“Not dead.”
Xu Shou stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray beside him.
“Then why did she leave? Don’t tell me she thought you were crippled and abandoned you?”
Xu Mu looked at Xu Shou.
“If that were the reason, she wouldn’t have left her photograph here all this time,” Xu Shou said softly. “After I was crippled, she stayed behind to take care of you for several years. But she had things of her own to do, so I understand.”
“The Great Wilderness Clan?”
“Mm.”
Xu Shou lit another cigarette and said quietly, “Do you hate her? She abandoned our little family for the sake of that so-called greater good.”
“I don’t hate her. To be honest, if I hadn’t seen her photograph, I would have forgotten what she looked like a long time ago.”
Xu Mu tapped a finger against his temple.
He wasn’t lying. Even with the memories of the former Xu Mu, the mother he had never met remained nothing more than a vague image.
Besides, Xu Mu had crossed into this world from somewhere else. After merging with those memories, he had come to regard Xu Shou as his father.
But toward the mother he had never seen, he felt almost nothing.
“She had two responsibilities weighing on her shoulders: one toward her own flesh and blood, and the other toward the lives and deaths of countless members of her clan. She had no right to choose both. The cruelest thing in this world is having to make a choice.”
Xu Shou took several deep drags, exhaling clouds of smoke. “So, as her man, I took on one of those responsibilities for her—protecting you. That way, she could have no worries holding her back.”
“Old man, you’re really admirable.”
Xu Mu rose from the sofa. “I don’t think I’m as broad-minded as you.”
The memories in his mind gradually surfaced before his eyes. Xu Shou had indeed protected Xu Mu exceptionally well—so well that his care had already become outright indulgence.
“Love is a heavy burden.”
Xu Shou shook his head. “That’s why you should find several wives. Then, if one of them leaves you in the future, you’ll still have other people by your side and won’t be so lonely. I’m speaking from experience.”
“I’ll leave it to fate. I’m heading back.”
Xu Mu said goodbye to Xu Shou. By now, it was getting dark, and Ye Tong had probably already finished work.
……
When Xu Mu returned to the villa complex, he found Ye Tong’s car already parked in the garage. As soon as he pushed open the front door, Ying Weiyang rushed over and threw herself into his arms.
“Xu Mu, you’re back?”
Ye Tong had told Ying Weiyang that Xu Mu would be coming today, so she had been waiting at home for him.
[Favorability +10]
“Yeah. There were quite a few things to deal with this time, so I was delayed for several days.”
Xu Mu smiled and patted Ying Weiyang on the head before looking toward Ye Tong, who had just walked out of the kitchen.
A favorability notification appeared above her head as well.
“This must have been exhausting, right?”
Ye Tong approached Xu Mu with a gentle smile. “I made some delicious food for you today.”
“Okay.”
Xu Mu nodded. He had always felt that this was what a wife should be like.
Still, he respected Xu Shou’s choice. Perhaps the things Xu Shou and his mother had experienced were far beyond anything Xu Mu could imagine.
“Xu Mu, I know how to play games now.”
Ying Weiyang pulled Xu Mu down onto the sofa and took out her phone with a smile. “Sister Ye has taught me a lot during this time.”
“That’s good.”
Xu Mu stretched lazily and leaned back against the sofa.
He had already contacted everyone close to him earlier.
Fu Jinyu was still cultivating a god-tier technique, while Nalan Shisan was cultivating a heaven-tier technique.
As for Jiang Huihui, she had told Xu Mu that she had taken a leave of absence and was no longer working as a cleaner. Her goal was to cultivate the god-tier technique.
With Jiang Sheng’s help, she had more or less gone through the entire technique these past few days.
Once she could use it proficiently, she would immediately return it to Xu Mu.
Clearly, Jiang Huihui still felt too distant from him and believed she should return the technique as soon as possible.
Xu Mu suddenly looked toward the front door.
[Favorability +10]
Feng Yue walked in with a smile. “Boss, you’re back?”
“Yeah.”
Xu Mu smiled and waved to Feng Yue. “How’s the company been lately?”
Feng Yue sat down beside Xu Mu of her own accord and nodded with a smile. “Very well. Sister Ye’s pharmaceutical company is planning to launch another new product.”
