"You've gotten even thinner, child. Did you not eat properly during summer break?"
Lin Dongmei spoke while pulling fifty yuan and two brand-new pens from her pocket, then forcefully pressed them into Ye Ruoxi's hands.
"Take it! This is from me—a thank-you!"
"You're a role model for our Xiao Yang."
"High school textbooks and materials are expensive—don’t deprive yourself."
"And these pens—our Xiao Yang saw you using one last time and loved it. I bought extras, so here are two for you. Consider it borrowing some of your top-scorer’s luck!"
Ye Ruoxi wanted to refuse.
But Lin Dongmei was stronger, and far more insistent.
"If you don’t take it, you’re looking down on me!"
Ye Ruoxi’s fingers curled around the money and the two pristine pens.
Something inside her chest burned faintly.
"Thank you, Auntie," she murmured.
"What’s there to thank? We’ll be counting on you to guide Xiao Yang at school."
"That boy’s not as quick as you—just knows how to grind through things the hard way."
Lin Dongmei patted her son’s back.
Su Yang flushed, scratching his head with an awkward chuckle.
He looked at Ye Ruoxi, wanting to say something, the way he used to in middle school.
But the words dissolved before they left his lips.
The girl before him seemed unchanged from her junior high days.
And yet, everything about her felt different.
She was taller, thinner.
Her chin sharper, her lips pale.
But her eyes—amid the noisy crowd—were like two quiet black stars, impossible to meet directly.
Looking at her, he felt an inexplicable ache, and something else, something warm…
---
The fifty yuan and the two pens didn’t stay with Ye Ruoxi for long.
Zhang Cuilan found them the moment she got home.
"Well, well, Ye Ruoxi. Young as you are, you’re already cozying up to boys for money?"
Zhang Cuilan pinched the bill between her fingers, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Was it Su Yang? Or some other stray mutt?"
Ye Ruoxi didn’t bother explaining.
She just wanted the pens back.
Lin Dongmei had bought them specifically for her.
Zhang Cuilan saw right through her.
With a sharp snap, she broke both pens in half right in front of Ye Ruoxi.
Then tossed them into the trash.
"Let me make this clear. I raised you. Every single hair on your body belongs to me."
"You want money? Earn it with your labor!"
Ye Ruoxi stared at the shattered pens in the bin. Her heart turned colder.
But she said nothing.
---
High school was more demanding than junior high.
By day, Ye Ruoxi was a sponge at school, absorbing knowledge voraciously.
By night, she became an emotionless machine, working tirelessly at home.
Zhang Cuilan had grown lazier with her spicy noodle stall.
Instead, she’d taken on piecework from relatives—trimming loose threads for a local garment factory.
Piles of clothes, reeking of chemical dyes, cluttered their tiny living room.
Every day after school, Ye Ruoxi sat before that mountain of fabric.
Snip. Snip. For two or three hours.
Until her vision blurred and her fingers stiffened.
Her reward? Just enough money from Zhang Cuilan for the next day’s meal.
High school life was tense.
Ye Ruoxi grew even quieter than before.
She sat perpetually in the classroom’s corner.
An isolated island.
Her lunch was always a cold steamed bun.
And a bowl of cafeteria soup, nearly devoid of vegetables.
Around her, classmates buzzed about celebrities, video games, and fledgling romances.
Those belonged to another world.
One that had nothing to do with her.
---
The first monthly exam results sent shockwaves through the grade.
Ye Ruoxi was first again.
And her scores? Nearly perfect in every subject.
Su Yang remained second.
Staring at the names on the rankings, separated by an uncrossable gap, he felt something new: helplessness.
He couldn’t catch up to her.
No matter how hard he tried.
She didn’t belong here.
She belonged somewhere far beyond.
Their homeroom teacher, a young woman fresh out of college, admired Ye Ruoxi’s brilliance but noticed her isolation.
She wanted to help her integrate.
"Study groups!" the teacher announced. "Top students will assist those struggling."
Her first pick was Ye Ruoxi.
