"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—!!!"
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.
ver to a world of cultivation and returned invincible. Modern medicine is child's play compared to elixirs; technological might crumbles before true cultivation. My name is Qin Ning, Earth's sole cultivator!
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!
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."
