After leaving the hospital, the girl returned to the orphanage, seemingly resuming her usual life. The difference this time was that she wasn’t alone anymore—someone was by her side.
"Listen up, dummy, the old folks here in this place? All dressed up like decent people, but their hearts are blacker than anyone’s."
"Not long ago, a kid with good looks showed up, and within a couple of days, they were sold off. Tsk tsk tsk..."
The girl froze for a moment upon hearing this and instinctively retorted, "Sold off? Are you sure you don’t mean adopted?"
"Oh, slip of the tongue. Honestly, there’s not much difference. I figure the only reason they’re being careful now is because inspections are tight. Otherwise, us ‘defective goods’ would’ve been priced and parceled out long ago—10,000 here, 20,000 there, piece by piece..."
The girl fell silent.
The little boy started rambling about things she couldn’t quite grasp at first, but eventually, she understood. It was about... well, something too dark to dwell on.
In a place like Great Sea City, too many eyes were watching, leaving little room for shady dealings. At most, they could only scam some government subsidies.
And when it came to scamming subsidies, the louder you wailed about how tragic your kids were, the more you got. After all, if no one played the game, who’d foot the bill for the director’s BMW?
In short, the orphanage wasn’t as rosy as it appeared on the surface. Few people bothered with things that didn’t turn a profit.
Through the boy’s "hints," the girl finally realized what he was getting at.
He was warning her. Even though she was sick, to the orphanage—to the black-hearted, BMW-loving director—she wasn’t a burden. She was a goldmine.
Because of her condition, the orphanage could milk her story for sympathy, using it as positive publicity to rake in attention.
Smack!
The boy slapped a newspaper he’d swiped from somewhere onto the table in front of her. In an inconspicuous corner, a headline read:
"Touching Story: Great Sea City Orphanage Refuses to Give Up on Any Child—Girl with Congenital Heart Disease Rescued Multiple Times..."
The girl stared blankly at the article, only to hear the boy remark dryly,
"Eat well, drink well. From now on, the director’s BMW upgrades are on you. So yeah..." The boy rambled on with a straight face while the girl kept staring at the newspaper in her hands.
So... this was the truth? She wasn’t a burden?
She didn’t know how the boy had dug up all this, but she was certain he’d gone to great lengths, spending who knows how much time, just to ease her guilt.
He must’ve sensed the gloom hanging over her.
All these days, listening to him spout dark, cryptic nonsense, she’d thought he was just trying to mess with her head. But in the end... he was messing with her head—just in a way she’d never forget.
Suddenly, her eyes stung. Not with the helpless, lonely tears she was used to, but with something unfamiliar—a warmth spreading through her chest.
"Thank you..." she mumbled softly. After all these years, it was the first time she genuinely meant it.
"Hey, we’re bros. If you really wanna thank me, just make me the primary beneficiary on your life insurance, dummy!" The boy grinned, completely unfazed.
The girl: "..."
"Why do you keep calling me dummy? I’m way smarter than most people here!" she huffed, indignant. She wouldn’t claim to be smarter than him, but compared to the rest of the orphanage? No contest.
The boy blinked, then grabbed the name tag on her wrist, squinting at the characters.
"Lin... Bai... dummy? Hah, so ‘little dummy’ isn’t even a stretch!" He rubbed his smooth chin, pretending to ponder.
The girl: "???"
"Who taught you to read like that?" she gasped.
"Nobody. I taught myself. Since I’m not in first grade yet, I had to use a dictionary. Isn’t this character ‘dummy’?" He blinked back, dead serious.
The girl: "..."
It took forever, but she finally managed to correct him—sort of. Good news: he stopped calling her "dummy." Bad news: he still called her "little dummy."
She wasn’t a dummy! Ugh, so annoying...
Big bro’s such an idiot...
......
"Listen up! This Ye Cheng may be broke, but he’s no pushover! No money here—just my life!!!"
Ye Cheng struck an exaggerated exorcist pose, leaving the girl in front of him utterly speechless. Sure, popping up behind him with a lighter was a bit startling, but did he really have to mistake her for a ghost?
So mean...
Lin Baizhi’s cheeks puffed up visibly as she glared at Ye Cheng.
"It’s me! Don’t you remember?"
"Nice try. Latest scam—‘It’s me, it’s me’ fraud?" Ye Cheng sneered, refusing to fall for it.
Lin Baizhi: "..."
Good news: big bro’s terrifying singleness skills hadn’t changed over the years, so no scheming women could weasel their way in. Bad news: she seemed to be locked out too... So annoying!
