The only difference was the presence of Fang Zhiyi as an onlooker. The Chen couple, frantic after failing to reach their daughter by phone, were at a loss—without the money, their son would be in danger. A passerby kindly informed them they’d seen a girl entering a hotel.
The Chens rushed upstairs to search, followed shortly by the Gu parents. Mrs. Chen, putting on a dramatic scene, pressured the hotel front desk into opening the room door. Everyone was met with the sight of Gu Xiuyuan and Gu Xiaoxiao lying naked in each other’s arms.
Gu Xiuyuan, still dazed, took a slap to the face—then a second, then a third. When his eyes finally focused, he saw his father’s enraged expression and instinctively covered his head.
"You beast! What have you done?!"
Meanwhile, Mrs. Chen, who’d orchestrated their arrival, crossed her arms smugly. "Now, now, in-law, no need for such temper."
"Y-you—don’t spout nonsense!" Mrs. Gu’s fingers trembled.
"Nonsense? No wonder your family didn’t want my daughter back. Who’d have thought… your son had his eyes on her!" Mrs. Chen’s face lit up with triumph. Now that things had come to this, it was simple—their adopted daughter had become their daughter-in-law, and the dowry would be substantial!
"You—!"
Gu Xiuyuan looked down to see Gu Xiaoxiao clutching the sheets in panic. Gritting his teeth, he shielded her. "Stop hitting me, Dad! It was all my fault—I forced her!"
The admission only fueled Mr. Gu’s fury.
Gu Xiaoxiao quickly chimed in, "He forced me!"
For a split second, Gu Xiuyuan felt a pang of hurt, but he swallowed it. "It’s done. Blame me if you must!"
By the time they left the hotel, rumors had already spread—whispers of a brother and sister entangled in scandal. The Gu parents burned with humiliation, while the Chens gloated.
Gu Panxi, meanwhile, remained entirely unaware. The Gu family hadn’t even thought to inform her.
She simply eyed the scrawny young man before her. "You sure you can keep up as my sparring partner?"
Xiao Jingran nodded miserably. What choice did he have? If he didn’t win over the protagonist, he’d never complete his mission.
Gu Panxi delivered a spinning kick, and Xiao Jingran—despite his padding—hit the floor unconscious.
She scoffed and turned to the punching bag instead.
Xiao Jingran had tried other approaches. Once, he’d arranged for some burly thugs to corner Gu Panxi, planning a heroic rescue. But when he stepped out after his dramatic countdown, he found the thugs already sprawled on the ground—and Gu Panxi twisting a steel pipe in her hands, the metal warping under her grip.
When she suddenly turned, he barely ducked behind a wall in time. In that instant, he sensed something he’d only ever felt in the most perilous of worlds—pure, unadulterated killing intent.
His system couldn’t take it anymore. "Host, how about some prop assistance?"
Xiao Jingran agreed. He’d been saving his points, but at this rate, he’d die here without them.
The system supplied talismans—except unbeknownst to him, the moment he stuck one on, the little black shadow (Xiao Hei) would peel it right off. What should’ve weakened Gu Panxi only led to her nearly smashing his skull in.
After several failed attempts, both Xiao Jingran and his system were at their wits’ end.
Why was this so absurd?
Was this the protagonist’s power?
These days, Gu Panxi divided her time between studying and mixed martial arts. Fang Zhiyi had told her she’d achieve greatness—and for the first time, she had a goal. She trained harder than anyone.
Next time she saw her "boss," she’d earn his approval!
"Boss, how should we assign the new recruits from North City?" Xu Jiabo asked.
Fang Zhiyi smacked him. "Recruits? What are we, a gang?"
Rubbing his sore shoulder, Xu Jiabo corrected himself. "I mean the new students."
"Check who’s free and schedule them."
"Got it."
The Shura After-School Study Group had gained quite the reputation. Parents were lining up to enroll their kids, and Fang Zhiyi was thrilled—who knew this could turn a profit?
Outside a middle school:
"Hey, twerp!" Three hulking delinquents cornered a scrawny student.
Other kids veered away, not wanting trouble.
"Lunch money. Now."
"Run! Run and shout the vocabulary words!"
"What’re you yapping about? Think you can fool me? That’s not how you spell it!"
The scrawny kid nearly cried. Since when were street thugs this well-educated?
Gu Xiaoxiao, now officially Chen Xiaoxiao, had been sent back to her biological parents in disgrace. No matter how much the Gu family had loved her, the scandal made it impossible. She returned to a rundown shack—and a crippled older brother.
Mr. Chen’s shouts echoed through the house. Already biased toward sons, his disdain for this daughter grew with her earlier defiance. Only Mrs. Chen’s dreams of a hefty dowry held him back. Chen Xiaoxiao, drowning in self-pity, couldn’t understand how things had come to this.
But in the Chen household, daughters worked—even "valuable" ones.
As for the Gu family, Gu Xiuyuan’s relationship with his father had frozen over. He couldn’t fathom why they’d send his sister back to suffer. So what if they’d slept together? They weren’t related by blood!
His outrageous stance sent Mr. Gu into a rage-induced collapse.
But Gu Xiuyuan stood firm. He sought out Chen Xiaoxiao, now resolved to protect her forever.
Finally, the Gu parents remembered their actual daughter. One phone call later, Gu Panxi arrived.
Seeing their biological daughter—noticeably more muscular—Mr. Gu didn’t dare raise his voice.
When she handed him water, the cup cracked. Four more followed. Mrs. Gu asked her to help her father to the hospital—but one tug from Gu Panxi, and Mr. Gu passed out, his arm dislocated.
After a few such incidents, the Gu parents stopped asking for her help.
Not that they could fault her otherwise. She was flawless—just… excessively strong?
Gu Panxi eventually learned about the family drama. The sister-turned-sister-in-law twist surprised her, but little else.
"Panxi, what do you think?" Mrs. Gu, desperate for input, finally asked.
Gu Panxi shook her head. "I don’t know."
"How can you not know?" Mrs. Gu fumed. This was their only daughter left, and she had nothing to say? If only Xiaoxiao were here—she’d know what to do…
"Because I never really lived with you…" Gu Panxi murmured, her hands nervously gripping the IV stand beside her. Under her grip, the metal bent visibly.
lity and could only live as an ordinary mortal. He only wished to live a peaceful life. Yet he didn't know— The dog he adopted, because it ate his food, became a legendary demon king. The kitchen knife he casually forged became a peerless divine weapon, causing numerous experts to fight desperately for it. The young disciple he took in became an immortal lord that led an era, due to cultivating the techniques Ye Feng taught him. Even the skeletons he looked down on the most were ominous demon kings that suppressed countless worlds. Many years later, looking at the void shattered with a punch, Ye Feng murmured to himself: It turns out the peerless kings were myself all along...
't think I'm that capable, I'm just trying my best to stay alive. I've been kind all my life, never did anything bad, yet worldly suffering spared me not one bit. The human world is a nice place, but I won't come back in my next life. A kind young man, who wanted to just get by singing, but through repeated deceits and betrayals, has gone down an irredeemable path.
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!
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?!
