Ye Sanqi's funeral was a simple affair.
In this world, Ye Sanqi had no blood relatives left.
Most of the mourners were his construction site coworkers and a few neighbors.
As they watched the girl in coarse mourning clothes standing in the funeral hall without shedding a single tear, they couldn't help sighing behind her back.
"That child must be in shock."
"Poor thing, losing her father so young."
Ye Ruoxi wasn't in shock.
She simply couldn't cry.
Her tears seemed to have dried up completely that night.
Her world had been drained of all color, leaving only an impenetrable, suffocating gray.
She watched Zhang Cuilan.
Dressed in mourning attire, the woman wailed hysterically before the coffin, her voice hoarse, collapsing several times in exaggerated grief.
Neighbors rushed to comfort her.
Ye Ruoxi knew those tears were for show.
Because just the night before,
she had seen Zhang Cuilan in her room,
counting the money in that envelope over and over by moonlight streaming through the window.
The compensation money, combined with donations from the construction site and coworkers,
totaled 103,627 yuan and 50 cents.
Ye Ruoxi had an excellent memory—one glance was enough to sear that number into her mind.
For this household, it was a fortune.
When Zhang Cuilan counted the money, she didn't cry.
There wasn't even a trace of sorrow on her face.
The day after Ye Sanqi was buried,
Little Ma came again.
He carried a net bag of fruit and a small red plastic pouch containing money.
His eyes were still red.
"Little sister..."
He crouched down, unable to meet Ye Ruoxi's gaze,
"This is just a small token from me. Buy yourself something nice."
He tried to tuck the money into her pocket.
Zhang Cuilan charged out from the house and shoved him away violently.
"What are you doing here? Come to laugh at our misery?" she shrieked,
"You jinx! If it weren't for you, my Ye would still be alive! Give him back to me!"
She snatched the money and fruit from Little Ma's hands and hurled them to the ground.
"We don't want your filthy money! Get out! Never come back!"
Little Ma's face flushed crimson, his lips trembling wordlessly.
He glanced at Ye Ruoxi's expressionless face.
Finally, he fled in humiliation.
Ye Ruoxi watched the scattered bills being blown away by the wind.
She also watched that retreating, broken figure disappear into the distance.
She knew that the last echo of kindness her father left in this world had just been severed.
The pillar of their household had truly collapsed.
Zhang Cuilan's indifference toward Ye Ruoxi quickly curdled into venom.
She no longer bothered to hide it.
"Bad luck charm!"
"If it weren't for you, your father would still be alive!"
"He only rushed off work that day because he wanted to buy you some stupid cake—that's why the accident happened!"
She piled all the blame onto Ye Ruoxi.
Onto that nonexistent cream cake.
Ye Ruoxi didn't argue.
She learned silence.
Because she knew any response would only invite more vicious curses, or worse—a beating.
She became the most superfluous presence in that house.
A living, breathing testament to guilt.
The 100,000 yuan wasn't an insignificant sum.
Yet it didn't sustain the household for long.
Zhang Cuilan made a trip to the city.
When she returned, a gaudy gold necklace hung around her throat,
glinting obnoxiously in the sunlight.
She admired herself in the mirror for a long time,
wearing a satisfied smile that had been absent for years.
But the joy was fleeting.
She started gathering with other women to play mahjong.
At first, it was small stakes—just a few yuan per game. Then the bets grew steadily larger.
She lost more than she won.
The gold necklace soon shrank to a gold ring.
Then dwindled to a pair of tiny earrings.
Finally, nothing remained.
The money flowed away across the mahjong table like water.
Once again, the household plunged into hardship.
This time, there was no one left to hold up their crumbling sky.
Zhang Cuilan had to find work.
With no particular skills, she could only wash dishes at restaurants.
Towers of greasy plates loomed like mountains.
She lasted less than a month before quitting, complaining it was too exhausting.
After a screaming match with the owner, she walked out.
Eventually, Zhang Cuilan used the last portion of the compensation money to buy a secondhand covered tricycle.
She stocked up on pots, pans, and some foldable tables,
setting up a spicy skewer stall at the night market.
