"Son!" Fang Zhiyi turned around after class to see his unserious father, who had been dressing more casually each day since arriving here—now sporting shorts, a tank top, and flip-flops.
"Perfect." Fang Zhiyi handed him the bow and arrows in his hand. "I'm heading out."
"What?" Fang's Father froze, then shook his head repeatedly. "No way. You can't go. It's life or death."
Fang Zhiyi's gaze was firm. "I've already died once." This wasn't a lie—though it was the original host who had died.
Fang's Father stared at his son, momentarily at a loss for words. "Then... should I go with you?"
"No need. Pick a few trustworthy people who'll follow orders!" Fang Zhiyi strode away.
"Wait, where are you even going?"
"To find guns."
After the tough act, Fang Zhiyi turned to Little Hei beside him. "You're sure most of the infected have wandered to the west?"
Little Hei patted his chest. "Host, I guarantee it! One hundred percent!"
"You're only good for this much. Look at other systems—flying, diving... Just remember, if I die, you're stuck like this."
"Host, you gotta trust me!"
Soon, the expedition team assembled—seven people, plus Fang Zhiyi, making eight.
Fang's Father introduced them: "This is Old He, used to be in charge of logistics at our company."
Old He chuckled awkwardly. "I never liked company gatherings, so I rarely saw the young master."
Fang Zhiyi scrutinized each person—men and women from different departments.
"The goal of this trip is to find guns. You all know what it's like out there. If we only rely on bows and machetes, we're dead sooner or later." Fang Zhiyi studied their expressions—some fearful, some indifferent, others worried. "This mission affects everyone's future here. I demand absolute obedience. If you can't handle that, back out now. No one will blame you."
Not a single person withdrew. They understood the stakes—Fang's Father had already briefed them.
Fang Zhiyi nodded. "Good. Let's move out!"
The team chose to travel on foot—cars were too loud, and no one dared bet on whether the city roads were still passable. Back at the base, Fang's Father clutched a walkie-talkie, watching their retreating figures, unconsciously wiping away tears.
Before even reaching the city, the eight were stunned by the sight before them.
The road was littered with wrecked vehicles, severed limbs scattered along the sidewalks, birds circling overhead.
"Look over there!" The only woman in the group pointed to a field beside the road.
"It's just a scarecrow... Why the fuss—" A male colleague's bravado died in his throat.
Indeed, it was a scarecrow—one made from a corpse. The dead face bore a grotesque smile, as if its owner had died happy.
Further out, dozens more such scarecrows stood. The group's scalps prickled.
"F-Fang... Young Master Fang, did the infected do this?"
Fang Zhiyi replied calmly, "Yes."
"But they..."
Fang Zhiyi looked at his shaken team. "They aren't like the zombies you've seen in movies. The infected are human—or were. They retain human consciousness, and they've amplified the worst of humanity. Now you understand what we're up against?"
With that, he led the way forward. Little Hei descended from the sky. "Host, no infected nearby."
With Little Hei's surveillance, the group entered the city smoothly, encountering no infected. The team gradually relaxed.
But the relief didn't last. Once they reached the streets, horror struck again.
The streets were chaos—cars crashed into lampposts, bodies hanging from second-floor windows, mutilated corpses impaled on fences, a half-eaten pale thigh... Everything screamed of the atrocities committed here.
Finally, someone broke. Outside the city, the horrors had kept their distance. Here, human remains surrounded them.
"Ugh!" The first person vomited, followed by another.
Fang Zhiyi wasn't rushed. They needed time to adjust—better now than later. His calm came from Little Hei's report that a nearby group of infected had moved on.
"Host! The infected just turned back!" Little Hei cried urgently.
Fang Zhiyi stiffened. "You said they left!"
"I don't know! They suddenly turned around!"
Fang Zhiyi whirled, scanning the area—then spotted a walkie-talkie on a roadblock, its green light blinking.
"Shit! It's a trap!" Fang Zhiyi shouted. "Run for the city limits!" Yet he pointed at an apartment building, still yelling, "Go! Get out of the city!" as he sprinted toward the building.
Old He caught on first. "To the city! Move!" He kicked a vomiting man and dragged another, following Fang Zhiyi. All eight ran.
The apartment's iron door was already smashed. They rushed inside, up the stairs. Fang Zhiyi, crossbow ready, carefully pushed open an ajar door—a long-dead corpse lay in the living room. He checked each room, confirming safety before relaxing.
Turning, he saw his team staring dumbfounded at the corpse.
"Shocking? You'll get used to it." Fang Zhiyi murmured, then peered cautiously out the window.
Sure enough, a horde of infected swarmed below, searching excitedly around the walkie-talkie. They even flipped over trash cans. Soon, a blonde woman stepped forward.
She wore only a skirt—with a walkie-talkie clipped to it—her bare torso smeared with blood. Pointing toward the city limits, she rasped, "There!"
The infected laughed and charged in that direction.
"That... that's my ex-girlfriend..." Fang Zhiyi turned to see Lei Fuming trembling as he spoke.
"Yeah. My condolences." Fang Zhiyi watched the blonde woman pick up a severed head, tucking it under her arm with a crazed giggle, and shook his head.
. As long as he maintains the villain image and follows the plot to the grand finale, he can obtain generous rewards and return to the real world. So Gu Chen'an entered the role and began to act as a scumbag villain, but who would have expected that the female leads could hear his inner thoughts. Miss Su from the Su family was shocked: "I originally thought Gu Chen'an was a scumbag, but I didn't expect he turned out to be a gentleman! What? You said I have to call off the engagement? I definitely won't, I'll piss you off!" Bai Yuan Tian was dumbfounded: "Young Master Gu is usually unreasonable and a complete brat, but he actually calls me little sweetie in his heart? What, Young Master Gu even said he likes me?" As the female leads' images collapsed more and more, the plot also collapsed with it. Gu Chen'an looked at all this chaos. "Ladies, don't aggro me, if you keep this up the male lead really will stab me, I still need to survive to the grand finale!"
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...
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.
