The next day.
Early in the morning, Ye Cheng was jolted awake by his alarm clock blaring the "Great Compassion Mantra."
He glanced at the time, turned off his phone, and went right back to sleep.
Another half hour passed before Ye Cheng finally dragged himself out of bed at a leisurely pace.
Then came the unhurried routine of washing his face and brushing his teeth.
In reality, Ye Cheng was already late.
So, the question arose—why was he still so relaxed and unbothered?
Because he had secretly tampered with the alarm clock on the "Black-hearted Young Miss's" phone, setting it to the same time as his, all for the sake of catching a few extra minutes of sleep.
Ye Cheng had come to a realization: privilege was absolutely fantastic.
Turns out, what he’d always resented wasn’t privileged people—it was that he wasn’t the privileged one himself.
After two days of indulging in late mornings, Ye Cheng had completely lost the ability to wake up on time for class, let alone suffer through the absurdity of an 8 a.m. lecture. Whoever wanted to go could go—he wasn’t about to.
In under two minutes, Ye Cheng packed his school bag, left the boys' dormitory, and strolled leisurely to the deserted girls' dormitory to wait.
Sure enough.
Less than five minutes later, crisp click-clack footsteps echoed from the stairwell, and Shen Qinghan’s limping figure appeared on the first floor.
"Good morning, Young Miss! GOOdmOrning!" Ye Cheng grinned broadly, waving at Shen Qinghan from outside the dormitory entrance.
At that moment, Shen Qinghan’s face stiffened as if she’d just pieced something together—a sudden epiphany.
No wonder her alarm hadn’t gone off earlier. It had gone off… just at the wrong time, thanks to some shameless scoundrel’s meddling.
Silently, Shen Qinghan halted her descent and turned back around.
Ye Cheng: "……"
In a flash, Ye Cheng lunged into the girls' dormitory, clinging to Shen Qinghan’s leg like a desperate koala, wailing theatrically.
"Nooo, Young Miss! Don’t abandon me! Waaah, I’ll die if you leave me behind… sob sob…"
Shen Qinghan: "……"
Her cheeks tinged pink, chest rising and falling with restrained irritation.
"Why did you change my alarm?"
Ye Cheng’s eyes darted away, whistling innocently—his guilt practically written across his face.
"Change your alarm? What are you talking about? Oh, maybe I grabbed the wrong phone by mistake? Thought it was mine and just… adjusted it…"
As his flimsy excuse hung in the air, Shen Qinghan’s delicate hands slowly clenched into fists.
THUD!
A few minutes later, Ye Cheng sported a fresh lump on his head but cheerfully escorted Shen Qinghan to class, arm in arm.
The familiar scene played out once more in the classroom—same as always, same old routine.
Zhong Deng’s eye twitched at the sight of Ye Cheng’s smug, swaggering demeanor, as if he were some privileged lackey.
Right under the teacher’s nose, Ye Cheng helped Shen Qinghan to their usual seats in the back row.
At Great Sea City Noble Academy, tardiness was a serious offense—but for Ye Cheng and Shen Qinghan, it had become so routine that their classmates barely batted an eye anymore.
Truly, habit was a terrifying thing.
Rumors in the class had been spreading like wildfire. The kinder ones painted Ye Cheng as Shen Qinghan’s loyal sidekick; the wilder ones labeled him her "kept man."
The gap in their social status was undeniable.
Ye Cheng was one of the rare few commoner students in the school.
Just standing side by side, the two were a walking gossip magnet—especially since Ye Cheng was the same guy who’d boldly confessed to Dongfang Zhixia. Wherever he went, eyes followed.
Class time was mind-numbingly dull. Ye Cheng had already absorbed a semester’s worth of material in a single lesson—memorized it all, in fact.
Now, his only task during lectures was deciding what to eat later: chicken drumsticks? Pork knuckle? Or maybe mooching off the Black-hearted Young Miss for a fancier meal?
Hmm. All options sounded pretty good.
As he performed a "C-section" on his eraser (for no discernible reason), Ye Cheng pondered the day’s menu.
By the time the "surgery" was complete, class was nearly over.
Ding-dong! The bell rang. Ye Cheng stretched and stood up, ready to step out for some air.
He twisted left, then right—crack-crack—his joints popping satisfyingly.
"Huh?" Something felt off about Shen Qinghan today.
Normally, she’d stare out the window during class or flip through philosophy books between lessons. But today? Just… blankly spacing out.
Her expression was as unreadable as ever, yet Ye Cheng could feel it—the Black-hearted Young Miss was in a foul mood.
Then it hit him. Oh right. I stood her up yesterday.
Was that why she was upset?
Nah, couldn’t be. The Young Miss was pretty easygoing—
Ye Cheng’s brain abruptly flashed back to Shen Qinghan’s… enthusiastic handling of the claw machine. Specifically, the BANG-BANG-BANG of her fists hammering into it.
Ye Cheng: "……"
If he didn’t act now, disaster loomed.
Grabbing his stool, Ye Cheng scooted closer to Shen Qinghan’s desk—inch by inch, then finally ditching subtlety altogether.
With a thump, he merged their stools into one.
"Young Miss, I feel I owe you an explanation for yesterday’s… no-show."
His expression was dead serious, eyebrows so furrowed they looked cartoonishly thick—an oddly comical sight.
Shen Qinghan didn’t even glance his way, keeping her gaze fixed outside.
Definitely mad. Absolutely mad.
Drawing from his vast anime-watching expertise, Ye Cheng deduced the Black-hearted Young Miss was 100% holding a grudge over the stood-up hangout.
And honestly? Fair.
Finally finds someone to vibe with, only for that someone to bail on the first outing.
Anyone would be pissed.
He recalled the video Shen Qinghan had sent last night—no fancy edits, just a single, brutal punch to a plush toy, screaming "I’m upset."
This Black-hearted Young Miss… might have some social quirks.
Was she bad at communicating? Or just naturally aloof?
Though no psychologist, Ye Cheng had picked up a few things from their two days together.
Her clash with Dongfang Zhixia yesterday confirmed it: Shen Qinghan’s status at school was on par with Dongfang’s.
Yet unlike Dongfang, who had lackeys trailing her everywhere, Shen Qinghan had… no one. Not even a secretary. Just solitude.
She even lived in the standard dorms like everyone else—no special treatment.
A textbook problem child.
Well, wasn’t that perfect?
Because he, Ye Cheng, was a self-proclaimed Problem Child Whisperer! This? This was a cakewalk.
Taking a deep breath, Ye Cheng began, "Young Miss, I—"
"Get lost." Her voice was ice—colder than usual, sharp enough to freeze hell over.
"Right away, boss."
And with that, Ye Cheng scrambled away.
Ye Cheng was about to pick up his little stool and obediently scram when he suddenly noticed a readable prompt appear above Shen Qinghan's head.
[Would you like to view the current status prompt?]
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!
lities. One day, Qi Yuan was buying groceries when he unfortunately came face-to-face with a monster. Just when he thought he was going to die on the spot, he suddenly heard the monster's thoughts... "This aura, he's definitely not an ordinary master!" "So terrifying, so terrifying." "A fight with my back against the wall, I can't take it anymore." Qi Yuan: Ah, no one told me that my awakened ability isn't telepathy, but rather the stronger my enemies imagine me to be, the stronger I truly become. PS: Zhou Hai in the first chapter is not the protagonist.
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?!
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...
