[Ding! Host has scammed the Jialan Empress, earning 400 million scam points.]
Jiang Che, who had been sleeping while hugging Jia Ling'er, suddenly woke up from his dream. He rubbed his eyes with his hand.
Young Master Jiang had always been grumpy when woken up, hating nothing more than being disturbed during his sleep—except for the sound of points being credited. Especially when it was a whopping 400 million points, which would only make him grin from ear to ear.
It was like being abruptly awakened by your phone ringing with the announcement, "[Fortune Pay has credited your account with 100 million yuan...]" Even if your sweet dream was interrupted, you wouldn’t feel the slightest bit of anger.
"Jialan Empress? Where did I scam her? Logically, that woman should still be in her cooldown period after the last big explosion..."
But soon, Jiang Che noticed something strange.
The soul of the person beside him seemed to have vanished, pulled into another space.
"Ling'er?" Jiang Che patted Jia Ling'er’s shoulder, but she didn’t react at all.
"Soul projection? But that doesn’t make sense..." Jiang Che narrowed his eyes.
Someone was clearly messing around.
[Mother, does the Stone Man’s Tear really have such powerful effects?]
[Indeed, and that’s not all... Our ancestral lands hold even more treasures, including countless immortal artifacts. I don’t know how Jiang Che managed to find them.]
[Mother, do you still plan to kill him? He’s the hope for our Jialan Clan’s future rise! If I can win his favor... you could live a happy life too. Maybe he could even purify your bloodline!]
[...]
With his "Eavesdropping" ability activated, Jiang Che heard Jia Ling'er seemingly conversing with someone—likely her mother.
After all, an Empress was still an Empress. Her methods were formidable. Without using Eavesdropping, he might not have even detected her presence.
"System, what’s going on? Why can’t I trace the source of the voice?"
The ever-dutiful System responded promptly.
[Host, this information involves Emperor-level secrets. A fee of 1 million points is required...]
"I’ll give you nothing! Spit it out—you even dare to charge me for this?"
[Ding! Host has scammed the System, earning 10 million scam points...]
Jiang Che had long understood the System’s quirks. A little bargaining or scolding could sometimes squeeze out extra rewards—making it the most considerate System ever.
[The Jialan Empress cultivates the 'Dream Dao,' allowing her to invade others' dreams or even merge her own dreams with theirs. Within dreams, she is invincible—an extremely terrifying ability. Jia Ling'er has been dragged into a dream. Exercise extreme caution, Host.]
Jiang Che nodded slightly. "Dream invasion?"
This was the first time the System had warned him to be careful, meaning there was real danger.
After all, the Jialan Empress was a half-step Immortal powerhouse—her methods were beyond ordinary comprehension.
But Jiang Che wasn’t afraid of capsizing in a ditch. His ship was an aircraft carrier—no ditch could hold it!
"Can you get me into the dream? I want to eavesdrop on their conversation and see what this Jialan Empress looks like!"
The System fell silent for a few seconds, as if frozen.
[Advanced Dream Card: Allows dream invasion as an observer. 90% chance of detection by the Empress.]
[Super Dream Card: 45% detection chance.]
[Ultimate Dream Card: 5% detection chance, bypasses all cultivation barriers.]
The Ultimate Dream Card cost 5 million points. Jiang Che didn’t haggle this time—occasional bargaining was fine, but doing it every time would be too shameless.
Still, before entering the dream, he prepared multiple life-saving measures. The survival items he’d bought from the System could form a small mountain.
Against an Empress? No fear. From physical immortality to causality-defying resilience—his motto was simple: "Hard to kill."
......
"Ling'er, you must remember—staying by his side is fine, but you must never fall in love with him. Our Jialan Clan’s ancestral rule is... never love a human."
The Jialan Empress spoke with absolute seriousness.
"Our ancestor, the first mermaid, was deceived by a human. That’s why this prohibition is etched into our bloodline. Violating it... means turning into stone!"
Her tone was grave.
"Mother, do you really think I’d fall for that scoundrel? Impossible! Even if he took my purity... my heart will never belong to him!"
"Lin—Ling'er!!! Your hand!!!" The Empress suddenly widened her eyes in shock.
"My hand? What’s wrong with it?"
Jia Ling'er looked down—and her composure shattered.
The tip of her little finger had begun turning to stone.
The petrification wasn’t severe yet, but it was undeniably happening.
"Mo-Mother, I swear I don’t love him! He’s a perverted bastard—I’d rather die than love him!"
Panic set in. She’d just claimed she wouldn’t fall for Jiang Che, and now this?
The Empress also flustered but forced calm.
"Then Jiang Che must die. Before your feelings deepen, eliminating him is the only way to stop the petrification."
"Wha—Mother! But killing him means losing the ancestral land’s secrets! He holds the key information!"
The Empress studied her daughter silently before speaking.
"Ling'er, you’ll have to endure. Extract the ancestral land’s secrets or have him purify your bloodline first. Once his value is drained... I’ll eliminate him for you."
"But remember—you must not love him. This is our ancestor’s inescapable curse, one even Immortals can’t break."
Her words were final.
...
"Petrification?"
Jiang Che, eavesdropping in secret, frowned.
The Jialan Clan turns to stone if they love humans?
But that didn’t add up.
Why hadn’t Qing'er and the other mermaids petrified? Did they not love him?
The thought stung, but he shook his head.
"Impossible. Qing'er and the others definitely have feelings for me. It must be because of my Emperor’s Blood—their lineage changed, bypassing the curse."
A complete bloodline overhaul meant their DNA no longer carried the ancestral prohibition.
Maybe in another realm, the mermaid ancestor and her human lover lived happily ever after, shedding tears of joy every day.
Jiang Che made a bold hypothesis.
After all, who said tears only came from sorrow? Sometimes, overwhelming happiness could bring them too.
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
lanned to earn money steadily and take life at a slower pace. But he never expected... his father's remarriage, and the stepmother bringing along a dependent, would completely disrupt his life's plans...
transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”
d intelligence to keep the plot moving, and sometimes even the protagonists are forced into absurdly dumb decisions. Why does the A-list celebrity heroine in urban romance novels ditch the top-tier movie star and become a lovestruck fool for a pockmarked male lead? Why do the leads in historical tragedy novels keep dancing between love and death, only for the blind healer to end up suffering the most? And Gu Wei never expected that after finally landing a villain role to stir up trouble, she’d pick the wrong gender! No choice now—she’ll just have to crush the protagonists as a girl!
