Even now, they still couldn't figure out how they had lost their perfectly good jobs. Hong Yanwen had packed up and left, while they had been brutally beaten by a gang of vicious peers. Of course, the one who hit them the hardest was none other than Fang Zhiyi.
These people all had some sort of criminal record or bad history, so Fang Zhiyi wasn't worried in the slightest that they would call the police.
"I don't understand, why not just close the school? What's so good about this kind of place!" Fang Chenghan asked the moment he saw his father return to the dorm after a busy day.
Fang Zhiyi pointed at him. "Do I need to teach you some manners?"
Fang Chenghan swallowed hard. "Dad, I'm asking why you want to run a school. These students are truly pitiful!"
Fang Zhiyi snorted. "If I don't run it, will others stop running them? Do you think places like this exist just because of one Hong Yanwen? If one Hong Yanwen falls, thousands of others will rise to take his place."
He pushed open the window and pointed at the scattered figures outside. "If I make them drop out and go home today, what about tomorrow? Won't their parents just send them to another 'Happiness School'?"
"Then... are you thinking of running a normal school?" Fang Chenghan asked.
Fang Zhiyi glanced at him. "Do you think a piece of work like you could go to a normal school?"
Fang Chenghan was a bit defiant. "What's wrong with me? I..." But when he saw Fang Zhiyi reach for that thin bamboo cane, he immediately shut his mouth.
Still, he didn't quite understand. He could have comfortably returned to their spacious flat at home and lain in a soft bed, but now he had to squeeze into a run-down single room with Fang Zhiyi, where the bedboards creaked incessantly every time he rolled over.
Little Hei teased, "Hey, I'm not the one messing with you this time; it's you who spent all your money."
Fang Zhiyi said in annoyance, "Then tell me, what should I do? Kill them all? Wouldn't I rot in prison for the rest of my life?"
"You really are a good person. But speaking of which, you've never been a principal before, have you?"
"That's true." Fang Zhiyi scratched his head. "To be honest, I really don't know much about how to be a principal."
Early in the morning, Ruan Wenkang opened his eyes. Long-standing habits made him too afraid to keep sleeping; if he didn't get up by five o'clock, the instructors would barge in and verbally abuse them.
But today was very strange. It remained quiet outside, and even after five o'clock, no one came to tell them to go out and run laps.
Ruan Wenkang felt a bit panicked. This abnormal situation made him incredibly anxious, so he pushed open the broken door and walked out. Several roommates silently put on their thin clothes and followed behind him.
Just as they were heading downstairs, they ran straight into a man wearing black-rimmed glasses. Ruan Wenkang remembered that yesterday, this man had introduced himself as the new dorm manager, whose name seemed to be Zhao Dali.
Zhao Dali looked at the students in confusion. "Wait, it's not even dawn yet. Where are you guys going?"
Ruan Wenkang was a little scared, but he still answered, "To run."
"Run? Run for what?" Zhao Dali was completely baffled.
"The school rules require us to wake up and wash at five in the morning, and start running by five-ten..." someone replied.
Zhao Dali looked completely lost. "I didn't hear the principal mention any such rule." Seeing the students shivering, he frowned slightly. "Look at you, coming out in so few clothes? Hurry back and go to sleep. Kids need enough sleep, or else you won't grow! Go back, quick!"
By this time, the stairs were full of early-rising students. Seeing their hesitation, Zhao Dali directly put on an angry face and scolded them to go back to bed. The students, fearing him, finally turned around and left.
"Wenkang, do you think the school has changed?" a student suddenly asked.
Ruan Wenkang thought about what happened yesterday, hesitated for a moment, and just shook his head.
"You're dreaming. They must be thinking of some new way to punish us," another tall student said.
Most of the others remained silent.
It wasn't until the sky was completely bright that Zhao Dali rang the wake-up bell. He hadn't been able to sleep after seeing the state of those kids earlier. Sitting in his dorm manager's office, he had grown angrier the more he thought about it. After ringing the bell, he headed straight for Fang Zhiyi's principal's office.
He hadn't expected that the moment he pushed open the door, several colleagues would already be standing in the room.
"Principal, I checked on that Ruan Wenkang yesterday. He's covered in injuries—whip marks from belts and cigarette burns on his arms. What kind of monsters were those people?!" A beautiful woman said indignantly. She sported a pair of dark circles under her eyes, looking as though she hadn't slept well all night either.
Lin Guoqiang crossed his arms. "I don't even dare to speak loudly. The moment I raise my voice, those students start trembling. What is going on with this school?"
"My class isn't right either. Those kids act like robots."
Everyone talked at once.
Fang Zhiyi looked at the people in front of him and yawned. These so-called new teachers were all people he had asked Little Hei to help find. Now it seemed he hadn't chosen the wrong people.
"Let's not mention what they suffered in the past. Your priority right now is to first break their shackles." Fang Zhiyi stood up and glanced at Zhao Dali. Zhao Dali suddenly understood that Fang Zhiyi had probably known about these kids' problems all along.
"Principal, are you really just letting that former principal walk away? Shouldn't we expose him?"
"Would that help?" Fang Zhiyi asked. "What happens after he's exposed? You'd get to vent your anger, but what about these kids? Their parents would pick them up and then continue looking for the next 'Happiness School'? And what about the kids who aren't even at this school?"
"I sought you all out because you each have your own strengths. I want you to teach these kids that everyone's life has meaning. You need to discover their strengths and completely change their lives."
Fang Zhiyi let out a long breath.
"As for that Hong Yanwen guy... since he's gone, let him go. We always have to look forward."
Finally, the teachers dispersed. They had to return to their classes to gather the students. Fang Zhiyi had already reviewed yesterday's forms, and today he would personally oversee the class assignments.
Seeing the students standing on the sports field looking at their principal, someone recognized that he was the father of Fang Chenghan, who had arrived yesterday. Remembering how he had beaten Fang Chenghan yesterday, everyone shrank their necks in fear.
"I won't waste words. Teacher Lin Guoqiang, step forward!"
Lin Guoqiang stepped out.
"Those who are interested in combat, physical training, or fighting, please go stand in front of Teacher Lin Guoqiang."
No one moved. Everyone looked at him in confusion.
Could it be that this new principal wanted them to fight one-on-one with that thug-like teacher?
Fang Zhiyi ignored their silence.
"Those who like drawing, go stand in front of that teacher with glasses. Those who like singing, stand by that elderly gentleman. And... uh, those who like playing video games will have to wait a bit; your teacher is hurrying over from out of town."
saw a female celebrity tied up and stuffed in the trunk! Little did he know, countless cameras were aimed at him at this moment - this was a new type of reality show. The first randomly selected passerby was caught in less than an hour. But when Xu Moru was selected, things started to take an unexpected turn. "Damn, this isn't how the script goes. This Xu Moru is too bold, he's not following the rules at all." "Crap, is this guy taking it seriously?" "The female celebrity has been scared to tears!"
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."
transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”
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.
