"Give it to your mother? Do you only have a mother? Don’t you have a father?" Old Fang’s words nearly made Fang Zhiyi laugh out loud.
He couldn’t be bothered to play along with the act. Stepping forward, he deliberately hesitated before pulling out the last hundred yuan from his pocket and handing it over. "This was meant for Mother—" Before he could finish, Old Fang snatched the money away, cursing under his breath. "All you ever think about is your mother, your mother! Your mother’s dead!" With that, he kicked Second Son, signaling him to leave.
"And mark my words! I’ll be back when you get your paycheck!" Old Fang brandished a kitchen knife as he walked away.
However, the two didn’t make it far before being tackled by several police officers.
One of the officers seized the knife, his expression icy. "Well, well—armed robbery in broad daylight, and you thought you could just run off?"
Old Fang and Second Son were dumbfounded. Since when had this become armed robbery?
The story went back to Senior Li and Junior Li. Since joining Fang Zhiyi’s small workshop, their income had gradually increased. But Fang Zhiyi had warned them to keep it quiet—after all, they were still employed at the factory, and word getting out wouldn’t look good. So they kept their joy to themselves. At the factory, Fang Zhiyi was just an ordinary technician, but in the workshop, he was the boss. When they saw someone threatening to ruin their livelihood, and heard Fu Chunmei mutter, "If you’re just asking for money, why bring a knife? If this gets reported, it’ll count as armed robbery," Junior Li exchanged a glance with his brother before sprinting off to call the police. They were well aware of Fang Zhiyi’s family troubles, especially his absurd parents.
The police took robbery cases seriously and immediately apprehended the Fang father and son.
After sorting out the truth, the officers detained them for a few days—mostly as a warning. Whether they were demanding money from their son or not, waving a knife around and snatching cash was already a serious offense.
When they were finally released from the station, the two were seething with resentment—and they’d lost two kitchen knives in the process.
By the time they got home, Old Fang’s temper flared again.
Someone was hauling things out of their house. Old Fang charged forward, throwing punches and shouting, "Thieves!"
The man who’d been hit immediately dropped what he was carrying and fought back. More people rushed out from the yard, pummeling Old Fang as he yelled, "Your old man’s getting beaten to death! Are you blind?!"
Second Son stood frozen in place, watching his tyrannical father take a beating—and feeling a faint sense of satisfaction. Another reason he didn’t intervene was that he recognized one of the men: his uncle. They didn’t interact much, but he remembered him. According to his mother, this uncle was a good-for-nothing, a chronic freeloader.
Sure enough, Fang’s Mother stepped in to stop them from beating her husband further. Bloodied and disheveled, Old Fang glared at her, now dressed in gaudy clothes. "What the hell are you doing?!"
Fang’s Mother sneered. "Me? What about you? You went to our son for money? If he gives it to you, what do I get?"
Old Fang finally understood—Fang Zhiyi had tattled on him.
"I’ve had enough. Today, I’m divorcing you! Everything I brought as dowry, everything I bought—I’m taking it all! Second Son stays with you. The Eldest and Third Son come with me!" She’d done the math carefully, especially after hearing Fang Zhiyi mention his promotion and raise. Now that she had financial security, she was determined to stand up for her cash cow—especially since that useless old man had tried to steal her money!
"Divorce? Over my dead body!" Old Fang roared.
Fang’s Mother’s brother leaned down, his face inches from Old Fang’s. "You refuse? How about I beat you once a day until you change your mind? Want to test me?"
Old Fang shrank back, but the thought of his eldest son’s city wages made him shake his head. "No way! Go ahead, kill me if you dare!"
The brother-in-law had no real leverage, so he turned to Fang’s Mother instead.
The farce was temporarily put on hold after the village chief intervened, but the tension in the Fang household was unbearable. Second Son tiptoed around, terrified of making a single mistake that might earn him a beating.
Meanwhile, Fang Zhiyi submitted his resignation to the factory.
Lin Jianguo tried to persuade him to stay. "Kid, I’ve seen what your parents are like, but you don’t have to quit. I’ll talk to security—next time, we’ll just keep them out."
Fang Zhiyi shook his head. "Uncle Lin, there’s another reason I’m leaving. I have a project I want to pursue."
"A project?" Lin Jianguo looked puzzled.
Fang Zhiyi smiled but didn’t elaborate. It wasn’t the right time yet.
Despite Lin Jianguo’s insistence that Fang Zhiyi hadn’t caused any real trouble, he stuck to his decision. That same day, he splurged on a feast in the cafeteria for his coworkers and gave a rousing speech.
"Honestly, I think my brother’s speeches are way better than the factory director’s," Lin Xiaowei said between bites, still showering praise.
Lin Jianguo frowned. "Don’t talk nonsense." His daughter had fully embraced the idea of Fang Zhiyi as her honorary brother, but it also made Lin Jianguo feel a little guilty toward him.
And just like that, Fang Zhiyi walked away from the machinery factory, leaving behind a legend—the man driven to quit by his own parents.
"A tape recorder?" Senior Li frowned, having just arrived after his shift. "What’s that?"
Fang Zhiyi gave a rough explanation and pulled out a sketch. Based on the timeline, similar products would hit the international market within two years—they had to move fast.
"But we don’t have most of the components here," another technician pointed out.
Fang Zhiyi grinned. "Leave that to me."
The next day, he registered a company and bought a train ticket to Guangzhou. At the time, Guangzhou was the country’s biggest hub for import-export trade. If you needed something, you could find it there—it was the city’s golden age.
While he was busy building his business, Fang’s Mother was left in shock. She went looking for her eldest son, only to be told he’d resigned—forced out by his father.
Standing outside the factory gates, she thought about her nice clothes, the monthly allowance, the meals her son had treated her to, and his promise that after his promotion, he’d move her into the city.
Resentment boiled inside her. That useless Fang Zhiyi had thrown away an iron rice job! But since he was nowhere to be found, her anger shifted to Old Fang. If not for him, she’d still be enjoying her son’s filial support—and planning her move to the city!
Third Son also returned empty-handed. Dejected at the thought of no more pool games, no more thrilling movies at the video parlor, no more treating his buddies to feasts, he punched the wall in frustration. It was all that damn father’s fault—and Second Son’s too!
His gaze drifted. His eldest brother had walked him down this path many times, and he’d once joked that there was plenty of scrap metal behind this wall—that if they were ever broke, they could just haul it out and sell it.
Third Son narrowed his eyes.
As soon as Fang Zhiyi stepped off the train and exited the station, someone grabbed him from behind: "Don't move!"
Without even turning his head, he raised his elbow and aimed for the assailant's throat—stopping just short of impact.
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."
lities. One day, Qi Yuan was buying groceries when he unfortunately came face-to-face with a monster. Just when he thought he was going to die on the spot, he suddenly heard the monster's thoughts... "This aura, he's definitely not an ordinary master!" "So terrifying, so terrifying." "A fight with my back against the wall, I can't take it anymore." Qi Yuan: Ah, no one told me that my awakened ability isn't telepathy, but rather the stronger my enemies imagine me to be, the stronger I truly become. PS: Zhou Hai in the first chapter is not the protagonist.
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.”
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.
