Time flowed backward, memories reversed.
Under the blue-purple night sky, the sea breeze blew and the moonlight was bright.
“So this is what the lighthouse looks like when it’s operating…”
Zhong Yi gazed at the brilliant light atop the lighthouse, cutting through the mist over the sea, muttering to himself.
In all the memories to come, this lighthouse would be abandoned, the strong-light stone at its peak never lit again.
At that moment, Gu Yun and Lin Xi were on a date on the bench beneath the lighthouse.
“So that’s why you approached me back then?”
“Yes.”
“And now?”
“Uh… it’s just a very small part of it now.”
“…”
The light in Lin Xi’s eyes dimmed again, and she remained silent for a long time.
Gu Yun quickly explained, “That was… a long, long time ago! I didn’t know anything back then… I don’t think that way anymore.”
He looked at Lin Xi, his gaze sincere.
“Zhang Peng and Wang Qiao said I should be honest with you about this too… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made our first meeting so trivial…”
When Gu Yun said “first,” Lin Xi suddenly lifted her head as if jolted by electricity, also looking at him.
Her gaze grew deep and unfathomable once more.
A brief silence hung in the air.
“Damn! Too late again?!”
Zhong Yi held his forehead, letting out a long sigh.
He was used to it by now—picking out clues from broken words in stories full of riddles.
Not long ago, in the memory from the tavern, Zhang Peng had asked Gu Yun, “Did you tell her about that thing?”
Clearly, “that thing” was the reason Gu Yun had first approached Lin Xi.
But they were too late. They still didn’t know what that reason was.
Zhong Yi shot a pleading look at Qin Li’en, who shook his head and said, “This is the earliest point in this memory.”
Zhong Yi had to let it go.
The brief silence ended.
Lin Xi pulled a patched little sandbag from her clothes and asked Gu Yun if he could toss it over to the lighthouse.
Long accustomed to Lin Xi’s inexplicable requests, Gu Yun took the sandbag without a second thought and hurled it with all his might toward the opposite cliff.
As expected, it didn’t make it—the little sandbag fell off the cliff into the void, gone without a trace.
What no one expected was that,
the moment Lin Xi saw the sandbag leave his hand, she rushed excitedly toward the cliff. If Gu Yun hadn’t held her back, it seemed she might have jumped.
The memory ended, and the space froze.
Before Zhong Yi could speak, the live-stream barrage erupted:
[Didn’t she ask Old Master Gu to throw it?!]
[Now it’s gone and she’s upset…]
[This Lin Xi is way too weird! It’s amazing that Old Master Gu could put up with her!]
[I really don’t get what Old Demon Lu was thinking, designing a character like that.]
[Even if she’s meant to set off the Senior Sister, this is too much, right?]
…
“I know you have a lot of questions… but that’s not our concern.”
Qin Li’en glanced at Zhong Yi, speaking first.
“What we need to do now is get to Old Master Gu’s childhood memories quickly and plant the cause for him to join the Nine Heavens Sect.”
“Alright…”
Caught off guard, Zhong Yi rubbed his nose sheepishly and began searching for memory fragments on the cliff.
This time, the memory fragment was a traveling pouch Lin Xi used.
As they left, Zhong Yi looked back at the couple and noticed for the first time that Lin Xi had waist-long hair.
In the years to come, Lin Xi would always wear her hair short, just above her shoulders.
“Long hair looked nice, didn’t it? Why did she cut it…”
Zhong Yi shook his head and didn’t dwell on the question.
After all, in the whole recollection, there were plenty more baffling mysteries than Lin Xi cutting her hair short.
…
…
Time reversed again.
“This place is novel… a library stitched together with a tea house? Huh, it’s actually quite practical!”
Zhong Yi looked around.
Gu Yun was chatting idly with Zhang Peng and Wang Qiao at a tea table.
Lin Xi was reading books alone in the adjacent library area.
Gu Yun was troubled by Lin Xi’s “Iceheart Bloodline.”
From the snippets of conversation, it was clear that Lin Xi’s quietness and strange behavior were caused by this “Iceheart Bloodline.”
