“Everyone stays together tonight! Let’s see what he can do now! Horse Monkey, cook the food!”
Horse Monkey froze for a moment, then nodded tremulously.
In just three days, twenty or thirty of them had already died. Heaven only knew what would happen next.
Standing beside the large cooking pot, Horse Monkey struggled to keep himself awake as he stirred the stew inside. He found himself missing the delicacies of the city. Once this whole mess was over, he would definitely take some time off and go into town to eat properly and drive away the bad luck!
In his daze, he seemed to see his sweetheart standing before him, gazing at him with a coquettish smile.
Horse Monkey grinned foolishly.
He had no idea how much time had passed when a voice from outside made him jerk.
“Is the food ready yet? What’s taking so long?”
The vision vanished, leaving only the large pot before him and the shabby surroundings.
Horse Monkey sighed. “Nag, nag, nag. If you hadn’t killed Old Yan in the first place, I wouldn’t have to cook, would I?” Then he shouted, “It’s ready!”
Although it smelled a little burnt, at least it was edible. Who could cook an entire pot of food without making a few mistakes?
The villagers gathered outside were sprawled about in disarray. When they heard that the food was ready, they staggered over, grabbing their bowls and squeezing inside. Some even started fighting over places, but fortunately, the boss’s angry shouts soon brought them under control.
Exhausted and starving, the group began shoveling the food into their mouths. Since it tasted truly awful, some of them complained from time to time, but they soon fell silent.
The death-dealing Yama was still nowhere to be found. As long as they could fill their stomachs, that was good enough.
But not long after they finished eating, some of them began to giggle foolishly. Others started talking to thin air, leering obscenely, while still more panicked and began screaming.
The boss felt as if his whole body had become weightless. He realized something was wrong.
“Horse Monkey! What did you put in the food?”
Horse Monkey did not answer. He had seen his sweetheart standing before him and was reaching out to embrace her—only, she seemed to be holding an axe.
Horse Monkey clutched his throat and collapsed.
The boss watched this happen and reached for the gun at his waist. But double images had already appeared before his eyes. The bodies of his men gradually twisted and warped, becoming hideous evil spirits in his vision.
Fear finally overwhelmed the last of his reason. He drew his gun and began firing wildly.
One, two, three…
Fang Zhiyi sat at the entrance to the courtyard, watching these men make fools of themselves.
After a long while, he took out his phone and waved it around, searching for a signal. He checked the screen. There was none. But after a brief hesitation, he opened the chat window with that person.
“You said there were ghosts. I found them.”
This time, the other person replied almost immediately.
“I wasn’t lying to you! There really are ghosts! The whole village is full of them!”
“Yes. I found them,” Fang Zhiyi replied.
Little Hei’s eyes widened as he stared at the phone screen in disbelief. “What? There’s no signal! He… he…”
Fang Zhiyi sighed. “That’s why I said I found them.”
He picked up his axe and walked toward the boss, who had already emptied his magazine yet was still trying to shoot his men. In the boss’s eyes, a gigantic evil spirit with a towering body and a broad-bladed axe was approaching him.
He screamed in terror and begged for mercy.
But the spirit remained expressionless as he slowly raised the axe in his hands.
At that moment, Fang Zhiyi distinctly felt the space beside him distort.
He turned around and saw a pale young man.
“I’m sorry, streamer. I—I didn’t dare meet you. If I did, they would kill me. They definitely would have killed me.” The young man stared fearfully in every direction.
“I had no choice. They wouldn’t let me tell anyone. My girlfriend came back here with me, and she found out that the village was growing hallucinogenic plants. They were afraid she would expose them, so they killed her and buried her in the fields. Then they lied to me…” The young man began to cry. “My father wanted me to leave, but they dragged me back. My father argued with them, and then he disappeared…”
Fang Zhiyi watched him silently.
“I’ve watched your livestreams. I thought you were incredibly brave. I—I don’t even know why, but I contacted you.”
Fang Zhiyi nodded. “I know.”
“You knew?”
“Of course I did. This location is almost at the border. When I came up the mountain, I saw the sentry posts around your village too. I just took a route that avoided them.” Fang Zhiyi smiled. “You’re free now. What do you want to do with your life?”
The young man looked lost.
After a long silence, he murmured, “My life? What do I want to do?”
The commotion around them had quieted considerably. Those affected by the hallucinogenic plants had already fallen into deep sleep.
