The bell rang for the end of class, and class monitor Wang Yang collected the test papers and handed them to Xu Cong.
The next class was still Advanced Mathematics, so Xu Cong didn’t bother returning to the office.
Mainly because he was getting older, and going up and down the stairs was exhausting.
The old professor, wearing glasses, sat seriously at the podium grading the papers, surrounded by students who watched intently, afraid he might make a mistake due to dizziness or poor eyesight.
For these top students, this was a silent battlefield.
As for Zhou Yi... he was sprawled across his desk, fast asleep.
The subject of everyone’s gossip slept soundly, completely unaware that he had become the center of attention in the class.
"Hey, Ningning, what’s really going on with Zhou Yi? I feel like he’s a completely different person from before."
"Who knows? Whatever he does has nothing to do with me."
Just as Su Ning and her deskmate Zhang Lili were discussing Zhou Yi, the girl sitting in front of Su Ning suddenly turned around and whispered mysteriously, "I heard Zhou Yi used to be an orphan and only just found his parents a few days ago. Could that be why?"
Su Ning finally looked up and murmured, "An orphan? Where did you hear that?"
The girl in front lowered her voice. "He told the counselor himself today. I accidentally overheard. He missed the class meeting because he was moving."
Zhang Lili gasped in surprise, covering her mouth. "Seriously!? But even if he was an orphan, that doesn’t explain such a sudden change, does it?"
Suddenly, Zhang Lili’s imagination ran wild. She clapped her hands together. "Unless... he was hiding his true abilities all along?"
The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became.
"Think about it—he’s so good-looking, so why did he hide his face behind that ugly fringe before? Girls are drawn to looks. If he’d shown his face earlier, would Ningning have disliked him so much?"
Su Ning raised an eyebrow. "Do you really think I’m that shallow? Don’t project your own standards onto me."
Zhang Lili giggled. "Oh, come on, I’m just making a point. But if he’d lived like this from the start, his life would’ve been way better, right? And don’t you think his whole vibe is different now too?"
Su Ning nodded. "Yeah, that’s true."
Zhang Lili continued excitedly, "So, there must’ve been a reason he acted like that before. And didn’t Old Xu say Zhou Yi’s skills were too good for his bottom-of-the-class grades? I bet he was hiding his true potential!"
The girl in front widened her eyes in realization. "So his change is because... his parents found him?"
A thoughtful glint flashed in Su Ning’s beautiful eyes. After a moment of silence, she said, "Actually, there’s another possibility, one that’s pretty common in wealthy families."
Zhang Lili and the girl in front turned to her expectantly.
"Either he’s an illegitimate child who couldn’t risk being discovered, or he had to downplay his abilities to avoid drawing attention from the family."
"Or his parents had some special status, and to protect him, they had to keep him hidden and living a low-profile life. Now that the danger’s passed, they’ve reclaimed him, which explains his sudden transformation."
Su Ning wasn’t just speculating blindly. Growing up in the Su family, a prominent wealthy household, she’d seen her fair share of drama—far more exaggerated than anything in novels.
Illegitimate children raised in secret until they turned eighteen, then brought forward to replace the heir after the original was eliminated.
Families living under false names for over a decade, even sending their children to be raised by others, only reclaiming them after exacting revenge.
Cases like these were everywhere. So while Zhang Lili’s theory might’ve sounded wild, Su Ning found it plausible.
Zhang Lili nodded thoughtfully. "No wonder Zhou Yi said there were reasons he couldn’t explain before."
Suddenly, the girl in front grinned mischievously. "So, do you think his feelings for Ningning were real or fake?"
Su Ning’s heart skipped a beat. She blinked rapidly and turned her head toward the window. "Who cares if they were real or fake? It’s not like I’d ever like him anyway."
Truthfully, Su Ning’s dislike for Zhou Yi had already faded.
If everything he’d done before was just an act for survival, she had no reason to resent him anymore.
Plus, the fact that he’d been an orphan made her feel a little guilty about how she’d treated him.
Zhang Lili clasped her hands together, her eyes sparkling.
"If it was fake, then you two are like the leads in a romance novel! Zhou Yi reveals his true, domineering self, returns to his wealthy family to take over the business—total male protagonist material. And with your family background and his looks, you’re practically a match made in heaven!"
"If it was real, then it’s even more touching. A man who suffered in silence for years, pouring his love for you into his diary, living such a hard life... and you were his only salvation—"
Su Ning shuddered at Zhang Lili’s dramatic words. With a rare, faint smile, she nudged her friend.
"Alright, alright, I told you to cut back on those romance novels. What nonsense are you even thinking? If you ever go broke, just become a novelist—don’t waste that overactive imagination of yours."
"Hey! Ningning, that’s actually not a bad idea!"
......
While sleeping, Zhou Yi vaguely heard System 077 say something.
He woke up groggily and asked, "System, what did you just say?"
077: "Congratulations, Host. Su Ning’s regret value increased by 10."
Zhou Yi paused. "Why? Just because of that exam? She realized I’m not a loser and now regrets how she treated me?"
077: "You’ll have to figure that out yourself."
Zhou Yi could only assume it was because he’d shown a bit of his ability, impressing the success-driven Su Ning.
In reality, it was just the girls’ wild imaginations at work.
Still, their speculations aligned pretty well with Zhou Yi’s goals.
How else could he explain his sudden transformation?
If he suddenly became rich, what would be the reason?
He needed a backstory.
The best solution was his identity.
If his biological parents were wealthy, his sudden fortune would make sense.
His drastic change could be explained as him dropping a long-held act—pretending to be an unremarkable underachiever out of necessity.
As for why? He’d let others fill in the blanks themselves. The more room for imagination, the more mysterious and believable it became.
He didn’t need to script every detail—his audience’s creativity would surpass anything he could come up with.
The bell for the next class rang. Zhou Yi stretched lazily.
Time for another performance.
As a playboy who thrived on showing off and charming girls, he always looked forward to moments like these.
Showmanship and face-slapping were the defining themes of Zhou Yi’s life.
] 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.
e, Immortal Body, Transmigration, System, Progression Fantasy, Academy Setting, Third-Person Perspective. Alternate Title: Transmigrating into a High Martial World and Reading Live Comments. Bad news: I transmigrated. This is a terrifying high-martial world, and my original, pathetically weak body fell into a coma and never woke up. Good news: I got a Popularity Points system upon arrival. I can see live comments and even create an unkillable alternate identity. Starting out, the alternate identity has all stats at 1. The system tells me that to grow stronger, I must participate in the plot, gain popularity points to allocate stats and grow stronger, and ultimately awaken my original body. And so, carrying my original body on my back, I officially entered Huaqing Academy, where the story's protagonist resides. From that moment on, Chen Guan kicked the original plot to pieces. Live Comments: [Doesn't anyone find this mysterious coffin guy creepy? He can summon indescribable grey misty hands.] [Is this guy a hero or a villain? What kind of onion became a spirit?] [By the way, does anyone know who's in the coffin? Shouldn't the debt for saving his life be repaid by now?] [According to unofficial histories, the person in the coffin was Chen Guan's first love. Their love was once passionate and earth-shattering, but they were separated by life and death due to worldly circumstances. What a star-crossed pair.] ... Years later, the world knew of a demon god born from a coffin, shrouded in grey mist, impossible to gaze upon directly. His foremost divine emissary often wielded a scythe, reaping lives like the god of death. As war approached, facing former friends and a boundless sea of enemies, Chen Guan merely raised his scythe. "Would you like to dance as well?"
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?!
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!
