The next day.
The morning sunlight spilled across the marble gates of Huaqing Academy, gilding the red-and-gold welcome banner with a bright rim of light.
A row of folding tables had been set up along the tree-lined path. Chen Guan chose the most secluded corner and sat down.
He removed the black coffin from his back. Its heavy metal base slammed into the flagstones with a dull thud, and the ground trembled, splitting with a hairline crack.
Chen Guan glanced innocently at the damage. What a familiar spot. This time last year, he seemed to have broken this poor section of pavement in exactly the same place.
The only difference was that the people sitting here were no longer Li Yuqing and Huo Qixing. Now, it was Senior Chen.
The freshmen who had been chattering away fell silent as if someone had pressed a mute button. One after another, they edged toward the opposite side of the road. No one wanted to get close to this bizarre senior carrying a murder weapon on his back.
Chen Guan looked completely innocent. It couldn't possibly be his fault.
Fortunately, he was happy to enjoy the peace and quiet. He leaned against the cold coffin and closed his eyes to rest.
Baobao crouched beside him, its purple tail sweeping fallen leaves across the ground.
Long Ao pushed his way through the crowd, carrying two oversized combination cases. Sweat covered his forehead. He set the cases down heavily, making the ground tremble once again.
“You sure know how to shirk your duties. Come over here and help move this stuff.”
Chen Guan opened one eye and replied lazily, “This is meant to train the pillars of the new era.”
Long Ao ground his teeth. “Are you very old?”
Long Ao hadn't minded Chen Guan slacking off when he was still an invalid. But now that he had recovered, there was no excuse for him to keep lazing around.
An Changqing approached with a register and pushed a form in front of Chen Guan. “Chen Guan, Professor Situ assigned you a task. You’re responsible for filling out these forms.”
Chen Guan sat up straight. Looking at the pile of white sheets that was practically stacked into a small mountain, he felt his soul leave his body.
“Can I refuse?”
An Changqing smiled gently as he handed him a pen. There was a knife hidden behind that smile.
“Professor Situ said that refusing will cost you credits.”
He muttered under his breath, “I should never have come back.”
Su Yuehe let out a soft laugh. “Who told you that you’re Professor Situ’s favorite? You’re the first person she thinks of whenever she needs someone to exploit.”
“This isn’t popularity. It’s unpaid overtime. Shameful.”
After moving the last box of promotional pamphlets, Long Ao collapsed into the empty chair beside him, crushing it beneath his weight. He grabbed a form and waved it like a fan, puffing air over his face.
An Changqing handed him a bottle of water. Long Ao thanked him and downed it in just a few gulps.
“Hungry.”
At his feet, Baobao nudged his calf with its head, its purple tail weakly swishing across the ground.
Chen Guan searched through his pockets and could only find a small demon core, which he handed over. He was beginning to realize that Baobao’s appetite was growing larger by the day.
Baobao’s tongue flicked out and swallowed the core whole, refining it in an instant. Yet its violet eyes still radiated hunger.
“That’s all. We’ve exceeded today’s budget.”
Chen Guan spread his empty hands.
Su Yuehe took pity on it and pulled out another handful of demon cores, giving Baobao an extra meal.
Baobao ate happily, then ran around Su Yuehe in delight. It clearly lived by the principle of forgetting its master the moment someone else offered it benefits.
Just then, a figure passed through the bustling crowd. Ignoring the intimidating aura that everyone else was avoiding, he walked straight toward this isolated corner.
He was a thin, frail-looking boy wearing black-rimmed glasses. Even his walk was unsteady.
He stopped directly in front of Chen Guan’s table.
“Hello, Senior.”
The boy’s voice was refined and clean, but his gaze passed straight over Chen Guan and fixed itself on the black coffin behind him.
Chen Guan tapped the end of his pen against the tabletop and jerked his chin toward the side.
“The registration forms are over there. Take one yourself.”
“I’m not here to register.”
The boy shook his head. He adjusted the thick glasses on the bridge of his nose, but his eyes remained locked onto the black coffin.
“Senior, may I touch it?”
Everyone froze.
Before Chen Guan could react, Long Ao was the first to explode. He shot to his feet, the legs of his chair scraping against the ground with an earsplitting screech. Looking down at the boy, who was half a head shorter than him, he said, “Looking for trouble?”
The boy seemed not to feel Long Ao’s pressure at all. He simply stared stubbornly at Chen Guan and repeated himself.
“May I, Senior?”
Chen Guan studied him. The thick lenses concealed his eyes, but they could not hide the intense focus practically spilling from him.
“No.”
His refusal was crisp and decisive.
“I’m sorry, Senior. That was rude of me.” The boy introduced himself with a wave of his hand. In an instant, all kinds of demon cores appeared on the table, each of them seemingly of excellent quality. “My name is Shan Heng.”
“I noticed that your pet didn’t seem to have had enough to eat. Please accept these as a small apology.”
“No need. It was only a minor matter. There’s no reason to go to such expense.”
Chen Guan didn’t accept the demon cores. There was something strange about this person, and he had no intention of accepting a gift from someone whose motives were unclear.
“Please, you must accept them.”
The sunlight reflected off Shan Heng’s lenses, making his expression impossible to see. All that could be sensed was an almost pathological persistence.
“Are your ears broken?”
Long Ao took a step forward. The flagstone beneath his foot groaned under the strain, clearly suffering another brutal assault. He flexed his fingers, producing a series of crisp cracks.
“My friend said no. And he said you’re not allowed to touch it.”
An Changqing reached out and pressed a hand against Long Ao’s shoulder, signaling him to calm down. He looked at the frail boy and tried to reason with him gently.
“Student, that’s my friend’s private property. It’s not very convenient.”
“You’re here to register as a new student, aren’t you? I can take you to the dorms.”
An Changqing offered him an easy way out. Unfortunately, Shan Heng clearly had no intention of accepting his kindness. He continued to stare at Chen Guan with that frighteningly obsessive gaze.
Chen Guan frowned slightly. A student capable of entering Huaqing Academy clearly wasn’t intellectually deficient. From what Chen Guan could tell, Shan Heng’s strength was probably around the fourth tier.
Compared to them, that was nothing. But among this year’s freshmen, he was definitely no weakling. He would most likely qualify for the Tianshu Class.
When something was abnormal, there was always a reason.
Chen Guan tried to soften his tone and imitated An Changqing’s manner as he asked, “May I ask why you’re so determined?”
He wouldn’t overlook anything that might be connected to coffins.
“Senior, even if I told you the truth now, you wouldn’t believe me.” Shan Heng’s face went pale as he shook his head. “Senior, I was out of line today. I’m very sorry.”
With that, Shan Heng, who had been so stubborn moments earlier, turned and scurried away. He was like an entirely different person from before, as though the question Chen Guan had asked was something truly terrifying.
“What a weirdo.”
Long Ao watched Shan Heng’s retreating back and, after a moment, finally managed to sum him up in two words.
“Shan Heng…” Su Yuehe said. “I’ll have someone look into him later.”
She also found the new student suspicious, so Su Yuehe decided to deploy the box weapon directly.
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!
] 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.
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!
