In another corner of Jingzhou.
A brand-new office had just been adorned with a nameplate that read "Xia Yin Era."
This was Lu Chenyan's entertainment company.
Under Ren Qian's efficient management, the company's framework had been established in record time.
The decor was modern and minimalist, with top-tier recording and office equipment from the industry.
Standing before the floor-to-ceiling window, Lu Chenyan gazed down at the ceaseless flow of the city below, yet felt no joy.
His brows were tightly knit, his mind preoccupied with the biggest setback he had faced in recent times.
The company was ready. The money was secured. The resources provided by his elder brother, Lu Chenyuan, were impeccable.
Yet the cornerstone he desired most remained stubbornly out of reach.
Ji Yichen.
That name barely existed in mainstream music circles.
But in the indie scene, he was revered like a deity by countless fans.
His music was filled with sharp empathy for the marginalized and raw anger against social injustice.
The melodies were rough, the lyrics cut like knives—each song a bloody social report from the fringes.
Lu Chenyan knew that if "Xia Yin Era" was to be more than just an assembly line churning out profitable idols, but a cultural label with soul and conviction, Ji Yichen was the perfect choice.
To that end, he had personally visited Ji Yichen three times.
The first time, he was outright turned away.
The second time, Ji Yichen made him wait two hours before coldly stating he wasn’t interested.
The third time, Ji Yichen finally met him—in a shabby rehearsal room.
"Lu Chenyan," Ji Yichen said, wearing a threadbare old T-shirt, his gaze aloof. "I've heard your music. Sweet. Pop. Safe."
He paused, his disdain unmistakable.
"Your company is probably the same. Just another factory for neatly packaged candy."
"I don’t need safe. And my music sure as hell doesn’t need to be wrapped up like candy."
"Your world, I don’t get. Mine? You’d do best to stay out of it."
With that, Ji Yichen picked up his guitar and began playing, ignoring Lu Chenyan completely.
Lu Chenyan felt as if all his passion and grand visions had been doused in ice water.
Everything he took pride in was worthless in the other man’s eyes.
"Third Brother, why the long face? What’s on your mind?"
A bright voice snapped Lu Chenyan out of his thoughts as Lu Qianqian pushed the door open.
She was dressed in a sleek athletic outfit, her long hair tied into a high ponytail, exuding vigor.
In her hand was a fruit basket.
"I had some free time today, so I came to see your new company. And to congratulate the new boss."
"Don’t bother. It’s just an empty shell," Lu Chenyan turned around, smiling self-deprecatingly.
Then, he recounted the entire ordeal with Ji Yichen.
"...He called me candy," Lu Chenyan admitted, his tone laced with defeat.
"Ji Yichen?" A glimmer flashed in Lu Qianqian’s eyes. "I know of him."
Lu Chenyan stared at her in surprise. "How do you know him?"
"I heard his songs in a peacekeeping camp in the Middle East. A communications engineer from Xia played them on his battered phone. He said whenever he missed home, or when the injustices he saw kept him awake at night, listening to Ji Yichen’s music reminded him that the fire inside him still burned."
Lu Chenyan fell even deeper into silence.
So that man’s music had already reached places he couldn’t even imagine.
"Third Brother, you’ve been approaching this wrong from the start," Lu Qianqian set the fruit basket on the coffee table and looked at him earnestly.
"You went to him as a capitalist, trying to buy his talent."
"But people like him despise capital. You were using the very thing he hates to try and win him over."
Lu Chenyan frowned. "Then what should I do? Show up empty-handed and talk about ideals?"
"You shouldn’t go at all," Lu Qianqian’s reasoning was razor-sharp. "I should."
Lu Chenyan was stunned. "You?"
"Yes," she nodded confidently. "Not as an envoy for 'Xia Yin Era,' but as the founder of the 'Horizon' Foundation."
"I won’t talk contracts or money with him. I’ll talk collaboration."
"The kind that takes his music where it truly belongs."
Lu Chenyan studied his younger sister, realizing he might never have truly known her.
She was younger, yet at this moment, her gaze and clarity of thought far surpassed his.
Suddenly, his past doting felt embarrassingly shallow.
"Alright," he took a deep breath and nodded. "Give it a try."
The next afternoon.
An indie bookstore in the old city—the meeting place Ji Yichen and Lu Qianqian had agreed upon.
Ji Yichen deliberately arrived ten minutes late.
He wanted to put the supposedly spoiled rich girl in her place.
He’d even prepared a speech for her expected pearl-clad arrogance.
But when he pushed open the bookstore door, he saw a girl in a plain white shirt and jeans, bare-faced.
She sat by the window, quietly flipping through a photobook on war photography, her profile serene and focused in the afternoon light.
No designer labels. No heavy makeup. No impatience.
Ji Yichen’s rehearsed disdain faltered.
"You’re Lu Qianqian?" He approached the table, his tone still deliberately cold.
"Mr. Ji, please have a seat," Lu Qianqian closed the book, gestured to the chair opposite, and met his gaze.
Her eyes were clear, calm—no trace of unease or ingratiation.
"If this is about Lu Chenyan again, save your breath," Ji Yichen cut straight to the point as he sat.
"It’s not," she shook her head. "Today, I’m here as a listener, to ask you a question."
"A question?" Ji Yichen’s brow arched slightly, caught off guard.
"In one of your songs, you sang, 'Beneath high walls, human dignity is worthless,'" Lu Qianqian held his gaze, her eyes carrying a stillness beyond her years. "I want to know—what does dignity mean to you?"
The question stunned Ji Yichen.
He hadn’t expected her to use his own lyrics to begin this conversation.
It made him drop some of his guard.
"Dignity is freedom from control, from being bought. It’s the liberty of thought and soul," he answered instinctively, voicing his lifelong creed.
"Well said," Lu Qianqian nodded in agreement.
Then she pivoted.
"But if a person doesn’t know where their next meal is coming from, do they still have the right to speak of dignity?"
"If a mother must sell her body to get clean water for her feverish child, where does her dignity lie?"
"If a nation's culture is being slowly erased by war and poverty, where then can the dignity of its people find refuge?"
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.
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!
close your eyes and open them again, only to find yourself transmigrated into the role of a villainous male supporting character. Readers familiar with urban wish-fulfillment novels know that it is only through the relentless antics of the villainous male supporting character that the plot between the male and female leads can progress. As the villainous male supporting character, Long Aotian not only has to bully the female lead, harass the second female lead, and flirt with the third female lead, but he also has to go all out to antagonize the male lead. In the end, when his body is discovered, he is still clutching half a moldy fried dough stick in his hand. Fully aware of the plot, Long Aotian is determined to change his fate, starting with the female lead! In the beginning, the female lead lacks confidence: "Big brother, I hope I didn't scare you?" In the middle, the female lead treads carefully: "Brother Long, please don't hit me, okay?" Later on, the female lead becomes coquettishly clingy: "Aotian, it's time to pay the 'public grain' tonight." Long Aotian's legs go weak, and he feels like crying: "I taught you to be thick-skinned, not shameless!"
