Mia took out a few candies from her pocket and offered them to the little girl, who shrank back in fear, unwilling to accept them.
"What's wrong?"
"Daddy says I can't eat these, or he'll hang me up and beat me."
A flicker of anger flashed in Mia's eyes before she smiled and said, "It's fine. You can have them today. Go ahead."
"But..."
Mei Ming gently patted the girl's head. Her own family wasn’t wealthy, but at least her parents treated her well—unlike this girl, who had none.
"Think about what comes next," Fang Zhiyi said to Mia before pushing the door open and stepping inside.
Fang Zhiyi had set a peculiar rule: no matter who the target was, the final act had to be carried out by him alone.
When the girl’s mother woke up on an old bed, the memory of her husband’s brutality rushed back. She bolted upright, only to see a stranger playing with her daughter. Panicked, she tried to get up but forgot her leg was broken—sending her crashing to the floor.
Mei Ming hurried over to help her up, soothing her while discreetly twisting open a small vial. A faint, calming fragrance filled the air, and the woman’s ragged breathing slowly steadied.
"Give them some money and let them leave the Lower City," Fang Zhiyi suggested.
Mia shook her head. "Leave for where? The Upper City? It might look orderly, but it’s even more dangerous there."
After a moment’s thought, she added, "I can give them work, though."
At the headquarters of the Jackals Syndicate, Ye Xiao was practically giddy, his fingers intertwined with Marilyn’s. She was even more wonderful than he’d imagined! So much so that when a subordinate reported an attack on one of their underground clinics, he barely paid attention.
"Just a clinic."
"But, boss, aren’t we going to do anything?"
Ye Xiao smirked—a sight that made Marilyn’s eyes sparkle.
"It’s the perfect excuse for war." He led her to the floor-to-ceiling window. "There’s only room for one king in the Lower City."
The subordinate bit back a retort.
"I come from the Upper City," the voice on the communicator said. "My wife and I donated to Lower City children, but she believed it wasn’t enough. We wanted to bring them proper education, so we moved here with our son."
"But the thugs—they thought we were stealing their children’s working hours. They vandalized our classrooms again and again."
The man’s voice trembled with grief.
"That night, they broke into my home. They assaulted my wife, threw my son out the window, and tried to strangle me with a rope. I was lucky—I only passed out."
"Now, I wish I’d died instead."
"If you can avenge them, I’ll give you everything I have."
"Upper City folks coming down here, or Lower City folks going up—both are stupid moves," Mia remarked.
"72nd Street he mentioned sounds pretty far."
Mia frowned. "Let me handle the intel."
Drawing on years of experience in the Lower City’s underbelly, Mia questioned countless sources until she uncovered the truth.
In the sewers, she explained, "72nd Street is a den of thugs and criminals—territory of... the Nightshades." She sighed. "The Nightshades are strong enough to rival the Jackals Syndicate. Of course they don’t want kids in school—they need them working to keep up their operations."
Wang Meng stood and pointed at Guan Xiong. "This one’s mine."
Guan Xiong barely glanced at him, silent.
Mia continued, "There’s more. Ye Xiao’s spreading word that the Nightshades attacked their clinic—so the Jackals are declaring war. We could just stay out of it."
Fang Zhiyi fell silent, recalling the events he knew. The Nightshades were the Jackals’ greatest rivals, their conflict dragging on for a year. In the original timeline, Ye Xiao would’ve recruited him, Mia, Mei Ming, and the others—but now, that wasn’t happening.
After a pause, Fang Zhiyi shook his head. "We took the job. We finish it."
"Seriously? Getting tangled in this mess will get us killed." Despite her words, Mia showed no trace of fear.
"I’m not scared," Wang Meng said eagerly. Ever since Fang Zhiyi rescued him, he’d been itching to prove himself.
"Um, me neither," Mei Ming added timidly, raising her hand.
Dace just coughed and fiddled with his scalpel, offering no opinion.
Guan Xiong was even more direct—he simply stepped behind Fang Zhiyi.
Mia threw up her hands. "You guys always wreck my plans." She dragged out a bag of explosives from a corner. "You’re paying for these!"
The Lower City was in chaos. The Jackals and Nightshades clashed violently, bodies littering the streets. The Jackals’ lieutenants were out in force—but Ye Xiao remained in his office, Marilyn perched on his lap as they watched the distant flames.
"So beautiful..." Marilyn murmured, awestruck.
Ye Xiao stroked her hair, utterly entranced.
"Damn it, has Ye Xiao lost his mind? When did we ever touch their clinic?"
"That brat just wants a war. His ambition’s bigger than his old man’s ever was."
"Round up everyone—even the kids! Send them all out!"
In an untouched house, Fang Zhiyi studied the bloodied man before him, then slowly produced an old photograph. "Do you know him?"
The man didn’t even look, still snarling, "I’m a Nightshade captain! You’re dead!"
"Wrong answer." Fang Zhiyi sighed. Wang Meng immediately pried the man’s jaws apart as Dace stepped forward, pliers in hand, and carefully clamped onto a tooth.
"One, two..."
"Wha—mmph—are you—?"
"Three!"
The man screamed.
"Do you know this man?" Fang Zhiyi resumed his stance, photo still in hand.
Trembling, the man finally looked at the young man before him—and felt a chill.
"Yes! I know him! Isn’t he dead?"
"Then tell us—who was involved in his death?"
The system observed its seemingly deranged host, uneasy. No matter what it said, Fang Zhiyi ignored it. What now? Maybe being more proactive would earn his trust?
With that thought, the system detached from Fang Zhiyi and drifted away, scouting the situation. It’d gather intel and trade it later.
By the time it returned, Fang Zhiyi’s group had infiltrated a sprawling estate—a rare sight in the Lower City.
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.
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."
he colors of other people’s emotions. Light red meant anxiety. Gray meant exhaustion. Orange meant excitement. Yellow... meant repression. At the same time, he could gain unlimited control over one of those colors. Pale cyan: relaxation. Using this ability, he started offering “two-yuan hugs,” spending an afternoon exchanging emotional-color experiences with others. Then came his final female customer of the day— a girl whose emotional color was pure black... —— A week later, Xu Chuan had become skilled at using pale cyan—Relaxation—treating it like a bottle of menthol balm whenever he needed it. That was when he discovered he had unlocked another unlimited emotional color: Purple, the color of fear. So these emotional colors refresh every week? Fine, I take it back—I’ll never call you useless again... —— Much later, after Xu Chuan had accumulated countless emotional abilities, one night, he suddenly found himself inside someone else’s dream. There, he could use the emotional colors he possessed to paint. And in her dream, he painted her a shower of pink shooting stars, spreading across the depths of the night sky...
ver to a world of cultivation and returned invincible. Modern medicine is child's play compared to elixirs; technological might crumbles before true cultivation. My name is Qin Ning, Earth's sole cultivator!
