"Understood!" the two replied in unison.
"The second thing," Instructor Jing's gaze swept over the two of them. "The academy is giving you three days off to rest up and recharge. In three days, there will be new training tasks, and by then you'll have to return to the First Academy's side. Don't run around during these three days."
"New tasks?" Long Ao's eyes lit up.
It was his favorite part again.
Instructor Jing walked to the window, looking at the gray sky outside. Without giving any spoilers, he already had one leg over the windowsill.
"Instructor, you..." An Changqing was just about to ask why he wasn't taking the main door.
"The window is faster." Instructor Jing had already guessed what he was thinking. He turned his head and grinned at them, revealing a mouthful of white teeth. "By the way, An Changqing."
"Present."
"Your analysis of the human heart is very interesting, and your logic is rigorous." Instructor Jing leaned back, already hanging outside the window. "However, sometimes, don't overthink things."
His figure disappeared from the window.
The last sentence drifted in lightly.
"A five-thousand-word self-reflection might really just be a five-thousand-word self-reflection."
An Changqing stood frozen in place, the expression on his face stiffening.
Long Ao scratched his head, looking at his companion in utter confusion. "What did he mean by that last sentence?"
An Changqing stood there, his brows tightly knitted.
A five-thousand-word self-reflection might really just be a five-thousand-word self-reflection.
What did that mean? Was it denying all of his deductions?
"Hey, An Changqing, what are you spacing out for?" Long Ao nudged him with his elbow. "Does that weirdo instructor think we're overthinking it?"
Long Ao was simple-minded and took the words literally, but he trusted An Changqing more, so he wavered for a moment.
"No." An Changqing slowly shook his head, his eyes returning to firmness after a brief moment of confusion. "You didn't understand. On the contrary, this is the key."
An Changqing chose to believe in his own reasoning.
"Huh?" Long Ao was full of question marks.
An Changqing walked to the window, looking in the direction Instructor Jing had disappeared, and lowered his voice to a whisper. "The instructor is giving us a hint, and more importantly, he is protecting Chen Guan."
"He doesn't want us to pry too deeply into Chen Guan's heart. This is respect, so he deliberately used a seemingly simple piece of nonsense to end our topic."
Following this line of thought, Long Ao realized that all the details indeed matched up.
Finally, he smashed his fist heavily into his palm, his face flushed red with both sudden realization and shame.
"I get it! Instructor Jing is truly a good person!"
Long Ao felt ashamed for calling him a weirdo instructor just now.
[Holy crap, the closed loop of over-interpretation got a 2.0 update?]
[I'm begging you, please stop thinking.]
[You have to wait in line even to beg.]
[Chen Guan: Is there a possibility that I just wanted to pad the word count?]
Not far away, Instructor Jing picked at his ear.
You idiot kids, do you think my hearing is that bad?
Who taught you to interpret things that way?
Instructor Jing was quite speechless. Both of his parents were obviously smart people, so who did An Changqing inherit this bad habit from?
And Long Ao, acting one way to his face and another behind his back.
Just a moment ago he was a sweetie, and now he's yesterday's news. How infuriating. Just wait until you grow up, your tasks will definitely be super multiplied.
...
On the other side, Chen Guan returned to his single room.
Closing the door, he unloaded the black coffin from his back and set it firmly on the ground. Then, he took out a palm-sized black wooden box from his storage ring.
Opening the lid, a delicate fragrance wafted out, relaxing his tense nerves.
Inside the box, a thumb-sized, entirely jade-green piece of wood core lay quietly, emitting a soft green glow and brimming with abundant life energy.
Chen Guan touched the wood core with his fingertips, and a warm current instantly flowed through his entire body.
He walked up to the black coffin, and the heavy lid slid open silently.
Inside, the main body lay quietly, face pale as paper, eyes tightly shut.
It was strange. The main body's current strength was not weak at all—ordinary people didn't even have the qualifications to break its defenses—yet it always looked so bloodless.
It made one's heart ache to see.
The main body was his only family in this world.
They had different bloodlines, but their minds were connected; they were each other's only one.
He took out the Soul-Nourishing Wood Core, brushed aside the thin gray mist, and gently placed it on the main body's chest.
Actually, he didn't know how to use this thing either, but based on his understanding of his gray energy, it would automatically devour what it needed.
