In the kitchen.
Lin Mu pulled out a pack of Seven Stars from under her skirt.
Neon pop, pineapple flavor. She pinched one out and held it between her fingers.
Her index and middle fingers trembled slightly.
Her delicate little hand shook faintly.
There was no way she could sleep now.
She fished out a lighter from another pocket in her skirt.
Click.
The flame ignited, and she took a deep drag.
The cigarette tip swirled with smoke,
drifting up toward the kitchen ceiling.
After calming down a bit,
she put away the high-end lighter and pulled out her phone again.
She stared at the message that had come through the "Cloud Music" notification center a few minutes ago.
"Lin-chan, you're doing great!"
Lin Mu pondered repeatedly—
Had her lack of sleep caused some kind of mental disorder?
Was this condition somehow connected to her long-standing fantasy of "becoming a teammate of the gods"?
"Should I go see a doctor?"
"Tomorrow, a top-tier hospital, psychiatric department."
Leaning against the wall, cigarette dangling from her lips, she reached out and turned on the expensive range hood.
Hummm—
Amid the faint whirring of the fan,
she sank into serious contemplation.
"No. Hospitals open in the morning, and I’d have to get up early. I can’t do that."
"Booking an appointment in the afternoon is pointless too. Even if I get a slot, I’d have to wait in line, and who knows how long that would take."
She blew out a smoke ring,
then tilted her head back, pressing it against the tiled wall.
She took another drag.
Quietly, she thought, "Unless I don’t sleep at all."
Sigh.
"Forget it, I’ll go see a doctor in a few days," she evaded.
...
Lin Mu knew she had a problem.
A bit of a psychological issue, at the very least.
She was fully aware of it.
After all, it wasn’t normal for someone to tirelessly post fresh videos to an account that never responded,
like updating a novel, punctual and unwavering, rain or shine.
Nor would anyone treat someone else’s account like a personal diary, writing over 200 essays, the sheer volume of words alone was terrifying to recall.
She just hadn’t expected her condition to progress so rapidly.
So rapidly that she was now seeing messages from "Yin Ci P."
Even the delivery time was crystal clear.
"Damn. I need to sleep earlier tomorrow," Lin Mu thought to herself.
"Staying up late is bad for my health, so I can’t sleep at 6 a.m. anymore. I need to be healthier."
"Let’s aim for 4 a.m.," she decided.
With that, she absentmindedly put her phone away, finished the remaining half of her cigarette,
rinsed her mouth, washed her hands, and poured herself a glass of Sunny 100 orange juice.
After drinking it,
Lin Mu climbed into bed, her thoughts lingering on Yin Ci P,
and quietly drifted off to sleep.
...
...
8 a.m.
Lu Qing sat up like a corpse reanimated.
"Hmm..."
He had spent the entire night listening to the songs Lin-chan had sent him.
Watched hundreds of the videos she had recorded.
Read every single one of her "little diaries" addressed to him.
Even though some of the content made him cringe...
He had read every word.
"This kid..."
Emm...
"She’s really not well," was Lu Qing’s first impression of Lin-chan after two years of silence.
A few of her messages, even after staying up all night to read them, still left him baffled.
For example—
Lin: ["Qing-san, are you there? Today, I talked to the Saintess, and she agreed to sleep with me in bed for one night.
You once told me that this would help deepen the spiritual connection between a person and their instrument. I think you’re right.
If I hold her while I sleep, my guitar skills should improve, right?"]
"That makes some sense, but..."
Lin: ["I bought the same Martin acoustic guitar as yours, 'Little Martin.' Today, I realized just how delicate a guitar is compared to a bass. It’s so hard to handle! I can’t imagine how anyone could master it to a godlike level...
So, Qing-san, you must have been an incredibly sensitive and emotional person back then, right?"]
"...You’re really loaded."
Lin: ["In the days without you, I’ve completely let go. I’ve gotten used to practicing alone, solving all the musical challenges by myself. I’ve even tried learning composition and bought all the 'sound libraries' you mentioned in your posts. Wow, they’re so expensive! Why does a string ensemble cost thousands? It’s not like they’re real violins..."]
"......You really didn’t have to."
Lin: ["Qing-san, I’ve practiced all the songs you love. I know you’re still here, you haven’t disappeared from this world.
Because you still 'add new favorite songs to your playlist.' You’re still using Cloud Music, right?"]
"......Ugh."
Lin: ["Even if you’ve changed your name, even if you never read DMs, even if you turned to ashes, I could still find traces of you. Qing-san, I don’t want to cause you any trouble. Just think of this as a lonely little girl talking to herself in the middle of the night."]
"...Oh man..."
