Twenty days later.
At the main gate of the Jinling City Detention Center.
The heavy iron gates opened, and Ye Chen walked out.
The sunlight stung his eyes, making him squint.
He had been locked up inside for twenty days, barely seeing the sun.
His skin had paled a shade, and he had lost a noticeable amount of weight. His cheekbones protruded, and his eye sockets were sunken.
But the look in his eyes had not faded.
A fire still burned within them.
Dark and scorching, like magma suppressed deep beneath the earth, ready to erupt at any moment.
No one came to pick him up.
The entrance was completely empty; there was not even a single taxi in sight.
Ye Chen stood in front of the detention center, watching the passing vehicles and pedestrians.
No one knew him.
And no one cared about him.
He dug out his phone with its shattered screen from his pocket and pressed the power button.
Three percent battery left.
He opened his contacts.
The first number he dialed was Su Qingxue's.
"The number you have dialed does not exist. Please check and try again."
Out of service.
Not powered off, not unanswered.
The number simply did not exist anymore.
Su Qingxue had changed her number.
Ye Chen's fingers stiffened.
He dialed the second number. His master's.
"The subscriber you dialed is powered off."
Still off.
Twenty days, constantly powered off.
Third number. Zhao Debiao.
"The subscriber you dialed has been suspended."
Suspended.
Ye Chen gripped the phone tightly in his hand, standing frozen in place, motionless.
After a long time, he finally lifted his feet and started walking.
Heading east.
Towards the Su family.
...
Su Family Villa.
It took Ye Chen nearly an hour of walking to get there.
He had no money for a cab.
His pockets held only the one hundred and thirty-seven yuan in cash that had been confiscated upon his entry to the detention center and returned upon his release.
On the way, he bought a bottle of water and two steamed buns, leaving him with exactly one hundred and twenty yuan.
The gates of the Su family villa were tightly shut.
Two new security guards in black suits stood at the entrance.
They were unfamiliar faces.
Not the Su family's usual men.
Ye Chen walked up to the gate.
"I am looking for Su Qingxue."
The two guards looked him up and down.
A young man in crumpled clothes, unshaven, and haggard, looking no different from a homeless tramp.
"Who are you?"
The guard on the left asked with a frown.
"My name is Ye Chen. Qingxue and I are..."
He paused, unsure of how to define his relationship with Su Qingxue.
Friends? Her savior? A suitor?
"I am acquainted with CEO Su. Please let her know I am here."
The two guards exchanged a glance.
The one on the right pulled out a walkie-talkie and muttered a few words.
After about two minutes, a voice came through the radio.
"CEO Su says she doesn't know this person. Tell him to leave."
Ye Chen's body went rigid.
She didn't know him.
Su Qingxue said she didn't know him.
"Impossible! Ask her again! I am Ye Chen! The Ye Chen who saved her life on the mountain!"
Ye Chen raised his voice.
The two guards immediately stepped forward, blocking the entrance.
"Sir, CEO Su said she won't see you. Please leave and don't interfere with our normal work."
"I'm not leaving! Let me in! I want to speak to her face-to-face!"
Ye Chen took a step forward.
The two guards simultaneously reached out to stop him.
As a martial arts grandmaster, Ye Chen could have pushed aside two ordinary security guards with effortless ease.
But he couldn't afford to fight.
He had just gotten out of the detention center; if he assaulted someone now, he would be locked up for much longer than twenty days next time.
He could only stand at the entrance, shouting through the iron gates.
"Su Qingxue! Come out here! Look me in the eyes and tell me you don't know me!"
"Qingxue!"
"Qingxue!!"
He shouted over a dozen times.
There was no response from inside the villa.
The curtains remained perfectly still.
It was like an empty fortress.
Ye Chen's voice went hoarse, his chest heaving violently.
The two guards were already showing extreme impatience, and one of them pulled out his phone, ready to call the police.
Ye Chen clenched his fists.
He didn't press the issue any further.
He turned and walked away.
But he didn't go far.
He circled to the side of the Su family villa and found a spot where the perimeter wall was slightly lower.
Taking a deep breath, he pushed off the ground!
The physical prowess of a martial arts grandmaster allowed him to easily clear the three-meter-high wall, landing silently in the villa's garden.