Finally, she rolled up her sleeve to show him the scar on her wrist—the one she’d gotten when he’d knocked her over on the playground. It was the only proof of her identity.
"Now do you believe me?" Lin Baizhi’s voice was icy, her eyes practically radiating enough resentment to rival an actual ghost.
Ye Cheng squinted, studying the fuming girl and her half-healed scar.
"Ohhh... right! The scammer!"
Lin Baizhi: "..."
"I wasn’t scamming you!" she snapped.
"Then I don’t know you. I only know the scammer." Ye Cheng turned to leave, leaving Lin Baizhi gaping in disbelief. Even after all this time, big bro’s antics were impossible to predict.
Panicking, she quickly backtracked, afraid he’d bolt: "Fine, fine! It’s me! I’m the scammer!"
"So it's you, kid. No wonder you looked so familiar. Alright, let's cut to the chase—how about you pay me 80 or 100 grand, and we’ll call it even? I won’t even hold it against you for trying to scam me. So, what’ll it be? QR code or bank transfer?"
Ye Cheng smoothly pulled out his phone and flashed the payment QR code, shoving it right in front of the girl.
The girl: "…"
] [Lone Wolf, No Male Gaze] [Protagonist is pursued early on; extreme protagonist-stans, stay away!] The "Carnival Paradise" descends and slowly devours the real world in the form of a game. By chance, Zhu Yan awakens the talent [Roleplay], becoming one of the first beta players. He thought he could develop safely, but after clearing the first instance, he is branded by humanity as the chief culprit behind the game's spread—a traitorous villain. A villain? Who would ever... become one! He'll be the villain! From then on, Zhu Yan is not only a player but also a lackey for the Carnival Paradise. Between the straight path and the crooked path, he chooses the con. With his left hand, he dons the villain's mantle, staging scenes within instances, infuriating players who decry him as a despicable traitor, all while the game happily promotes him. With his right hand, he joins the non-human organization "Fangcun Mountain," which opposes the Carnival Paradise, transforming into a mysterious player who slaughters game bosses, earning cheers of "Long live the expert!" from fellow players. Gradually, Zhu Yan rises to become an S-rank human player in Fangcun Mountain's archives, while also being the Carnival Paradise's certified top game Boss. But when the final war erupts and both major factions place their hopes in him— Players tag his various aliases: "Experts, this offensive depends on you." The Carnival Paradise's supreme Boss throws an arm around his neck: "Bro, you're the iron, I'm the steel; you can't let me down again!"
young master of the Shen family—a figure of immense power and wealth beyond measure—and awakened the "Destined Ultimate Villain System"! His starting scenario? Running into his icy fiancée who shows up with a mountain-descending divine doctor to break off their engagement. The divine doctor arrogantly taunts: "What does your Shen family have besides a bit of stinking money? You're not even worthy of tying Qingxue's shoelaces!" Shen Fei just smiled. He completely defied the usual script: "Fine, I agree to break off the engagement. Also, notify the finance department to withdraw all investments from the Su family." Minutes later, with its capital chain severed, the Su Group teetered on the brink of bankruptcy! The once aloof and proud ice queen CEO was thrown into utter panic. That very night, she went to Shen Fei's villa, casting aside all dignity to beg and plead desperately... From then on, in this world teeming with Sons of Destiny, Shen Fei embarked on a path of extreme dimensional suppression! A mountain-descending divine doctor? Peerless medical skills? Shen Fei: "Reporting you for practicing medicine without a license! I'll gladly take your ancient medicinal cauldron and twin sister assassins." The Crooked-Smiling Dragon King? Commanding a hundred thousand soldiers with a single order? Shen Fei: "Illegal assembly and suspected treason! Let a fleet of attack helicopters sanitize the area and teach you what the state apparatus really means!" A reborn tycoon? Knows all the golden opportunities of the next decade? Shen Fei: "A trillion in capital to reverse and pump the stock market, making you blow your margin and jump on the very first day of your rebirth!" What Chosen Ones? What bearers of Heavenly Fortune? In Shen Fei's eyes, they're all just chives (i.e., suckers/marks) waiting to be harvested! Shen Fei: "Sorry, but as the Destined Ultimate Villain, I don't play by the rules of honor. I only play the game of dimensional suppression."
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.”
nto another world, I bought a slave for the first time, never expecting the silver wolf girl to be so cute... Lin Feng: I know it's cold, but you don't have to sneak into my bed! Yuna: Just sharing body warmth, if you dare do anything naughty, I'll definitely...
