After replying, Xu Mu placed his phone on the table.
For now, his priority was to accumulate as much "Justice Points" as possible to enhance his own strength.
A full four or five minutes passed before his phone buzzed with another message.
"Are you free for a call?"
Zhao Yingying sent just a few words.
Xu Mu frowned slightly, then proactively dialed her number.
Within a second or two, the call was answered.
"Hello, Young Master Xu. You might not remember me, but I’m the one who—"
"I remember you, Zhao Yingying."
Xu Mu cut her off.
"Yes… thank you for remembering me. I… I…"
Zhao Yingying’s voice trembled with tears on the other end. "Young Master Xu, I’m truly desperate. Please lend me some money. I’ll pay you back, I swear. I’ll do anything you ask."
"What do you need the money for?" Xu Mu asked curiously.
"My mother is sick. She needs surgery. I’ve taken time off from school to work, but it’s not enough. If this drags on, she’ll miss the best window for treatment."
By now, Zhao Yingying was sobbing uncontrollably. "I’ve tried everything. I’ve borrowed from everyone I know."
"How much do you need?" Xu Mu asked.
"F-fifteen thousand."
Zhao Yingying seemed ashamed to even say the number.
Asking for such a large sum from someone she’d only met once was practically absurd.
But she was truly out of options. Even the slimmest chance was worth grasping at.
"That’s not a small amount," Xu Mu said calmly.
Though he had once thrown away ten thousand without a second thought at Feng Yue’s bar, he wasn’t the same villainous Xu Mu from before.
"I know. If you lend it to me, I’ll do anything! I’ll pay you back, I promise!" Zhao Yingying pleaded.
"Send me your location first."
With that, Xu Mu hung up.
He knew Zhao Yingying was the female lead, and her favorability toward him was positive.
But spending fifteen thousand just to boost her favorability seemed a bit excessive.
After all, he could earn the same level of favorability from Ye Tong in just a night or two.
Still, after some thought, he decided to help.
It aligned with the system’s name—the Justice System.
Doing a good deed would count as karma points for himself.
Seeing Zhao Yingying’s location—Jiang City Second Hospital—he left his office and headed over.
...
Zhao Yingying stood anxiously at the hospital entrance, waiting.
Before long, she spotted Xu Mu and hurried toward him.
Xu Mu took in her appearance: a simple beige dress, her black hair cascading like a waterfall.
She didn’t possess Xu Ningbing’s striking beauty but carried the delicate charm of a pure, girl-next-door type.
The determination in her eyes had vanished, replaced by helplessness.
"Young Master Xu," Zhao Yingying wiped her tears. "I’m sorry. We barely know each other, yet I’m asking you for so much money."
"Enough. Let’s go see your mother first," Xu Mu said, patting her shoulder. "Just call me Xu Mu. ‘Young Master Xu’ sounds too distant."
[Favorability +30]
"Then… Brother Mu, please follow me."
Zhao Yingying led the way to the inpatient building.
As Xu Mu followed, he observed the expressions of the families in the hospital and couldn’t help but sigh at the state of the world.
Working your whole life only to fall short when a major illness strikes—it made no sense.
On the sixth floor of the inpatient building, Zhao Yingying pushed open a ward door.
"Mom—"
She froze mid-step, staring in surprise at a slick-haired young man in a suit standing nearby. "Brother Fang Chu? What are you doing here?"
"I came to check on Auntie. I’m sorry, Yingying… I couldn’t get the money."
Fang Chu wore an apologetic expression. Zhao Yingying had called him first to borrow money, but when he asked his wife, he’d been berated.
She’d accused him of overstepping by trying to help another woman.
"It’s okay. I’ve already borrowed the money," Zhao Yingying said as Xu Mu stepped in behind her.
Fang Chu’s eyes locked onto Xu Mu, and his entire body stiffened. "You again?"
Xu Mu felt a twinge of awkwardness. Was this what they called the "Villain Magnet" trope?
He kept running into male leads everywhere.
"Huh? Do you two know each other?" Zhao Yingying looked between them, confused.
"Yingying, he’s not a good person. You should stay away from him."
Fang Chu glared at Xu Mu, his expression icy.
He couldn’t shake the feeling that this guy was deliberately sabotaging him. First, he’d ruined things with Lu Xueyao—she hadn’t replied to any of his messages since yesterday.
