Great Sea City.
A certain arcade.
This was the largest arcade near the elite academy of Great Sea City. There were even bigger ones, but getting there would require a taxi ride, and there was no guarantee they’d make it back before the school gates closed.
Ye Cheng stood at the entrance of the arcade, one hand supporting the girl on his back to keep her from slipping off, the other holding her crutch.
"Miss, are you serious? Sneaking out at night just to play games?"
Ye Cheng carefully lowered the scheming girl from his back, his tone laced with resignation. A glance at her expression told him his words had gone in one ear and out the other.
Shen Qinghan’s eyes were fixed on the arcade, brimming with anticipation.
"Hurry up, or we won’t get a spot," she said, snatching her crutch from Ye Cheng’s hand and dragging him inside.
Tap tap tap…
A few minutes later.
Ye Cheng stood frozen in front of a claw machine, utterly speechless.
Yep.
Instead of sleeping, the young miss had dragged him to an arcade in the dead of night—not to play games, but to grab stuffed toys.
And just as Shen Qinghan had warned, the machines were in high demand. There were no free spots left.
The two of them were now waiting in line behind a kid who was slamming the claw machine buttons like his life depended on it.
Bang bang bang!
Ye Cheng: "..."
Kid, brute force won’t make miracles happen.
Suddenly, Ye Cheng spotted an empty machine nearby. He lunged forward, cutting off the others behind him and securing control of the machine.
"Miss, over here!"
Shen Qinghan was still laser-focused on the plushies inside the claw machine, her eyes narrowed in concentration. It took her a second to realize Ye Cheng had disappeared.
She turned to see him waving at her from another machine that had just freed up.
A flicker of excitement flashed in her usually calm eyes, her pupils dilating slightly.
Tap tap tap!
She dashed over to Ye Cheng.
"Good job. I’ll treat you to a meal later!"
Ye Cheng: "..."
After all the begging and bargaining he’d done before, the stingy girl had refused to budge. And now she was offering so easily?
Shen Qinghan took over the machine, engrossed in her claw-grabbing mission, while Ye Cheng was left standing awkwardly to the side.
Bang bang bang!!!
"Waaah! Why?! I was so close! Waaah!"
A child’s wails of despair erupted from the next machine over. Either he’d run out of coins or his spirit had shattered from too many failures.
Ye Cheng shook his head and walked over.
"Hey kid, do you believe in the light?"
He raised an eyebrow at the snot-covered, tear-streaked boy.
A minute later, the kid was bawling even harder.
"Waaah! There’s no light in this world! Waaah!!!"
Well… technically, losing all your coins is a kind of "light."
Even Ye Cheng, thick-skinned as he was, felt a little embarrassed.
He’d tried to be cool, but ended up flopping spectacularly.
It had been too long since he’d last played a claw machine, and his skills were rusty. Plus, this machine was downright rigged!
It had clearly grabbed the plushie, only to give a suspicious little shake right before the drop zone and let it slip away.
Damn it!
Not even pretending to be fair anymore, huh?
Screw you, greedy arcade owner!
Truly, the less conscience you have, the more money you make.
After mentally cursing the owner’s entire bloodline, Ye Cheng pulled out a coin—one he’d quietly swiped from Shen Qinghan’s stash—and inserted it.
Clink!
"Game start! Please control me to grab your favorite plushie!"
A cheerful electronic voice announced the beginning of the round.
With his earlier experience, Ye Cheng handled the controls with much more precision.
The once-wobbly, Parkinson’s-afflicted claw now moved with lethal efficiency under his command.
Fast. Accurate. Relentless.
One plushie was successfully delivered to the prize chute.
Release!
Success!
"Here, kid. Your big banana." Ye Cheng handed the boy a massive "Puking Banana Cat" plush.
Ye Cheng was a man of honor.
Since the kid had trusted him with his last coin and still believed in the light, there was no way Ye Cheng could let him down.
"Thank you, big bro! Big bro, let me dance the Big Banana for you—"
Ye Cheng: "???"
In the end, unable to refuse the enthusiastic offer, Ye Cheng endured a full performance of the "Big Banana Dance" before the boy finally left, satisfied.
"That kid’s got a good heart. Just a bit too hot-tempered. Needs to learn from the young miss—quiet as a corpse."
Ye Cheng watched him go, shaking his head in amusement.
Bang bang bang!!!
The familiar sound of machine abuse rang out again.
Again?
Ye Cheng assumed it was the same rage-quitting kid, but when he turned—nope. It was the scheming young miss herself.
Shen Qinghan’s face remained as expressionless as ever, but her clenched fists betrayed her.
She was far from the picture of serenity she pretended to be.
Ye Cheng also noticed her cheeks were slightly flushed.
Adorably so.
She was clearly overheating.
Sensing his gaze, Shen Qinghan whipped her head around, locking eyes with him.
"You saw that, didn’t you?"
Her voice was icy enough to freeze hell over.
Ye Cheng shook his head violently. "No! I didn’t! I saw nothing!"
A classic triple denial.
BANG!
Shen Qinghan slammed her fist into the machine again.
"See it now?"
Ye Cheng: "???"
The hell? Entrapment much?
A short while later…
Ye Cheng was forced to sign the second edition of the "Male Fear Treaty."
The gist? If he dared breathe a word of what he’d seen to anyone, he was a dead man.
"Go exchange 500 yuan for more tokens. I’ll transfer the money to you later."
Shen Qinghan glanced at the nearly empty bucket of tokens beside her.
Ye Cheng’s eyes widened.
If he remembered correctly, that bucket had been half-full earlier. Now there were only a few left?
She’d blown through them all?
What kind of black magic were these claw machines using to make people this obsessed?
After observing for a while, Ye Cheng realized the plushies inside were limited-edition—unavailable for purchase, only obtainable through the machines.
And each one was uniquely bizarre, like the "Puking Banana Cat" the kid had gotten earlier.
Each machine held only one of its kind—once claimed, it was gone for good.
Another one of the greedy owner’s scarcity tactics.
Limited-edition plushies? Seriously?
Picking up one of the remaining tokens, Ye Cheng inserted it into the machine.
"Let me handle this, Miss. Which one do you want?" He raised an eyebrow at Shen Qinghan.
She scoffed, her voice frosty. "It’s not as easy as you think."
Ye Cheng said nothing more, focusing on maneuvering the claw.
Ye Cheng gave the joystick a few simple shakes, adjusting the claw's grip strength before carefully maneuvering it.
Snap!
The claw landed perfectly on a small, pink-haired figurine holding an orange. The moment it was caught, Shen Qinghan's heart leaped into her throat, and she held her breath.
The plushie was transported toward the chute—only to bounce back when the exit proved too narrow.
Ye Cheng raised an eyebrow.
"Seriously?"
He thought rigging the claw was shameless enough, but this was next-level—they'd even shrunk the exit.
Blacker than a capitalist's heart.
Seeing the plushie rebound, Shen Qinghan exhaled in relief.
"Hah, I told you it wasn't that easy," she sneered.
Ye Cheng said nothing, just slid another token into the machine.
Control, drop, grab—success!
In one smooth motion, he snagged the same pink-haired figurine that had eluded him earlier.
Crouching down, Ye Cheng picked up the plushie, giving it a satisfied squeeze. The texture was perfect.
"So, Miss Shen, what were you saying earlier?" He blinked innocently.
Shen Qinghan: "…"
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.
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...
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?!
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!
