The man stared at him for a few seconds, a length of ash building on the cigarette in his mouth before it dropped onto the counter. He didn't bother to flick it off.
"You're a guy who knows how to watch his mouth."
"Anyone who's lived this long knows how to watch his mouth."
The man let out a short laugh. "You're interesting. Fine, wait here."
He stood up from behind the counter and walked toward the back of the shop.
Chen Guan sat on the low stool without moving, his gaze casually sweeping across the interior of the shop.
The hardware items on the shelves were arranged haphazardly, some clearly gathering thick layers of dust, as if they were never meant to be bought. The whole place felt more like a front, its real purpose having nothing to do with selling goods.
Other than that, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
The leopard's ear twitched, angling toward the back of the shop.
From behind, the man exchanged a few words with someone, his voice lowered so much that the content was impossible to make out.
After about two or three minutes, he returned.
Someone followed behind him.
A young man, around twenty-five or twenty-six, wearing a black hoodie with the hood down, revealing a sharply defined face. His skin was dark-toned, and his left ear bore a silver stud.
He walked up to the counter, leaned against the shelves, crossed his arms, and looked Chen Guan over twice from above.
"He Chenguan?"
"Yeah."
"Came up from the southwest?"
"Yeah."
"Traveled this far to find work. No opportunities left back home?"
"Not many."
Chen Guan slowed his speech slightly, letting a note of weariness creep into his tone.
"Small place. The local teams have locked down all the exotic beast cleanup contracts—outsiders can't break in. Hauling jobs are getting rarer too. A man's got to eat."
The young man in the hoodie studied him, his gaze lingering on Chen Guan's face for two seconds before shifting to the leopard.
"This leopard yours?"
"Yeah."
"Mutated?"
"Yeah."
Listening to these standard questions, Chen Guan was already starting to feel drowsy.
Man, this is dragging.
The hoodie squatted down, extended a hand, and waved it in front of the leopard.
The leopard tilted its head, sniffed his fingers, then turned away, ignoring him.
"Got an attitude." The hoodie stood up, a faint smirk curling at the corner of his mouth.
"Been with me too long. Not friendly with strangers," Chen Guan said.
The hoodie's gaze returned to his face. "Take off the mask."
Chen Guan did as he was told.
Then, he felt an extremely faint wave of psychic energy, like something brushing lightly across his face—but the force dissipated quickly, as if it had been deflected by an invisible membrane.
The energy came fast and faded just as fast.
The hoodie's brow furrowed slightly. It was like biting into something and finding the taste off, but not being able to pinpoint why.
"Is there something on your face?"
"What kind of something?" Chen Guan's tone carried a hint of irritation, the natural reaction of someone being asked an odd question out of nowhere.
The hoodie stared at him for two more seconds, then looked away.
"Never mind."
He turned his head toward the middle-aged man behind the counter, and the two exchanged a glance. The middle-aged man gave a slight nod.
The hoodie refocused on Chen Guan, his arms still crossed, but his whole demeanor loosened a notch, settling into a matter-of-fact tone.
"Alright, He Chenguan, right? I'll go over the rules once. Only once."
"Go ahead."
Chen Guan snapped the mask back on. The thing worked well—aside from not being durable, shattering at the first hit, it had no flaws.
"First: don't ask what you shouldn't ask, don't see what you shouldn't see, don't remember what you shouldn't remember. All you need to know is that someone's paying you to do a job. You finish the job, you take the money, and you leave."
Chen Guan nodded.
"Second: once you take a job, you finish it. If you bail partway through, you face the consequences."
"What consequences?"
The hoodie grinned. "What do you think?"
Chen Guan didn't respond.
The hoodie didn't wait for an answer either, pressing on.
"Third: freelancers are not allowed to form private connections. No asking about each other's backgrounds. You don't know them, they don't know you. Everyone's here to make money. When it's over, everyone goes their separate ways."
"Last one." The hoodie raised a single finger, pointing it in the air. "Control your beast. If it bites someone it shouldn't, you can't afford the damage."
The leopard lay on the floor, its ear twitching, the tip of its tail lightly slapping the ground, looking utterly docile.
Chen Guan glanced down at it.
