Su Yang knew that, at least for now, he couldn’t help Ye Ruoxi.
The only thing he could do was wait.
Every night, he would stand on the path between the cafeteria and the school gate.
Under the brightest streetlamp, he waited.
Waited for the figure dragging her exhausted body out of the building.
She always walked slowly, her weary frame resembling a frost-wilted blade of grass.
He didn’t dare approach.
Instead, he followed silently behind her.
Using his shadow to light a small stretch of her path home.
He knew she was aware of his presence.
But neither of them spoke of it.
This road became their new, heavier, and more sorrowful unspoken agreement.
A crushing sense of helplessness lashed at Su Yang’s heart like a whip.
He had to do something.
He had to become stronger.
Strong enough to hold up the sky for her.
On the weekend,
he went to the busiest computer market in the county.
To save for their future tuition—for himself, and for her.
He stopped in front of a shop called "Geek," which specialized in custom PC builds.
A sign in the window advertised part-time help wanted.
The owner, a man in his thirties with messy hair and glasses, sized Su Yang up.
"Done this before?"
"No."
"Then why are you here? I don’t carry dead weight."
"I learn fast."
Su Yang’s gaze was unwavering.
"And I don’t need pay. Just give me lunch."
The owner paused, intrigued.
"Fine. Come in and show me what you’ve got."
Su Yang stayed.
His hands were quick, his mind sharper.
The owner only had to teach him once—how to assemble a rig, how to manage cables.
Soon, he was doing it faster and better than anyone expected.
For the first time, he glimpsed the world inside a computer.
The intricate circuit boards, dense clusters of chips, lines of indecipherable code scrolling across monitors—
To him, they weren’t just lifeless components.
They were a language, more captivating than math, brimming with logic and beauty.
A week later,
the owner slipped three hundred yuan into Su Yang’s pocket.
"Kid, you’re a natural."
He clapped Su Yang’s shoulder, admiration plain in his eyes.
"Stick with me. I’ll make sure you’re paid right."
Su Yang clenched the money—earned through his own skill.
For the first time, he felt something new: power.
Here, he’d found another path to reach her.
Time passed silently. The second semester of senior year began.
The air was thick with tension.
Everyone had one goal:
the college entrance exam.
Ye Ruoxi longed for that day more than anyone.
To her, it wasn’t just a test.
It was the only door to her freedom.
But Zhang Cuilan’s demands grew worse.
She knew Ye Ruoxi had scraped together a meager sum—saved from school scholarships and extreme frugality.
That money was meant for a train ticket to Jingzhou after the exam, even part of her living expenses.
It was her only hope.
One night, after washing the last dish, Ye Ruoxi returned to the suffocating house.
Her room had been ransacked.
The small metal box, wrapped layer after layer in a handkerchief and hidden beneath her bed, was gone.
Zhang Cuilan sat in the living room, legs crossed, cracking sunflower seeds.
When she saw Ye Ruoxi, her lips curled into a smug, cruel smile.
"Looking for something?"
She patted her bulging pocket.
"I’ve kept it safe for you."
Ye Ruoxi’s blood ran cold.
She stepped forward.
"Give it back."
Her voice was eerily calm.
"Why should I?"
Zhang Cuilan stood, looming over her.
"I’ve raised you all these years! Fed you, housed you! Your money is mine!"
"Listen well, Ye Ruoxi. Starting today, you’ll pay me rent every month. Or get out!"
"That’s my ticket to Jingzhou."
Ye Ruoxi spoke each word deliberately.
"Jingzhou? Dream on!"
Zhang Cuilan scoffed.
"What good is college? You’ll still leech off me! Not a chance!"
"Finish high school, then go work like you’re supposed to. Send your wages home!"
Ye Ruoxi stared at the woman who called herself a "mother."
At the face twisted by greed and selfishness.
The last shred of delusion—of something called "family"—shattered.
Every ounce of suffering, every humiliation, every ounce of blood squeezed from her since her father’s death erupted at once.
She shoved Zhang Cuilan with all her strength.
"Give it back!"
The scream tore from her throat.
Zhang Cuilan hadn’t expected defiance.
She staggered, landing hard on the floor.
After a stunned second, she wailed like the world was ending.
"Help! She’s hitting her own mother! No justice in this world!"
