Tang Xiaoyu was escorted by the guards to the dungeon. As soon as he entered, the stench rushed up to meet him. The dark, damp environment was lit only by a few oil lamps.
The corridor on both sides held the Qin country's generals and officials, who looked at Tang Xiaoyu being brought in with regretful expressions.
Tang Xiaoyu broke free of the guards' grip: "Let me go. I can walk by myself."
He portrayed the image of righteous dignity to the death perfectly.
The guards were puzzled. Just now he was calling them "big brother" left and right, and now he didn't recognize anyone. But looking around, they understood.
They came to a cell, opened the door, and kicked Tang Xiaoyu in: "Get the hell in there!"
Tang Xiaoyu fell flat on his face. He turned his head and snarled viciously: "I will never submit to you!"
The guards almost believed him, if not for his previous behavior.
But they still played along and said: "There's more waiting for you inside." They shut the door and left.
A group of people gathered around and asked: "Brother, how did you get caught?"
Tang Xiaoyu sat up straight and recounted exactly what had happened. Of course, he filtered out the part where he begged for mercy.
The crowd exclaimed: "You dared to mess with that person! You've got guts. He didn't kill you on the spot, that's your ancestors' blessings."
"Do you know Huo Yuanba?"
"We only know his surname is Huo. That guy is formidable! The hundred plus of us together couldn't harm him one bit. In the end we had to surrender!"
Tang Xiaoyu disdainfully said: "You were just scared out of your wits!"
The awkward group smiled without responding.
Tang Xiaoyu stood up arrogantly: "A hero can admit defeat, but cannot lose his courage. I disdain to associate with you."
Tang Xiaoyu wasn't exaggerating with his words. That was how he had acted, though he portrayed himself as very cowardly. His heart had never feared.
Having said that, he distanced himself from the others and sat down, no longer interacting with them.
He had no choice! The others' ranks were higher than his. He didn't want to be ordered around like a lackey, so he could only stand on moral high ground.
The others were very ashamed and didn't dare speak to him anymore.
Soon Tang Xiaoyu's snores echoed throughout the dark cell as he fell asleep.
The day of battle had kept his mind and body taut. Being captured afterwards had him on tenterhooks.
As his spirit and body relaxed, fatigue rushed in and he fell asleep.
In his dreams, roars and screams filled his brain.
As everyone prepared to rest, they heard Tang Xiaoyu yell: "Quick, kill that enemy general!"
"Fight back with me, don't let them surround us!"
"With an eighteen-year scar as big as a bowl on his head, he will become a great man again. Charge with me!"
His voice suddenly stopped and snores once again resounded in the cell.
From his few sentences, everyone could imagine how fierce the battle was, and how their side was surrounded.
Yet under such circumstances, they had still desperately tried to break through the encirclement.
As they reflected, Tang Xiaoyu spoke in his sleep again.
"Our homeland lies behind us. We have no path of retreat."
"Long live our homeland!"
The others were also moved. They cheered: "Long live!"
This frightened the guards outside. They hurriedly gathered men to come check that nothing was amiss before leaving.
The prisoners in distant cells heard the cheers and poked their heads out to look over.
In a cell detaining the city lord and officials, the city lord asked: "What happened over there?"
The others shook their heads, indicating they didn't know.
And so the night passed amidst Tang Xiaoyu muttering in his sleep.
Tang Xiaoyu opened his eyes on time. He got up and stretched, seeing others still asleep and not saying anything. He continued doing stretches.
Breakfast was impossible as captive criminals. Tang Xiaoyu could only rely on sleep to alleviate his hunger.
Many wanted to talk with Tang Xiaoyu, but his words from last night made them not dare approach him.
Finally, they endured until noon, when the guard soldiers poured in some leftover steamed buns.
A few picked the buns that looked better and brought them to Tang Xiaoyu: "Brother, whoever you're upset with, don't be upset with your stomach."
Tang Xiaoyu accepted the buns: "Thanks."
"What thanks between brothers."
Tang Xiaoyu nodded. Looking at the bun, he complained inwardly: 【Is this a bun? Not mentioning the taste, at least make yourself look passable! You say it's round but have a point. You say it's pointed but you're flat!】
He bit down. The taste needn't be said—it would ruin teeth for sure.
He wolfed it down in seconds, somewhat alleviating his hunger. With his stomach full he inevitably grew lustful!
Plus the dim lighting aggravated his irritation.
" Brothers, how many are detained here?" Tang Xiaoyu casually asked.
A middle-aged man awkwardly laughed. "Around four, five hundred? Mostly officials and generals."
"What about soldiers?"
"Oh, detained in the military camps inside the city."
Tang Xiaoyu understood. As long as the officers were controlled, the soldiers couldn't cause huge unrest.
Tang Xiaoyu continued asking: "They won't execute prisoners, right?"
"No, executing prisoners just saves a bit of food. Sending prisoners to work at sect mines brings the greatest profit."
Tang Xiaoyu patted his chest in relief. "Good good, at least life's safe for now."
The middle-aged man smiled bitterly. "Alas, working in the mines is no different than death. Just eking out a wretched existence for some time."
Tang Xiaoyu consoled: "There's hope while alive. As long as we don't give up, the day we gain freedom will come."
The prisoners' spirits lifted quite a bit after his motivational chicken soup.
As for Tang Xiaoyu himself, he didn't believe a word.
As Tang Xiaoyu was boasting to and entertaining everyone, Huo Yuanba came.
"Brother Tang, are you alright?"
Tang Xiaoyu stood up with a grave expression: "Do you think I can be alright now?"
"It doesn't seem so."
"Then why ask?"
Glancing at what Huo Yuanba held in his hands, Tang Xiaoyu sighed: "Alas, a hotheaded general ignorant of human relationships and the ways of the world will meet a terrible end."
Huo Yuanba suspiciously said: "Why should I bother currying others' favor?"
Tang Xiaoyu thought for a moment: "Yuanba, let me tell you another hotheaded general's story—Zhang Fei, Zhang Yide. You know him right?"
"I know, but together with Guan Yu they still couldn't beat Lu Bu!"
"I know, but are you as formidable as him? Do you know how he died?"
Huo Yuanba shook his head: "Don't know! You haven't told me."
"Then I'll tell you now."
"Go ahead."
He even ordered the soldiers beside him: "Go bring me a chair."
"Yes sir!"
Tang Xiaoyu related Zhang Fei's tale dramatically with additions.
Everyone listened with great interest.
Then he analyzed Zhang Fei's flaws at length.
"Yuanba, do you understand now?"
Huo Yuanba nodded: "I see, Brother Tang. You mean even if I'm unwilling, I still have to pretend on the surface."
Tang Xiaoyu slapped his forehead, but didn't contradict him: "You also have to control your emotions."
"I understand what to do now. I'll come see you if I get the chance, Brother Tang."
Tang Xiaoyu was angered till his liver hurt: "After so long, with such obvious meaning, you still don't see?"
Huo Yuanba smiled: "Brother Tang, control your emotions. I'll go back and have food sent to you."
Tang Xiaoyu took a deep breath: "Amitābha, Wuliang Tianzun, calm, stay calm. I'm not angry, not angry."
"Get lost!" Tang Xiaoyu suddenly roared.
His voice echoed throughout the dungeon.
"Will do!" Huo Yuanba slipped away nimbly.
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
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!"
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.
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
