The servant brought out the dishes prepared by Lin Ran, and Luo Yao’s appetite instantly perked up at the sight.
Lin Ran fed her bite by bite, and Luo Yao ate with quiet focus.
After the meal, the private doctor came to check on her again and found that Luo Yao’s condition had improved significantly. Her fever had already subsided in just one day, and the doctor estimated she would fully recover in another two days.
Luo Yao’s cheeks were still slightly flushed, which Lin Ran knew was due to her illness. He held her in his arms as they sat on the balcony of the bedroom, gazing at the sky.
He couldn’t understand why Luo Yao loved stargazing so much.
Lin Ran: "The stars don’t move."
Luo Yao: "But hearts do."
Though she still felt a little unwell, being this close to Lin Ran under the stars made the discomfort seem trivial.
Being sick wasn’t so bad after all.
Because of her condition, the two didn’t do much—just held each other quietly.
Eventually, Luo Yao fell asleep, and Lin Ran prepared to carry her back to bed.
"Meow!"
Lin Ran stiffened, turning his head to glare and whisper sharply,
"Don’t wake her up."
"Meow!"
Damn it, why wouldn’t this cat listen?
Gently, he lifted Luo Yao, carried her from the balcony to the bedroom, and laid her down with care.
The black cat remained on the balcony, watching motionlessly.
After tucking Luo Yao in, Lin Ran pressed a light kiss to her forehead before returning to the balcony.
"What are you doing here so late? Shouldn’t you be asleep?"
He immediately felt silly—cats were nocturnal, after all.
"Meow!"
"Are you some kind of peeping Tom-cat? Spill it—do you always watch us when we’re... you know?"
"Meow!"
Whatever. Life was dull, and cats didn’t understand humans.
He returned to bed and fell asleep with Luo Yao in his arms.
In his dream, he stood in a primal forest, where a pair of eerily unnatural eyes stared at him—motionless, unblinking.
Lin Ran reached for his phone to illuminate the darkness but realized he hadn’t brought it.
Just as he was about to speak, the eyes beneath parted to reveal a grotesque mouth that sent chills down his spine.
It resembled a human mouth, yet wasn’t quite human.
Blood dripped ceaselessly from it, impossible to tell whether it was the creature’s own or someone else’s.
Lin Ran jolted awake in a cold sweat.
That dream again—the second time now, though clearer this time.
He took a deep breath and grabbed his phone to search:
[What does it mean when dreams continue from previous ones?]
After scrolling through countless bizarre theories from online forums, he sighed.
"Ran, what’s wrong?"
Lin Ran turned to see Luo Yao awake, her eyes soft with concern. He patted her back gently. "Nothing. Just a nightmare. I was looking it up. Did I wake you?"
Luo Yao nuzzled into his chest. "Dreams are just illusions. The only real thing is the person beside you."
Lin Ran smiled, soothing her back to sleep before closing his own eyes.
The nightmare resumed...
He woke with a start to morning light, Luo Yao sitting by the bed, her fingers lightly brushing his cheek.
"Ran, another nightmare?"
Lin Ran inhaled deeply, the scent of Luo Yao calming him. He sat up abruptly, meeting her gaze.
Unbrushed, her hair was adorably tousled, her cheeks flushed. Her eyes—no longer their usual icy detachment—sparkled with unspoken warmth.
The sight hit him like a knockout punch. Lin Ran admitted it: he was utterly enchanted by her.
When he first returned from rebirth, he’d only wanted to cherish Luo Yao. But gradually, that turned into dependence—he craved her presence every second.
Now, having tasted her love, he couldn’t live without her.
How had he been such a blind fool in his past life to miss her magic?
Seeing Lin Ran recover, Luo Yao relaxed and made to leave, only for him to grab her hand.
"Don’t go. I haven’t had my fill of looking at you yet."
She leaned down, pressing her cheek to his. She adored this version of Lin Ran—the one who clung to her endlessly—and despised the one who’d once looked at her with disgust.
"Alright. I’ll stay until you’re satisfied."
Truthfully, she didn’t want to leave either. She longed to stay with him forever, but she couldn’t. She had to climb higher, to the very top, before she could rest.
She had something crucial to do. She was waiting, too.
They lingered in silent admiration until time forced them apart. Lin Ran finally released her with a reluctant sigh.
After Luo Yao left, Wang Bao arrived, introducing several elite bodyguards from the security team.
From their rugged, dependable faces alone, Lin Ran felt reassured. He had them dress in plain clothes and follow at a discreet distance.
That day, Lin Ran headed straight to the real estate company and summoned Wu Zhishang for a meeting.
Thanks to Xu Kai’s expertise as a lawyer—and the backing of Luo Corporation—all the company’s paperwork had been finalized two days prior with remarkable efficiency.
Lin Ran cut straight to the chase with Wu Zhishang.
"Between brothers, let’s skip the formalities. Our future’s boundless—after all, I’ve got capital behind me. You can’t deny that, right?"
Wu Zhishang winced. "Lin, just say what you mean. No need to keep rubbing salt in the wound."
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.
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!
d intelligence to keep the plot moving, and sometimes even the protagonists are forced into absurdly dumb decisions. Why does the A-list celebrity heroine in urban romance novels ditch the top-tier movie star and become a lovestruck fool for a pockmarked male lead? Why do the leads in historical tragedy novels keep dancing between love and death, only for the blind healer to end up suffering the most? And Gu Wei never expected that after finally landing a villain role to stir up trouble, she’d pick the wrong gender! No choice now—she’ll just have to crush the protagonists as a girl!
