Chen Miemie returned to the shop.
“Daidai, how did it go? Crossing the eras like that, were you still able to collect the price of the transaction?”
Daidai’s expression was a little blank.
“I already initiated the collection of the price, but something feels off—different from usual.”
“Different how?”
“Normally when I collect a price, there are only two possibilities: success or failure. I can clearly sense either result. But today, it felt like ‘half-successful.’”
After Pure Water and the Forbidden Fruit Bestiary discussed it at length, they jointly proposed a hypothesis:
“Relying on Daidai’s [Mystery] alone, making a price take effect across time is unlikely. This ‘half-success’ probably only happened because you, Chen Miemie, were involved—but since the transaction was led by Daidai, it couldn’t fully succeed.”
Chen Miemie wasn’t interested in the analysis process at all. “And the conclusion?”
“It may have taken effect conditionally, or it took effect but came with derived side effects.”
Qinghua recalled: “A moment ago, we demanded the thing he desired most from him.”
“For someone like him, a bright future and the pursuit of power would be what he desires most. That means from now on, he’ll amount to nothing.”
“Trading the future for the present—that’s a heavy price.”
“Heavy? If you can’t make it through the present, there’s no future to speak of.”
“Forget it. This commission is over. Those are just guesses—if we ever run into him again, we’ll know for sure.” Chen Miemie shut down the topic.
For the next while, Chen Miemie prepared to go out and handle some personal affairs.
[Huangyi] stepped out again—this time, the door opened onto Fairy Tale Road.
Target: [Burger Workshop].
Chen Miemie didn’t want to alert anyone else about his investigation into [Butler]—not [Silence], not [Bridge Maiden], not [Lady Scab]. He hadn’t breathed a word to any of them.
He planned to investigate on his own, to avoid any leak along the way.
His experience in Four Elephant City had taught him that within any faction, even if the people who are friendly toward you are trustworthy, you can’t guarantee the whole organization is reliable.
Of course, this also meant he lacked intelligence. He didn’t even know where [Butler] was, so he could only start with [Burger Workshop].
[Burger Workshop] wasn’t far from [Molting Clinic]—they were neighbors, with their territories adjacent.
He had expected that a guild that lost a vice-president and harbored a schemer like [Butler] would be a gloomy, stifling clique full of calculating people.
But when he slipped in invisibly, the scene before him completely changed his mind.
The main hall of [Burger Workshop] was just as spacious.
There were no frost-moon or blood-moon giant sculptures, and no sun either.
What there was, was row after row of stoves and kitchen tools.
Chen Miemie had arrived a bit late—the food was already cooked.
The people of [Burger Workshop] were all crammed together—not just core members, but everyone including outer members.
On the central platforms, food was piled into mountains, and beneath those food mountains sat a few men and women.
The men had rolled up their sleeves; the women had tied up their hair.
The onlookers surrounding them were either cheering or shouting encouragement.
Chen Miemie crept closer, listened for about ten seconds, and finally figured it out.
These people were holding an “eating contest”—seeing who could eat the most!
Yi Zhu and Yi Xian weren’t competing. With their small builds, joining would just be wasting the entry fee.
Four people were still hanging in there.
Two men, two women.
The guild master, [Last Shepherd], was half-shirtless, wielding two enormous pig trotters—one in each hand—chomping left and right. With every massive bite, a visibly huge chunk disappeared from the trotters.
[Knot] was no slouch either. He tied two fat sausages into a knot and shoved them straight into his mouth, grease dripping everywhere.
The two female competitors, Chen Miemie didn’t recognize either.
One was small in stature. She seemed skilled at drinking—a small bucket-sized cup, and she just kept chugging “gulp gulp gulp” without stopping. The liquor spilling from the corners of her mouth soaked her clothes, and she didn’t care at all.
The last one really stood out. She had pink hair, two big pointed horns on her head, wasn’t fat, but had a slightly chubby, cute look.
Cute as she was, she was terrifying when eating. A steak bigger than her face—she shoved it straight into her mouth, swallowed it with barely any chewing, and then, without even resting, moved on to the next one.
The four on stage ate with gusto, while the crowd below cheered themselves red in the face, completely absorbed.
Chen Miemie suspected that even if he revealed himself right now, as long as he shouted “keep going!” a couple of times, probably no one would even recognize him.
Chen Miemie: ......
A guild like this—saying they’re good at conspiracies? Isn’t that overestimating them?
Chen Miemie didn’t need to search for [Butler] on purpose—he was hard to miss, serving as the referee of this eating contest.
As referee, he didn’t need to judge violations. He only needed to spot when a contestant was truly stuffed, then have people carry them off.
The first to drop out was [Knot]. That little rookie, to eat more, had compressed his food before swallowing—but never thought about the food expanding in his stomach. On his fourth plate of intestines, he got food stuck right up to his throat, covered his mouth, and ran off himself.
The second eliminated was the small woman. She had a great attitude—happy she got to drink her fill, not chasing the title. After drinking too much, she went to the restroom with flushed cheeks.
In the end, only [Last Shepherd] and the pink-haired girl remained.
These two were both undoubtedly extremely strong.
The stacks of plates in front of them towered taller than a person, and yet their pace showed no sign of slowing.
Just as Chen Miemie thought it would take a while longer to decide the winner—
[Last Shepherd] suddenly foamed at the mouth and collapsed onto the table.
Even as he fell, he kept his death grip on a huge skewer of squid, refusing to let go.
Chen Miemie thought: What’s going on—did he get poisoned?
Before he could wonder too long, several people in the crowd shouted: “Quick—get the master off the stage! He’s having a seafood allergy flare-up again!”
And just like that, the pink-haired girl claimed the championship.
[Butler] stepped forward, hung a medal around her neck, then took her hand and raised it: “Let’s give the warmest applause and cheers to [Tietie], successfully defending her title for the 33rd time!”
When the contest was over and the crowd fully dispersed, [Butler] finally left the guild.
He opened the door of his small car and got in.
Before he could start the engine—
The hairs on his body stood on end. His hand instinctively reached for the weapon at his waist.
In the back seat, an uninvited passenger in a yellow robe extended a hand through the gap between the driver’s seat and its backrest, gently resting it on his shoulder near his neck.
“Being this tense with a guest—that’s no way for [Butler] to practice hospitality.”
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?!
ine. During your journey, you save an abandoned baby girl and become her elder brother】 【You rely on each other, becoming each other's support】 【At the end of the simulation, you shield the now-grown girl with your life, sacrificing yourself to block numerous demonic cultivators. You die, and the light in the girl's eyes fades】 …… 【Second Simulation: You are transported to a world where steam and magic coexist】 【You immerse yourself in the study of magic, obsessed with its research. One day, while out, you encounter a half-blooded demon girl wandering the streets. You take her in as your student】 【You teach the demoness what it means to be human, show her the beauty of the world, and nurture her into a miracle that surpasses even the gods】 【At the end of the simulation, you die of old age in front of the nearly immortal demoness due to your mortal lifespan】 …… One simulation after another, one encounter after another. Xu Xi suddenly felt something was off: "Wait, you said you're coming to the real world to find me?"