The lawn was neatly manicured, and the roses in the flowerbeds were in full bloom.
Everything was exactly as it had been before he left.
Yet, it felt completely different.
Ye Chen hunched over and slipped through the garden, arriving outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of the living room.
The curtains were drawn, but there was a slight gap.
He pressed close to the slit and peered inside.
The living room was quiet.
The furniture had been replaced with newer, more high-end pieces. The sofa, coffee table, and TV stand were an entirely new set.
A bouquet of fresh lilies sat on the coffee table, next to a picture frame.
Ye Chen's gaze landed on that frame.
He felt as if he had been struck by lightning.
Inside the frame was a photograph of Shen Fei and Su Qingxue.
The two were standing in front of a large building, with the skyline of the Jinling New District in the background.
Shen Fei wore a dark blue jacket, and Su Qingxue wore a white dress.
They were standing very close to each other.
Su Qingxue was smiling.
It wasn't a polite, forced smile.
It was a genuine, relaxed, and natural smile coming from the bottom of her heart.
Ye Chen stared at the photo, his mind going completely blank.
His hand unconsciously pressed against the glass window, his fingertips touching the cold surface.
Just then, a voice sounded from behind him.
"What are you doing?"
Ye Chen spun around!
Su Qingxue was standing at the corner of the hallway, three meters away.
She was wearing a beige knit loungewear cardigan, her long hair cascading down, her face devoid of makeup.
Even bare-faced, Su Qingxue was breathtakingly beautiful.
But the look in her eyes as she stared at Ye Chen was chilling enough to freeze his heart.
It wasn't hatred.
It wasn't disgust.
It was something far more despairing.
Unfamiliarity.
It was as if the man standing before her was not the one who had saved her life on the mountain, but merely a thief who had scaled the wall to break into her house.
"Qingxue..."
Ye Chen's voice was raspy, his lips moving several times before he finally managed to make a sound.
"I'm out."
Su Qingxue didn't speak.
She leaned against the hallway wall, her arms crossed over her chest, maintaining that three-meter distance.
Not too far, not too close.
Just out of Ye Chen's reach.
"Why didn't you answer my calls? Why did you change your number? Why did you tell the guards you didn't know me?"
Ye Chen fired off three questions in a row, trembling with every word.
Su Qingxue looked at him and remained silent for a few seconds.
"Ye Chen, take a look at yourself."
Ye Chen froze.
"What have you actually accomplished since you came down the mountain?"
Su Qingxue's voice was so calm it lacked a trace of warmth.
"You said you would help the Su family solve our problems, but the result was Zhao Debiao getting arrested."
"You said you had connections through your master, but now your master cannot be reached."
"You said you would teach the Shen family a lesson within three days, but you ended up in the detention center yourself."
"Every time you made a solemn vow, and every time it ended in a total disaster."
Every word was a fact.
Every word was like a knife.
Ye Chen's face drained of color, turning deathly pale bit by bit.
"Qingxue, I can explain all of that..."
"There's no need to explain."
Su Qingxue interrupted him.
Her gaze drifted over Ye Chen's shoulder, landing in the direction of the picture frame on the living room coffee table.
"The Su family is doing very well right now. The capital chain is restored, our partners have returned, and the new headquarters building is under construction."
"All of this was thanks to Shen Fei's help."
Ye Chen trembled all over.
"And you? How can you help the Su family?"
Su Qingxue looked at him, her gaze so calm it bordered on cruel.
"You don't even have a medical license, and you can't even support yourself. What are you going to use to help me? What will you use to help the Su family?"
"Are you going to rely on those few silver needles of yours?"
Ye Chen's lips turned pale.
His hands clenched into fists, his nails digging into his palms until blood seeped out.
He wanted to say that his medical skills were real.
He wanted to say that he could cure any incurable disease.
He wanted to say that as long as he had time, he could definitely make a comeback.
But as these words reached the tip of his tongue, they suddenly felt incredibly hollow.
Because what Su Qingxue wanted wasn't promises.
Su Qingxue wanted results.
And he couldn't provide them.
"Ye Chen, just leave."
Su Qingxue turned around, her back facing him.
"Don't ever come to the Su family again."
"There is absolutely no relationship between you and me."
"There never has been."
