"Damn it!!"
Zhou Yue's face instantly turned ashen.
This was the exact spot where someone had died in the previous round!
Moreover, the basement environment—dark, damp—naturally carried an eerie sense of oppression.
"Wait... it hasn't even been five minutes. The ghost shouldn’t be able to act yet!"
Zhou Yue quickly snapped back to his senses and mustered his courage to climb the stairs and push the door.
Yet, it didn’t budge an inch.
"Old Zhong, is that you blocking the door from the outside? Trying to keep me in?"
Zhou Yue’s first thought was that Zhong Yi was retaliating for what he’d done in the last round.
"Come on, we’re both Nascent Soul cultivators now. Be magnanimous, don’t be so petty..."
He knocked for a long time, but there was no response from outside.
Zhou Yue was utterly frustrated.
The iron door seemed welded shut.
Who the hell did this...
At the same time,
Zhou Yue keenly sensed that the temperature around him had dropped even further.
"Damn it... I swear the ghost is right next to me..."
......
Master Bedroom.
Zhou Qiaoling stared curiously at the bone slip engraved with [Heavenly Net] in her hand, unable to figure out its effect.
"Heavenly Net? Maybe it traps ghosts for a while?"
Zhong Yi, who had rushed over after hearing the news, analyzed the divination result.
"Then why isn’t it marked as [Auspicious], but just a neutral [Moderate]?"
Zhou Qiaoling was still puzzled.
"Ah, whatever! Let’s just draw another one!"
With that, she eagerly pulled another bone slip from the cylinder.
This time, the engraving depicted a graveyard—countless coffins with withered hands clawing out from within.
Beneath it read:
[Minor Misfortune: Fate’s Stranglehold]
"Minor Misfortune!"
Zhou Qiaoling’s expression instantly paled.
This was her first time drawing an ominous slip, and she immediately grew tense, hiding behind Zhong Yi.
The two of them stayed on high alert for a long time, yet nothing happened.
"Strange... is this slip broken?"
......
Basement.
"Damn it, is this door broken or what?"
Zhou Yue kicked the iron door twice more, but it remained unmoved. He had no choice but to retreat.
He glanced at his sanity points.
With the protection of the lanterns—both the hallway and basement ones lit—his sanity was still at a high 91.
Just then,
the basement lantern’s flame began flickering erratically.
Zhou Yue’s heart leaped into his throat.
In the wavering light,
a figure with a wrinkled, blood-streaked face suddenly appeared before him.
Zhou Yue’s sanity points plummeted instantly!
"Holy shit!! You... you!!!"
His heart pounded violently as he stumbled back two steps.
The next moment,
the lantern’s flame snuffed out completely.
The damp, oppressive basement plunged into absolute darkness.
Zhou Yue didn’t dare breathe. He scrambled backward, fumbling desperately through his inventory.
Despite having only four item slots, he kept grabbing the wrong things,
his hands shaking like he had Parkinson’s.
When his back finally hit something solid—the wall—he felt a sliver of relief.
But just as he pulled out the Spirit Cage, Zhou Yue suddenly realized...
the "wall" behind him was moving.
His heart seized again as he slowly turned his head.
It wasn’t a wall at all—
it was the same ghostly old woman again!
"I..."
Zhou Yue sucked in a sharp breath, fighting the urge to scream.
He was live-streaming this, after all. There were tons of viewers watching!
He couldn’t afford to embarrass himself!
But the next second—
"Haaah...!"
An otherworldly, icy breath exploded right by his ear.
Zhou Yue couldn’t hold back anymore.
"HOLY SHIT!!! GHOST!!!!"
......
Meanwhile.
Bedroom.
Zhou Qiaoling, Zhong Yi, and Mu Yawen were enthusiastically analyzing the effects of the [Yin-Yang Bone Divination].
[Purple Mist from the East] restored 100 sanity, while [Lunar Soul Snatcher] deducted 100.
The ambiguous [Sun and Moon as One]—white restored 25, black deducted 25.
Occasionally, [Illusory Mirage] would nullify the divination entirely.
The more they experimented, the more engrossed they became, completely forgetting their original purpose.
"Again, again!!"
Zhou Qiaoling was the most eager.
After so many draws, the worst they’d gotten was the black [Sun and Moon as One], which only deducted 25 sanity.
"These bone slips don’t really pose any threat to us!"
Zhong Yi remarked confidently.