Rumor had it she'd even purchased a secret recipe from an established shop.
From that day on, Ye Ruoxi's life split cleanly in two.
By day, she was the silent, top-ranking student at school.
By night, she became the nimble little helper at the night market—skewering ingredients, washing endless bowls.
After school each day, she had to complete all the household chores first.
Sweeping floors. Washing clothes for two.
Then she'd follow Zhang Cuilan, riding that clattering tricycle to the night market stall.
Her hands were still small, her fingernails tiny.
Yet they had to skewer slippery cubes of tofu, kelp, and potato slices onto icy bamboo sticks.
Sometimes the sharp ends stabbed under her nails—white-hot pain shooting up her fingers.
She didn't dare cry out. Just sucked at the wound briefly before continuing.
In winter,
the night market wind sliced at her face like knives.
She'd plunge bowls crusted with red oil and broth into freezing water,
scrubbing them over and over.
Her hands soon developed frostbite.
First swelling red, then purpling, finally splitting open in bloody cracks.
Submerging them in water felt like being stabbed by countless needles simultaneously.
She didn't dare complain.
Just gritted her teeth and shoved her hands deeper into the icy water.
Until they went completely numb, losing all sensation.
Then it didn't hurt anymore.
Her dinners usually consisted of customers' leftovers.
Zhang Cuilan would collect the untouched, relatively intact skewers into a bowl.
"Eat! Then get back to work!"
Sometimes it was overcooked vegetables.
Sometimes just a few unwanted sausage sticks.
Ye Ruoxi always ate quickly.
Then resumed weaving between greasy tables—clearing dishes, wiping surfaces.
Closing time rarely came before 11 PM.
She'd help load everything back onto the tricycle.
At home, she still had to wash and prep all the ingredients for the next day.
By the time she finally collapsed into bed,
her bones felt shattered.
Yet at 6 AM sharp, she'd rise again for school.
This life had no end in sight.
Physical exhaustion and emotional abuse pressed down on her like twin mountains, crushing her breathless.
But she didn't break.
She grew quieter. Tougher.
She knew tears were useless.
In this household, tears were the cheapest currency.
They bought no sympathy—only invited Zhang Cuilan's sharper barbs.
"What are you crying for? I'm not dead yet! Save your tears for my funeral!"
d intelligence to keep the plot moving, and sometimes even the protagonists are forced into absurdly dumb decisions. Why does the A-list celebrity heroine in urban romance novels ditch the top-tier movie star and become a lovestruck fool for a pockmarked male lead? Why do the leads in historical tragedy novels keep dancing between love and death, only for the blind healer to end up suffering the most? And Gu Wei never expected that after finally landing a villain role to stir up trouble, she’d pick the wrong gender! No choice now—she’ll just have to crush the protagonists as a girl!
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!
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?!
ive and Ruthless] Before his transmigration, Ye Xuan was playing a game called "Severing Emotions to Attain the Dao." The game's core wasn't about leveling up by fighting monsters, but about conquering various "bad women" with wicked personalities and cold, fickle natures. There was only one method to conquer them: stay unwaveringly by their side, then die at a critical moment, driving them to madness after losing the protagonist. The higher their level of regret, the higher the player's score. To dominate the server, Ye Xuan conquered all the bad women. In the early stages, he showered them with boundless tenderness, only to choose to sacrifice himself for them later, making them weep bitterly and drown in regret. Among them were: Xia Lengyue, the unfaithful immortal wife who chased after powerful men and discarded her husband like trash. Ye Qingcheng, the Demonic Venerable of the Joyous Union Sect, who appeared pure and innocent but was, in reality, promiscuous. Wu Lingxiao, the Empress of the Great Xia Dynasty, who lusted after men and loved maintaining a harem. Bai Qiangu of the Endless Demonic Sect: a bloodthirsty mass murderer. However, when the protagonist transmigrated into the game world, he made a horrifying discovery. Eight hundred years had already passed. The bad women he had conquered had now each become deities and revered ancestors. Faced with the endless stream of toxic women coming for him, Ye Xuan could only rely on his god-tier acting skills to carve a path of survival through this world of treacherous women.