Rolling on the ground, she slapped her thighs in a theatrical fit.
"After all I’ve sacrificed for you, this is how you repay me!"
"You ungrateful wretch! You jinx!"
Ye Ruoxi stood there, motionless.
Her gaze was icy as she watched the woman on the ground, her disgraceful display only deepening the cold disgust in Ye Ruoxi's heart.
Escape.
Escape this place.
The thought rang louder than ever in her mind.
Not even the boy who had once brought her warmth could make her feel any attachment to this place.
She turned and walked back to her room, shutting the door behind her, blocking out the shrill cries.
After that argument,
Ye Ruoxi's world fell into complete silence.
Zhang Cuilan never troubled her again.
It was as if she couldn’t be bothered to even glance at her.
In fact, she seemed almost afraid of her own daughter.
They became strangers living under the same roof.
Ye Ruoxi didn’t care.
She poured all her energy into her final sprint.
Like a tireless machine, she absorbed knowledge with a relentless hunger.
She wanted to achieve an unprecedented score.
She wanted every university in Jingzhou to fight over her.
She wanted the highest scholarship.
She wanted to break free—completely, permanently—from everything here.
...
That day, at noon.
The cafeteria of Anhe No. 1 High School buzzed with noise.
The air was thick with the aroma of food and the boisterous chatter of teenagers.
Ye Ruoxi sat alone in a corner.
On her tray was nothing but a plain steamed bun and a bowl of watery, free seaweed soup.
She ate slowly.
One hand held the bun.
The other pressed down on a sheet of scratch paper covered in dense mathematical formulas.
Her brows were tightly knit.
The clamor around her seemed to fade away.
She was lost in her own world.
Focused. Silent.
Lu Chenyuan’s footsteps stopped three meters away.
His eyes landed on her immediately.
That solitary figure, so still amidst the chaos, as if existing in her own separate dimension.
He noticed her hand resting on the edge of the table.
Her fingers were slender, but the tips were red and swollen from prolonged cold and labor.
Her grip on the pen was tight—
as if she wanted to crush it.
As if she was pouring all her strength into the ink beneath.
The scratch paper was filled with intricate calculus and series derivation formulas.
Far beyond the scope of the high school curriculum.
Lu Chenyuan walked over unhurriedly.
He took a seat across from her.
His tall frame cast a shadow.
Finally, the girl deep in thought sensed something.
Ye Ruoxi looked up.
Her clear, alert eyes met his.
She studied the unfamiliar man before her.
Handsome features. A composed presence.
And that tailored suit—clearly expensive—
all unmistakably signaling that he didn’t belong in this small-town high school.
"Who are you looking for?"
Her voice was cool, laced with a wariness beyond her years.
Lu Chenyuan didn’t answer.
His gaze wasn’t on her thin face.
But on the scratch paper.
"A simplified model of the Riemann Hypothesis? Interesting approach. But in the third step’s variable substitution, using the trigonometric form of Euler’s formula would make it more concise."
His voice was steady, gentle.
As if this were an equal academic discussion.
Ye Ruoxi’s pupils constricted sharply.
The Riemann Hypothesis.
One of mathematics’ greatest unsolved problems.
She had only stumbled upon fragments of it in old library books, driven by curiosity.
She’d been trying to derive it herself.
None of her classmates or teachers could even begin to discuss it with her.
Yet this man had pinpointed the very obstacle she’d been wrestling with all morning in a single sentence.
Who was he?
Only then did Lu Chenyuan shift his gaze to her.
He gave a simple introduction.
"Hello, Ye Ruoxi. I’m Lu Chenyuan of Lu Corporation."
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?!
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!
e school belle recognized by the whole school, a genius girl from the kendo club. She also has a hidden identity, the youngest legendary demon hunter. Chen Shuo just transmigrated and found himself turned into a weak, helpless little vampire. He was caught by Su Xiyen and taken home at the very beginning. Since then, Chen Shuo's life creed only had two items. "First, classmate Su Xiyen is always right." "Second, if classmate Su Xiyen is wrong, please refer back to item one." Many years later, Chen Shuo, who had turned back into a human, led a pair of twins to appear in front of all the vampires to share the secret of how he turned back into a human. "It's simple, I tricked a female demon hunter into becoming my wife!"
] [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!"