The moment the wood core touched the skin, the green light flared brightly. It then melted like a candle, turning into a puddle of jade-green liquid that quickly seeped beneath the skin and disappeared.
"System, use a data-driven way to explain the current repair progress bar."
[Current repair progress: 9.01%]
[Estimated daily sustainable repair: 0.1% from now on, until all energy is depleted.]
Looking at the prompt on the system panel, Chen Guan calculated silently in his heart.
If it increased by 0.1 per day, completing the repair would take nearly three years.
"What if I want to skip this three-year wait?"
"It will require about three million popularity points."
Chen Guan gritted his back teeth. This damn system was getting more and more expensive.
However, he had no other choice, unless he scoured this world for more heavenly materials and earthly treasures. But was that something he, a weak Rank Six, could do?
He still needed to pluck the White Tiger's fur. A Rank Eleven would definitely be wealthy and generous.
He closed the coffin lid and lay back down on his small bed.
After finishing all this, Chen Guan checked the time: 9:50.
Right on time.
With ten minutes left until the online meeting, he took out that token and placed it on the desk, waiting quietly.
Ten o'clock sharp.
The token vibrated violently, and the patterns on its surface lit up with a faint blue glow.
Chen Guan picked up the token, and instantly, the scene before his eyes changed.
In front of him was a pitch-black stone round table, and several people were already sitting around it.
However, their appearances were all blurry. The confidentiality was done quite well.
A crisp whistle sounded, followed by a familiar voice: "The two newcomers are quite punctual."
Chen Guan looked toward the voice. It was White Tiger, but unfortunately, the other party's face was also obscured by a layer of mist.
He was actually quite curious about White Tiger's true appearance, as the other party looked different every time they appeared.
This mechanism where faces couldn't be seen was actually beneficial to him. He didn't really want to meet Long Ao in this manner right now.
Meeting Yin Chen or Hong Yuan in this kind of setting wouldn't be too awkward, but Long Ao was the sole exception.
This pitch-black stone round table was very large, big enough to seat over a dozen people, but at this moment, only a few blurry humanoid silhouettes of light were scattered about.
Besides White Tiger's signature lazy sitting posture, Chen Guan also saw a few other figures.
One sat ramrod straight, completely motionless, while another seemed a bit bored, their silhouette swaying slightly.
"We meet again, Little Xuanwu."
A brisk and melodious female voice rang out. It was that swaying silhouette. Chen Guan looked at the other party and remembered the owner of this voice.
Santai.
Back in Jiang City, it was she who had provided him with support using her ability, the Myriad Phenomena Scroll.
Santai was the cause of both his success and his downfall. Without Santai, he never would have gone to Jiangcheng in the first place, nor would he have been swept up in those affairs.
But looking at the outcome, it wasn't too bad. Santai had also left him a life-saving talisman.
Chen Guan had already realized that everything in Jiangcheng was a trap set for Long Ao, and he had merely been dragged into it as collateral damage.
Chen Guan gave a slight nod and replied in an even tone, "Thank you for everything in Jiangcheng."
] This is a dark fantasy-themed dating simulation game. The main gameplay involves containing various monster girls and investigating the truth of a world shrouded in mist alongside your companions. However, due to his love for the dark and bizarre atmosphere, Luo Wei ended up turning a dating game into a detective mystery game. Women? Women only slow down his quickdraw! To Luo Wei, the female leads in the game are more like tools to perfectly clear levels and squeeze out rewards. For Luo Wei, flirting with every girl he meets and then discarding them is standard procedure. Worried about characters losing affection points? No need. With his maxed-out charm stat, Luo Wei is practically a "human incubus." A little psychological manipulation and those points come right back. It's a bit scummy, but the paper cutout heroines in the game won't actually come at him with real cleavers. However... Luo Wei has transmigrated. He's accidentally entered the second playthrough of this game. His past actions have caused all the girls to transform into terrifying yanderes. Due to the game's setting, most of the heroines he once contained are "troubled girls." Obsessive, twisted, mentally unstable, all aggressive yanderes... The type who will kill you if they can't have you... Luo Wei wants to cry but has no tears left. "I really just want to survive..." In short, this is a story of battling wits and engaging in a love-hate relationship with yanderes.
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.
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
