In the original novel from Lu Ze’s previous life, the second act unfolded linearly, revealing all sorts of irrational contradictions along the way.
When Lu Ze created the illusion, he greatly enhanced the players’ freedom.
If the story were still pushed forward through a linear progression, it would inevitably feel dull.
So Lu Ze, drawing on some detective game mechanics from his previous life, designed the second half of the second act to guide players into discovering contradictions themselves, thereby advancing the plot.
The players’ curiosity, already heightened by the Fright-Soul Entanglement Formation, made them more than eager to take on this kind of exploration task.
Zhong Yi immediately threw himself into digging up clues.
The first thing he thought of was the thousands of paper rabbits that Lin Xi had folded.
“Submit! … Wait, I also have to make connections and draw conclusions?”
Looking at the interface that popped up for associations and conclusions, Zhong Yi was dumbfounded.
But the evidence-collection system wasn’t hard to understand. After thinking it over, he linked the “paper rabbits” with the “rabbit corpse” and then gave his conclusion—
“Lin Xi started to regret her marriage to Gu Yun and projected her resentment onto the rabbit that was crushed to death on their wedding day… So she kept folding paper rabbits to take revenge on Gu Yun!”
[Deduction invalid.]
Seeing his deduction rejected by the system, Zhong Yi rubbed his temples.
“This one seems the most suspicious… but there’s absolutely no other angle to support it!”
After much thought, Zhong Yi gave up on the two most obvious leads—the paper rabbits and the platypus doll.
There simply wasn’t enough information.
He began to focus on other areas.
“What else feels off?”
Zhong Yi closed his eyes.
The scenes from before played backward in his mind, over and over…
“I’ve got it!”
Zhong Yi’s eyes snapped open. He rewound the timeline to the night when Gu Yun was drinking with Zhang Peng and stared excitedly at the jar of pickled cucumbers on the table.
[Clue 1: Everyone, including Gu Yun himself, said Gu Yun loved pickled cucumbers since childhood.]
[Clue 2: After several rounds of drinks, the open jar of pickled cucumbers in front of Gu Yun remained untouched.]
[Clue 3: The pickled cucumbers at home had expired without any sign of being opened.]
After submitting the three clues, Zhong Yi made the connection and boldly gave his deduction—
“Gu Yun doesn’t actually like pickled cucumbers!”
[Deduction confirmed (1/4)]
“Excellent!”
Zhong Yi’s confidence soared.
He was a player with strong logical thinking, and he had experienced puzzles just as puzzling as the pickled cucumber one more than once!
Soon, he found the second clue.
[Clue 1: Everyone, including Gu Yun himself, knew that Gu Yun loved reading “Battle Through the Heavens” as a child.]
[Clue 2: On the bookshelf in Gu Yun’s old house sat a copy of “Battle Through the Heavens,” thick with dust and showing no signs of ever being opened.]
[Clue 3: When Lin Xi asked Gu Yun about a famous quote from “Battle Through the Heavens,” Gu Yun had no reaction.]
“Deduction!”
“Gu Yun doesn’t like reading ‘Battle Through the Heavens’… No! He’s never even read it!”
[Deduction confirmed (2/4)]
“Bring it on!”
Zhong Yi was reinvigorated.
This method of finding clues and connecting them to draw conclusions felt refreshingly new.
And it was highly immersive!
He was starting to understand the story between Gu Yun and Lin Xi much better!
Following the line of thought that Gu Yun’s actual persona was vastly different from how others described him, Zhong Yi simply tossed both deductions into the clue options.
“Heh… Everyone’s knowledge of Gu Yun’s hobbies came from his mother.”
Zhong Yi shook his head with a smile, growing more confident in the bold conclusion forming in his mind.
“Right, how could someone who lives with him day in and day out get this wrong? Unless…”
He initiated another deduction.
[Clue 1: Gu Yun doesn’t like pickled cucumbers, but he always thought he did.]
[Clue 2: Gu Yun doesn’t like reading “Battle Through the Heavens,” but he always thought he did.]
[Clue 3: Gu Yun’s mother often called him “Xiao Feng.”]
“Deduction!”
“Pickled cucumbers and ‘Battle Through the Heavens’ are what Xiao Feng liked, not Gu Yun!”
[Deduction confirmed (3/4)]
“Haha, I’m amazing!”
Zhong Yi was greatly encouraged, but he soon realized that following the trail of hobbies had led him to a dead end.
“I feel like his mother is the key… What other clues are related to his mother?”
He began recalling every scene where Gu Yun’s mother appeared.
“The wedding, the banquet… Oh! That Wen Qingyun who saved Gu Yun!”
Zhong Yi immediately rewound the timeline to the day of Gu Yun and Lin Xi’s wedding.
At the banquet, a man named Wen Qingyun sat quietly at the table drinking, revealing no obvious clues.
Zhong Yi stared at Wen Qingyun for a long time. When his gaze shifted to the strange red sigil on Wen Qingyun’s cheek, a flash of insight struck him.
The next moment, he jolted out of the dream, springing to his feet from the ground.
“Imm… Immortal Master! What’s wrong?”
This sudden move startled the Gu—a louse specialist doctor Wen Yaoxin, who had been staying up all night to watch over Gu Yun.
Zhong Yi stared fixedly at the red mark below Wen Yaoxin’s right eye, his heart racing with the joy of cracking the mystery.
He grabbed Wen Yaoxin by the shoulders.
“Doctor Wen… Is your grandfather named Wen Qingyun?!”
Wen Yaoxin looked baffled. “Yes… How did you know?”
“That’s not important!”
Zhong Yi shook his head ecstatically, then pointed a finger at Gu Yun.
“What’s important is that I need to know now—”
“Is there another Gu worm inside Gu Yun’s body, besides your Heart-Strengthening Gu?”
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.
orn and Humiliation】【Forced Love】 In his past life, Lin Ran was betrayed and murdered by his girlfriend and family, while the yandere female aristocrat, who had treated him as a mere plaything, avenged him by doing in his enemies. Upon seeing the yandere female aristocrat lying in the same coffin, ready to die with him, Lin Ran realized how profoundly mistaken he had been. Reborn, he abandoned the fickle campus beauty and wholeheartedly embraced the yandere female aristocrat's arms. "Ran! If I dig out your eyes and turn them into a specimen, you'll only be able to look at me!" Lin Ran: "Darling, kiss me!" "Ran! If I break your legs, you won't run away anymore, right?" Lin Ran: "Love, hold me tight!" "Ran! If..." Lin Ran: "Hush now! Love me more!" Luo Yao: ... Seeing his scumbag dad: "Take him out!" Seeing his stepmother: "Get rid of her!" Seeing his brother: "Eliminate him!" Seeing his white moonlight: "Send that to Southeast Asia!"
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!
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."
