After a long silence, Long Aotian lightly tapped his beer bottle against Shen Mengjie's. "I'll drink with you, but just drinking is boring. From now on, for every extra sentence you say, I'll drink another bottle..."
Without waiting for Shen Mengjie's agreement, Long Aotian tipped his head back and downed the beer in his can in one go. He exhaled heavily, then cracked open another can and set it beside him, waiting quietly.
Shen Mengjie looked at him. "You're really something. You clearly look down on me, yet you do these inexplicable things."
Long Aotian didn’t respond. Instead, he picked up the beer in front of him and chugged it again.
"Hah..." He let out a long breath. The cool night breeze and two cans of beer in quick succession left him feeling even more alert.
"What do you even want? Do you think this is fun? Cool? That it’ll eventually move someone like me?"
......
"Are you insane?"
......
"Don’t you think someone like me is trash? Didn’t you say outright that people like me are boring? So what are you doing now?"
......
"I told you I don’t need any pity. Don’t say this isn’t pity—if it weren’t, why would someone like you even sit here drinking with me?"
......
Shen Mengjie stared blankly as Long Aotian kept drinking, one bottle after another.
Her beautiful phoenix eyes, usually so sharp, now glistened with a hazy sheen. The usual defiance in her demeanor was gone.
She cried. The floodgates burst open in an instant.
After finishing the last can, Long Aotian crushed it in his hand.
He knew why Shen Mengjie was crying. For the first time, he saw the vulnerability that should have been natural for a girl her age.
Even when he had confronted her about going to karaoke with other men, or dining out with them, she had always remained unshaken—arms crossed, smiling faintly, insisting she just enjoyed the thrill of being pursued...
Earlier, she had said that if their roles were reversed, she’d learn not to care either.
Long Aotian didn’t know her past, but he understood that what she needed now wasn’t comfort—it was an outlet.
In some ways, she reminded him of his own sidekick.
The difference was, his sidekick had never once given up. She kept climbing, climbing, until she finally spread her wings and soared.
Shen Mengjie, however, seemed to have already surrendered to life. She didn’t care if the men chasing her were rich or ordinary—she just savored the fleeting excitement.
Even if that excitement was short-lived.
Glancing at the last remaining beer, he discreetly slipped it into his jacket pocket.
"If you’re hurting, you should focus on finding the person behind all this. Though ‘clearing your name’ might not be the right phrase..."
The one spreading rumors about Shen Mengjie was likely the girlfriend of one of the guys pursuing her.
If that were the case, Long Aotian could almost understand.
But these things were never one-sided.
Both parties should bear the consequences—that would be fair.
If the guy had a girlfriend but still pursued Shen Mengjie without her knowing, then the backlash against her was too harsh.
On the other hand, if Shen Mengjie had known he had a girlfriend and still chased after what she called "excitement," then she deserved the criticism.
After listening to Long Aotian, Shen Mengjie shook her head. "I don’t even know if any of the guys chasing me have girlfriends."
"If they do, then they’re despicable."
"You’re not much better."
"But I have my limits. At least I wouldn’t accept advances from other guys if I had a boyfriend."
"That girl is just crazy—can’t control her own man, so she takes it out on me."
"I, Shen Mengjie, swear to heaven—if I like someone, I’ll go after them myself. But every single guy chasing me? They’re all just after my body..."
"So you think it’s fine to play around with them?"
"What if one day you meet someone you truly like, and they find out about all this? How can you be sure they won’t care?"
"The fun you’re indulging in now will come back to haunt you later..."
For once, Shen Mengjie didn’t argue back. She fumbled for words but couldn’t find any.
"And to answer your earlier question—you said I pity you. But the truth is the opposite. I don’t pity you at all."
"I came because I heard the rumors and saw your message."
"You asked me: ‘Was it you?’"
"Now I’m telling you clearly: It wasn’t."
Shen Mengjie lowered her gaze and whispered, "I know it wasn’t you. You wouldn’t do something like this."
"What should I do now?"
"If I were you, I’d track down the person who posted it and confront them."
"It takes two to tango. What you did wasn’t great, but if the guy had a girlfriend and still pursued you, leading to all this, then he should face the backlash too—not just you."
"Of course, that’s only if you didn’t know he had a girlfriend. If you knew, then finding them would just be embarrassing for you."
Shen Mengjie nodded, but soon deflated again. She stole a glance at Long Aotian, her eyes flickering with something unreadable, then asked softly, "How do I find them?"
"Did you use up all your brainpower figuring out how to juggle men?"
Shen Mengjie flushed, unable to meet his eyes. "I know I was wrong. Stop scolding me... okay?"
Her meek apology amused Long Aotian. If she’d realized earlier how messed up this was, none of it would’ve happened.
Maybe this was what the old folks meant when they said, "The pitiable have their own faults."
"First, remember that the internet isn’t lawless. If they did it, there’ll be traces. Of course, you can’t track it yourself, but professionals can—like computer experts."
"You’ll need to handle it discreetly. Pay someone to trace it, follow the clues, and you’ll find something."
Shen Mengjie stared at him for a long moment before finally saying, "Thank you."
"Don’t mention it. Clearing the air between us is what matters."
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
e vast world of cultivation, where he becomes the master of the Heavenly Ruins Sacred Hall, a dying old man with barely a tenth of his former cultivation remaining. He is immediately confronted with a deadly crisis: his subordinates have rebelled, and his protectors are forcing him to abdicate. At the critical moment, the system descends from the heavens: [Ding! The host has been detected facing a life-or-death crisis. The system is now officially activated!] [As a gift, you have received the Supreme Beginner’s Pack and awakened the ultimate cheat: ten thousand years of pure cultivation essence every second!] Yin Tianjue: “Wait… ten thousand years of cultivation every second? That’s six hundred thousand years a minute, and in one day… I can’t even calculate it. Either way, I’m already invincible!” You’re a peerless prodigy rarely seen in ten thousand years? Sorry, I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. You’re an undying ancestor who has guarded a sacred land for countless ages? Sorry, I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. You’re the strongest chosen one, blessed with heaven-defying destiny? Sorry, I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. From this day forth, I have only one thing to say: “I gain ten thousand years of cultivation every second. Now, how exactly are you supposed to deal with that?”
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.
