"You need not force yourself to blend into every clamor, nor do you need to prove anything to anyone."
"I know your heart holds mountains and seas; though silent, they shine like the stars."
After Lin Yu left the laundry room.
Ye Mengfu read the words on the card over and over again.
She gently shook the card, ensuring the ink dried thoroughly.
Then, she fished a plastic zip-lock bag out of her pocket and carefully placed the card inside.
Today.
It wasn't just a happy day for Lin Yu.
...
Lin Yu came out of the laundry area.
Seeing clearly that it was Ye Mengfu inside, Maomao raised her microphone to notify everyone:
"Our birthday boy has already caught two people and harvested two gifts."
"Time is limited; there isn't much left for the birthday boy."
"Everyone, please be sure to hide well and increase the difficulty of this activity."
Lin Yu continued his search in the first-floor lobby.
Passing by Maomao, he couldn't resist reaching out and vigorously rubbing her head.
"Alright, Maomao. It's one thing if you don't help me, but you're actually telling everyone to hide better?"
"Is it possible someone is hiding on the balcony where you water the flowers every day?"
Lin Yu asked a question while observing Maomao's reaction.
Maomao glanced at the balcony, deliberately avoiding eye contact with Lin Yu, and said:
"I won't tell you."
Lin Yu gave her a thumbs up.
Okay, okay.
That single-threaded little brain really couldn't lie.
The intention behind deliberately avoiding looking at the balcony was simply too obvious.
Lin Yu headed straight for the balcony, checking to see if the door showed signs of having been opened.
Before he could even inspect the door clearly, he saw a looming figure behind a wall pillar, peeking in his direction.
Seeing Lin Yu approach, the person immediately shrank back.
There was no need to doubt it now.
Confirmed on the spot!
Lin Yu swaggered over, pulled open the balcony door, and looked toward the collection of flower pots.
"Wow, found so quickly? I feel so defeated!"
"Junior Lin Yu, sorry about that. I didn't know there would be this segment today."
"I still gave my gift too early. I didn't get to give it along with everyone else!"
Fang Xinran walked out from among the flower pots, speaking with a hint of unwillingness.
If she had been a bit more patient and given the gift later, the effect would probably have been better, right?
Lin Yu shook his wrist, showing off the bracelet Fang Xinran had just given him.
"What's wrong with giving it early? This was the very first gift I received today."
"Senior Fang, now it's my turn to give you something..."
As he spoke, Lin Yu pulled out a card and placed it against the wall.
Using the wall for support, he began to write a message for Fang Xinran.
Fang Xinran didn't peek; she waited quietly to the side, curious to see what Lin Yu would write.
"Even if the road is obscured by mist, still choose to journey forth."
"May your future days be like the wind, like poetry, a growth of freedom that never ceases."
Fang Xinran took the card and couldn't help but freeze in place.
...
The time for catching people was limited.
Lin Yu circled the first floor again but didn't make any significant discoveries.
According to common sense, if they weren't hiding in the bedrooms, the first floor offered the most suitable space to hide multiple people.
The public spaces on the second and third floors weren't nearly as plentiful.
And yet, only three people were hidden here?
Was that really it?
Just as Lin Yu prepared to go upstairs, he suddenly realized something.
He had ignored an important location on the first floor...
The yard!
Before entering the house, Lin Yu hadn't known what was going to happen.
All his attention had been focused inside the main hall.
After learning the rules, his first thoughts were about the spaces inside the building and where everyone might choose to hide.
He had almost overlooked the space in the yard.
That was a wide-open area!
Even so, Lin Yu didn't go directly to the yard.
Instead, he ran up to the third floor in one breath, planning to eliminate areas from top to bottom.
Time was a strict constraint he had to be mindful of; searching a space as large as the yard could easily lead to time management issues.
Searching from the third floor down was much friendlier for managing his time.
Upon arriving at the third floor, Lin Yu noticed that the "storage room," which rarely had its door closed, was actually shut today!
Did this even need explaining?
There was definitely someone inside!
