Qicheng, the streets.
A whole crowd of students from the special admissions class swept through the city.
They had just exchanged their spirit cores at the Mercenary Guild and were now carrying around a hefty pile of gold coins, with no idea how to spend them.
They looked every bit like nouveau riche, buying whatever caught their eye.
“This one, and this one—wrap them up for me! Don’t worry about the money. I’ve got plenty of gold!”
“What? You’ve got to be kidding! Why is it so expensive? Forget it, I don’t want it!”
Before long, the group arrived in front of a pleasure house.
Houzi swallowed and nudged Zhang Qi. “Big Brother Qi, have you ever tried this place?”
Zhang Qi glanced at the heavily made-up women leaning against the railings, then elbowed Yan Kui beside him. “Old Black, have you ever tried it?”
Yan Kui was getting a little excited too. He then nudged the person beside him… Qiansui.
Qiansui turned and shot him a glance.
“Ahem, I’m not like them. I’ve never been to a place like this,” Yan Kui hurriedly said, raising both hands.
Qiansui rolled her eyes. “What does that have to do with me?”
“So, are we going in or not?”
Liu Yu asked with a yawn.
Yan Kui glared at him. “What are you following us around for?”
Liu Yu shrugged. “I’ve got nowhere else to go, so I figured I’d tag along.”
“You guys go ahead. I’m going to the auction house.”
Ye Tian carried his huge halberd on his back, walked around the others, and headed toward the auction house on his own.
Hongfu Auction House.
It was the largest auction house in the Lingchuan Region, with its headquarters located right in Qicheng.
Its magnificent signboard proclaimed the auction house’s lofty status. Most of the people entering and leaving were influential figures dressed in finery.
“We’re all bored anyway. Why don’t we go in and take a look?”
Zhang Qi glanced up at the building and smiled.
The others had no objections either.
Normally, they were always clamoring for time off. But now that they had been given a whole day of free time, they had no idea what to do with themselves.
After entering the auction house, a hint of anticipation appeared in Ye Tian’s normally placid eyes.
Xue Jia had once told him that she had been transferred back to the main branch.
“I wonder if I’ll run into her…”
Ye Tian murmured softly, a trace of longing surfacing in his eyes.
At the same time.
In the back room of the auction house, an old man wearing a monocle had been studying the glass marble in his hand for quite some time. At last, he let out a long sigh.
“Exquisite beyond compare, truly exquisite beyond compare! In all my years in this profession, I have never seen an object so ingeniously crafted…”
An Yi’s head began to ache from listening to him. He hurriedly raised a hand to stop the praise and calmly asked, “Just tell me how much it can sell for.”
The appraiser gripped the glass marble, barely able to contain his excitement. “May I ask what this object is?”
“A tear crystal!”
A hint of sorrow crossed An Yi’s face as he slowly said, “Legend has it that this was formed from the tears of a mermaid maiden from the Eastern Sea. Every tear crystal is the tear shed by a mermaid maiden over a tragic love affair.”
The appraiser slowly nodded, his expression wistful. “No wonder it is so clear and translucent. So it was formed from the pure, flawless emotions in a mermaid maiden’s heart.”
“Exactly. More or less. So, this marble… Ahem, this tear crystal—how much would you say one is worth?”
An Yi asked.
“Given its quality, the starting price at auction would be five gold coins!”
The appraiser hesitated for quite a while before giving his answer.
Clang!
An Yi placed an entire chest full of glass marbles on the counter.
“Then buy the whole batch at five gold coins apiece.”
The appraiser’s monocle fell off. He stared at the chest, completely dumbfounded.
“T-This many?”
The appraiser looked at the chest in shock, his voice trembling.
An Yi coughed lightly. “This particular mermaid maiden was very emotional. She cried quite a lot.”
When An Yi stepped out of the auction house, he waved the gold notes in his hand and felt refreshed from head to toe.
Glass was an extremely scarce commodity in this world.
No one had yet figured out how to manufacture it.
Back on Blue Star, he had once thought that one day he would return to the Ancient Continent and exchange marbles for money.
After all, on Taobao, you could buy several thousand of these things for just twenty or thirty yuan. Bringing them to this world to sell would be a guaranteed profit.
That was why he had deliberately stockpiled a great many marbles.
“Instructor An Yi!”
An Yi had just walked out when he heard a sweet, sugary voice behind him.
The moment he heard it, An Yi felt a headache coming on. He forced a smile onto his darkened face. “What a coincidence, Qianqian.”
“Not a coincidence. I’ve been looking for you all day.”
Xu Qianqian smiled brightly.
An Yi looked up at the sky in feigned surprise. “Pigs can fly now?”
“Where?”
Xu Qianqian raised her head and stared at the cloudless sky. “I don’t see any pigs, Instructor An Yi… Huh? Where did he go? He ran off again!”
On another street.
Gu Changfeng strolled past, waving a folding fan with elegant composure.
Beside him was Ning Er, who had straight bangs and a huge saber slung over his shoulder. Pedestrians scattered in alarm as they passed.
To the residents of the Ancient Continent, the pair’s attire was more than a little bizarre.
Behind them were still two blood-red block characters.
“We can’t find the Boss anywhere. And it looks like we aren’t the only ones searching for him.”
Ning Er pointed at the city wall.
A wanted poster for An Yi was prominently displayed there.
One hundred and fifty thousand gold coins!
Along with the influx of people into Qicheng, the city’s transient population had increased considerably. Most of them had come hunting for An Yi’s head.
Gu Changfeng sighed. “It took us forever to find a little information about the Boss. Forget it. Let’s wait and see for now. Maybe one day the Boss will just…”
Gu Changfeng suddenly stopped in the middle of his sentence.
“What’s wrong? Why did you stop?”
Ning Er asked in confusion.
Gu Changfeng stood still and looked toward Xu Qianqian at the entrance of the auction house. His voice solemn, he slowly said, “I smell the presence of a maiden in the bloom of youth!”
…
Hongfu Auction House.
The auction was now underway.
The students from the special admissions class entered noisily, drawing frowns from countless people.
But when those people saw the Dongxuan Academy uniforms they wore, their expressions quickly turned amiable.
They were young, after all. Making a little noise was only natural.
Students of Dongxuan Academy were all highly gifted scholars… They were not people anyone could afford to offend!
“Whoa, the auctioneer is gorgeous!”
“And what a figure!”
“I think only Teacher Zi Yun can beat her.”
“What are you talking about? They each have their own appeal.”
The students stared eagerly at the auction stage.
A beautiful girl in a form-fitting blue dress stood there, her delicate features radiant as she softly introduced the item up for auction.
A smile appeared at the corners of Ye Tian’s mouth.
The auctioneer onstage was none other than Xue Jia!
Xue Jia had clearly noticed Ye Tian and the others as well. Happiness glimmered in her beautiful eyes as she gave him a subtle wink from across the room.
When she saw the Dongxuan Academy uniform he was wearing, Xue Jia froze for a moment before revealing a gentle smile.
She obviously had not expected Ye Tian to make it into Dongxuan Academy and become one of its students.
Xue Jia smiled and greeted Ye Tian.
The students from the special admissions class instantly became excited.
“Holy crap, that beautiful auctioneer is waving at me!”
“Idiot, she was obviously captivated by my good looks!”
The students began arguing among themselves.
The smile at the corners of Xue Jia’s lips deepened as she brought out the next item up for auction.
She opened a jade box, revealing a crystal-clear glass marble.
“Next, we have an item said to be the mermaid’s tear—the tear crystal!”
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.
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!
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.
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?!
