At noon, since the weather wasn’t too hot, Xia Yanchun decided to nap in the classroom, resting her head on a pillow and sleeping soundly.
Shen Nian took the opportunity to slip off-campus to check out electric scooters. Over the past few days, he had visited three shops before finally settling on a small scooter priced at six thousand yuan. But he wasn’t buying it—just looking. He’d come back when the time was right. Every visit, the shop owner would treat him to snacks and cheap tea. He hadn’t had enough of that yet, so he’d definitely return.
Shen Nian made it back just in time at 2:10 PM, right as the afternoon break bell rang. Xia Yanchun stirred awake, stretching lazily. Her uniform rode up slightly with the movement, revealing a glimpse of fair skin at her waist, which Shen Nian observed with a serious expression.
"I got you a lightly iced one," Shen Nian said, placing the fruit tea on top of her stack of books. He remembered her mentioning once that fruit tea tasted bland without ice, but considering she was still on her period, he opted for a compromise—lightly iced. If it was too cold, she could let it sit for a while.
What a considerate male lead.
The thought of Xia Yanchun pretending to be indifferent while secretly feeling touched made Shen Nian want to smirk.
"Thank you," Xia Yanchun said, genuinely moved. Her throat was dry from waking up, and a sip of the lightly iced fruit tea was pure bliss.
"No problem. After all, we’re not sworn enemies anymore."
Xia Yanchun cringed a little. Who actually went around saying things like "sworn enemies" and "childhood friends" out loud? It was embarrassing. "Sworn enemies" sounded especially intense—left unsaid, it just meant they were rivals, but saying it out loud made it weirdly ambiguous, as if it were some kind of special bond.
The afternoon sports meet proceeded as usual.
The autumn breeze was particularly noticeable today, as if true autumn had finally arrived, carrying a gentle, soothing quality. Shen Nian instinctively scanned the area. Chen Qiuyu was sitting under a tree, scrolling on his phone. Good, no trouble there.
"It’s so nice today. Feels like autumn is really here—golden light everywhere, crisp air, red lotuses on green water. We won’t have to suffer the heat anymore."
The soft voice was unmistakably Li Shiyan’s. She had appeared out of nowhere and was already clinging to Xia Yanchun’s arm, reciting a line from Yan Shu’s Lian Li Zhi: Autumn Light Fills the Eyes.
Much more cultured than Chen Qiuyu’s self-indulgent angst poetry.
Nearby, Chen Qiuyu sneezed quietly and hunched his shoulders. Was he already catching a cold just as the weather turned cooler? His body was just too frail.
Then again, it was only natural for an incomplete body missing a piece and having its soul partially extracted to be weak.
What, was he discriminating against appendixes now?
……
During evening self-study, Su Kexi came into the classroom to announce the monthly exam results. Normally, she’d just post them at the back of the room, but perhaps in a good mood, she projected the scores onto the screen instead.
The class erupted into chatter.
"Alright, settle down. Look at your own scores and pick someone who scored higher as a goal. Learn from them. It’s senior year—time to wake up if you’ve been sleeping through class."
By the third year of high school, a student’s academic trajectory was pretty much set. After the first mock exam, their scores wouldn’t fluctuate much, no matter how hard they tried. Teachers knew this—dark horses were rare, and if students didn’t wake up now, even potential dark horses would end up as… well, workhorses.
Shen Nian was one such dark horse. He’d woken up early, put in the effort, and his progress was undeniable. Su Kexi often wanted to praise him, but the moment she remembered him openly studying other subjects during her class, she swallowed her words.
Shen Nian had improved a lot, but she couldn’t bring herself to tell the other students to emulate him. Who knew what kind of bad habits they might pick up?
Still, while she refrained from praising him in her own class, she had no qualms about doing so in others. Such a shining example was too good not to share.
Shen Nian propped his chin on his hand, scanning the rankings from top to bottom.
1st place: Xia Yanchun, 714 points (Did she just unlock cheat codes? No more pretending?)
3rd place: Li Shiyan, 666 points (Mystical lucky number—is she the goddess of luck or what?)
6th place: Chen Dong, 642 points (My boy Chen Dong has the makings of an emperor.)
10th place: Shen Nian, 626 points (A little boost doesn’t count as cheating, right?)
13th place: Chen Qiuyu, 599 points (Should’ve studied math harder.)
21st place: Ma Mingfan, 558 points (Still got time to slack off, bro?)
……
……
51st place: Huang Chen, 310 points (Made progress—terrifying.)
Shen Nian: Trying not to laugh.
They’d all entered with the same admission score—how did some end up with 600-700 points while others barely scraped 300?
If the education bureau hadn’t banned elite classes and Olympiad training groups, Huang Chen wouldn’t even have the chance to badmouth him.
But then again, without that rule, he wouldn’t have gotten to stick close to Xia Yanchun at school either. Hmm… maybe those special classes were better off canceled.
