"Was that... an illusion?"
Lu Qing was well aware that the professional voice actors used by virtual streamers were completely different from their everyday "natural" voices.
To cater to their virtual personas and the show's effect, VTBs would choose their most charming tones, whether sweet, authoritative, aggressive, or delicate, to try and captivate their audience, making them devoted fans.
Streamers without voice acting skills might only be able to use a fake, squeaky voice, which could even be repulsive and uncomfortable.
However, someone like Hoshizuki Rina, with her versatile voice, could adjust her voice frequency at any time with her solid professional skills, using the most recognizable, natural, flawless, and attractive tone to open the door to her career peak.
Just a moment ago, Bai Xing's performance in front of him vaguely overlapped with the image of Hoshizuki Rina in his mind.
This conditioned reflex deeply ingrained in his DNA, coming from the depths of his soul, usually doesn't go wrong.
"Huh... no, that's not right."
After dumping the trash and re-entering the elevator, Lu Qing calmed down and analyzed.
One was a voice actress idol from a secondary website, with over two hundred thousand fans, her career on the rise...
The other was his neighbor and junior, a poor student who skips classes and stays up late every day, even relying on others to complete her final assignments—a delinquent girl who couldn't do anything right...
The only common point, the only possible connection between these two, might just be the correlation between "voice acting" and "broadcast hosting major."
No matter how he thought about it, the connection between the two was still too tenuous. Besides, the world is so big; how could the person behind the VTB his roommate recommended just happen to live next door?
"Forget it. It must be because I stayed up all night and got obsessed, so I'm hearing things. I really shouldn't stay up late anymore."
He shook his head, burying this suspicion in his heart.
Anyway, he would still be working with Bai Xing next week, so he could verify this idea then; there was no need to rush.
Returning to the apartment, closing the door, Lu Qing sat back on the sofa, ready for a little rest.
Just as he was about to close his eyes, he heard a rustling sound.
He raised an eyebrow and looked towards his sister's room.
"Su Ling? Are you awake?"
Considering that it might be the noise from his coming and going that woke her up, he felt a bit guilty and got up to approach the door.
"Mm..."
A weak response came from inside the room. Lu Qing placed his hand on the doorknob and asked, "Can I come in?"
"Mm."
He pushed the door open.
Inside the dimly lit room, the curtains were tightly closed.
In the corner, Su Ling was curled up on the bed, tightly wrapped in a blanket, her gaze fixed on him like a black cat abandoned in the dead of night.
"Where did you go just now, brother?" she asked weakly.
"I went downstairs to throw out the trash. Sorry, I woke you up."
He pulled out a chair and sat at the desk.
The few meters separating them made Su Ling feel a chill for some reason.
She buried her face in the pillow and then lifted her head slightly, revealing only her pitiful eyes, staring at her brother.
"..."
Lu Qing felt the pressure.
"What's wrong... are you feeling unwell?" he asked.
"Mm."
His sister nodded.
Lu Qing's expression immediately grew serious. "Is it because you didn't sleep well last night?"
"No."
She shook her head.
"Is it because... it's almost autumn and the room is too cold?" he continued to guess.
"No."
Her wronged expression became more pronounced.
"???"
Seeing his sister's reaction, Lu Qing was baffled, feeling something was amiss.
One of the things he was worst at was guessing a girl's mind. Right now, he felt completely helpless.
Although he was a master writer of romance novels and seemed proficient to outsiders, that was only within the fictional world, only effective on the internet.
If he had to guess the mind of Su Ling, a teenage girl in the prime of her life, with a complex heart and sometimes depressed, he would never get it right.
"Brother."
Just as he was feeling uneasy, she spoke up.
"Ah?"
"Can you get me the medicine over there?"
The girl stretched out a hand from her warm blanket, pointing with her slender fingers to the desk where he was sitting.
Lu Qing looked over and saw that his sister wanted a small white bottle with a medication label. It seemed to be her daily antidepressant.
"Did you forget to take it last night?" he asked.
"No."
Su Ling shook her head. "My chest feels a bit stuffy, so I want to take an extra dose."
"!?
Lu Qing was startled and asked instinctively, "How could this happen?"
He didn't understand what had happened to make his sister feel so uncomfortable. Or perhaps, this sudden illness in the early hours of the morning was a common occurrence for her?
A sense of crisis surged. Lu Qing instinctively picked up the nearby medicine box and opened the instruction manual—
He had never seen a medication description that was 16 pages long.
The drug's name was Vortioxetine Hydrobromide Tablets, which didn't sound very "healthy."
Especially the side effects and pharmacological toxicology section listed almost every possible adverse reaction he had ever seen.
Dizziness, nausea, vomiting, and fainting were among the milder ones, but even more frightening were phrases like "increased suicidal tendencies" and "close observation required during initial medication."
Moreover, the dosage instructions clearly stated "prohibition of self-stopping medication" and "prohibition of self-reducing dosage," but there was no mention of increasing the dosage.
Had his sister been taking such a potent drug all along?
Could such a strong medication really suppress depression without relapse?
Lu Qing glanced at the silent Su Ling and felt a bit uneasy.
"Don't worry, brother. I'm used to taking medicine. Can you get me a glass of water, please?"
"..."
Lu Qing stood up stiffly and fetched a cup from the water dispenser.
Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle—
The sound of water filling the empty cup was a bit harsh.
Just like his chaotic mood at the moment.
Halfway through, he suddenly stopped and turned to look at his sister. "Is it okay not to take it? At least... is there any way to temporarily avoid increasing the dosage?"
He had promised his sister to help her get better, but it seemed he had underestimated the cruelty of the disease.
Yet, she seemed quite normal last night... both her mental state and mood seemed fine... why suddenly...
Lu Qing kept reflecting, not knowing where the problem lay.
"Huh. Brother, you don't like me taking medicine?"
Su Ling's heart stirred, and she lifted her little face to look directly into his eyes.
"Yeah, it's best to find another way to replace this drug dependency," he said calmly.
"Is that so... that's what brother thinks."
She tightened the blanket, knelt up, and her half-exhausted face was full of pitifulness.
Lu Qing thought his request was a bit too much. After all, anxiety and depression are also mental illnesses. How could he naively ask his sister not to take medicine?
If it delayed or worsened her condition, wouldn't the responsibility fall entirely on him?
This was not something a qualified brother should say.
"Ah, well," he sighed lightly, bringing the water cup to the desk, "So, Su Ling, half a dose extra, right?"
"No."
"What?" He was taken aback.
"Brother, your meaning just now was to let me think of another way to replace the medicine, right?"
"That's what I meant..."
"I thought about it and, as brother said, as long as I can find something new to rely on, I don't have to rely on medicine when I'm upset. I think brother is right."
"Ah? Found it so quickly?" Lu Qing put down the water cup, a bit surprised.
"Mm, found it. But it might need a little cooperation from brother."
"No problem, you tell me. As long as I can do it, it's no problem." Lu Qing promised seriously.
For his sister's health, he was indeed willing to do everything within his power. After all, she could only rely on him now, right?
However, just at that moment, Su Ling's sly smile, as if she had tucked away her fox tail, appeared, and she said innocently,
"Then... Brother, can you try to hug me?"
...
...
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
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.
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.
ver to a world of cultivation and returned invincible. Modern medicine is child's play compared to elixirs; technological might crumbles before true cultivation. My name is Qin Ning, Earth's sole cultivator!
