As soon as Lin Qingyan saw the delivery person, she remembered that today was her birthday.
Every year on this day, the same delivery person would bring her a birthday cake.
It must be Little Li ordering the cake for her again.
Lin Qingyan walked over.
"Are you Miss Lin Qingyan?" the delivery person asked.
"I am," Lin Qingyan replied, taking the receipt from the delivery person and signing her name on it.
Then she handed the receipt back.
The delivery person smiled and said, "Miss Lin, your younger brother really loves you."
"Yes," Lin Qingyan said with a faint smile. "Little Li has always been like this—full of surprises."
"Little Li?" The delivery person frowned. "Miss Lin, do you have two younger brothers?"
Lin Qingyan instinctively wanted to correct him—she only had one brother.
It had almost become second nature to her.
But then, the diary Lin Xuan had written flashed through her mind, and the words died in her throat.
"Yes, I have two brothers," Lin Qingyan nodded, puzzled. "Why do you ask?"
"Well, Miss Lin," the delivery person explained, "this cake wasn’t sent by the brother you mentioned."
Lin Qingyan froze. "Not Little Li? Then… was it Lin Xuan?"
"That’s right, it was him!"
The delivery person pulled out a slip of paper and handed it to her. "He left this when he placed the order."
Lin Qingyan stared at the writing on the paper—Lin Xuan’s name, the delivery address, and her phone number.
It was unmistakably his handwriting.
So, this cake really was from Lin Xuan.
"Then… were all the previous cakes also from him?" Lin Qingyan grabbed the delivery person’s arm urgently.
"Yes, he always asked my father to make them," the delivery person confirmed. "My father owns the bakery. Lin Xuan would come every two years, pay for two cakes in advance, and ask us to deliver one to you on your birthday."
"Oh, and the designs on the cakes? He sketched them himself. He always reminded us, over and over, not to put peanuts in because you’re allergic. He was incredibly meticulous."
"And when he was just a teenager, he didn’t have much money. The cash he used to pay for the cakes was all saved up—coins and small bills, stuffed in a little box."
At this, the delivery person frowned slightly.
Given how wealthy their family seemed—where allowances were probably tens of thousands a month—why did he have to scrape together loose change like that?
Lin Qingyan’s throat tightened unbearably.
She took the cake and walked back home in a daze.
"I was wrong… I was so wrong," she murmured to herself. "It wasn’t Little Li. It was Lin Xuan. He was the one who sent me cakes every year."
She had always assumed it was Little Li.
Lin Qingyan placed the cake on the coffee table and opened the box.
A rich, sweet aroma filled the air.
On top of the cake, written in frosting, were the words: "Happy Birthday, Second Sister."
Lin Qingyan scooped a bite with a spoon and brought it to her lips. But instead of sweetness, all she tasted was bitterness.
"Lin Xuan… I’m sorry."
"Second Sister misunderstood you all this time."
How could she have hurt such a kind younger brother?
When Lin Qingwan came downstairs, she found Lin Qingyan sitting on the sofa, mechanically eating cake.
Tears streaked her entire face.
Lin Qingwan sighed and sat beside her.
Lin Qingyan had eaten too much cake too quickly—suddenly, she felt sick.
"Ugh—" She doubled over, retching.
"Second Sister, stop. Don’t eat anymore," Lin Qingwan said softly, wiping the cake from Lin Qingyan’s mouth and hands.
"Elder Sister…"
Lin Qingyan collapsed into Lin Qingwan’s arms, sobbing uncontrollably.
"Elder Sister, do you know? I misunderstood Lin Xuan. I thought he was disgusting for sneaking into my bed, but… he was just staying up all night to take care of me when I had a high fever."
"And he was the one who encouraged me when I was at my lowest."
"He sent me cakes every year, and I thought it was Little Li!"
Lin Qingyan broke down completely.
"He treated me so well, and I treated him like that. I’m horrible, Elder Sister."
