"Little Mouse, you might not be human, but you sure as hell aren't a ghost either. This is no time for showing off—listen to me, we run in separate directions!" Wang Qianyue's gaze was resolute.
If Little Mouse didn't know him so well, he might have actually believed it.
"Master, ever since you told me to run, you've been slipping these evil-attracting charms onto my back every time you patted my shoulder. Isn't that going a bit far?"
Wang Qianyue saw that Little Mouse had caught him red-handed and looked a little awkward.
"Hey, I thought maybe you two could count as half-relatives or something..."
The ghost's laughter crept closer, a blood-red figure taking shape in the fog.
"What do you mean, half-relatives? At best I'm a living corpse—she's a ghost!"
"A living corpse means sometimes dead, sometimes alive, so when you spell it out, isn't that just a ghost?"
"You stinking Taoist, all you ever think about is scheming against me!"
"If I hadn't picked you up off the street, you'd have been caught long ago!"
"Who would catch me?"
"You don't believe me? Go ask around. There aren't many genuine monks or Taoists out there these days, but the Imperial Preceptor doesn't mess around."
"What's the Imperial Preceptor got to do with me? Can he reach me here?"
Their argument grew louder and louder.
The ghost was baffled.
It was the first time she'd ever seen two idiots bickering while a spectral bride closed in on them with certain death.
"Fine, let's just go our separate ways! But I'm telling you now, half of every coin you swindle is mine!"
"Half? Are you insane? Who ate all those dishes you ordered? Who wore those clothes? Who stayed in those inns?"
"What inns? Every time you just hole up in some broken-down temple, and you even made me sleep in beggar dens a few times!"
"Hey, how dare this little brat be so ungrateful! Be thankful we had a roof at all!"
"You—"
"Since you two love to argue so much, you can keep arguing after you're dead!" The Ghost Bride had had enough. She was close enough now, yet the two of them completely ignored her—and because of that, her illusions couldn't take hold.
For a vengeful spirit to cast illusions, she needed human fear, to dredge up the deepest terrors from their hearts.
But these two were both too fired up with anger, and there wasn't a trace of fear in the air.
She decided not to wait any longer. She lunged forward, both hands reaching for their throats.
But Wang Qianyue suddenly shouted: "Now!"
The Ghost Bride had no time to react before a handful of cinnabar powder hit her square in the face. The fine, gritty particles, laced with righteous energy, slammed into her and sent her reeling with a piercing, miserable shriek.
Then came a flurry of talismans—but these charms held not a shred of mystical power and did nothing but enrage the Ghost Bride even further.
"You two—you're asking for death!"
"Hey."
She had just lowered her hands from her face when she saw the boy holding a gourd. Without a word, he splashed its contents all over her.
Black dog blood!
The moment it touched her body, steam rose from her flesh. The searing pain was agonizing—but it faded in an instant.
"You're kidding me. You diluted it again?" Little Mouse stared at Wang Qianyue in exasperation.
Wang Qianyue looked embarrassed: "Puppies are so cute—how could I drain one dry? I borrowed just a little from each dog, and barely scraped together enough for a life-saving dose..."
But this time, the Ghost Bride didn't wait for them to start arguing again. She lunged like a madwoman and wrapped her hands around Wang Qianyue's throat. Little Mouse rolled to the ground, using his short stature to escape.
"Hey! Hey! It wasn't my idea!" Wang Qianyue was terrified.
"Quit yelling! She's touching you!" Little Mouse suddenly shouted.
Wang Qianyue froze. The Ghost Bride froze too.
Wang Qianyue slowly raised his hand and gently brushed the Ghost Bride's cheek. Cold. Slippery.
The Ghost Bride was furious—but then Wang Qianyue started grinning, a lecherous grin.
"Little Mouse, I touched her too."
The Ghost Bride looked at his smiling face and a bad feeling crept over her. Then—thud! A kick landed square in her gut.
Wang Qianyue didn't look like any Taoist priest. He rolled up his sleeves: "Scaring your Daoist master, huh? Think you're tough? I've never caught a ghost before, but I've never backed down from a fight either!"
Little Mouse silently gave him a thumbs-up.
Outside the mansion, the official guards on watch scanned the surroundings.
