“Hit it! Five times!” the young guy shouted excitedly. Fortunately, the place was relatively remote and the street noisy, so hardly anyone noticed him.
“Oh, your luck... sigh...” Ma Laoliu dejectedly handed over fifteen hundred, then looked at the guy expectantly.
The young guy took a deep breath, as if he had made up his mind, and was about to take the bag off his back.
Suddenly, two people rushed over, shouting.
Everyone at the stall turned to look. When they saw that the newcomers were carrying knives, Wang Ergou, also known as Wang Two-Dogs, was scared stiff.
“So it’s you, messing with my sister! Trying to run, were you?”
The guy with the backpack immediately turned and fled. The two knife-wielding men gave chase. For a moment, it left several con artists playing their scheme dumbfounded.
“Brother Ma, what do we do now?” it took a while for Wang Ergou to react.
“What do we do? Chase them!” Ma Laoliu gritted his teeth. How could he have known that the seemingly honest guy had enemies?
“Brother Ma, maybe we can’t chase them anymore...”
As Ma Laoliu turned around after pulling a weapon from the box, several stern faces appeared right in front of him.
“You’ve been reported for using street games as a front for gambling fraud. All of you come with us.”
“What’s that in your hand?” a sharp-eyed police officer spotted the blade in Ma Laoliu’s grip.
“Ah, I, I...”
In a nearby alley, the young backpacker was catching his breath: “That was thrilling! Eldest Brother, how did you know they’d let me win?”
The two who had been chasing him were also leaning against the wall, panting.
Fang Zhiyi, wearing a mask, smiled: “It’s like fishing. They were sure you were a big catch, so they were willing to use more bait. As for what came after... I was just gambling too.”
“Huh?”
“Gambling that they wouldn’t want to waste their investment. Several people are acting out a scene, but you were betting with the money you’d won. If they let you lose, it’d be all for nothing—at most they’d make twenty bucks. But if they let you win, you might go all in on the next round. Which would you choose?”
“Eldest Brother, you’re amazing.” The young guy pulled out the money and handed it to Fang Zhiyi, then took out a stack of cash from his backpack. He peeled off the top and bottom bills, revealing a pile of fake funeral money underneath.
Fang Zhiyi took the cash and handed half of it back: “As agreed, half for you.”
“Eldest Brother, you’re generous!” the young guy beamed. He exchanged glances with his two companions; all three were college students on a trip. Having suddenly gained a few hundred bucks made them happy, and the adventure itself was thrilling.
“Remember, don’t try this yourself. This kind of behavior is essentially gambling. Once you get hooked gambling, you’re done for.”
Fang Zhiyi turned and walked away.
When he’d been looking for help, he’d specially asked Xiaoxiaohei. Only after getting a positive answer did he proceed.
As he left, he caught sight of the gamblers being escorted into the police station, followed by a few victims.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with the world these days. If it were me, I’d have called the cops the first time I lost,” Fang Zhiyi shook his head.
Today, Fang Xiaolian had more starting capital. No longer just focusing on pencils, she looked at other school supplies.
When she and Fang Zhiyi went up the hill that evening, she reported her observations.
“I noticed erasers and correction tape sell way better than pencils.”
Fang Zhiyi didn’t look back: “That’s called market demand. It’s good to observe, but your cost for getting the goods is too high, so your profit margin is low. That means less money for me.”
Fang Xiaolian listened closely, but Fang Zhiyi didn’t continue.
So she bent her head and started doing the math in her mind.
She did her homework first as usual. After she finished, Fang Zhiyi told her to start climbing trees. He said there were certain fruits and insect molts in the trees. Fang Xiaolian didn’t understand, but she could only silently obey. The way he made her climb was awkward and especially tiring.
They stayed at it until evening, and then Fang Zhiyi took her home.
When Hu Xiulian saw Fang Xiaolian all dirty, her face was full of disgust. She turned to ask: “How much did you earn today?”
“Twenty.” Fang Zhiyi shoved ten yuan at Hu Xiulian. She pocketed it immediately: “Hmph, a worthless girl’s just a worthless girl. Working your tail off for this measly amount.”
Compared to Fang Xiaolian’s messy state, Liu Wen and Liu Wu were both scornful.
Didn’t that little wretch earn that money only to hand it over to her?
A few days passed like this. Fang Zhiyi told them Fang Xiaolian had to earn money. Hu Xiulian didn’t complain, because she still got her share—small as it might be, it was better than feeding a freeloader.
Anyway, there were still the two old folks at home to do the chores.
One morning, noise outside woke Hu Xiulian from her sleep. She put on her clothes and went out, scowling: “What’s all this racket so early?”
The flustered old woman—Fang Zhiyi’s mother—looked at the table Liu Wen had overturned and was at a loss.
“Mom, they—they’re playing favorites!” Liu Wen pointed a finger at Grandma.
Fang Zhiyi, who had just come out, narrowed his eyes but said nothing.
“Xiao Wen, what are you talking about?” When Hu Xiulian realized her own son had overturned the table, her tone softened. She had thought those two old folks were creating trouble.
“They’ve been giving Xiao Wu an egg every day, but not me!” Liu Wen’s pent-up grievances burst out. “Just now, I even saw her slipping Xiao Wu allowance money!”
He’d actually seen them doing it over the past few days, but it was today that he finally caught the act. Remembering how he’d been helping his mom with work while getting less and less pocket money, he exploded.
“Ha?” Hu Xiulian was stunned for a moment. She turned to Fang Zhiyi’s mother, confusion on her face.
“Well, well... Xiao Wu is young and needs nutrition. Xiao Wen is the older brother; it’s only natural for him to give in to his younger brother...” The old woman shot a quick glance at her son and stammered.
Hu Xiulian was quiet for a moment. Come to think of it, Xiao Wu was a whole head shorter than Xiao Wen. Still, the egg thing...
Before she could think it through, Fang Zhiyi suddenly exploded: “I keep telling you not to meddle! You just have to mess things up!”
His voice was so loud it startled everyone into turning around.
Fang Zhiyi stepped forward and shoved his mother: “Pack your things now. Let’s go!”
“Son, where do you want me to go...” his mother clearly didn’t catch on.
“Let’s go! I’m sending you to Second Brother’s place! You’re not staying here anymore! You can’t even do one thing right!” There was no hesitation in Fang Zhiyi’s words.
Seeing Fang Zhiyi’s actions, the anger brewing in Hu Xiulian subsided a little. She turned to her eldest son: “Xiao Wen, what she said wasn’t wrong. You’re the big brother; you should take care of your little brother...”
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.
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?"
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."
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.”