Lin Qingwan didn’t know what to say.
After all, she, too, had misunderstood Lin Xuan. She had been one of those who ignored him.
His heart had grown cold toward their family, and she was partly to blame.
"Elder Sister, what do we do now?" Lin Qingyan clutched Lin Qingwan’s arm. "Lin Xuan hates us now. He doesn’t want to come back."
"It’ll be okay," Lin Qingwan reassured her, stroking her hair. "Lin Xuan has always been understanding. He’ll come back eventually."
"Elder Sister!"
Lin Qingyan suddenly tensed. "We need to reschedule the release of 'Heavenly Fate.' If it airs at the same time as Su Corporation’s drama, Lin Xuan will think we’re trying to sabotage him. He’ll resent us even more!"
"No. We won’t change it."
Lin Qingwan shook her head. "Second Sister, right now, Lin Xuan is being manipulated by that woman. He’s distancing himself from us."
"If we want him to come back, we have to push him. Otherwise, he’ll never return."
To her, Lin Xuan was just that woman’s plaything.
She wanted him back in the Lin family—partly to make amends, but also because only then could they protect him from that woman’s influence.
Lin Qingyan frowned deeply at her elder sister’s words.
Would this… really work?
That day, Lin Xuan didn’t go to class.
Noticing that Su Hua hadn’t been eating well the day before—perhaps because of the weather—he decided to cook lunch for her.
At noon, he arrived at Su Corporation with the meal.
Jiang Qing entered the CEO’s office.
"President Su," she said respectfully.
Su Hua’s aura was icy as she fixed her gaze on Jiang Qing. "This had better be important."
Jiang Qing remained unfazed.
"Young Master Lin has brought lunch for you."
The moment those words were spoken, the coldness around Su Hua vanished.
The executives in the room, who had been delivering reports, brightened visibly.
Their savior had arrived.
Su Hua closed the file in her hands and tossed it back to them.
"Go revise this proposal. Bring it back to me this afternoon."
"Yes, President Su!"
The executives exhaled in relief.
As they left the office, they couldn’t help but whisper among themselves.
"Young Master Lin is our guardian angel."
"Honestly, he’s the only one who can handle President Su."
"We’d better stay on his good side."
As they stepped out, they nearly bumped into Lin Xuan, who had just exited the elevator.
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.
pression Bureau] Transported to a fantasy world overrun by demons and monsters, Gu Qingfeng becomes a jailer in the Demon Suppression Prison of the Great Yan Dynasty's Demon Suppression Bureau. From this point on, bizarre cases frequently occur in the Demon Suppression Prison, once known as hell on earth and infamous for its gloomy, terrifying atmosphere! Why do the demons and monsters in the prison wail miserably every night? Why has the corpse demon, capable of transforming into various beauties, donned black stockings and switched careers to become a foot massage therapist? Why has the eye demon, expert in soul-snatching and illusions, turned into a VR headset? Why is the fox spirit performing otaku dances? Are all these occurrences a twisted expression of demonic nature, or a descent into moral depravity? After peeling away layer upon layer of mystery, all clues ultimately point to a jailer named Gu Qingfeng. Gu Qingfeng: "Hehehe... My dear demons and monsters, whose card shall we flip today?"
e school belle recognized by the whole school, a genius girl from the kendo club. She also has a hidden identity, the youngest legendary demon hunter. Chen Shuo just transmigrated and found himself turned into a weak, helpless little vampire. He was caught by Su Xiyen and taken home at the very beginning. Since then, Chen Shuo's life creed only had two items. "First, classmate Su Xiyen is always right." "Second, if classmate Su Xiyen is wrong, please refer back to item one." Many years later, Chen Shuo, who had turned back into a human, led a pair of twins to appear in front of all the vampires to share the secret of how he turned back into a human. "It's simple, I tricked a female demon hunter into becoming my wife!"
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.”
