Gu Lingfei froze, casting a puzzled glance at Jiang Che.
Her expression seemed to ask: Didn’t you explain our relationship to her?
Jiang Che shrugged, offering a helpless smile in response.
"Ugh, what a scumbag!" Gu Lingfei muttered under her breath.
"Ahem... Ningning, you’ve got it wrong this time. Jiang Che and I aren’t pretending to be a couple—we’re the real deal!"
Gu Lingfei had initially planned to brush it off, but after a moment’s thought, she decided to be honest. After all, there was no way to keep something like this hidden forever.
Better to lay it all out now than risk a messy confrontation later!
The moment Gu Lingfei finished speaking, Ji Ningxue on the other end of the call fell into a prolonged silence.
Even through the phone screen, Jiang Che could practically smell the brewing storm of a classic romantic showdown.
Not that it bothered him much. A little drama was nothing to a man bold enough to maintain a harem. What was one more confrontation to him?
After nearly a minute of silence, Ji Ningxue finally spoke.
"Feifei... is this true?"
Her voice carried a faint tremor, something entirely unfamiliar for the usually unshakable business magnate.
As a strong-willed woman, Ji Ningxue had absolute confidence in her judgment. She’d been certain that Gu Lingfei and Jiang Che were just putting on an act—which was why she’d allowed herself to indulge so freely.
But now... her scalp prickled with dread.
"Of course! Che and I have been official for ages~" Gu Lingfei teased, deliberately dancing on Ji Ningxue’s already frayed nerves.
"Oh... I... I see."
Even through the screen, the devastation in Ji Ningxue’s voice was palpable.
"Alright, alright, I’ll stop messing with you, Ningxue. I already know about you and Che."
Ji Ningxue’s heart lurched—like a thief caught red-handed by the owner.
"Feifei, I... I didn’t mean to..."
A whirlwind of possibilities flashed through her mind. Should she bow out gracefully? Or fight for what she wanted? The thought of stepping aside filled her with unbearable reluctance.
Even if her current role was that of the "other woman," Jiang Che was the first man who had ever truly broken through her defenses. No matter how wrong it was... she still wanted to fight for him.
But Gu Lingfei’s next sentence short-circuited her brain entirely.
"Ningxue, that waste Xiao Chen isn’t worthy of you. Only someone like Che is a match for you. Welcome to our big family~"
"Wha—what? Big family?" Ji Ningxue was utterly baffled.
She’d done some basic research on Jiang Che and knew he had plenty of admirers—a charming, flirtatious young man.
But this? This was beyond anything she could have imagined.
"Look, some things are too complicated to explain over the phone. Tomorrow, I’ll have Che pick you up and bring you to the Jiang family estate. You’ll understand once you see it for yourself."
Gu Lingfei sighed, rubbing her temples before shooting Jiang Che a glare.
[You little playboy, you handle the explanations tomorrow.]
Jiang Che smirked, taking the phone from her without hesitation.
What kind of man would hide behind a woman forever?
"Hey, Ningxue-jie? I’ll come get you tomorrow. Make sure to dress up nice, alright?"
"Jiang Che!!!"
Safe to say, Ji Ningxue wouldn’t be getting much sleep tonight.
------
Meanwhile, across the ocean...
Xiao Chen had arrived in his own domain.
"All hail the Dragon King!"
"All hail the Asura!"
"All hail the War God!"
A row of subordinates knelt before Xiao Chen, who now stood clad in a sleek black suit and sunglasses—exuding an air of untouchable dominance.
"Rise."
Gone was the desperate, lovestruck fool. In his place stood a man radiating confidence, his smirk sharp and unyielding—every inch the ruthless underworld kingpin.
"Lord Asura, we recently accepted a mission at the Asura Hall. Initial intel classified the target as Silver-tier, but we’ve suffered repeated failures. We escalated to Gold, then Platinum, even Diamond-tier assassins—all unsuccessful. The target is... formidable."
Xiao Chen frowned and waved a dismissive hand. "Send the five Master-tier assassins. That should settle it."
His tone brooked no argument.
As the Asura Hall’s King of Assassins, he couldn’t possibly dirty his hands with such trivial matters.
What would that do to his image?
"By the way, how many mercenaries are currently available in the War God Pavilion?" he asked.
"Reporting to the War God, we have roughly 1,000 deployable mercenaries at present."
Xiao Chen nodded, satisfied.
A private army of 1,000 was nothing to scoff at—even in volatile regions like the Middle East.
Of course, the War God Pavilion wasn’t his true trump card. That honor belonged to the Dragon King Palace!
Within its ranks lay his ten thousand elite warriors and a million-strong army!
"I intend to mobilize all my forces and bring them to China. Any objections?"
His announcement left the room stunned.
"My Lord... the Dragon King Palace’s registered personnel number in the millions. Transporting them all to China would cost a fortune in airfare alone!"
"At 20,000 yuan per ticket, a million men would cost 20 billion!"
Xiao Chen’s frown deepened. "A mere 20 billion? Are you telling me my Dragon King Palace—with its million-strong army—can’t scrape together that much?"
Long Xu, one of his subordinates, twitched. "Lord Dragon King... the Dragon King Palace is technically a security company. Most of our members are scattered worldwide working as security guards. Recalling them now would be... impractical."
"Besides, security work isn’t as lucrative these days. The majority are just registered in name—they’ve already quit. The actual number we can mobilize... is less than one-tenth."
Xiao Chen’s rage erupted. "What have you all been doing? I was only in China for three years! How could the Dragon King Palace fall so far without me?"
Clearly, without its Dragon King at the helm, the organization had lost its very soul!
"Please calm yourself, my Lord," Long Dan said, bowing deeply. "Your ten thousand elite warriors have already begun gathering upon hearing of your return."
The mention of ten thousand elite warriors soothed Xiao Chen’s fury slightly.
Those so-called million-strong army? Not even worth a single hair of his true elites!
Just then, a distant rumble shook the ground, as though an entire cavalry was charging forth.
They were here!
Finally!
As the dust settled, four towering figures—each nearly eight feet tall—stood before Xiao Chen.
Emblazoned across their foreheads were four bold characters:
‘Ten’ — ‘Thousand’ — ‘Elite’ — ‘Warriors’
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!
. 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!"
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?!
tions: attribute allocation, analysis, proficiency, and simulation. Specializing in mechanical alchemy, from crafting sorcerous battle armor to handcrafting mechanical maidens, his mechanical legion conquers endless realms... Relying on his wits, he begins with a student-teacher romance, wins over a female director, enslaves a female assassin and a underworld queen, becoming the husband of a Grand Duchess... He enslaves the Goddess of Magic from the divine realm, developing his power simultaneously in both the Wizard World and the Realm of Gods...
