As Miss Shen's final finishing move appeared, the plush toy hanging from the claw dropped down, landing perfectly through the exit chute.
Shen Qinghan's pupils dilated in surprise.
Ye Cheng quickly crouched to pick up the freshly grabbed plushie and handed it to her.
"You're amazing, Miss Shen! You got it in one try!"
In reality… Shen Qinghan had been completely hands-off the entire time—Ye Cheng had done all the heavy lifting.
Just as he had initially claimed, it was only a "tiny bit" of help.
The rest was purely Shen Qinghan's own effort and hard work!
The plushie was an adorable rabbit—at least from the back. Ye Cheng didn’t inspect it closely, but these kinds of rabbit plushies were usually cute, right?
Curious, he took a closer look.
And then he froze.
It was indeed a rabbit, but… why was it smoking? The rabbit’s face bore the standard "Longtu" expression—its face plastered with the word "HAPPY" as it held a lit cigarette between two fingers.
Ye Cheng: "…"
The plushies in this claw machine were getting more and more abstract.
He recalled the "vomiting banana cat" he had grabbed earlier for another kid—equally bizarre.
Shen Qinghan hugged the plushie, staring at it motionlessly.
A faint glimmer flickered in her usually calm eyes.
Ye Cheng: "…"
Damn, she actually likes this kind of weird stuff?
His lips twitched. These days, it seemed like young ladies from wealthy families all had some hidden quirks.
Instinctively, an image of Dongfang Zhixia’s haughty demeanor flashed through his mind.
Would the student council president also have a hidden side?
Probably not… right?
But what if?
Before actually interacting with Shen Qinghan, he never would’ve guessed she’d be into plush toys. If even she could be this unpredictable, what about the council president?
Like, what if late at night, the president…
Ahem. Of course, Ye Cheng wasn’t thinking anything weird.
At least, he didn’t think so. It was just that most guys had probably fantasized about something like this at some point in their youth.
You know—the untouchable, ice-cold student council president falling head over heels for him, ignoring everyone else while being hopelessly smitten, giving him a hundred disdainful glances a day before eventually…
Anyway, he was completely normal!
Shaking off the stray thoughts, Ye Cheng suddenly remembered something and hurriedly pulled out his phone to check the time.
10:29 PM.
One minute left before the dormitory gates closed.
Ye Cheng: "…"
Well, no going back tonight.
"Ruined," he groaned, slumping lifelessly against the claw machine seat.
Shen Qinghan noticed his sudden shift and snapped out of her plushie-induced euphoria.
"What’s ruined?" she asked, a hint of confusion in her eyes.
She was in a good mood, so she’d humor him with a few questions.
"Ruined… everything’s ruined…"
Ye Cheng sprawled across the chair like a corpse, unresponsive no matter how much Shen Qinghan prodded him.
After a moment of thought, she spoke.
"You haven’t eaten dinner yet. I’ll treat you."
"Ruined… ru—wait, what?" Ye Cheng’s eyes lit up as if resurrected.
He sprang up from the chair, suddenly full of energy, and beamed at Shen Qinghan.
"Let’s go, Miss Shen! Food first!"
Not a trace of his earlier despair remained.
Shen Qinghan narrowed her eyes—had he been acting this whole time?
"You just said everything was ruined. What exactly is ruined?"
"My life. Completely destroyed," Ye Cheng lamented dramatically.
Before she could respond, he continued, rambling to himself.
"Didn’t you read the freshman handbook? The dorms lock at 10:30 PM, and the student council does room checks. If you’re not there, they report it, and your record gets branded with a big red 'STAYED OUT ALL NIGHT' stamp…"
After listening for a while, Shen Qinghan finally pieced it together.
"Are you… planning to take the civil service exam?" she asked, her expression odd.
"Yeah, can’t you tell? I want to be a state-sanctioned parasite—clock in on time, abuse my power to hassle citizens coming for paperwork, clock out the second my shift ends, and take home all the office supplies I can carry…" Ye Cheng nodded, elaborating on his "noble" aspirations.
"You just want free food, don’t you?"
Shen Qinghan saw right through him.
Ye Cheng stiffened.
"Cough—what nonsense! Can’t I just want to serve the people?" he sputtered indignantly.
Shen Qinghan stared at him blankly.
"…Are you done with the jokes? If so, carry me out. Do you still want dinner or not?"
Ye Cheng immediately dropped the act and crouched in front of her.
"Hop on, Miss Shen! Don’t hold back just because I’m delicate!"
Shen Qinghan: "…"
She paused mid-motion.
For some reason, his phrasing made her skin crawl.
But she quickly composed herself and climbed onto his back, returning to their usual arrangement.
This time, however, the heartless young lady in his grip was clutching a plushie, and a faint spark of life had returned to her previously dull eyes.
The two headed out.
Once outside the arcade, they began searching for a place to eat.
"What do you want?" Shen Qinghan asked, her chin resting on Ye Cheng’s shoulder, her tone as cool as ever.
"Chicken drumsticks, burgers, spicy pig ears…"
Ye Cheng rattled off a laundry list of dishes.
Shen Qinghan: "…"
"You can pick something expensive," she said, assuming he was just being polite.
"That is expensive!" Ye Cheng gasped in disbelief.
Shen Qinghan: "…"
Never mind.
They ended up at a fast-food joint, ordering a tableful of food. Ye Cheng went to the counter to collect their meals while Shen Qinghan watched, still hugging her smoking rabbit plushie.
He lingered at the counter for a while, muttering something under his breath.
Shen Qinghan knew a bit of lip-reading and could roughly make out his words.
But when she pieced them together, she fell silent.
"Can I get a bigger drumstick? Like, more meat for the same price? And if the ketchup’s free, can I get extra? Oh, and two more pairs of gloves—my girlfriend’s a germaphobe and likes doubling up when she eats…"
After haggling with the cashier for a while, Ye Cheng returned triumphantly with their food.
As he sat down, he noticed Shen Qinghan staring at him.
"Miss Shen, why are you looking at me like that?" he asked, puzzled.
Shen Qinghan: "…"
m back to his original world. In the end, he realized he had overthought things. [Hey, why is Shen Manni, the female lead, acting strange? Shouldn't she be fawning over the male lead at this point?] [Zhou Qiaoqiao, are you sick? Weren't you supposed to break off your engagement today?] [Damn it! An Youyi, please do your job as an undercover agent and sell my information to the protagonist, you idiot!] ... At this moment, Xu Mo himself didn't know that these female leads had already heard his inner thoughts. Then they decided not to play by the rules. Xu Mo: Please respect my profession as the big villain!
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?!
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.”
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."
