"Son, are you still in touch with that little girl?"
Suddenly hearing Old Han mention her name, Hu Yuying, who had already been fidgeting nervously on the side, immediately tensed up, her eyes darting anxiously toward Long Aotian.
Long Aotian couldn’t help but smile at her nervousness. Gently tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear, he replied, "We are. We keep in touch often."
The tender touch of his hand eased some of the tension in Hu Yuying’s heart.
"That’s good. A young girl like her, all alone in a strange place—you should help her however you can. Don’t mess things up again."
Old Han had heard about Hu Yuying from Long Aotian before.
A girl like her really had it tough, and the fact that his son had managed to get into university was largely thanks to her.
"Here, take a look at who this is." Long Aotian quickly turned the video call toward Hu Yuying, genuinely afraid Old Han might say something earth-shattering.
"Uncle," Hu Yuying greeted timidly, her small hands clenched tightly as she stared at the screen.
Old Han’s expression was nothing short of exaggerated. At the sight of Hu Yuying, he froze for a moment.
Then, hearing her call him "Uncle," he broke into a wide grin, his teeth on full display.
"Little Teacher." The warmth in that title alone made it clear how genuinely happy he was.
His son’s transformation and the fact that he was now attending university—Old Han was truly grateful to the "Little Teacher" Long Aotian had spoken of.
Otherwise, he wouldn’t have said what he just did.
Hearing Old Han call her "Little Teacher" with such delight, Hu Yuying blushed furiously, her cheeks blooming with a rosy hue—both radiant and shy.
He had called her that before, and though it had embarrassed her then too, it felt different now.
Stealing a glance at Long Aotian, whose eyes were filled with nothing but adoration as he looked at her, she quickly averted her gaze.
"You and Aotian should go out together during the break." The more Old Han looked at Hu Yuying, the more pleased he felt.
His son’s behavior during those days was still fresh in his memory.
The way he had been listless, as if his very spirit had been drained—all because of this girl. Though his son had tried to hide it, nothing escaped a father’s notice.
Hu Yuying nodded softly and let out a quiet "Mm."
She knew it might seem impolite, but right now, she couldn’t think of anything else to say.
"Good, good, very good..."
With every "good" Old Han uttered, the blush on Hu Yuying’s cheeks deepened.
Did this mean Uncle approved of her too?
The thought made her even more reluctant to lift her eyes to the screen.
Ahem. "Old Han, we’re still eating here," Long Aotian interjected, sensing Hu Yuying’s discomfort as he turned the phone back toward himself.
The moment the screen shifted away, Hu Yuying visibly relaxed—so much so that it was almost comical.
That small, flustered gesture of hers was impossible for Long Aotian to ignore.
Old Han rambled on for a bit longer, emphasizing how important it was to treat the "Little Teacher" well.
Long Aotian agreed to everything before finally ending the call.
"That’s just how Old Han is. He’s not the best with words, but his heart’s in the right place," Long Aotian explained.
"I know." Of course Hu Yuying understood. The fact that Uncle had asked about her and told Long Aotian to look out for her spoke volumes.
But after saying this, she realized Long Aotian had fallen silent.
When she cautiously looked up, she found his smiling eyes fixed intently on her.
Flustered, she turned away and whispered, "Long Aotian, why... why are you staring at me like that?"
"You’re beautiful when you blush." It was something he’d wanted to say for a while now—the way Hu Yuying’s cheeks flushed was just unbearably adorable.
Biting her lip lightly, she lowered her lashes. No one disliked being complimented, especially by someone they liked.
Hu Yuying was no exception. Gathering her courage, she lifted her gaze, letting him see her properly.
He stared at her so intently that, for a fleeting moment, she thought she saw something deeper in his eyes—desire.
It was gone as quickly as it appeared, but she was certain.
Desire was the beginning of attraction. Crude as the saying might be, it was an undeniable truth.
There were many kinds of affection—love for a toy, fondness for a delicate doll, a parent’s love for their child...
But when desire mixed into that affection, it was no longer just about happiness or care.
Everything changed.
"I really did stumble upon a treasure." Long Aotian reached for her hand.
His heart swelled with an indescribable feeling. She was so shy, yet she still mustered the courage to show him her best side.
How foolishly endearing...
——
"Let me tell you something—the liquor of the night ruins your stomach, but the porridge of the morning warms your heart all day." As he spoke, a confident smirk curled at the corner of his lips.
Sometimes, a single gesture or phrase could elevate one’s presence effortlessly.
This was something Ye Liangchen had learned over time.
Xue Shaohua flicked his hair, but his gaze suddenly froze mid-motion.
Ye Liangchen, who had been about to further embellish his wisdom, noticed Xue Shaohua wasn’t following.
He stopped and turned. "Xue Shaohua, are you even listening? These are my spontaneous reflections, the profound musings of my soul. If you could grasp even a fraction of it, just a fraction, it would be life-changing for you. Pay attention, will you?"
But Xue Shaohua remained petrified, staring blankly to the left.
Ye Liangchen frowned, annoyed. There was no fun in grandstanding—er, sharing his wisdom—without an audience.
Walking over, he followed Xue Shaohua’s line of sight—and his frown softened.
There she was, her face alight with a shy, blissful, yet bashful smile.
Ye Liangchen’s lips curled unconsciously, reminded of a dream from his past life—running freely beneath the setting sun.
That was the youth he had lost.
But in the next second, that idyllic scene shattered.
The smile on his face stiffened, then faded entirely.
In his vision, a hand reached out and pinched that girl’s cheek.
"Ugh—!" Ye Liangchen suddenly clutched his chest, staggering back as if struck. His face twisted into a pained grimace, as though wearing a mask of agony.
Slowly, he closed his eyes. A single tear of regret slid down his cheek.
"So this is the path you’ve chosen? Even if he pinches you, even if he scolds you, even if you know full well he’s up to no good..."
"Heh, heh..." Wiping the tears from her face, she walked toward that breakfast diner...
grated, and just when he finally managed to get into an elite academy, he discovered that he actually had a system, and the way to earn rewards was extremely ridiculous. So for the sake of rewards, he had no choice but to start acting ridiculous as well. Su Cheng: "It's nothing but system quests after all." But later, what confused Su Cheng was that while he was already quite ridiculous, he never expected those serious characters to gradually become ridiculous too. And the way they looked at him became increasingly strange... (This synopsis doesn't do it justice, please read the full story)
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.
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!
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?!
