The moonlight had changed.
That was Ren Qian's most direct feeling lately.
Lu Chenyuan no longer yielded or compromised with his uncles from the Lu family.
On this day, Lu Mingde stormed into the CEO's office.
Shortly after, a fierce argument erupted.
Then, after a while, Lu Mingde stormed out, furious.
Ren Qian knew that the Third Director had gone to see Lu Chenyuan about the candidate for the procurement manager position.
In the past, Lu Chenyuan would have handled such matters indirectly.
But this time, Lu Chenyuan had directly rejected it.
And at the afternoon board meeting, Lu Chenyuan outright killed one of Lu Minggong's projects.
He showed no face at all to the Fourth Director.
Furthermore, Lu Chenyuan began an anti-corruption campaign within Lu Corporation.
He personally purged several senior executives from other factions.
One of them, for severe corruption, even had Ren Qian personally call the police to have him arrested.
Ren Qian witnessed firsthand this great family purge, one significant enough to be recorded in the annals of Lu Corporation's history.
After the storm, an eerie calm settled over Lu Corporation.
Lu Chenyuan's third and fourth uncles no longer came to the CEO's office to make a scene.
Seeing Lu Chenyuan from afar in the hallway, they would even instinctively avoid him.
They had finally realized,
this nephew they had watched grow up was no longer the young helmsman who could be easily manipulated by family ties and seniority.
He was a beast that would bite through an enemy's throat.
Ren Qian watched all of this.
She watched Lu Chenyuan announce the coldest decisions in the calmest tone at board meetings.
In her heart, there was no fear, only an endless sense of worship and joy.
The weary king, trapped in his lonely city,
had finally drawn his blade.
He was breaking free from those decaying shackles in his own way.
He was living for himself.
This realization filled Ren Qian with an unprecedented sense of satisfaction.
She felt proud to have followed such a man.
...
Other changes began in the most subtle of places.
For instance, the tone Lu Chenyuan used when answering phone calls.
That afternoon, Lu Qianqian's call rang through yet again, right on schedule, in the middle of a meeting.
All the senior executives present instinctively exchanged knowing glances.
They were all used to it.
Used to the capriciousness of this eldest daughter of the Lu family.
And used to President Lu's helpless, indulgent interruptions.
Ren Qian was already prepared to announce a meeting pause.
Lu Chenyuan, however, merely glanced at the caller ID and then pressed the mute button.
He continued with the topic at hand as if nothing had happened.
His speech remained clear and logically rigorous.
Completely undisturbed.
The screen of Lu Chenyuan's phone lit up, dimmed, lit up again,
stubbornly flashing.
He paid it no mind.
The meeting ended.
Ren Qian was the last to leave.
As she stood up, Lu Chenyuan unhurriedly returned the call.
He put it on speakerphone.
Seemingly unconcerned that Ren Qian and Lin Yuan were still in the conference room.
"Big brother! Why didn't you answer my call!"
Lu Qianqian's spoiled, tearful voice immediately came through.
"I was in a meeting."
Lu Chenyuan's voice was very calm.
"I don't care! I scraped my car! Send Brother Lin Yuan over right now to handle it!"
"Handle it yourself," Lu Chenyuan said.
"Call the insurance company, or call a tow truck."
"No! I want you to handle it!"
"Qianqian."
Lu Chenyuan said, his expression still perfectly calm.
"You are an adult now."
"You should learn to solve your own problems. Not treat everyone as your accessory."
"Your allowance this month is enough for you to buy a new car."
"If you can't even handle such a minor issue, your allowance will be halved next month."
With that, he hung up directly.
The entire office was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
Ren Qian stood rooted to the spot.
She could hardly believe her ears.
Was this still the same Lu Chenyuan who would become so flustered when his sister locked herself in her room that he'd forget his coat?
Changes were happening in more unseen places.
Lu Chenyuan began making moves that Ren Qian couldn't comprehend at all.
One afternoon.
Lin Yuan walked briskly to Ren Qian's desk, carrying a stack of documents.
"Sis Qian."
He pulled out the topmost blue folder and placed it in front of Ren Qian.
"This is a special support project President Lu just approved. It needs to go through the foundation's accounts, highest priority."
It was a perfectly normal work handover.
"Alright," Ren Qian nodded, reaching out to take the folder.
After Lin Yuan left,
Ren Qian held the file.
Highest priority?
A flicker of curiosity arose in her heart.
The number of charity projects Lu Chenyuan defined as "highest priority" could be counted on one hand.
She opened the folder.
And then, she froze.
The entire support plan had only one beneficiary.
Ye Ruoxi.
A high school senior.
Attending a very ordinary county high school, consistently ranked first in her grade.
All the information was routine, showing nothing out of the ordinary.
Ren Qian held the few thin pages, silent for a long time.
This was too strange.
Lu Chenyuan was not a man given to sudden bouts of charity.
Every penny he spent had to serve a purpose.
Every decision he made served a clear commercial objective.
Funding a top-performing student from a poor background, with no apparent connection to him at all?
What was the point?
Ren Qian realized that the Lu Chenyuan who occasionally showed weariness had disappeared.
The current him seemed wrapped in an even harder armor.
That armor was cold, smooth.
Leaving her no crack to peer into his heart.
She was so physically close to him.
Yet she felt he had never been so distant.
...
Ren Qian occasionally saw him, during breaks between meetings, reading materials completely unrelated to the group's core business.
"The Future Trends of Artificial Intelligence"
"Global Patent Analysis of New Energy Battery Technology"
"Frontiers in Biochemistry."
Lu Corporation's main businesses were real estate and finance.
These topics were far removed.
What was he thinking?
Ren Qian understood him less and less.
But this lack of understanding didn't make her retreat.
Instead, it ignited an even stronger desire in her to follow him.
She was like a devout believer.
Gazing up at a deity she couldn't fully comprehend, yet found increasingly magnificent.
She believed every action he took was part of a profound plan she couldn't yet grasp.
Her worship of him reached its peak.
She was completely unaware.
That the core of the cold, clear moon she worshipped
had long been replaced by another, a blazing star from a different world.
It was reshaping everything around it according to its own trajectory.
And Ren Qian was merely a captive planet, caught in its gravitational pull, unable to break free.
She was intoxicated by this powerful gravity, willingly burning for it.
Believing this to be her destiny.

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.

e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.

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.”