Coincidentally, Zhang Peng’s wife, Wang Qiao, was also a rare possessor of the same bloodline.
Gu Yun was asking Wang Qiao many questions about the “Iceheart Bloodline.”
“Oh… so that’s why Wang Qiao spoke up for Lin Xi earlier and got along so well with her—they’re in the same boat?”
Another puzzle solved, Zhong Yi exclaimed in sudden understanding.
Every step back into memory untangled another knot.
At this moment, Zhong Yi eagerly looked forward to returning to where Gu Yun and Lin Xi had first met.
He felt that, once there, all the doubts would be resolved.
Just then, Gu Yun got up and walked over to Lin Xi, who was absorbed in a book.
“What are you reading?”
“Journey to the West… I loved this story when I was little.”
“You still love it now, right?”
“Of course…”
Lin Xi put the book back on the shelf, turned around, and her eyes grew a shade deeper.
“…But for a different reason.”
Perhaps remembering that Wang Qiao had just advised him to open up more to Lin Xi,
Gu Yun thought for a moment and said with a smile:
“When I was little, my favorite story was Battle Through the Heavens.”
“I know. Your mother gave you a copy of Battle Through the Heavens as a wedding gift on our wedding day.”
Lin Xi’s gaze flickered as she looked at Gu Yun.
“Yeah…” Gu Yun touched his head, sighing. “What a strange gift. How much must I have loved reading that book as a kid? Haha…”
“Then you…” Lin Xi hesitated. “Why did you stop reading it later? That copy of Battle Through the Heavens was in the storage room. When I saw it, it was covered in dust.”
“Maybe because…” Gu Yun frowned. “I grew up. I outgrew reading those kinds of stories.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“…”
Lin Xi said nothing more. She picked up Journey to the West and walked to the counter to pay.
Gu Yun followed, considerately settling the bill for the book.
Just then, Lin Xi looked at him quietly and suddenly asked:
“Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river… what’s the next line?”
Gu Yun was startled: “Huh? What is it?”
“Nothing.”
As if she had learned something, Lin Xi lowered her head, hiding all her thoughts deep in her eyes.
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?!
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!
] This is a dark fantasy-themed dating simulation game. The main gameplay involves containing various monster girls and investigating the truth of a world shrouded in mist alongside your companions. However, due to his love for the dark and bizarre atmosphere, Luo Wei ended up turning a dating game into a detective mystery game. Women? Women only slow down his quickdraw! To Luo Wei, the female leads in the game are more like tools to perfectly clear levels and squeeze out rewards. For Luo Wei, flirting with every girl he meets and then discarding them is standard procedure. Worried about characters losing affection points? No need. With his maxed-out charm stat, Luo Wei is practically a "human incubus." A little psychological manipulation and those points come right back. It's a bit scummy, but the paper cutout heroines in the game won't actually come at him with real cleavers. However... Luo Wei has transmigrated. He's accidentally entered the second playthrough of this game. His past actions have caused all the girls to transform into terrifying yanderes. Due to the game's setting, most of the heroines he once contained are "troubled girls." Obsessive, twisted, mentally unstable, all aggressive yanderes... The type who will kill you if they can't have you... Luo Wei wants to cry but has no tears left. "I really just want to survive..." In short, this is a story of battling wits and engaging in a love-hate relationship with yanderes.
iaobai: "Councilor Dad, front me some funds. I want to hire ten thousand professional miners for a project!" [Five-Star Mission Issued: Capture the leader of the Blood Heaven Pirate Gang, who is on the run in the Radiant Star Sector. It is said the gang has over a hundred members. Proceed with caution.] Lu Xiaobai: "Councilor Dad, lend me the family's hundred-thousand-strong Lu Army!" [Seven-Star Mission Issued: Subdue a juvenile Void Dragon Beast.] Lu Xiaobai: "Councilor Dad, I'm taking your tamed Void Dragon Beast King out for a family reunion!" I said, System, don't you have any slightly more challenging missions? You're just not up to par! [Nine-Star Mission Issued: Become the Human Councilor.] Lu Xiaobai: "Dad, there's a small matter I'd like to discuss with you..."