Clearly, Xu Mu had poisoned her against him.
And now, he was interfering with Zhao Yingying too.
"Brother Fang Chu, how can you say that? Brother Mu is a good person!"
Zhao Yingying’s face darkened.
From their very first meeting, Xu Mu had been kind to her—buying clothes, ensuring she got her commission.
Now he was lending her a huge sum. How could he possibly be a bad guy?
On the hospital bed, a woman weakly lifted her head to look at Xu Mu.
She was Zhao Yingying’s mother, Li Yun.
With her shoulder-length hair, it was clear where Zhao Yingying had inherited her delicate beauty. Li Yun was no less attractive herself.
She appeared to be in her late thirties, with a curvaceous figure and an air of mature charm.
But her pale complexion and exhausted eyes dulled her radiance.
If she were in better health, she’d be even more striking.
Instinctively, Xu Mu activated his "Eyes of the Divine" to inspect her.
Name: Li Yun
Identity: Breakfast shop owner, delivery rider, female lead of "The Ultimate Son-in-Law."
Favorability: 1
Fate Level: 7 (Max 10)
Xu Mu nearly choked when he saw this.
Holy—
Damn.
This Fang Chu was something else. Not content with Zhao Yingying, he’d gone after Li Yun too?
After the initial shock, Xu Mu steadied himself. Well, it wasn’t unheard of in these kinds of stories.
"Yingying, don’t take this the wrong way, but he’s only after one thing from you."
Fang Chu turned to Zhao Yingying. "I’m a man—I know exactly how he thinks."
"Brother Fang Chu, you’ve got it all wrong. Brother Mu never sought me out—I was the one who reached out to him."
Zhao Yingying explained everything—how they’d met, what had happened today.
Xu Mu hadn’t contacted her once since that day at the clothing store.
Fang Chu’s expression darkened as he listened.
"We’re not close, so I don’t get why you’re so quick to assume the worst of me."
Xu Mu’s tone turned cold. "Luckily, you and Yingying aren’t involved. If you were, I’d walk out right now. I came to help, not to be insulted."
"Brother Mu, please don’t be angry."
Zhao Yingying grabbed his arm in a panic. "There must be some misunderstanding. Brother Fang Chu is a good person."
Xu Mu rolled his eyes. Oh, he was good alright—good enough to bag both mother and daughter.
"He’s a good person? How much did he lend you this time?" Xu Mu asked flatly.
"He… didn’t."
Zhao Yingying lowered her head and said.
“This is what you call a good man? A married man with no job? Can’t even spare a single penny?”
Xu Mu remarked coolly.
“Married? Brother Fang Chu is married?”
Zhao Yingying stared at Fang Chu in disbelief.
Li Yun was equally stunned—she had never heard Fang Chu mention it. She had even thought he was a decent man and had considered setting him up with her daughter.
Though Fang Chu was several years older than Zhao Yingying, he clearly knew how to take care of others.
[Destiny Power -20]
Fang Chu’s expression grew increasingly grim.
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.
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.”
grated, and just when he finally managed to get into an elite academy, he discovered that he actually had a system, and the way to earn rewards was extremely ridiculous. So for the sake of rewards, he had no choice but to start acting ridiculous as well. Su Cheng: "It's nothing but system quests after all." But later, what confused Su Cheng was that while he was already quite ridiculous, he never expected those serious characters to gradually become ridiculous too. And the way they looked at him became increasingly strange... (This synopsis doesn't do it justice, please read the full story)
pression Bureau] Transported to a fantasy world overrun by demons and monsters, Gu Qingfeng becomes a jailer in the Demon Suppression Prison of the Great Yan Dynasty's Demon Suppression Bureau. From this point on, bizarre cases frequently occur in the Demon Suppression Prison, once known as hell on earth and infamous for its gloomy, terrifying atmosphere! Why do the demons and monsters in the prison wail miserably every night? Why has the corpse demon, capable of transforming into various beauties, donned black stockings and switched careers to become a foot massage therapist? Why has the eye demon, expert in soul-snatching and illusions, turned into a VR headset? Why is the fox spirit performing otaku dances? Are all these occurrences a twisted expression of demonic nature, or a descent into moral depravity? After peeling away layer upon layer of mystery, all clues ultimately point to a jailer named Gu Qingfeng. Gu Qingfeng: "Hehehe... My dear demons and monsters, whose card shall we flip today?"