Sticking to his method, Lin Yu opened the door to the storage room the moment he noticed the anomaly.
Even without turning on the lights, the environment inside was mostly visible.
Behind a raincoat hanging on the wall, a figure that couldn't possibly stay hidden awkwardly straightened up.
"T-that fast to find the third floor?"
"I just joined in, and now I'm already eliminated."
Xia Xiashan awkwardly smoothed her messy hair, stepping around the various sundries at her feet as she inched her way out.
Upon learning they also needed to join the game, Xia Xiashan had been very cooperative.
While Lin Yu was searching the dining room for people, she had sprinted up to the third floor.
She thought it would take at least ten minutes or so before she saw Lin Yu.
Unexpectedly, Lin Yu's speed was this fast!
"It's too narrow to talk in here. Lin Yu, let me out first."
"According to the rules Maomao mentioned, you should..."
"Write something for me, right?"
Xia Xiashan carefully maneuvered her body and finally walked out of the storage room.
Just as she prepared to casually close the door behind her, Lin Yu's hand slammed onto the door panel, stopping her action.
*Bang!*
The sound of the heavy impact made Xia Xiashan tremble.
She froze on the spot, looking at Lin Yu at a loss.
Lin Yu slowly pushed the door open and analyzed, "Sister Shanshan, it makes sense for you to run to the third floor to hide since you had nowhere else to go after coming back."
"But such a suitable hiding spot... before you arrived..."
"Did no one else really discover it?"
Xia Xiashan: "!!!"
Here it comes!
Lin Yu's strange deductive ability.
He had already demonstrated it once when grilling Xiao Chi in the car.
Who would have thought he would show it again now?
Lin Yu pointed at Xia Xiashan's hand holding the door, then hooked his finger towards the back, signaling Xia Xiashan to let go so he could go in and look for himself.
Xia Xiashan: "..."
Stunned for a moment, Xia Xiashan ultimately chose to let go.
The door stood wide open.
Lin Yu entered, poking his head in to look toward the deeper piles of clutter.
There was another important reason why Lin Yu suspected someone else was hiding inside.
Although the storage room wasn't wide, it was quite long.
If someone really wanted to hide here, why would they only hide right at the surface?
When Lin Yu was searching the first floor, he had given Xia Xiashan plenty of time to hide.
How could she have hidden so poorly in such a simple place?
This indirectly confirmed Lin Yu's suspicion.
Xia Xiashan had likely just plotted with the "other person" inside the storage room.
Wait until Lin Yu comes looking, then deliberately sacrifice one to save the other.
If things went smoothly, the storage room would become a "searched" location, allowing the other person to remain truly hidden.
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
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?!
iaobai: "Councilor Dad, front me some funds. I want to hire ten thousand professional miners for a project!" [Five-Star Mission Issued: Capture the leader of the Blood Heaven Pirate Gang, who is on the run in the Radiant Star Sector. It is said the gang has over a hundred members. Proceed with caution.] Lu Xiaobai: "Councilor Dad, lend me the family's hundred-thousand-strong Lu Army!" [Seven-Star Mission Issued: Subdue a juvenile Void Dragon Beast.] Lu Xiaobai: "Councilor Dad, I'm taking your tamed Void Dragon Beast King out for a family reunion!" I said, System, don't you have any slightly more challenging missions? You're just not up to par! [Nine-Star Mission Issued: Become the Human Councilor.] Lu Xiaobai: "Dad, there's a small matter I'd like to discuss with you..."
lity and could only live as an ordinary mortal. He only wished to live a peaceful life. Yet he didn't know— The dog he adopted, because it ate his food, became a legendary demon king. The kitchen knife he casually forged became a peerless divine weapon, causing numerous experts to fight desperately for it. The young disciple he took in became an immortal lord that led an era, due to cultivating the techniques Ye Feng taught him. Even the skeletons he looked down on the most were ominous demon kings that suppressed countless worlds. Many years later, looking at the void shattered with a punch, Ye Feng murmured to himself: It turns out the peerless kings were myself all along...