“I… I want to become a police officer.” The young man suddenly raised his head. A spark of light flashed across his pale face. “I want to become a police officer. I passed the exams! I really did!”
Fang Zhiyi smiled and nodded. “There she is.”
The young man turned around and saw a girl standing in the doorway.
He became agitated. “Weiwei!”
As the young man ran toward the doorway, Fang Zhiyi met the gaze of the high-hatted ghost god.
Not long after daybreak, a large force of armed police stormed into the village. They arrested the criminals whose drug-induced stupor had not yet worn off. During interrogation, the men confessed to everything.
It had all begun when the village chief established contact with people across the border and started cultivating hallucinogenic plants. Later, because they lacked manpower, they simply recruited others to come and work for them. As for why there were no women or children in the village, it was because they knew they would face severe punishment if their activities were discovered. So they had sent their wives and children to the city.
A few outsiders had also stumbled upon the village over the years, but the villagers had murdered them and buried them in the fields where the hallucinogenic plants were grown.
Then there was the entire family of Old Man Wu. It would have been one thing if Old Man Wu had merely refused to grow the plants, but he had actually sent his son to university. His son had even passed the police entrance exams—and then brought his girlfriend back to the village!
This made the villagers panic. They decided to go all the way and killed the girl. Then they threatened Old Man Wu, forcing him to call his son’s future employer and claim that the young man no longer wanted the job.
But the young man kept shouting that he would expose them. So not a single member of the Wu family was spared.
To find out whether the young man had already reported them, they tortured him for a long time. In the end, he died from the pain.
Based on the confessions, the police arrested another group of remaining criminals. Because of the exceptionally heinous nature of the case, most of the suspects received heavy sentences.
There was only one strange thing: the police never found the “reporter” who, according to the criminals, had come to claim their lives. In the end, they assumed that the villagers had committed so many evil deeds and inhaled the scent of the hallucinogenic plants for so long that they had begun to suffer hallucinations.
The case also sparked a nationwide campaign in Xia to eradicate the cultivation of hallucinogenic plants. Several remote mountain villages were raided, and many criminals attempting to profit from the plants were arrested.
close your eyes and open them again, only to find yourself transmigrated into the role of a villainous male supporting character. Readers familiar with urban wish-fulfillment novels know that it is only through the relentless antics of the villainous male supporting character that the plot between the male and female leads can progress. As the villainous male supporting character, Long Aotian not only has to bully the female lead, harass the second female lead, and flirt with the third female lead, but he also has to go all out to antagonize the male lead. In the end, when his body is discovered, he is still clutching half a moldy fried dough stick in his hand. Fully aware of the plot, Long Aotian is determined to change his fate, starting with the female lead! In the beginning, the female lead lacks confidence: "Big brother, I hope I didn't scare you?" In the middle, the female lead treads carefully: "Brother Long, please don't hit me, okay?" Later on, the female lead becomes coquettishly clingy: "Aotian, it's time to pay the 'public grain' tonight." Long Aotian's legs go weak, and he feels like crying: "I taught you to be thick-skinned, not shameless!"
] [Lone Wolf, No Male Gaze] [Protagonist is pursued early on; extreme protagonist-stans, stay away!] The "Carnival Paradise" descends and slowly devours the real world in the form of a game. By chance, Zhu Yan awakens the talent [Roleplay], becoming one of the first beta players. He thought he could develop safely, but after clearing the first instance, he is branded by humanity as the chief culprit behind the game's spread—a traitorous villain. A villain? Who would ever... become one! He'll be the villain! From then on, Zhu Yan is not only a player but also a lackey for the Carnival Paradise. Between the straight path and the crooked path, he chooses the con. With his left hand, he dons the villain's mantle, staging scenes within instances, infuriating players who decry him as a despicable traitor, all while the game happily promotes him. With his right hand, he joins the non-human organization "Fangcun Mountain," which opposes the Carnival Paradise, transforming into a mysterious player who slaughters game bosses, earning cheers of "Long live the expert!" from fellow players. Gradually, Zhu Yan rises to become an S-rank human player in Fangcun Mountain's archives, while also being the Carnival Paradise's certified top game Boss. But when the final war erupts and both major factions place their hopes in him— Players tag his various aliases: "Experts, this offensive depends on you." The Carnival Paradise's supreme Boss throws an arm around his neck: "Bro, you're the iron, I'm the steel; you can't let me down 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."
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.
