Fang Yu stood there, looking somewhat at a loss.
Fang Zhiyi let out a sigh. "Your father's savings are only enough to buy you a small second-hand place for now. Let me work hard, and I'll get you a bigger one later."
Fang Yu was taken aback.
Seeing her silence, Fang Zhiyi knew he was being too hasty, but he couldn't afford to take it slow. Who knew what other trouble might crop up later?
"Anyway, this will be your home from now on. The paperwork will be done in your name too." Fang Zhiyi patted his daughter's shoulder, only to see tears suddenly stream down Fang Yu's face.
"Dad... how much did you sell me for? Who do I have to marry?" She had already made up her mind. Since her father had decided, she would obey.
Now it was Fang Zhiyi's turn to be stunned.
"Sold you? What nonsense is that?"
From Fang Yu's halting explanation, he understood her fear and almost laughed out loud. "Silly girl, what are you thinking? I wouldn't sell you even if I could sell anyone!"
"Then why are you buying me clothes and a house?" Fang Yu asked through her tears. "You never cared for me before..."
"I was wrong before. I neglected you," Fang Zhiyi sighed, walking over to pat her shoulder again. "This house is for you. The deed will be in your name. This is your home from now on. I failed you in the past, but I'll make it up to you."
"Really?" Fang Yu lifted her tear-streaked face, her eyes filled with disbelief.
"Even if I wanted to sell you, someone would have to be able to afford you! A 'thousand pieces of gold'—do you know what that means?"
Fang Yu cried even harder.
Fang Zhiyi finally managed to convince her that the house was truly a gift for her. But seeing her on the verge of tears again, he was puzzled. "Why are you crying now?"
"Dad, are you abandoning me? You won't let me go back home. Did I do something wrong?"
Fang Zhiyi waved his hands hurriedly. "Stop right there. Stop. What kind of father abandons his child? It's just that, with you at home, you'd be a bit in the way while I handle some matters."
Fang Yu sniffled, watching him.
Fang Zhiyi didn't hide the truth. "They've bullied my daughter for so long. It's time they paid back what they owe, with interest."
Fang Yu looked at Fang Zhiyi incredulously.
"Dad, are you going to kick Auntie and her family out?"
Fang Zhiyi raised a finger. "Remember, the first lesson your father teaches you: never be the one to flip the table first. Sometimes, all it takes is a little breeze, and the rotten fruit will fall from the tree by itself."
Fang Yu seemed to understand, yet not fully.
After a long while, she finally began to accept the fact that her father had cared about her all along.
Seeing Fang Yu start to talk voluntarily, Fang Zhiyi finally breathed a sigh of relief. He had been planning how to open up this young girl's heart, and it seemed the effect was sufficient now.
She followed Fang Zhiyi's arrangements. He gave her some more money from his pocket, instructed her on a few things, and then leisurely departed.
"Hey, your daughter is watching you from the window," Xiao Hei said, gesturing animatedly.
Fang Zhiyi didn't look back. "Let her watch. Is my figure from behind particularly majestic?"
"Not really. Actually, you're quite underhanded."
"Ah, aren't you the one who picked this role model!"
"Actually, this girl is quite good. Even after suffering so much, she still hasn't turned bad," Xiao Hei remarked with feeling. "Don't you humans say that suffering, or something like that, can temper one's character..."
Fang Zhiyi suddenly stopped and turned to look at Xiao Hei, making him a bit uneasy.
"Remember this, Xiao Hei. Suffering is just suffering. There's no need to glorify it."
"The most direct effect of suffering is to make people narrow-minded, petty, complaining, and overly sensitive to every trivial matter. To say suffering makes people noble and strong is nonsense. Noble people have always been noble. Strong people are strong no matter what."
Returning home, Fang Jingtong and her family were surprised to see only Fang Zhiyi return. Fang Jingtong immediately put on a hypocritical show, coming forward to greet him. "Brother, where's Xiaoyu? Where did you send her? It's not safe for a girl to be outside." Her words were full of worry, but the glee in her eyes was unmistakable. With Fang Yu gone, there would be even fewer people to compete with her for this home!