"He's better behaved than I am."
The hoodie snorted, then turned and walked toward the back of the shop.
"Follow me."
Chen Guan stood up, and the leopard rose with him.
Behind the shop was a narrow passage flanked by warehouse walls, rust stains and unknown climbing plants crawling up the plaster. Overhead, power lines hung so low they almost brushed the hair as they passed.
After two turns, an iron door appeared ahead, unlocked and left slightly ajar.
The hoodie pushed it open. Inside was a modest room, about thirty square meters, with a concrete floor and a tin roof.
The room already had people in it.
Three of them.
A bald man sat on the bed farthest in, wiping a short-bladed knife with a few old notches in the blade, well-used.
A lanky, tall guy leaned against the wall with his eyes closed, hands in his pockets—either sleeping or pretending to.
A woman sat on the edge of the bed closest to the door, holding a chipped enamel mug, drinking water. She had short hair.
All three glanced at Chen Guan when he entered.
The bald man's gaze lingered on him for less than a second before returning to his knife.
The lanky guy barely lifted an eyelid before closing it again. Chen Guan caught a faint trace of Long Ao in his posture.
The short-haired woman took a longer look, her eyes staying on the leopard longer than on Chen Guan himself.
"New guy. He Chenguan. Freelancer. Summoner class."
The hoodie announced him from the doorway in a bored, listing tone, then turned to Chen Guan. "Pick an empty bed, stash your stuff. Someone'll come tonight to assign tasks. Don't wander off before that."
With that, he left. The iron door clicked shut behind him with a dull thud.
Chen Guan stood at the entrance, surveying the room.
Two empty beds remained: one next to the bald man, one across from the lanky guy.
He chose the one across from the lanky guy.
The leopard followed him over, lying down by the bed, its tail curled around its side, purple pupils half-lidded, looking perfectly calm.
Chen Guan sat on the bed, took off his jacket, and draped it over the footrail, his movements so natural they suggested he was long used to such crude lodgings.
The room fell quiet for a while.
"Your leopard—purple?"
It was the short-haired woman who had spoken, her voice lower than expected.
"Yeah."
"Mutated?"
"Yeah."
"What rank?"
"Three."
y came from. The chests contained supplies, currency, class-change scrolls, skills, talents… and even godhood! The laws of the world were completely rewritten. This became a world where everyone gambled with their fate! Some people, despite having nothing, opened a divine artifact and rose to the top, eventually ruling the world. Others went bankrupt, opened nothing but worthless junk, and leaped from skyscrapers in despair. Lin Ye arrived in this world from another reality, utterly bewildered. “What is going on? Why is everyone a gambling addict?!” “Opening chests? No way. I refuse to gamble. I’ll start with myself!” Until— On his first chest, he obtained a Mythic Talent: Void Incarnation! He could become completely intangible, pass through all things, and reduce everything to nothingness! … On his fiftieth chest, he obtained a Mythic Weapon: Blade of Karma! With a single slash, karma shattered, twisting the universe and overturning the myriad phenomena of creation! … On his ninety-ninth chest, he obtained a Mythic Divine Treasure: Primordial Purple Energy! It could split open the heavens and earth, create all things, and evolve countless worlds with a single thought! Lin Ye: “Now that I think about it… shouldn’t someone have told me that every chest is guaranteed to contain something Mythic?!”
. As long as he maintains the villain image and follows the plot to the grand finale, he can obtain generous rewards and return to the real world. So Gu Chen'an entered the role and began to act as a scumbag villain, but who would have expected that the female leads could hear his inner thoughts. Miss Su from the Su family was shocked: "I originally thought Gu Chen'an was a scumbag, but I didn't expect he turned out to be a gentleman! What? You said I have to call off the engagement? I definitely won't, I'll piss you off!" Bai Yuan Tian was dumbfounded: "Young Master Gu is usually unreasonable and a complete brat, but he actually calls me little sweetie in his heart? What, Young Master Gu even said he likes me?" As the female leads' images collapsed more and more, the plot also collapsed with it. Gu Chen'an looked at all this chaos. "Ladies, don't aggro me, if you keep this up the male lead really will stab me, I still need to survive to the grand finale!"
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 + 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!
