The three girls stood dumbfounded, staring at Long Aotian's tall, imposing figure.
His words still echoed in their ears: ["As long as they still call me 'brother,' it's my duty to protect them."]
["If you dare try this again, I swear I'll do everything in my power to put you behind bars..."]
Though his voice wasn't particularly loud, it carried an inexplicable sense of reassurance.
As long as he was there, it felt like no one could ever harm them.
As long as he was there, even if the sky were to collapse, he would shield them from the fall.
It wasn’t an oath, yet it weighed as heavily as one, striking their hearts and sending ripples through their emotions...
If asked who in this world—aside from their parents—could give them the greatest sense of security, the three girls would answer without hesitation: Long Aotian.
Closing the gate again, he turned to Hu Yuying beside him and gently placed a hand on her long hair. "Next time something like this happens, don’t confront them yourself. Tell me, and I’ll handle it."
Hu Yuying looked up at Long Aotian, her eyes shimmering with his reflection, then nodded firmly. "Mm, I’ll listen to you, Brother Long."
She knew he was just worried about her, afraid she might suffer...
"You two as well," he continued, glancing at Li Qingxue and Lin Wanning. "You're girls—don’t get into arguments easily. If anything happens, come to me. I might not be able to solve everything, but at the very least, I won’t let anyone bully you."
Hearing his words, the corners of Li Qingxue and Lin Wanning’s lips curled into faint, tender smiles.
They never doubted Long Aotian’s capability—in their eyes, he could do anything. That was the kind of security he gave them.
Sometimes subtly, sometimes outright boldly!
"Clean up a bit. I’ll take you all out to eat—forget about what just happened. Don’t let some mentally unstable person ruin your mood."
Hu Yuying added with a playful tone, "Brother Long says the best way to deal with people like that is to just walk away."
Hearing this, Li Qingxue and Lin Wanning couldn’t help but chuckle. Crude as it sounded, it was undeniably practical—exactly the kind of thing only Long Aotian would say.
......
Ye Liangchen’s face twisted into a pained grimace, as if he were wearing a mask of agony. No one could fathom the turmoil in his heart.
"How’d it go, Brother Chen?"
At Xue Shaohua’s question, Ye Liangchen instantly wiped the pain from his expression, not wanting to reveal his humiliation.
Instead, he feigned calm.
Strangely enough, despite Long Aotian slapping him twice, aside from some slight swelling, not a single mark remained.
Xue Shaohua, meanwhile, had been afraid Hu Yuying and the others would realize he was the one who had tailed them and exposed their location. So the moment Ye Liangchen kicked open the courtyard gate, he had quickly ducked away.
After all, he still had four years of sharing a class with Hu Yuying ahead of him. If she held a grudge over this, it wouldn’t be worth it.
Besides, he and Ye Liangchen had a deal—if he could just get Hu Yuying to spend one night with him, he was confident his skills would leave her utterly enthralled. No need to spoil his chances now by making a bad impression.
"Nothing much. Just had a little fight with Long Aotian," Ye Liangchen replied coolly.
"So that guy’s name is Long Aotian," Xue Shaohua murmured, narrowing his eyes.
"How did it turn out?"
Ye Liangchen shook his head. "I took a hit, but he didn’t walk away unscathed either."
After all, force works both ways—even if Long Aotian had slapped him twice, his palms must’ve hurt too. In a way, that counted as injuring him!
The thought made Ye Liangchen smirk. Suddenly, his face didn’t sting as much.
"I wasn’t asking about that," Xue Shaohua pressed. "What about Hu Yuying? And Li Qingxue, that icy beauty—did Long Aotian force himself on them?"
That was what truly concerned him. In his mind, Hu Yuying already belonged to him.
Ye Liangchen laughed—a hollow, bitter laugh—until a single tear rolled down his cheek.
No matter how hard he tried to hide his emotions, the pain was just too much.
"Long Aotian must’ve been badmouthing me behind my back. Now they’ve all turned against me."
Hearing this, Xue Shaohua frowned deeply. "Are you even capable of handling this?"
"You promised you’d help me win Hu Yuying over—get her into my bed!"
"You swore it outright before!"
Ye Liangchen’s expression darkened.
Damn it, I went out there and took a beating, and instead of backing me up, you’re still hung up on this?
Honestly, he wanted nothing more than to slap Xue Shaohua silly.
Besides, if anyone was going to have Hu Yuying first, it’d be him. Xue Shaohua would only get the leftovers—if he was feeling generous.
But then again, he couldn’t afford to lose Xue Shaohua just yet.
Useless as he was, Xue Shaohua still had his uses—at the very least, he could keep an eye on Hu Yuying and Li Qingxue for him.
Since they’d all turned their backs on him, even saying such hurtful things, then fine—they’d brought this on themselves!
He’d steal Hu Yuying’s business achievements, frame her for plagiarism, and crush her until she had no choice but to beg at his feet.
As for Li Qingxue—that ungrateful bitch—after nine years of friendship, this was how she treated him? If she wanted to cut ties, then he’d show her no mercy.
And Lin Wanning? Ha. Once he hijacked Hu Yuying’s success and became a rising business tycoon, controlling her would be child’s play.
With that, Ye Liangchen tilted his head back at a 45-degree angle, closed his eyes, and wrapped his arms around himself in a dramatic embrace. "You forced me into this."
"What do you mean? Who forced you?" Xue Shaohua asked, baffled by the sudden theatrics.
"Nothing. Just know this—I am their salvation."
Truthfully, even as he said it, Ye Liangchen wasn’t entirely confident.
Everything had spiraled beyond his expectations.
But he still had faith in himself.
At the very least, Long Aotian hadn’t gotten his hands on Li Qingxue or Lin Wanning yet.
Today’s display was probably just a ploy to win their favor through Hu Yuying.
Flattery with ulterior motives—nothing good ever came of it.
Li Qingxue and Lin Wanning were still too naive. Ye Liangchen had no doubt that once the time was right, Long Aotian would shove Hu Yuying aside and sink his claws into them.
The thought made his expression twist with fury.
Since the source of the problem lies with Long Aotian, all I need to do is outshine him and draw their attention back to me.
Gently touching my face, I murmured, "I won’t let these two slaps go to waste today."
【Prologue: The Beginning of It All – Use holy water to heal the saintess tainted by demonic energy, then converse with her.】 Shen Nian stared at his older sister sipping yogurt, lost in thought. So you’re telling me my sister is the saintess, and yogurt is the holy water? 【Main Quest 1: Brave Youth, Become an Adventurer! Reward: Rookie Adventurer Title.】 【Side Quest 1: Find the Adorable Kitty! Reward: 1000 Gold Coins.】 Shen Nian: "Wait, I’m a high school senior here—did some guy who got isekai’d accidentally bind his system to me?" Hold on, completing quests gives gold rewards? Titles even boost stats? Is this for real? (A lighthearted, absurd campus comedy—not a revenge power fantasy.)
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.”
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?!
't think I'm that capable, I'm just trying my best to stay alive. I've been kind all my life, never did anything bad, yet worldly suffering spared me not one bit. The human world is a nice place, but I won't come back in my next life. A kind young man, who wanted to just get by singing, but through repeated deceits and betrayals, has gone down an irredeemable path.