Xu Mu nodded inwardly as he sized up Feng Yue, especially her alluring eyes.
“Why do I feel like you’re getting prettier and prettier?”
[Favorability +10]
Feng Yue smiled and touched her face. “It might be because my cultivation level has improved. Recently, I’ve felt as though my body and energy have returned to the level of when I was twenty.”
Not long afterward, Ye Tong came out carrying the dishes.
“Dinner’s ready. I didn’t invite anyone else today. It’s just the few of us.”
As she spoke, she walked over to the refrigerator and took out a birthday cake.
Seeing it, Xu Mu couldn’t help asking, “Whose birthday is it today?”
He only knew Ye Tong’s birthday. He didn’t even know Ye Yu’s exact birthday—only roughly which month it fell in.
“Mine.”
Feng Yue raised her hand with a smile. “I didn’t expect Boss to come back on my birthday.”
“Happy birthday!”
Xu Mu immediately congratulated Feng Yue.
“Thank you.”
Feng Yue revealed a bright smile.
With only the few of them present, they simply placed a party hat on Feng Yue’s head.
After making a wish, Feng Yue blew out the candles.
Ying Weiyang had been eagerly waiting to eat the cake.
The group gathered around the dining table. Feng Yue took a bite first, then praised it. “Sister Ye’s cooking keeps getting better and better.”
“It’s still quite a ways behind my husband’s.”
Ye Tong covered her mouth and laughed.
“The cake is delicious. I’ve forgotten my own birthday, but that won’t do. I’m going to pick a day and make it my birthday. It can’t be the same as any of yours, so I’ll get to eat cake one extra time!”
Ying Weiyang smiled until her eyes narrowed. To her, eating was the most important thing.
After everyone had eaten and drunk their fill, Ye Tong said to Xu Mu, “Honey, take Little Yue out for a walk. I’ll wash the pots and dishes first.”
Xu Mu glanced at Feng Yue, then nodded.
He took Feng Yue by the hand and walked with her along the roads of the villa complex. When they passed behind the villas, Xu Mu grabbed Feng Yue by the arm and leaped over the tall wall.
Pulling Feng Yue along, he sprinted through the hills behind the complex. In the blink of an eye, they arrived at a mountaintop.
The half-moon in the night sky was exceptionally bright.
The two of them sat on a rock and looked up at the sky.
Suddenly, Xu Mu glanced at Feng Yue. “Why are you crying?”
“You might not believe me, but this is my first time celebrating my birthday.”
Tears shimmered in Feng Yue’s eyes, reflecting the moonlight. “Before this, I always spent my birthdays alone, drinking red wine.”
Xu Mu wrapped an arm around Feng Yue and pulled her into his embrace. “I’ll remember your birthday. From now on, you won’t be alone anymore.”
[Favorability +30]
Feng Yue leaned against Xu Mu’s shoulder as tears rolled down her cheeks one after another.
Her mind filled with memories of the first time she had met Xu Mu, all the way to the present. She was truly moved.
“Meeting you was the luckiest thing that ever happened to me. Wherever you are is my home.”
Feng Yue murmured softly.
[Feng Yue’s favorability has reached its limit.]
[Feng Yue has established a connection with the host.]
At that moment, two lines of black text appeared before Xu Mu’s eyes.
Xu Mu’s heart jolted. Feng Yue’s favorability had actually reached its limit?
This came as quite a surprise to him. He checked Feng Yue’s filial piety value toward him as well, and sure enough, that had reached the maximum level too.
He had to admit that the favorability limit varied from person to person.
Xu Mu felt that there were some people whose favorability would never reach its limit.
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
lities. One day, Qi Yuan was buying groceries when he unfortunately came face-to-face with a monster. Just when he thought he was going to die on the spot, he suddenly heard the monster's thoughts... "This aura, he's definitely not an ordinary master!" "So terrifying, so terrifying." "A fight with my back against the wall, I can't take it anymore." Qi Yuan: Ah, no one told me that my awakened ability isn't telepathy, but rather the stronger my enemies imagine me to be, the stronger I truly become. PS: Zhou Hai in the first chapter is not the protagonist.
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.
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.”
