Tangzhou.
This is a city built of steel and coal dust.
The air is forever tinged with the mingled scent of rust and coke.
At the heart of the city lies the Tangzhou Machinery and Equipment Factory.
Locals simply call it Tangji.
A saying has circulated in Tangzhou for decades:
"Half the city belongs to Tangji."
Tangji has its own dormitories, canteens, bathhouses, and residential compounds.
It even has its own schools, hospitals, and cinemas.
The factory's chimneys belch thick smoke that defines the city's skyline.
The blare of its steam whistles marks the city's pulse.
Every dawn, the long whistle sounds.
Thousands of men and women in blue work uniforms pour out from rows of gray Soviet-style apartment blocks.
They become a flood of bicycles.
All flowing toward the same destination.
Tangji.
Ji Wushuang was born in this city.
Her home was in Tangji's Compound No. 3.
A typical Soviet-style apartment building.
The hallway was long and dim.
Cluttered with household junk and honeycomb briquettes.
At mealtimes, the corridor filled with the acrid smell of cooking oil and mingled aromas of different dishes.
Ji Wushuang's father, Ji Jianguo, was a fitter at Tangji's Second Workshop.
His hands were rough, the crevices of his nails permanently stained with unscrubbable grease.
He was a martial arts fanatic.
He named his daughter "Wushuang"—meaning "peerless under heaven."
He hoped she would grow into someone extraordinary.
Little did he know she would.
Her mother was a nurse at the factory hospital.
Gentle by nature, she harbored no grand ambitions.
Having witnessed life and death daily, her greatest wish was for her husband's safety and her daughter's health.
She sometimes complained about her husband giving their daughter such a masculine name.
But over time, she grew used to it.
The Ji family wasn't wealthy, but life was stable.
The couple was loving, the neighbors harmonious.
Their days stretched ahead like the straight road outside the factory gates—
predictable from start to finish.
Ji Wushuang, however, was a poor student.
From first grade onward, her grades hovered between passing and failing.
Single-digit math scores weren't uncommon.
Half-finished essays were the norm.
Teachers had long given up on her.
As long as she didn't disrupt class, they pretended she didn't exist.
Ji Jianguo and his wife didn't push her.
"Bad grades aren't the end of the world," Ji Jianguo often said.
"My girl's strong and healthy—that's what matters."
Watching his daughter tear across the courtyard, his eyes shone with pride.
He even taught her moves he'd seen in martial arts films.
Not for fighting.
Just because she looked good doing them—powerful, like those silver-screen heroines.
Her mother was even more forgiving.
"Just grow up safe and sound," she'd say, ruffling Ji Wushuang's hair.
"Get a factory job that's not too hard, marry a decent man, and that's life."
That was Tangzhou's way.
Children of Tangji workers almost always joined the factory—
through "succession posts" or internal hiring.
The steel behemoth's final act of guardianship.
Good students might land in the technical office.
Poor ones, like her parents, would work the shop floor.
Either way, there'd be food on the table.
A life to live.
Their only demand of Ji Wushuang?
Stay safe. Stay happy.
So she enjoyed what passed for a luxurious childhood in Tangzhou.
No cram schools.
No endless homework.
Just endless hours racing through the factory grounds.
Scaling scrap heaps.
Balancing on railroad tracks.
Her physical prowess was the inverse of her academic performance.
She ran faster, jumped farther, and hit harder than anyone her age.
No boy in the compound could beat her.
She became the kid no one crossed—
a silent, formidable leader.
Next door lived the Chens.
Chen Lei's family.
His parents, like hers, were Tangji employees.
The two households were close.
They exchanged homemade buns or factory-issued fish.
The men often drank together, swapping tall tales.
Chen Lei was Ji Wushuang's classmate.
His personality was her opposite.
Taciturn. Still. A silent stone.
His grades were middling—
not stellar, but solid enough.
The kind of student teachers ignored but never worried about.
By every measure, he was the better child.
At least, that's what everyone said.
Chen Lei watched Ji Wushuang.
Had watched her since they were small.
Saw her standing in punishment corners.
Holding failing report cards under classmates' stares.
Running wild outside like some feral boy.
To him, she seemed...
out of place.
Eighth-grade PE class.
The 800-meter test.
An autumn afternoon, sunlight pooling on the track.
The rubberized surface had gone soft with heat.
Most girls groaned.
Eight hundred meters meant agony.
Ji Wushuang stood at the starting line, expressionless.
Her blue-and-white uniform hung loose.
Her hair was cropped short, boyish.
Chen Lei stood trackside with a stopwatch.
The starting pistol cracked.
Girls surged forward.
At first, they ran clustered.
After one lap, gaps appeared.
Some slowed to walks.
Others bent double, gasping.
Only Ji Wushuang held steady.
Her pace never faltered.
If anything, she accelerated.
Her breathing stayed even.
Her strides light, almost gliding.
She overtook them one by one.
By lap one, she led by half a track.
By lap two, she'd lapped the stragglers.
Chen Lei couldn't look away.
He forgot to click the stopwatch.
That sunlit figure—
not bulky but brimming with force.
Lonely yet relentless.
When she crossed the finish line, the field fell quiet.
All eyes on her.
No triumphant grin.
No exhaustion.
Just cool-down stretches,
as if she'd merely warmed up.
The PE teacher took Chen Lei's stopwatch.
Stared at the time.
Stared at Ji Wushuang.
"Freak," the teacher muttered.
Chen Lei heard.
That night, he dreamed.
Of Ji Wushuang running.
Running clear out of Tangzhou.
He ran towards a place far, far away—a place he didn’t recognize at all.
't think I'm that capable, I'm just trying my best to stay alive. I've been kind all my life, never did anything bad, yet worldly suffering spared me not one bit. The human world is a nice place, but I won't come back in my next life. A kind young man, who wanted to just get by singing, but through repeated deceits and betrayals, has gone down an irredeemable path.
rowess are unmatched, commanding a million-strong army! Yet, the Emperor wants to depose him for the sake of a false prince? Hold on, are you throwing me into some female-oriented romance plot? How can I tolerate this? With a grand wave of his hand—the Nine Clan Extraction Technique! Slander the Emperor? Very well, all of you shall die! ... The False Prince: "Although I am not the biological son, Father and Mother love me more. The throne should be mine!" The Female Lead: "Qin Xiao, you are the Emperor, and I am a commoner. If you wish to marry me, you must abdicate. Otherwise, you will never have me!" The Empress: "After we divorce, you must give me half the empire!" The Transmigrator Consort: "You worthless Emperor, why should I kneel to you? All men are equal—I advise you to be kind!" The Great General: "The enemy general is my childhood sweetheart. For her sake, I willingly abandon the frontier defenses!" The Retired Emperor: "Although Yu'er was adopted, I prefer him. Qin Xiao, you should abdicate and let him become Emperor!" ... Very well! So this is how you want to play? Facing this twisted world of female-oriented tropes, Qin Xiao grins and raises his hand to unleash—the Nine Clan Extraction Technique! I am the Emperor. Why would I bother reasoning with you? Seal the gates! Leave none alive!
tions: attribute allocation, analysis, proficiency, and simulation. Specializing in mechanical alchemy, from crafting sorcerous battle armor to handcrafting mechanical maidens, his mechanical legion conquers endless realms... Relying on his wits, he begins with a student-teacher romance, wins over a female director, enslaves a female assassin and a underworld queen, becoming the husband of a Grand Duchess... He enslaves the Goddess of Magic from the divine realm, developing his power simultaneously in both the Wizard World and the Realm of Gods...
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.”
