By the riverside.
The wreckage of a crashed helicopter.
Butcher, covered in blood, limped out of the water with great effort, dragging two people in his hands—Red Poison and Viper.
The timed bomb had struck the helicopter, and Red Poison, being the closest, was now barely clinging to life. Without immediate medical attention, he would likely die here today.
"An Yi! Lin Chen!"
Butcher's expression was icy, his fists clenched so tightly that the muscles in his face trembled.
In the Paradise organization, S-rank assassins had their own teams.
He had worked diligently for over a decade to recruit five elite A-rank killers, dominating across nations with no match.
Never had he imagined that today, they would all be wiped out in this insignificant Jiangbei City.
Buzz buzz!
A vibration sounded from his waist.
Butcher pulled out a small, specially designed black phone and tapped it open.
A middle-aged man's voice came through: "Butcher, how did the mission go?"
"Mission failed. Almost died here. Blue Shark, Wolf Eye, and Tiger Cannon were captured. Viper and Red Poison are severely injured."
Butcher spoke calmly, but his eyes gleamed with cold fury.
"How is that possible? Were there others involved?"
The man on the phone sounded utterly disbelieving.
Even a lion uses its full strength to catch a rabbit.
Though Lin Chen was young, he hadn’t underestimated him—even going so far as to pay a fortune to hire an S-rank assassin team from Paradise to ensure success.
Yet, even with such preparation, they had still failed.
"That kid Lin Chen brought backup," Butcher said darkly, sitting on the grassy bank.
"Who?"
The middle-aged man’s voice grew serious.
In Jiangbei City, there were only a handful of notable figures.
But given Butcher’s team’s strength, even if all those so-called experts joined forces, they wouldn’t necessarily stand a chance. Yet Lin Chen had only brought one person.
The man couldn’t help but wonder—which legendary figure had emerged?
Butcher gritted his teeth. "His name is An Yi. A damn weird kid."
Thinking back, that kid had been the biggest wildcard.
Especially in the last minute.
He had single-handedly turned the tide!
Butcher still couldn’t figure out how An Yi had dismantled that timed bomb in mere seconds, given its complex wiring.
"An Yi…"
The man on the phone sounded thoughtful.
Butcher caught the tone. "You know him?"
"I’ve heard of him. A young man with potential, but I always thought he was just a minor player. Never expected he’d be the one to trip you up."
Butcher’s face darkened at that.
Who could’ve predicted that a simple kidnapping would turn into such a disaster?
The original plan had been straightforward: spend a week surveilling Qin Yao’s every move, wait for her to be alone, lure Lin Chen away, and kidnap her.
Then, use Qin Yao to extort Qin Zhengwei for a ransom of one billion.
If the money wasn’t enough, they could’ve tricked Qin Zhengwei into transferring it in installments.
Once the money was secured, they’d kill Qin Yao, board a prearranged helicopter, and vanish.
There might’ve been variables, but with their skills, they could’ve handled anything.
Yet, in the end, they hadn’t gotten the money, hadn’t killed the target, and instead suffered devastating losses.
"Should we continue the mission?" Butcher asked, his voice laced with venom.
"No. We’ve already alerted them. Trying again would be far more complicated—and it might lead back to me."
"The helicopter’s destroyed. Send someone immediately. Viper and Red Poison need urgent medical care."
Butcher glanced at the two barely breathing men and exhaled sharply. "My three subordinates—Blue Shark, Tiger Cannon, and Wolf Eye—are in the hands of the Law Enforcement Bureau. Get them out."
"Impossible. Three A-rank assassins appearing at once? Even the higher-ups in the capital are paying attention. Extracting them would be harder than scaling the heavens."
"I don’t care! You have the connections—I know you do!"
Butcher hung up, his gaze lingering on the factory by the river before he hauled Red Poison and Viper into the forest.
---
"Ow, ow—easy! That hurts like hell!"
An Yi winced as Shen Muxuan carefully applied antiseptic and wrapped bandages around his bare torso.
"What happened last night? You’re so badly hurt," she murmured, her fingers lightly tracing the deep gash on his waist.
Had he not quickly pressed pressure points to stop the bleeding, he might’ve bled out.
"Nothing much. Just saved a billionaire’s daughter from a hit squad, fought an internationally notorious S-rank assassin, then they cheated by strapping a bomb to me. I dismantled it with ten seconds left, threw it back, and blew up their helicopter."
He said it casually, as if recounting a mundane errand.
Most people would’ve scoffed, calling him a liar.
But Shen Muxuan’s face paled, her eyes wide.
"Th-that sounds so dangerous! Why would you do something so reckless without telling anyone?"
She glared at him, her voice trembling with worry.
An Yi shrugged. "Didn’t think it’d be that bad—OW! Why’d you bite me?!"
Shen Muxuan had sunk her teeth into his arm, leaving a neat row of marks. She only let go when his skin turned red, huffing, "That’s to remind you! No more life-threatening stunts!"
"Oh? So you do care about me," An Yi teased, raising a brow.
"I—I just don’t want my rent-splitting roommate to die!" she retorted, hands on her hips.
An Yi chuckled. This girl couldn’t hide her feelings if she tried.
"Hey, An Yi… I have a surprise for you."
She suddenly grinned, looking mischievous.
An Yi eyed her suspiciously. "Please don’t tell me you broke something again."
"Broke something?! Ugh!"
He cleared his throat and began listing her past "surprises": "Last time, you tried cooking and set the range hood on fire. Before that, you poked the TV screen wondering where the people inside were. And let’s not forget the time you dismantled the toilet tank to see where the water came from—"
"Okay, okay! Stop!"
Shen Muxuan pouted, then proudly presented a shoebox.
"New sneakers?" An Yi’s eyes lit up.
"Open it and see if they fit!" She beamed, her smile crescent-shaped.
He eagerly tore it open—then froze.
…They were slippers.
Not the issue.
The issue was the price tag: 250 yuan.
Who spends 250 yuan on slippers?!
"Do you like them?" Shen Muxuan asked nervously, her face hopeful.
An Yi's face lit up with joy. "Of course I like them! I love wearing slippers the most! With these on for the school exam this afternoon, I’m sure to ace it!"
"Hehe, I knew you’d love them."
Shen Muxuan let out a relieved sigh, a hint of pride flashing in her eyes.
Then, a loud growl came from her stomach.
"You haven’t eaten?" An Yi asked with a wry smile.
Working for Aunt Zhou at that small grocery store barely brought in any money, given the low foot traffic. And with Shen Muxuan’s big appetite, most of her earnings went straight to food.
Two hundred and fifty yuan wasn’t much, but saving up that much from her meager wages was brutal—unless she cut back on meals, and not just for a day or two.
"No, no! I’d never starve myself just to save up for shoes," Shen Muxuan insisted, lying through her teeth.
An Yi’s eyes grew slightly red. He ruffled her hair and declared grandly, "Come on, your big bro’s got plenty of cash today. Let’s go for hot pot!"
"Really? What’s hot pot? Is it even better than meat buns?"
"Absolutely!"
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!
lity and could only live as an ordinary mortal. He only wished to live a peaceful life. Yet he didn't know— The dog he adopted, because it ate his food, became a legendary demon king. The kitchen knife he casually forged became a peerless divine weapon, causing numerous experts to fight desperately for it. The young disciple he took in became an immortal lord that led an era, due to cultivating the techniques Ye Feng taught him. Even the skeletons he looked down on the most were ominous demon kings that suppressed countless worlds. Many years later, looking at the void shattered with a punch, Ye Feng murmured to himself: It turns out the peerless kings were myself all along...
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.
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.