Then, Zhou Qiaoling felt a bone-chilling cold seep into her fingertips.
The slip displayed a grotesquely twisted face, as if attacked by a malevolent entity.
Beneath it read:
[Great Misfortune: Vengeful Ghost’s Hunt]
Instantly, the air around them turned frigid!
"W-what do we do...?"
Zhou Qiaoling’s voice trembled with fear, regret flooding her for drawing this slip.
"It’s fine, it’s fine..."
Zhong Yi forced a laugh, trying to reassure everyone.
"It hasn’t even been five minutes yet, right? We should be safe..."
"Besides, none of the previous slips did anything. Maybe this is just a scare tactic..."
Hearing this, Zhou Qiaoling relaxed slightly.
"So... [Vengeful Ghost’s Hunt] is also a dud?"
Seeing no immediate movement around them, Zhong Yi exhaled in relief.
"Speaking of which, where’s Old Zhou...?"
......
Basement.
"Y-you... you’re just trying to scare me!"
Zhou Yue struggled to keep his lips from trembling, but his body refused to cooperate.
Trapped with the ghost, his sanity was draining rapidly.
Fear, thick as the surrounding darkness, enveloped him like rising floodwaters.
"It’s... it’s not time yet... y-you can’t kill..."
Before he could finish,
the ghostly old woman’s lips stretched into a grin—so wide it seemed to split her withered face apart.
"Thud... thud..."
A heavy, rhythmic pounding echoed—
the same sound that preceded every ghostly kill in the last round.
According to Zhong Yi’s analysis, this was the ghost’s hunting signal!
"You! You—!"
Zhou Yue panicked.
Assuming the ghost wouldn’t attack so soon, he hadn’t brought the Evil-Warding Coin or the Incense of Exorcism.
Now, he was defenseless—just an ordinary man!
In this moment, he understood one thing with absolute clarity—
All fear stems from a lack of firepower!
"You promised a grace period! Y-you... you’re breaking ghostly ethics!"
"Don’t..."
"Don’t come any closer!!"
"AHHH—!!!"
young master of the Shen family—a figure of immense power and wealth beyond measure—and awakened the "Destined Ultimate Villain System"! His starting scenario? Running into his icy fiancée who shows up with a mountain-descending divine doctor to break off their engagement. The divine doctor arrogantly taunts: "What does your Shen family have besides a bit of stinking money? You're not even worthy of tying Qingxue's shoelaces!" Shen Fei just smiled. He completely defied the usual script: "Fine, I agree to break off the engagement. Also, notify the finance department to withdraw all investments from the Su family." Minutes later, with its capital chain severed, the Su Group teetered on the brink of bankruptcy! The once aloof and proud ice queen CEO was thrown into utter panic. That very night, she went to Shen Fei's villa, casting aside all dignity to beg and plead desperately... From then on, in this world teeming with Sons of Destiny, Shen Fei embarked on a path of extreme dimensional suppression! A mountain-descending divine doctor? Peerless medical skills? Shen Fei: "Reporting you for practicing medicine without a license! I'll gladly take your ancient medicinal cauldron and twin sister assassins." The Crooked-Smiling Dragon King? Commanding a hundred thousand soldiers with a single order? Shen Fei: "Illegal assembly and suspected treason! Let a fleet of attack helicopters sanitize the area and teach you what the state apparatus really means!" A reborn tycoon? Knows all the golden opportunities of the next decade? Shen Fei: "A trillion in capital to reverse and pump the stock market, making you blow your margin and jump on the very first day of your rebirth!" What Chosen Ones? What bearers of Heavenly Fortune? In Shen Fei's eyes, they're all just chives (i.e., suckers/marks) waiting to be harvested! Shen Fei: "Sorry, but as the Destined Ultimate Villain, I don't play by the rules of honor. I only play the game of dimensional suppression."
lan, the Luo family, tracked him down - along with the babies in their arms. Mo Xuan stared pensively at the paternity test results from over a dozen top institutions, both domestic and international, showing a 99.99% match between himself and the two baby girls. At 23, Mo Xuan, a doctoral student, had become the father of two three-year-old children. The kicker? The mothers weren't even the same person! He gradually realized he was being lured step by step into an elaborate trap designed by these two yandere sisters. "Be good, little Xuan. Sister's life belongs to you entirely." "Brother, if you try to run away, I'll have no choice but to tie you up." Mo Xuan: "Do whatever you want, ladies. I give up."
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.”
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?"