Lin: ["Today, I practiced the song 'Weakness of Heaven,' which you once failed to master. On bass, it’s not too hard, but when I picked up the electric guitar, I couldn’t even play the intro perfectly. Qing-san, were you already tackling songs like this in high school?"]
"...No, I wasn’t."
Lin: ["I’m not happy. Yesterday, I went to hang out with my sister, and outside her shop, I ran into someone really annoying. I know it’s not nice to say, but this person looked kind of decent, and their build was similar to yours. I immediately imagined it was you... Sigh, I guess I was just overthinking it."]
"?"
When Lu Qing read this,
he couldn’t help but feel curious.
His first thought was, what kind of shop does Lin-chan’s sister run?
A milk tea shop?
A coffee shop?
He hadn’t been to any other shops recently, and judging by the timing of Lin-chan’s message, it was just a few days ago.
"I went to do homework with Bai Xing and got messed with by a brat."
Lu Qing remembered it vividly.
"Lin-chan said she saw someone with a similar build to mine, but there are plenty of people like that. It probably wasn’t me. After all, she’s never seen what I look like. All my videos are faceless."
He pondered, deep in thought.
He was certain that Lin-chan’s videos were also faceless.
Lin-chan was imitating him, so her videos were edited simply, without much embellishment, focusing only on the audio.
Since she was well-off, she used a DSLR camera to record, which made the visuals much clearer than his phone recordings.
But something still felt off.
"Hmm... There’s definitely something wrong here."
"Normally, I wouldn’t feel this uneasy."
Lu Qing frowned.
He reopened one of her videos,
listening to the music she played,
while scrutinizing the details.
From the way Lin-chan swayed while playing, there didn’t seem to be anything unusual.
Lin-chan was probably on the shorter side, and though her face wasn’t shown, she likely had a "cool-cute" vibe.
What’s "cool-cute"?
It’s a mix of aloofness and cuteness.
The kind of girl who’s both cool and adorable.
Such girls often have a bit of a tsundere personality.
Lu Qing’s analysis was thorough.
Lin-chan’s fashion sense had completely mirrored his own.
When practicing, she wore "practice uniforms," or "battle robes,"
which were various kinds of haori.
Her equipment,
too, felt familiar.
Especially when she used the white Fender bass or the Martin guitar, the same model as his, for practice. She even had a PRS electric guitar, which he had recommended,
and she had actually bought and used it.
"Huh?"
"Wait, what?"
"No way..."
Suddenly,
Lu Qing narrowed his eyes, bringing the phone screen closer to his face.
His gaze skipped over Lin-chan’s swaying figure, focusing instead on the background behind her—
A stage.
A light blue PRS electric guitar.
A DSLR camera angle.
A familiar A-shaped guitar stand.
A familiar Mosse electric piano.
A familiar Fender cream-colored bass.
Familiar lighting, speakers, monitors, and mixing consoles.
And on the curtain behind her, in bold, oversized font,
【Twilight Café】.
"No way."
...
...
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!
] [Lone Wolf, No Male Gaze] [Protagonist is pursued early on; extreme protagonist-stans, stay away!] The "Carnival Paradise" descends and slowly devours the real world in the form of a game. By chance, Zhu Yan awakens the talent [Roleplay], becoming one of the first beta players. He thought he could develop safely, but after clearing the first instance, he is branded by humanity as the chief culprit behind the game's spread—a traitorous villain. A villain? Who would ever... become one! He'll be the villain! From then on, Zhu Yan is not only a player but also a lackey for the Carnival Paradise. Between the straight path and the crooked path, he chooses the con. With his left hand, he dons the villain's mantle, staging scenes within instances, infuriating players who decry him as a despicable traitor, all while the game happily promotes him. With his right hand, he joins the non-human organization "Fangcun Mountain," which opposes the Carnival Paradise, transforming into a mysterious player who slaughters game bosses, earning cheers of "Long live the expert!" from fellow players. Gradually, Zhu Yan rises to become an S-rank human player in Fangcun Mountain's archives, while also being the Carnival Paradise's certified top game Boss. But when the final war erupts and both major factions place their hopes in him— Players tag his various aliases: "Experts, this offensive depends on you." The Carnival Paradise's supreme Boss throws an arm around his neck: "Bro, you're the iron, I'm the steel; you can't let me down again!"
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.
lity and could only live as an ordinary mortal. He only wished to live a peaceful life. Yet he didn't know— The dog he adopted, because it ate his food, became a legendary demon king. The kitchen knife he casually forged became a peerless divine weapon, causing numerous experts to fight desperately for it. The young disciple he took in became an immortal lord that led an era, due to cultivating the techniques Ye Feng taught him. Even the skeletons he looked down on the most were ominous demon kings that suppressed countless worlds. Many years later, looking at the void shattered with a punch, Ye Feng murmured to himself: It turns out the peerless kings were myself all along...
