Hearing Zhong Yi's question, Zhou Yue recalled his recent ordeal, and a wave of bitterness welled up in his heart.
"Ah!!! You have no idea what happened to me!!!"
"I found the haunted room—it was in the basement… and then the basement door suddenly locked! I was trapped inside with the ghost!!"
"And then, for some reason, the ghost started messing with me… blowing out candles, breathing down my neck…"
"Luckily, I’ve got nerves of steel, so I didn’t even flinch."
"But guess what? The ghost suddenly ignored the protection period and started hunting me down… and then I died."
As he spoke, Zhou Yue wore a deeply aggrieved expression.
"But honestly, this illusion realm is pretty incredible…"
"In the end, out of nowhere, a divine bird appeared and resurrected me?"
"Hahaha, you all keep saying I have bad luck, but look—even a divine bird blesses and revives me. Am I finally turning things around?"
"...Huh? Why is everyone so quiet?"
After listening to Zhou Yue’s account, the three of them exchanged uneasy glances.
Only then did they realize the truth.
Those bone lots they had drawn earlier weren’t defective.
All their effects had been dumped onto Zhou Yue alone!!
Quick-witted as ever, Zhong Yi pinched his chin and muttered under his breath:
"So, [Heavenly Net and Earthly Trap] locks the ghost in the haunted room, [Fate’s Misfortune] makes the ghost more aggressive, [Vengeful Ghost’s Hunt] forces it to start hunting immediately, and [Miraculous Survival] is… resurrection?"
"What’s all that mumbling about?"
Zhou Yue scratched his head curiously.
Mu Yawen was about to speak when Zhong Yi clapped a hand over her mouth.
"N-Nothing! Old Zhou, turning your luck around is great! Really great… See all these lanterns? They’re lit just to celebrate your newfound fortune!"
"Hmph, at least you know how to talk… Hey, little sis, what’s that in your hand?"
Zhou Yue suddenly noticed the exquisite bone lot tube in Zhou Qiaoling’s grip and perked up.
"This…"
Zhou Qiaoling hurriedly hid the tube behind her back.
"It’s just… a little trinket from the room! For drawing lots, nothing special!"
"Drawing lots? Let me see!"
Hearing this, Zhou Yue grew even more excited.
Seriously? They were playing with lots right after his supposed luck turned around?
How could he not show off his new streak?
He snatched the Yin-Yang Divination Bones from Zhou Qiaoling’s hands and examined them closely.
Instantly, he saw the system’s description of the item.
"Hah, a cursed artifact? Hiding such a treasure from your own brother… Don’t worry, my luck’s changed now!"
Zhou Yue grinned, shaking the tube with unwavering confidence.
Inside, only a single bone lot remained.
"Whoa, the last one? Can’t let it go to waste!"
The moment those words left his mouth, the other three instinctively took a step back.
"Senior Zhong Yi… what if it’s [Vengeful Ghost’s Hunt] again?" Mu Yawen whispered.
"It’s fine, it’s fine… [Vengeful Ghost’s Hunt] already triggered once. It shouldn’t happen again," Zhong Yi reassured himself.
"And don’t forget, there’s still [Illusory Mirage]! What are the odds of drawing another [Calamity]?"
No sooner had he spoken than Zhou Yue plucked the final bone lot from the tube.
The moment it left the container, the lot’s surface turned pitch black!
Etched onto it was the ghastly image of a ghost hanging upside down, its deathly visage horrifying to behold.
Beneath it, the words glared ominously:
[Extreme Calamity: Hour of Reckoning]
A wisp of deathly black energy slithered from the lot like an arrow, burrowing into Zhou Yue’s fingertip and slithering toward his heart.
"I—"
Before he could react, two bloodied ghostly hands materialized at the corners of his vision, clawing toward his eyeballs.
In an instant, Zhou Yue met his end once more, his soul departing his body.
The three below stared in stunned silence at Zhou Yue’s corpse—his limbs twisted, his neck wrung into unnatural segments—before the reality of the situation finally sank in.
Zhong Yi, filled with regret for not stopping Zhou Yue in time, choked back a sob:
"Old Zhou…"
"Ah!!"
"Old Zhou!!!"
[Got back late—next chapter will be updated later.]
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.
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?!
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