"Ye Ruoxi, as our class’s top scorer, you’ll lead Group One. Alright?"
Every eye turned to that corner.
Ye Ruoxi stood.
"Teacher, I decline."
Her voice was soft but firm.
"I don’t have the time."
Then she sat back down.
The classroom fell dead silent.
Then came the whispers.
"Who does she think she is? Just because she scores well?"
"So arrogant."
"What a freak."
The teacher’s face flushed with embarrassment.
Su Yang watched Ye Ruoxi’s rigid posture, his chest tight.
He knew it wasn’t arrogance.
She simply had no energy left—for anything beyond surviving.
---
The ostracism grew sharper after that.
At lunch, girls would stroll past her table, voices loud.
"Look, the genius is eating her sad little bun again."
"Fairies like her survive on dew, don’t they?"
Ye Ruoxi never reacted.
She just lowered her head further.
Eat faster. Finish this bun.
Then solve two more problems.
If she could just escape this place, it would all end.
---
Then came the 800-meter run in gym class.
For most girls, it was a nightmare.
For Ye Ruoxi, it was torture.
Years of malnutrition and exhaustion left her weaker than most.
She gritted her teeth and ran.
Crossing the finish line, her vision blackened. She nearly collapsed.
Staggering back to the classroom, she slumped at her desk, too drained to move.
Sweat soaked through her uniform.
She just needed to sleep.
Just for a moment.
Around her, classmates chattered and laughed.
But she fell into a heavy, dreamless slumber.
Su Yang sat nearby, watching.
Her thin shoulders, trembling faintly.
The pallor of her face, drained of color.
He thought of everything she’d endured these past two years.
The cruel taunts.
The solitary figure at the cafeteria’s free soup station.
His mother’s words:
"Son, Ruoxi’s a good kid. A kid who’s had it hard. Look out for her at school."
Something swelled in his chest—anger, sorrow.
And another feeling, one he couldn’t name.
The urge to shield her.
Suddenly, he understood.
What he felt for Ye Ruoxi wasn’t just neighborly concern.
Wasn’t just classmate camaraderie.
It was something deeper.
A deeper, more intense emotion seemed to take root and grow within his heart.
He noticed how thin her school uniform was.
The window was open, and the autumn wind drifted in, carrying a faint chill.
He hesitated for a long time.
His fingers clenched, then loosened.
Finally, he stood up.
lanned to earn money steadily and take life at a slower pace. But he never expected... his father's remarriage, and the stepmother bringing along a dependent, would completely disrupt his life's plans...
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.
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.”
e, Immortal Body, Transmigration, System, Progression Fantasy, Academy Setting, Third-Person Perspective. Alternate Title: Transmigrating into a High Martial World and Reading Live Comments. Bad news: I transmigrated. This is a terrifying high-martial world, and my original, pathetically weak body fell into a coma and never woke up. Good news: I got a Popularity Points system upon arrival. I can see live comments and even create an unkillable alternate identity. Starting out, the alternate identity has all stats at 1. The system tells me that to grow stronger, I must participate in the plot, gain popularity points to allocate stats and grow stronger, and ultimately awaken my original body. And so, carrying my original body on my back, I officially entered Huaqing Academy, where the story's protagonist resides. From that moment on, Chen Guan kicked the original plot to pieces. Live Comments: [Doesn't anyone find this mysterious coffin guy creepy? He can summon indescribable grey misty hands.] [Is this guy a hero or a villain? What kind of onion became a spirit?] [By the way, does anyone know who's in the coffin? Shouldn't the debt for saving his life be repaid by now?] [According to unofficial histories, the person in the coffin was Chen Guan's first love. Their love was once passionate and earth-shattering, but they were separated by life and death due to worldly circumstances. What a star-crossed pair.] ... Years later, the world knew of a demon god born from a coffin, shrouded in grey mist, impossible to gaze upon directly. His foremost divine emissary often wielded a scythe, reaping lives like the god of death. As war approached, facing former friends and a boundless sea of enemies, Chen Guan merely raised his scythe. "Would you like to dance as well?"
