The Shopkeeper of the herbal medicine store had been feeling uneasy lately when suddenly, the shop door was knocked.
"Knock, knock."
The Shopkeeper responded, "Coming, coming!"
"Knock, knock."
"I'm here." Just as the Shopkeeper's hand touched the door panel, Old Li, the medicine assistant, suddenly grabbed him, holding an oil lamp.
"You scared me! What's the matter, Old Li?" The Shopkeeper turned around, nearly frightened out of his wits.
Under the upward glow of the oil lamp, Old Li's face looked eerily sinister, his aged features deeply lined. "Shopkeeper, you mustn’t open this door."
The Shopkeeper patted his chest, puzzled. "Why not?"
Old Li stared at the door as another knock came from outside.
"Knock, knock."
"Living people knock three times; ghosts knock twice," Old Li rasped, his voice thickening the already tense atmosphere. "Shopkeeper, have you forgotten? That assistant, Bai Jingtian..."
"Y-you... have you been drinking again?" The Shopkeeper’s expression darkened. Was Old Li mocking him?
"I’ve done nothing wrong—why should I fear a ghost’s knock?" he snapped. Indeed, no one in the shop knew he had killed Bai Jingtian. Old Li slept early every night despite living in the shop—he couldn’t have seen anything.
As if to prove his point, or perhaps out of sheer defiance, the Shopkeeper yanked the door bolt open and pulled the panel wide.
A stranger stood at the doorstep, wearing a fashionable Western-style hat. "What took you so long, Shopkeeper?"
Relieved, the Shopkeeper turned triumphantly to Old Li—only to freeze. The spot where Old Li had stood was empty. He frantically scanned the shop, but it was completely deserted.
"This... this..." The Shopkeeper’s panic was real now.
"Shopkeeper, aren’t you letting me in?" The guest sounded impatient.
The Shopkeeper’s gaze darted toward Old Li’s closed bedroom door. "Ah, yes, come in."
"Shopkeeper, if a ghost wants to enter, it can’t unless you invite it in."
A chill ran down the Shopkeeper’s spine. When he turned back, the guest was already inside, standing mere inches from him.
And when he looked up, he saw a paper effigy’s face!
This was no person—it was a paper figure wearing a hat!
"Ah!" The Shopkeeper’s legs gave way, and he collapsed to the floor. "D-don’t come any closer!"
The paper figure didn’t move but let out an eerie laugh that seemed to come from all directions. The Shopkeeper’s eyes bulged, and a dark stain spread across his trousers.
Meanwhile, Old Li’s door cracked open slightly. Peering out, Old Li watched in confusion as the Shopkeeper muttered to himself, opened the door to nothing, and then collapsed in terror.
Old Li was no fool—he believed deeply in spirits.
"Bai Jingtian has returned," Old Li whispered, trembling as he tried to shut the door. That night when the Shopkeeper strangled Bai Jingtian, he had watched in secret too. But he hadn’t intervened—after working here for over twenty years, he resented how Bai Jingtian had cut into his wages. The boy deserved it. When the constables came, Old Li claimed he’d been asleep and knew nothing.
Suddenly, an eye pressed against the narrowing gap, locking gazes with him.
Beneath it, a mouth twisted into a grotesque smile. "You saw, didn’t you?"
Old Li’s eyes rolled back, and he fainted dead away.
"Boring," sighed the group of ghosts observing from the shadows. "Xiulian had better nerves than this."
"Should we come back another time?"
Bai Jingtian cradled a pillow. Fang Zhiyi glanced at it. "Leaving already?"
Bai Jingtian looked back at the Shopkeeper, now sitting in a daze, and nodded. "We’ll visit again someday."
"Jingtian, that pillow is lovely," Xiulian remarked.
A faint smile crossed Bai Jingtian’s pale face. "My mother made it for me."
"Oh, where is she now?" another ghost asked.
Bai Jingtian lowered his head. "Dead. A sudden illness took her."
The ghosts murmured in sympathy.
Huang Shuren broke the somber mood. "My turn next?"
Fang Zhiyi studied his charred face. "Finally made up your mind?"
Huang Shuren nodded.
He had been a simple, honest man in life, well-liked by his village. Orphaned early, he never married—until his friend Zhang Guangyao introduced him to a widow with two children.
Huang Shuren didn’t overthink it. He believed hard work could provide for even a larger family.
But he was wrong. Dead wrong. Only in death did he learn the truth.
The widow was Zhang Guangyao’s lover, passed off to Huang Shuren as a cover. When he came home early one day and caught them together, he even considered forgiveness—until he stepped inside. The widow pinned his arms, her children clung to his legs, and Zhang Guangyao split his skull with his own axe.
To hide their crime, they set his house ablaze. No one knew Huang Shuren was still alive as the flames consumed him, leaving his face blackened, his head gaping.
For years, he haunted the mountains, terrifying woodcutters—until Fang Zhiyi dragged him away.
Did he resent them? Of course. But resent whom? Even as a vengeful ghost, he couldn’t bring himself to harm his former wife or friend.
As Yu Zhaodi put it, he was more saint than specter.
But now, after witnessing his companions’ tragedies, something in him shifted.
The widow had packed her bags, ready to elope with Zhang Guangyao tonight, abandoning his plain, dull wife.
Zhang Guangyao arrived on time. As they fled through the woods with the children, the widow dreamed of a new life—unaware her lover’s hand kept drifting toward the axe at his waist.
He hesitated, glancing at the boys. His own flesh and blood.
A widow was disposable. But sons?
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?!”
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.
lanned to earn money steadily and take life at a slower pace. But he never expected... his father's remarriage, and the stepmother bringing along a dependent, would completely disrupt his life's plans...
