The first time Xue Qingsong met Lord Sima, it was an encounter with a Deputy Director of the Revenue Ministry—someone ordinary people would never see in a lifetime!
Lord Sima merely frowned at him for a moment, saying nothing.
“I... I saw the young lady fall into the water and, without thinking... I offended her. I deserve a thousand deaths!” Xue Qingsong immediately fell to his knees.
Lord Sima glanced at him. “Get up. At least you showed some courage.”
Xue Qingsong’s mind went blank. What was he supposed to say now?
Just then, the steward spoke: “Boy, what’s your name, and how do you make a living now?”
“I am a minor clerk in the Tax Bureau, named Xue Qingsong.”
“A clerk, you say?” The steward sounded surprised.
Lord Sima looked at Xue Qingsong again. “You’ve worked hard. Go home early and rest.”
Xue Qingsong’s thoughts were in turmoil. That was it? He was being dismissed?
While he stood dazed, the steward gently nudged his backside with his foot. Only then did Xue Qingsong respond: “Yes, sir!”
The steward led him toward the gate. Xue Qingsong, taking in the grandeur of the Sima residence, thought of his own shabby little room and couldn’t help but sigh.
The steward clearly heard him but said nothing. As he opened the side door to let him out, he remarked meaningfully, “Congratulations, Lord Xue.”
Xue Qingsong froze, utterly confused about what there was to congratulate, but the door had already closed.
The next day, when Xue Qingsong reported for duty, he was shocked to discover that his loathsome superior had been transferred, and he himself had been appointed to the position of Tax Bureau Chief.
This sudden promotion left his scalp tingling.
What was going on? Just because he saved an official’s daughter? That couldn’t be it, could it?
That evening, he saw Tan Jiu again at the tavern. Before he could even sit down, Tan Jiu was congratulating him, as if he already knew everything.
For the first time, Xue Qingsong looked closely at the man before him. Tan Jiu had an utterly ordinary face, the kind you could lose in a crowd.
After a long pause, he asked,
“Who exactly are you?”
Tan Jiu grinned. “Lord Xue, you don’t need to worry about who I am—just know who you are.”
“You... why are you helping me?”
“Lord Xue, ask fewer questions. It’s for your own good,” Tan Jiu replied with a knowing smile. “If you think your current position is enough, I, Tan Jiu, will take my leave. But if you want to climb higher...”
Xue Qingsong hesitated. Then, remembering everything he had seen at the Sima residence the day before, the flames of ambition quickly ignited within him.
“As long as you can help me rise in rank and grow rich, I’ll do anything!”
A glint flashed in Tan Jiu’s eyes. “Truly?”
“Truly! A man of Zhou does not deceive another man of Zhou!”
From that day on, Xue Qingsong entered a strange state of existence.
Tan Jiu would always appear at specific times, never speaking a word to him, simply handing him notes.
And Xue Qingsong had only to follow the instructions on those notes.
One day, investigate a tax evasion case; the next, deliver a tightly sealed ledger to some official—things like that. He never even knew why.
Xue Qingsong learned to keep his mouth shut and ask no questions. He simply did whatever the notes said. After uncovering a major tax evasion case, he received praise from Lord Sima, and soon heard that a certain Supply Depot Officer had been impeached and dismissed by some high official. Naturally, the outstanding Xue Qingsong was promoted to fill that very post.
Now, he lived in a large house.
The rapid transformation of his status left Xue Qingsong feeling euphoric. He even thought he could live like this forever—find a wife, have a brood of children. He even stopped seeing Tan Jiu.
But even when he avoided Tan Jiu, the notes would still appear on his bedside table.
This sent a chill down Xue Qingsong’s spine.
He understood. It was a warning.
A warning from Tan Jiu and the power behind him.
Promoted again, Xue Qingsong followed a note’s instructions to a money lender and collected a large sum of cash. He was bewildered until he found another note hidden in the money, bearing an address.
He took the money to that place. He had no idea where it was, only that its gate was even grander than Lord Sima’s mansion.
After this, Tan Jiu and the notes disappeared for a long time, letting Xue Qingsong breathe a sigh of relief.
But a month later, an inspector came on a tour of duty and happened to stop at his office. Though Xue Qingsong didn’t know the man, the high official heaped praise on his work.
After the inspector left, Xue Qingsong was promoted once more.
He was bewildered, feeling like a puppet on strings, yet powerless to resist.
The notes reappeared, but the bearer changed, and soon changed again.
He still followed the instructions. By now, he had a certain amount of influence. Following the notes, he aligned himself with Prince Zuo’s faction, feeding the prince incriminating information on his rivals.
A Khitan in origin, Xue Qingsong still managed to win Prince Zuo’s favor.
Within half a year, Prince Zuo recommended him to the Ministry of Personnel.
Now he had equal rank with Lord Sima. When they met again, Sima Lie treated him with newfound warmth.
The notes continued, but their tone changed.
“Lord Xue, remember: everything you have, we gave you. And we can take it all back.”
Xue Qingsong didn’t believe it. He tore up the note. He was a big shot now—the only Khitan official of Zhou origin. He didn’t think Tan Jiu and his ilk had such power.
He fortified his mansion, ensuring that Tan Jiu’s people couldn’t get in.
But the very next day, someone impeached him for misconduct and harboring treacherous intentions. Being a Khitan of Zhou descent, he naturally drew scrutiny. The censors entered his mansion and, before his own eyes, pulled a stack of letters from under his pillow.
Xue Qingsong’s scalp went numb.
Fortunately, after inspection, the letters turned out to be nothing more than ordinary social correspondence.
The impeacher was rebuked, and the matter was dropped.
But Xue Qingsong felt as if a sword hung over his head, ready to fall at any moment and take his life. Now, everyone he saw could be one of Tan Jiu’s men.
He no longer avoided the notes. He couldn’t avoid them.
When a note told him to stand up at court and impeach a first-rank minister, he obeyed, figuring he could lose his post at worst. But to his surprise, the official he impeached had made many enemies. As soon as he spoke out, others followed suit.
The minister was ordered by the sovereign to return home and live in retirement.
At that moment, Xue Qingsong finally realized with full force that the force manipulating him was beyond his ability to resist.
He accepted it. When a note instructed him to privately access classified records, he did it.
When a note told him to collude with and bribe other officials to build connections, he did that too.
No matter how outrageous the demand, he accepted it without question. Xue Qingsong was numb.
Then Tan Jiu appeared before him once more.
“Lord Xue, your mission is complete. Now pack your things and come with me.”
orn and Humiliation】【Forced Love】 In his past life, Lin Ran was betrayed and murdered by his girlfriend and family, while the yandere female aristocrat, who had treated him as a mere plaything, avenged him by doing in his enemies. Upon seeing the yandere female aristocrat lying in the same coffin, ready to die with him, Lin Ran realized how profoundly mistaken he had been. Reborn, he abandoned the fickle campus beauty and wholeheartedly embraced the yandere female aristocrat's arms. "Ran! If I dig out your eyes and turn them into a specimen, you'll only be able to look at me!" Lin Ran: "Darling, kiss me!" "Ran! If I break your legs, you won't run away anymore, right?" Lin Ran: "Love, hold me tight!" "Ran! If..." Lin Ran: "Hush now! Love me more!" Luo Yao: ... Seeing his scumbag dad: "Take him out!" Seeing his stepmother: "Get rid of her!" Seeing his brother: "Eliminate him!" Seeing his white moonlight: "Send that to Southeast Asia!"
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?!
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!
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.”
