was fine, but having to do it every day soon wore Hu Xiulian out.
“Look at you! You don’t like being told off, do you?” Fang Zhiyi yelled, hands on his hips. Fang Xiaolian kept her head down, not daring to look at him. Even Liu Wen and Liu Wu, who had just stepped through the gate, heard the roar. They had come to realize lately that their stepfather had a terrible temper. Though he always smiled at them, hearing Fang Zhiyi’s shouts still made the two boys tremble inside.
Hu Xiulian tried several times to cut in, but Fang Zhiyi cut her off each time.
“Husband, forget it. Maybe let Xiao Lian help…” She hoped to get Fang Xiaolian to take over her chores.
“See that? Your mother’s pleading for you! And you’re just standing there! It makes me furious!” Fang Zhiyi immediately looked around for something handy to use. Fang's Mother rushed over to stop him: “What are you doing, son? Forget it, just let Xiao Lian reflect on her own.”
Fang Zhiyi took the out: “Get out, get out! Go reflect by yourself!”
Fang Xiaolian lowered her head and went back to her room, silently pulling out a book.
Even entering with her left foot got her scolded? Dad was being totally unreasonable!
Still, reflecting gave her peace, at least she didn’t have to do any chores.
Seeing Fang Zhiyi still fuming as he paced around, Hu Xiulian trudged out the door with a grim face. Spotting her two sons, she thought for a moment and said, “Xiao Wu, help Mom with something.”
Liu Wu hesitated, looking reluctant: “What?”
“Help Mom chop the pigweed.”
“Why? I never did that before.”
Hu Xiulian looked at her son, who had grown taller: “What, not willing to help around the house?”
“I still have homework to do!”
“Finish the chopping first, then do your homework…”
Before she could finish, Fang Zhiyi came out. When he saw the two boys, his anger softened a little: “Back home? Uncle Fang will cook for you!”
The moment he said that, all three—Hu Xiulian included—rushed to stop him.
“Zhiyi.”
“Uncle Fang.”
“Don’t bother, just rest!”
Recently, Fang Zhiyi had taken a strange liking to the kitchen, spending mornings and evenings there. But the food he made were atrocious—either undercooked rice or scorched greens, and the worst was when fresh bugs would show up in the dishes.
Liu Wen had racked his brain trying to figure out how Fang Zhiyi managed to burn the vegetables while keeping the bugs fresh.
Fang Zhiyi obviously wasn’t about to tell him that he picked out the bugs and put them in afterward.
Strangely, though, the three members of the Fang family would frown at the meals but eat them all without a word.
Hu Xiulian’s take on it was that these Fang people were just used to poverty—born to suffer hardships.
“Look how well-behaved those two kids are! And then that little brat! Drives me crazy!” Fang Zhiyi’s voice suddenly rose again, making Liu Wu jump in fright.
Hu Xiulian, who had been about to suggest letting Fang Xiaolian help, found her words stuck in her throat once more.
“You two go study hard. Don’t let your parents’ hopes down. Go on,” Fang Zhiyi urged the boys. Liu Wen dashed off to his room, while Liu Wu looked to his mother for help: “Mom, maybe you could cook today…”
Hu Xiulian dropped what she was doing and turned around just in time to see Fang Zhiyi head into the kitchen. She plopped down in defeat.
“This lunatic! Xiao Wu, how about you help Mom…”
“Mom, I have homework too.” Liu Wu bolted as well.
At that moment, Hu Xiulian’s heart sank. How could her own sons be like this? Gritting her teeth, she muttered curses under her breath, her eyes turning vicious.
The Fang household fell into a strange atmosphere.
Fang Xiaolian was scolded almost every day and sent to lock herself away. The elderly couple, who had been tiptoeing around, found themselves more relaxed, even smiling in conversation. Their two step-grandsons also treated them more respectfully. Fang Zhiyi remained his idle, good-for-nothing self—to outsiders, the Fang family seemed unchanged. But only Hu Xiulian knew that she had become the de facto workhorse, shouldering all the chores.
She dared not offend the elderly couple, couldn’t boss around Fang Xiaolian, couldn’t bring herself to make her sons work, and most certainly couldn’t touch Fang Zhiyi. All the odds and ends piled onto her shoulders.
The worst part? She had thought the old couple had finally accepted her. But when she asked them for money, they claimed Zhiyi had taken it all. When she turned to ask Fang Zhiyi, he looked shocked: “If I had money, would I be loafing around every day?”
It all started one morning. Unable to stomach another of Fang Zhiyi’s weird breakfasts, Liu Wen ran out of the house and happened to see Fang Xiaolian buying a flatbread on the street. He told Hu Xiulian, and she instantly understood: the elderly couple had been giving money to that worthless girl!
After a month of playing nice, Hu Xiulian finally exploded.
She shrieked so sharply that Fang's Father jumped.
“Great! Before you married me in, you said you’d treat me well. Now that you have money, you give it to that good-for-nothing instead of me?”
“What are you talking about, Xiulian?” Fang's Father frowned.
“You know exactly what I mean! You two are biased!” Hu Xiulian planted one hand on her hip and pointed the other at Fang's Father.
Fang's Mother came over: “What’s wrong?”
“You gave money to Fang Xiaolian, didn’t you? Just to bully my sons?”
Fang's Mother waved her hands repeatedly: “No, no, no! We only gave her some pocket change because she goes to school hungry every morning…”
“Stop pretending! You never saw me as part of the family!” Hu Xiulian yelled. “You don’t care about your own son, you just fawn over that little wretch, don’t you?”
Fang's Mother panicked: “That’s not true! The money is all put away, right under my pillow, really.”
Fang's Father tried to stop her, but it was already too late.
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."
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.
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.
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!