When those last few words fell, Ye Chen felt as if his heart had been seized by a tight grip.
It wasn't just pain.
It was as if his entire heart had been ripped out of his chest, thrown on the ground, stomped on a few times, and then shoved back in.
He stood frozen in place, watching the silhouette of Su Qingxue walking away.
That silhouette was straight, slender, and utterly cold.
She didn't look back.
Not even once.
Ye Chen stood in the garden for a long time.
He didn't know how much time had passed, maybe ten minutes, maybe half an hour.
Finally, he climbed over the wall and left.
His movements were no longer as agile as when he had arrived.
When he landed, he stumbled and nearly fell.
He steadied himself against the wall, his head bowed, gasping heavily for air.
The sunlight shone down on him, but his entire body felt freezing cold.
Right at that moment, a faint throb suddenly emanated from deep within his chest.
Ye Chen's head snapped up!
It was the resonance of the Medical Immortal's inheritance!
The inheritance was telling him that somewhere in Jinling City, there was a treasure perfectly compatible with his legacy!
That sensation was faint but distinct, like an invisible thread pulling his perception toward a specific direction.
Southwest.
About seven or eight kilometers away.
Ye Chen closed his eyes, focusing his mind to capture that sensation.
An image gradually cleared in his mind.
A cauldron.
Bronze-colored, with three legs and two handles.
Antique, heavy, and exuding an aura of ancient times.
It was a supreme ancient alchemy treasure!
If he could obtain this treasure, he could refine all sorts of heaven-defying pills.
By then, his strength would skyrocket, and his medical skills would reach an entirely new level.
By then, Shen Fei and the Shen family would be nothing but worthless trash in his eyes!
A new light ignited in Ye Chen's eyes.
It was the madness of seeing a glimmer of hope in a desperate situation.
He took large strides toward the southwest.
His pace grew faster and faster, increasingly urgent.
He didn't notice that in an inconspicuous gray sedan in the distance, a pair of cold eyes had been watching him all along.
Ling Xue put down her binoculars and picked up the walkie-talkie.
"Young Master, Ye Chen has left the Su family estate."
"Judging by his direction, he's heading toward Antique Street."
Shen Fei's voice came through the walkie-talkie, as calm as still water.
"Let him go."
Ling Xue paused for a moment.
"When he gets there, he'll find absolutely nothing."
"That feeling of disappointment will be even more entertaining than today."
The walkie-talkie was quiet for two seconds.
"Keep following him. Don't let him spot you."
"Understood."
Ling Xue put down the walkie-talkie, started the car, and trailed behind Ye Chen at a safe distance.
The gray sedan merged into the flow of traffic, silent and untraceable.
Meanwhile, Ye Chen was still rushing desperately toward his destination.
He didn't know what was waiting for him.
He simply assumed it was hope.
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?!
m back to his original world. In the end, he realized he had overthought things. [Hey, why is Shen Manni, the female lead, acting strange? Shouldn't she be fawning over the male lead at this point?] [Zhou Qiaoqiao, are you sick? Weren't you supposed to break off your engagement today?] [Damn it! An Youyi, please do your job as an undercover agent and sell my information to the protagonist, you idiot!] ... At this moment, Xu Mo himself didn't know that these female leads had already heard his inner thoughts. Then they decided not to play by the rules. Xu Mo: Please respect my profession as the big villain!
ng to die together with you." Lin Xuan is dead, his body thrown into the river by his scumbag lover and her accomplice. She, the president of the Su Group, is decisive, ruthless, and ice-cold. For three days and three nights, she had his body fished out of the river, and without hesitation, she kissed the bloated corpse of Lin Xuan. She laid down beside him in a cold coffin, their fingers intertwined, a smile lingering on her lips as she closed her eyes. The noble and cold-hearted woman, only bending for one man—Lin Xuan. Lin Xuan, with his golden finger, is reborn and returns to the day of his wedding to the treacherous woman. Su Qiang comes to steal the bride. Lin Xuan's eyes light up, eager to pledge his loyalty on the spot, but instead, her kiss transfers a glass of drugged wine into his mouth, causing him to pass out... 【Male Protagonist with Single Female Lead】【Yandere Tycoon】【Action-Packed】【True vs. Fake Heir】
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!
