A few more days passed, and the phone rang again.
"Oh, alright, I understand." After speaking, Fang Zhiyi wrote down an address and waved it at the gathered villagers.
Everyone grew excited.
"Don't rush. They said they want five people to go first for a trial—food and lodging provided, twelve thousand a month. Let me pick."
Hearing this, the villagers eagerly raised their hands.
Fang Zhiyi had already figured things out. He then called out five names—these were the men in the village who beat their wives the most brutally, and their wives had all been trafficked there.
Those chosen were overjoyed: "Thank you, Uncle Fang!"
"Haha, I’m finally going to the big city!"
Fang Zhiyi, however, comforted those who weren’t selected: "There’ll be more chances. They’re building a multinational company over there—they’re short on hands!"
The five set off together according to the address.
After taking a bus to the location, they were greeted by Mei Lanju, who was generous with her spending. She treated them to a good meal, then bought them plane tickets and handed them over to a manager. Still dreaming, they didn’t realize the money spent was from their own sale.
The five, clutching dreams of sudden wealth, woke up abroad. After switching vehicles a few times, one finally asked, "Where exactly are we going?"
The manager in the front seat turned around, his previous friendliness gone, replaced by a fierce glare: "Why ask so many questions?"
Everyone sensed something was wrong, but it wasn’t until the car stopped and a dozen men with machetes surrounded them that they realized the gravity of the situation.
Back in the village, every couple of days, more men left. Sometimes, they’d receive calls from abroad, where fellow villagers would tell them the place was full of gold, urging them to come quickly. The villagers taking the calls trembled with excitement, while those calling bore injuries all over, yet with a hint of satisfaction on their faces.
"I’m suffering here, and you think you’ll keep sleeping with your wives back home?"
Gradually, all able-bodied men in the village left, leaving only the elderly, weak, and sick behind.
The elders finally noticed something was amiss—their children who’d left were nearly impossible to contact. When they questioned Fang Zhiyi, he brushed them off.
That very night, doors in the village were knocked on, and one by one, people followed Fang Zhiyi away. By the next morning, the remaining elders discovered the women they’d bought were gone!
The village erupted in chaos. They wanted to chase after them, but their old bones were no match.
Meanwhile, Fang Zhiyi walked along a dirt road, carrying a girl with a broken leg. He smiled and said, "Keep going. Once we reach the highway, there’s a bus your aunt hired. You’ll be able to go home then."
The women looked numb, some disbelieving, but they followed him anyway.
Fang Zhiyi sighed. He knew the prolonged torment had turned these once-vibrant girls into this state. He’d spent time visiting every household to uncover how many trafficked women were trapped there. Along the way, he’d found some chained up, others with broken legs—each sight fueling his rage.
"Uncle... Uncle Fang," the girl on his back whispered weakly, "Under the pigpen where I was kept... there’s a dead body."
Fang Zhiyi paused, then after a few steps, replied, "Yeah."
"I’m sorry for what you’ve endured."
Some of the women even had children with them—unwilling as they were to admit it, the kids were their flesh and blood. When the bus finally came into view and everyone boarded, it was as if they’d come back to life.
The vehicle was filled with cries and shouts.
The girl with the broken leg then realized Fang Zhiyi wasn’t getting on—he just waved at them.
Hesitantly, she waved back and watched as he turned and walked the way they’d come.
While they escaped, Liu San’s home was besieged. The reason? Every other family’s women had fled, but Bai Xue hadn’t left. Whether out of jealousy or blind rage, the men demanded she come out and explain herself.
Terrified, Bai Xue eventually climbed over the backyard wall and fled into the mountains.
Her every move was broadcast by the system, which this time didn’t deduct points but worked silently. Its unusual behavior made Fang Zhiyi suspect something.
Fang Zhiyi waited until nightfall before sneaking back into the village, leaving again by dawn.
At noon, a line of police cars, sirens blaring, stormed into the mountain-ringed village. The day before, they’d intercepted a bus filled with trafficked women.
But the village was eerily quiet. As the police searched house by house, they uncovered a horrifying scene—nearly every household with people inside had men either missing legs or arms, all unconscious.
The injured were taken to the hospital. Fang Zhiyi sat on a hilltop, watching them leave, grinning. He’d been careful—they wouldn’t die, but they’d live the rest of their lives like this.
Meanwhile, Bai Xue was found—apparently, whenever she fainted, the male lead would pick her up.
Watching the system’s broadcast, Fang Zhiyi’s eyes darkened. He hiked down the mountain and found a payphone to contact Mei Lanju.
"Damn, Lao Fang, you’re a wanted man now," Mei Lanju said, though her tone was excited.
"Say it louder."
Mei Lanju glanced at her boss chatting in the distance and whispered, "I found out the male lead’s identity."
"Huh?" Fang Zhiyi didn’t get it—what identity? Wasn’t he just the young master of the trafficking ring?
"He’s your son, Fang Xiaojun. My underling told me."
"What?!" Fang Zhiyi turned to the system, which shrank back: "I thought I’d add some suspense."
"Your youngest son accidentally saved an old man—the boss of the trafficking ring. Naturally, he took your son as his foster child. So him being the male lead isn’t strange."
After arranging a meeting spot with Mei Lanju, Fang Zhiyi headed there.
"System, what’s your name?"
The system hesitated. "Me? I don’t have a name."
Fang Zhiyi didn’t look at it. "Are you even a system?"
The system paused. "Host, why are you asking such a weird question?"
Fang Zhiyi chuckled but didn’t respond.
A week later, the two met again. Mei Lanju worked fast—maybe because her system was more advanced. By the time Fang Zhiyi arrived, she already had the list in hand, and both the male and female leads were knocked out and tied together.
"What now?" Mei Lanju asked. Usually, her missions just required killing, but her fellow traveler’s methods gave her an odd thrill.
Fang Zhiyi smirked sinisterly.
A month later, a major news story broke—a long-investigated human trafficking network was completely dismantled, with only its leader unaccounted for.
When Bai Xue woke up, she was met with several wrinkled faces and screamed in fright. Wasn’t she supposed to be with Fang Xiaojun? He was about to kiss her! What was this?!
Before Bai Xue could fully regain her senses, a hand reached out and seized her by the hair, followed by another person slapping her twice across the face. "Still trying to run!" they snarled.
The stinging blows jolted Bai Xue awake, and she realized—the one gripping her hair was none other than her mother-in-law.
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.
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!
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."
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