"Captain, you think this one can actually catch that ghost?" one guard asked.
"Who knows. The last two had some skill too, but they never came out. I'd say this one's hanging by a thread."
"Shame. He managed to pray for rain—that takes real talent."
"Just a blind squirrel finding a nut every now and then. Talent, my foot."
As they chatted, they suddenly heard loud crashing from inside the mansion—like someone chasing something around and cursing up a storm.
"That sound... we've never heard that before," one guard said after a pause.
Another nodded: "Before, it was always screams for help, or weeping with laughter. But this..."
They exchanged glances and clamped their mouths shut. Heaven only knew what was going on in there. They sure as hell weren't going in to check.
Wang Qianyue chased the ghost to the door of a study. The door slammed shut as if blown by the wind. He didn't stop in time and crashed right into it, the impact stinging his nose and sending him into an even greater rage.
"Open up! You've got the guts to scare me, so have the guts to open this door!"
Inside the room, the Ghost Bride was trembling with fear. Something was wrong. The diluted black dog blood had lost its effect by now—so why could this Taoist still touch her? And this Taoist had no restraint at all. Who uses a "strength through heart" claw move on a female ghost?!
Disgusting!
For the first time, Wang Qianyue felt like a true master. He sat down cross-legged right in front of the door.
"Not coming out? Fine! I swear, I'm not leaving until you do! Come sunrise, I'll burn this rotten house to the ground! See where you can hide! I—"
Before he could finish, the door burst open and nearly smacked him in the face again.
Fuming, Wang Qianyue opened his mouth to curse—then shut it instantly.
In front of him stood a neat row of ghosts, all staring at him with pale, chilling eyes.
"Captain, did you hear that?" One of the guards outside cupped his ear. "That cursing went back and forth. Now it sounds like it's heading the other way?"
"Sounds like someone yelling for their mother?"
"What in the world is going on in there?"
"Enough speculation. We'll know when dawn comes." The captain snapped at them.
Little Mouse watched Wang Qianyue come scrambling back in a panic, and behind him—over a dozen fierce ghosts chasing close behind. Without a second thought, Little Mouse turned and ran.
"Wasn't there just one?! Where did you go and wake up a whole pack of them?"
"How was I supposed to know? I thought she was running away—turns out she was calling for backup! No—for ghosts!"
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."
d intelligence to keep the plot moving, and sometimes even the protagonists are forced into absurdly dumb decisions. Why does the A-list celebrity heroine in urban romance novels ditch the top-tier movie star and become a lovestruck fool for a pockmarked male lead? Why do the leads in historical tragedy novels keep dancing between love and death, only for the blind healer to end up suffering the most? And Gu Wei never expected that after finally landing a villain role to stir up trouble, she’d pick the wrong gender! No choice now—she’ll just have to crush the protagonists as a girl!
ive and Ruthless] Before his transmigration, Ye Xuan was playing a game called "Severing Emotions to Attain the Dao." The game's core wasn't about leveling up by fighting monsters, but about conquering various "bad women" with wicked personalities and cold, fickle natures. There was only one method to conquer them: stay unwaveringly by their side, then die at a critical moment, driving them to madness after losing the protagonist. The higher their level of regret, the higher the player's score. To dominate the server, Ye Xuan conquered all the bad women. In the early stages, he showered them with boundless tenderness, only to choose to sacrifice himself for them later, making them weep bitterly and drown in regret. Among them were: Xia Lengyue, the unfaithful immortal wife who chased after powerful men and discarded her husband like trash. Ye Qingcheng, the Demonic Venerable of the Joyous Union Sect, who appeared pure and innocent but was, in reality, promiscuous. Wu Lingxiao, the Empress of the Great Xia Dynasty, who lusted after men and loved maintaining a harem. Bai Qiangu of the Endless Demonic Sect: a bloodthirsty mass murderer. However, when the protagonist transmigrated into the game world, he made a horrifying discovery. Eight hundred years had already passed. The bad women he had conquered had now each become deities and revered ancestors. Faced with the endless stream of toxic women coming for him, Ye Xuan could only rely on his god-tier acting skills to carve a path of survival through this world of treacherous women.
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.