"I've arranged for her to live outside," Fang Zhiyi said flatly, his gaze sweeping over the instant noodle containers on the table. Clearly, this family couldn't be bothered to cook and had just eaten noodles.
He suddenly beckoned to Wu Xiaobao. "Xiaobao, come here. Uncle brought you something delicious." As he spoke, he took out a lunchbox from his bag containing the leftover sweet and sour pork ribs and beef brisket from the meal he had just shared with Fang Yu, which he had specially packed to bring back.
Wu Xiaobao, already sulking about having instant noodles for dinner and having secretly cursed Fang Yu a few times as a "lazy good-for-nothing who won't cook," immediately scampered over when he saw the food. He hugged the lunchbox and started eating, completely oblivious to Wu Dabao's gaze burning with jealousy.
He didn't disappoint Fang Zhiyi either. A child raised with indulgence wouldn't think of others. Wu Xiaobao buried his head in eating, also failing to notice Fang Zhiyi's peculiar look.
Only after Wu Xiaobao had eaten his fill, sauce still smeared at the corner of his mouth as he ran back to the living room, did Fang Jingtong react. She quickly said with a smile, "Brother, look at you. Why didn't you call Dabao to have some too when you had such good food?"
Fang Zhiyi smiled and deliberately raised his voice. "I just find Xiaobao this child so likable. The more I look at him, the more I like him. If there's a chance in the future, I'd even like to give him the deed to this house!" Having said that, he turned and went back to his room.
The moment Fang Jingtong heard the words "deed," her eyes instantly lit up. She immediately pulled Wu Xiaobao over and asked in a low voice, "Xiaobao, does Uncle especially dote on you? You need to get closer to Uncle from now on, understand?" She paid no attention at all to Wu Dabao's livid face beside them.
Fang Jingtong's husband was named Wu Tian, essentially a social loafer. Back in his own home, he spent his days playing cards and drinking. Now that he was living in his brother-in-law's house with someone providing for him, he indulged even more happily.
The original host had always looked down on this brother-in-law, but out of consideration for Fang Jingtong's feelings, he had to let him stay. What was worse, this scoundrel had deliberately loitered near the bathroom door while Fang Yu was showering in the past. If Fang Yu hadn't finished quickly, who knows what might have happened. And Fang Jingtong not only didn't blame her husband, but instead berated Fang Yu for being "indecent and seductive."
This was also one of the reasons why Fang Yu preferred hanging out with the local ruffians rather than coming home before.
Wu Tian, seeing Fang Zhiyi sitting in the living room, was startled, and most of his drunkenness vanished. He stammered, "Brother... you... you're not asleep yet?"
"Waiting for you," Fang Zhiyi smiled, pouring wine into an empty glass and pushing it towards him.
Wu Tian was taken aback for a moment. Seeing that Fang Zhiyi wasn't angry but was instead pouring him wine, he immediately brightened up and moved closer to sit down. "Brother, is there some good news?"
y came from. The chests contained supplies, currency, class-change scrolls, skills, talents… and even godhood! The laws of the world were completely rewritten. This became a world where everyone gambled with their fate! Some people, despite having nothing, opened a divine artifact and rose to the top, eventually ruling the world. Others went bankrupt, opened nothing but worthless junk, and leaped from skyscrapers in despair. Lin Ye arrived in this world from another reality, utterly bewildered. “What is going on? Why is everyone a gambling addict?!” “Opening chests? No way. I refuse to gamble. I’ll start with myself!” Until— On his first chest, he obtained a Mythic Talent: Void Incarnation! He could become completely intangible, pass through all things, and reduce everything to nothingness! … On his fiftieth chest, he obtained a Mythic Weapon: Blade of Karma! With a single slash, karma shattered, twisting the universe and overturning the myriad phenomena of creation! … On his ninety-ninth chest, he obtained a Mythic Divine Treasure: Primordial Purple Energy! It could split open the heavens and earth, create all things, and evolve countless worlds with a single thought! Lin Ye: “Now that I think about it… shouldn’t someone have told me that every chest is guaranteed to contain something Mythic?!”
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?!
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.