He searched for Lan Fukai’s name next.
Chinese: 128, Math: 76, English: 135, Science: 210. Total: 549.
Wait, bro, where are you? I can’t see you in the top 20—are you too short or something?
What’s this? Did I just pass you? Must’ve been a blind spot. Guess I’ll just roll right over you—take that, loser!
♪We’re all studying hard…♫
Up front, Lan Fukai was also checking his results.
No one could guarantee they wouldn’t slip. His drop in performance this time was within normal range. Xia Yanchun and Li Shiyan were still as impressive as ever.
Hold on—was there something odd in the top 10?
Lan Fukai rubbed his eyes, unsure. He looked again.
When he finally processed Shen Nian’s rank and score, his vision darkened.
Wait, how did Shen Nian jump to 10th place? 626 points?
English score… 106?
What the hell? Weren’t his scores always below mine before? This time, he pulled ahead by nearly 80 points?
Is this not cheating?
Shen Nian didn’t really care about Lan Fukai—just a clown.
Hanging out with Xia Yanchun didn’t affect him at all. People who randomly told others who they could or couldn’t be friends with were the worst. So annoying.
A system notification popped up—long time no see.
[Main Quest: When the Pupils No Longer Tremble (Completed)
Reward: 1000 gold, Title: Trial of Faint Light (Slight EXP gain increase)]
[New Main Quest Unlocked: Ascend to Intermediate Adventurer!
Slay 10 intermediate monsters (0/10)
Reward: 5000 gold, Title: Intermediate Adventurer (+2 Charm, +2 Stamina)]
The title equipped automatically. Shen Nian was surprised to find that two titles could be active at once.
Wait, that’s OP.
System, are you actually amazing?
I acknowledge you.
From the description, Trial of Faint Light was just a grinding title in the other world—something to speed up leveling.
In real life... it would probably just increase proficiency or something like that. Proficiency is, in a way, a form of experience.
Damn.
【High Spirits】 boosts endurance, 【Faint Light Training】 enhances proficiency—effort is covered, talent is covered. Is the system trying to manually craft a prodigy or what?
.
Yanxi reminds you: Due to Tomato's request for 3 million+ daily visits putting excessive pressure on the servers, we now recommend switching to other big shots' sources.
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?"
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.”
rowess are unmatched, commanding a million-strong army! Yet, the Emperor wants to depose him for the sake of a false prince? Hold on, are you throwing me into some female-oriented romance plot? How can I tolerate this? With a grand wave of his hand—the Nine Clan Extraction Technique! Slander the Emperor? Very well, all of you shall die! ... The False Prince: "Although I am not the biological son, Father and Mother love me more. The throne should be mine!" The Female Lead: "Qin Xiao, you are the Emperor, and I am a commoner. If you wish to marry me, you must abdicate. Otherwise, you will never have me!" The Empress: "After we divorce, you must give me half the empire!" The Transmigrator Consort: "You worthless Emperor, why should I kneel to you? All men are equal—I advise you to be kind!" The Great General: "The enemy general is my childhood sweetheart. For her sake, I willingly abandon the frontier defenses!" The Retired Emperor: "Although Yu'er was adopted, I prefer him. Qin Xiao, you should abdicate and let him become Emperor!" ... Very well! So this is how you want to play? Facing this twisted world of female-oriented tropes, Qin Xiao grins and raises his hand to unleash—the Nine Clan Extraction Technique! I am the Emperor. Why would I bother reasoning with you? Seal the gates! Leave none alive!
ive and Ruthless] Before his transmigration, Ye Xuan was playing a game called "Severing Emotions to Attain the Dao." The game's core wasn't about leveling up by fighting monsters, but about conquering various "bad women" with wicked personalities and cold, fickle natures. There was only one method to conquer them: stay unwaveringly by their side, then die at a critical moment, driving them to madness after losing the protagonist. The higher their level of regret, the higher the player's score. To dominate the server, Ye Xuan conquered all the bad women. In the early stages, he showered them with boundless tenderness, only to choose to sacrifice himself for them later, making them weep bitterly and drown in regret. Among them were: Xia Lengyue, the unfaithful immortal wife who chased after powerful men and discarded her husband like trash. Ye Qingcheng, the Demonic Venerable of the Joyous Union Sect, who appeared pure and innocent but was, in reality, promiscuous. Wu Lingxiao, the Empress of the Great Xia Dynasty, who lusted after men and loved maintaining a harem. Bai Qiangu of the Endless Demonic Sect: a bloodthirsty mass murderer. However, when the protagonist transmigrated into the game world, he made a horrifying discovery. Eight hundred years had already passed. The bad women he had conquered had now each become deities and revered ancestors. Faced with the endless stream of toxic women coming for him, Ye Xuan could only rely on his god-tier acting skills to carve a path of survival through this world of treacherous women.
