A "Wuju" white car continued its journey down the road.
Inside the vehicle, Su Yang drove in silence while Lu Ruoxi quietly studied a difficult problem on her tablet.
As Su Yang steered smoothly across the elevated bridge of Riverside Boulevard, sunlight spilled onto Lu Ruoxi's face. Just then, she solved the problem that had troubled her all night, and a faint smile graced her lips.
Neither she nor Su Yang noticed.
Just moments ago, they had narrowly brushed past a meticulously planned death.
...
Meanwhile, in another corner of Jingzhou, atop the International Trade Center, a café sat quietly.
Li Jinchuan occupied a seat by the window, elegantly holding a cup of Blue Mountain coffee.
Gazing outside, his face bore a smile of absolute confidence.
He was waiting for a call—one that would announce Su Yang's death.
He had already envisioned how, once the news arrived, he would approach and console Lu Ruoxi under the guise of a "grieving friend."
He had even rehearsed his lines.
As time passed, his phone finally rang.
The caller ID displayed an unfamiliar number.
Li Jinchuan answered, his smirk growing more triumphant.
"Hello?"
But the voice on the other end was not Black Panther's.
Instead, it was cold, devoid of emotion—an official tone.
"Is this Mr. Li Jinchuan? This is the Ninth Major Case Unit of Jingzhou South District. You are suspected of masterminding a premeditated murder and multiple commercial crimes. Please remain where you are and cooperate with our investigation."
Li Jinchuan's smile froze instantly.
The coffee cup slipped from his hand, shattering on the floor.
"No... impossible!"
"Who are you? You've got the wrong man!"
Before he could utter another word, the café door swung open.
Several uniformed officers, their expressions stern, strode directly toward him.
The leader flashed his badge.
Then, one of his colleagues produced a pair of cold handcuffs and clamped them around Li Jinchuan's wrists.
"No! This isn’t real! This isn’t how it’s supposed to go!"
Li Jinchuan finally snapped.
He thrashed wildly, his voice hoarse with screams.
"I’m the protagonist! You can’t arrest me! You’re all just NPCs!"
"Let me go! I need to fix the world!"
His madness drew the stares of every patron in the café.
People gaped at the well-dressed man now behaving like a lunatic.
The officers ignored his ravings and forcibly escorted him out.
As Li Jinchuan was shoved into the police car, he looked up at the sky, at the sunlight.
Yet all he felt was an endless abyss swallowing him whole.
The "divine destiny" he had believed in crumbled into dust before the harsh reality.
...
In the interrogation room, the lights were blindingly white.
Li Jinchuan, still cuffed to the chair, muttered incoherently.
"You’re wrong... all of this is wrong..."
The interrogating officer, a veteran of twenty years, had never encountered a suspect like this.
The evidence was irrefutable, the case airtight.
Yet he refused to confess, spouting nonsense no one could decipher.
Just as the interrogation hit a deadlock, a young officer entered, carrying a thick file box.
"Captain Li, the bureau just received an anonymous tip—sent through the highest encryption channel."
"It contains... every piece of evidence on Li Jinchuan’s crimes."
The man referred to as Captain Li frowned.
He opened the box.
Inside was a mountain of documents.
Bank statements, transfer records, call recordings, contract copies, witness testimonies...
From Li Jinchuan’s first act of corporate espionage early in his career to market manipulation, illegal fundraising, and more recently, embezzlement and premeditated murder.
Every single crime was meticulously documented, forming an unbreakable chain of evidence.
The level of detail surpassed their months-long investigation tenfold.
It was as if an omniscient god had compiled Li Jinchuan’s life into a comprehensive crime report and handed it directly to them.
Captain Li inhaled sharply.
His gaze toward Li Jinchuan shifted.
This man was no madman.
He was a pitiful prey ensnared in an invisible web, manipulated by forces beyond comprehension.
And the weaver of that web operated on a scale he couldn’t fathom.
"Read him every charge," Captain Li ordered his subordinate.
"Let him wake up and see who really wrote his so-called 'script.'"
With multiple convictions stacked against him, Li Jinchuan faced an eternity behind bars.
The original protagonist of his own story, after just a few short days of "awakening," had barely stirred the waters before being swept away like dust in a new era.
...
Qin Group, top-floor office.
Qin Ya skimmed the briefing her secretary had just delivered.
It detailed Li Jinchuan’s arrest and the subsequent exposure of a series of shocking crimes.
Her face showed no surprise—not even a flicker of emotion.
Only the dull satisfaction of a foregone conclusion.
She had chosen Li Jinchuan for his ruthless ambition.
She thought he would be a sharp blade, capable of drawing blood.
Instead, he turned out to be nothing more than a rusted piece of scrap, crumbling at the first sign of real resistance.
So foolish, in fact, that he left behind a trail of fatal mistakes.
This wasn’t a matter of capability.
It was sheer idiocy.
Qin Ya picked up her phone, pulled up Li Jinchuan’s contact, and decisively hit delete.
To her, this was simply a failed investment.
Cutting losses was Business 101.
She had no intention—nor would she ever—of mobilizing the Qin family’s resources to salvage a worthless pawn.
She didn’t even care to see him again.
Just then, her private phone rang.
The screen lit up with a name that radiated sunshine: Huangfu Chengshi.
Qin Ya’s lips curled almost imperceptibly.
She answered.
"Ya-jie! Our 'Edge Fund No. 1' outperformed the market by ten points this month!" The young man’s voice brimmed with excitement and pride.
"Is that so? Not bad," Qin Ya replied, her tone lighter.
"So... to celebrate, can we have dinner tonight?" he asked tentatively, hope threading his words.
Qin Ya glanced out the window.
The sunset bathed the city in a warm, golden glow.
"Sure," she said with a smile.
......
Li Jinchuan’s "awakening" and downfall were like a pebble dropped into a lake.
It sent ripples across the surface, but they faded quickly.
To the sprawling metropolis of Jingzhou, one man’s disappearance meant nothing.
But for some, it marked the definitive end of an era.
And the dawn of a new one.
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?!
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?"
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!
] [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!"
