The night wind cut across Lu Chenyuan’s face like a blade, carrying a bone-chilling coldness.
Lu Chenyuan stood on the rooftop of Lu Corporation’s headquarters, beneath him the bustling traffic and dazzling lights of Jingzhou City stretched endlessly.
This city’s prosperity was like a colossal steel beast, devouring everything in its path.
And he stood atop the beast’s head, ready to offer himself as the final sacrifice.
Endless exhaustion and despair surged like tides, drowning his sanity inch by inch.
In his mind echoed the tearful cries of his fake younger sister, Lu Qianqian.
The accusations and estrangement from his three younger brothers, all for her sake.
The shareholders’ aggressive faces in the boardroom.
The cold, disappointed eyes of his arranged wife, Mo Qingli...
All these images finally froze on the true daughter of the Lu family, Lu Ruoxi—the girl the Lu family had wronged for eighteen years—who was now nestled in another man’s arms, casting a gaze so venomous it pierced him to the core, looking at this crumbling family.
That man was Li Jinchuan.
He was the mastermind behind the Lu family’s downfall.
And Lu Chenyuan himself, the helmsman of the Lu family, had lost everything because of the twisted, forbidden love he harbored for Lu Qianqian. Time and again, he indulged her, retreated step by step, until he lost it all.
Guilt, self-blame, and helplessness consumed him.
Lu Chenyuan closed his eyes and took a step forward.
The sensation of weightlessness enveloped his entire body, the wind howling in his ears.
Death—perhaps it was the only release.
If there were gods, no, even if they were demons, please take my soul and exchange it for a sliver of life for my family.
Before Lu Chenyuan completely lost consciousness, this was his last thought.
...
“I... am I not in the Poverty Alleviation Office?”
Lu Chenyuan suddenly opened his eyes. Above him was the high-end, stifling ceiling of an office.
He sat up, bewildered, looking around.
Lu Chenyuan was an orphan from the village, raised by many families, who after graduating university resolutely returned to serve as the first secretary, dedicating his life to that barren land.
He clearly remembered dying suddenly from exhaustion after weeks of intense overtime.
But at least the last project was completed, a small repayment to the land that gave him life.
So what was happening now?
Before Lu Chenyuan could make sense of it, a vast flood of memories not his own, mixed with endless regret and pain, overwhelmed his thoughts.
This was a female-oriented, feel-good novel he had once casually read to pass the time, titled *“Return of the Heiress: The CEO’s Revengeful Sweet Wife.”*
In the story, the true daughter Lu Ruoxi returned to the wealthy family only to be coldly neglected, while the family doted on the fake daughter they had raised for eighteen years, Lu Qianqian.
Lu Ruoxi suffered physical and emotional abuse, but with the help of the male lead, Li Jinchuan, she rose like a phoenix from the ashes, exacted sweet revenge, and utterly crushed the Lu family, wiping out their entire clan.
And he, Lu Chenyuan, was the foolish, cowardly eldest brother who, in the end, jumped to his death out of despair over the family’s ruin and his own torment—the eldest brother of the true heiress.
What troubled him even more physically was that the ultimate trigger for the original owner’s suicide was the secret love he had long hidden for his nominal younger sister— the fake heiress Lu Qianqian.
This forbidden affection blinded him, making it impossible to treat his real sister Lu Ruoxi fairly. It led him to indulge Lu Qianqian’s every whim, and ultimately, he single-handedly dragged the entire family into ruin.
“Damn it!”
In his previous life, he had poured his heart and soul into securing a future for the villagers; yet this man who shared his name and identity, sitting atop the pinnacle of wealth and power, destroyed everything with this sordid personal obsession!
And now, he had become Lu Chenyuan from the book.
This was the president’s office on the top floor of Lu Corporation’s headquarters.
It was six months before the story’s official start. Lu Ruoxi was still in her final year of high school in that poor little town. The secret of the true and false heiresses had yet to explode. There was still time!
At that moment, a knock came from outside the door, followed by a voice.
“President Lu!”
Lu Chenyuan said, “Come in,” and a young man wearing gold-rimmed glasses and exuding a calm demeanor stepped inside.
He was Lu Chenyuan’s special assistant, Lin Yuan.
Lin Yuan seemed momentarily stunned upon seeing Lu Chenyuan.
At this moment, Lu Chenyuan’s face was pale, beads of cold sweat the size of beans trickling down his flawless cheek.
“President Lu, you…” Lin Yuan called out nervously but stopped mid-sentence.
He had known Lu Chenyuan for years and had never seen him lose control like this.
“I’m fine.”
Lu Chenyuan waved his hand dismissively and walked straight to the huge floor-to-ceiling window.
Standing by the window, he calmly overlooked the sprawling city below.
His mind raced, rapidly processing the original owner’s memories and matching them against the plot he already knew.
His father, Lu Mingye, was mediocre in ability but ambitious, secretly keeping a mistress named Liu Mei, and even had an illegitimate child.
His mother, Lou Mengling, came from a prestigious family; gentle in nature but somewhat timid, she poured all her affection into Lu Qianqian, oblivious to her husband’s betrayals.
His second younger brother, Lu Chenxiao, was a genius doctor—cold and indifferent, focused solely on medicine, ultimately falling victim to a scheme.
His third younger brother, Lu Chenyan, a top celebrity with a fiery temper, was an unabashedly doting “brother complex” towards Lu Qianqian.
His fourth younger brother, Lu Chenjin, a rebellious and solitary race car driver, obeyed only Lu Qianqian.
And then there was Lu Qianqian herself, the fake princess cradled in the family’s hands.
Lastly, the true protagonist, Lu Ruoxi, was about to return.
What seemed like an impregnable, wealthy family was, beneath the surface, already riddled with countless wounds.
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?!
] [Lone Wolf, No Male Gaze] [Protagonist is pursued early on; extreme protagonist-stans, stay away!] The "Carnival Paradise" descends and slowly devours the real world in the form of a game. By chance, Zhu Yan awakens the talent [Roleplay], becoming one of the first beta players. He thought he could develop safely, but after clearing the first instance, he is branded by humanity as the chief culprit behind the game's spread—a traitorous villain. A villain? Who would ever... become one! He'll be the villain! From then on, Zhu Yan is not only a player but also a lackey for the Carnival Paradise. Between the straight path and the crooked path, he chooses the con. With his left hand, he dons the villain's mantle, staging scenes within instances, infuriating players who decry him as a despicable traitor, all while the game happily promotes him. With his right hand, he joins the non-human organization "Fangcun Mountain," which opposes the Carnival Paradise, transforming into a mysterious player who slaughters game bosses, earning cheers of "Long live the expert!" from fellow players. Gradually, Zhu Yan rises to become an S-rank human player in Fangcun Mountain's archives, while also being the Carnival Paradise's certified top game Boss. But when the final war erupts and both major factions place their hopes in him— Players tag his various aliases: "Experts, this offensive depends on you." The Carnival Paradise's supreme Boss throws an arm around his neck: "Bro, you're the iron, I'm the steel; you can't let me down again!"
world slacker. But a genius female disciple just had to get clingy, insisting that he take her as a disciple. Not only that, she was always making advances on him, thoroughly disrupting his peaceful slacker life...
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!
