Ning Yu had originally planned to head straight to the grocery section downstairs.
However, passing by the free trade zone, she suddenly had an idea.
She decided to go in and see if she might get lucky and find another task.
The trade zone was bustling with people in the afternoon, with all sorts of items being traded.
Some people sat on the ground calling out to passersby, others were arguing with vendors, seemingly trying to haggle over prices.
Some stalls had no customers, with their owners holding up signs and staring into space out of boredom.
Ning Yu scanned the area but couldn't find any trace of the young girl who had been buying depression medication last time.
She clearly remembered the girl saying she would be there every day, but it wasn't time for her medication yet, so perhaps she had other matters to attend to.
Ning Yu didn't dwell on it too much and started browsing around.
Just like last time, all sorts of peculiar items were being sold or sought after.
Dumbbells, electric fans, tables, rackets - you name it, they had it.
Unfortunately, none of them seemed to be urgently needed items, so no tasks were triggered.
Feeling disappointed, Ning Yu was about to leave and go grocery shopping as originally planned.
Suddenly, she was drawn to a sign at the edge of the crowd.
It belonged to a peculiarly dressed young man, about 25 or 26 years old - not quite old, but not exactly a youth either.
He had a lip piercing, two skull earrings, and rather dramatic hair that seemed to have been dyed at some point but had now considerably faded.
He wore a black T-shirt with strange graphics and ripped jeans.
His features were actually quite refined, but unfortunately, paired with his attire, he gave off a "keep away" vibe.
When children approached to look, their parents quickly pulled them away, warning them "not to go near strange people."
He sat on the ground with a sign that read:
"Selling household items."
However, his stall was empty, suggesting the items were too large to bring out.
This also meant that potential buyers would need to go to his home to see the items.
Ning Yu was incredulous: Brother, with such an intimidating appearance, you're expecting people to come to your house to look at your stuff?
Nevertheless, she decided to try her luck and approached him.
"Excuse me... what items are you selling?"
[Ding! Task triggered: Trade an item with the man.]
[Task reward: 1 random attribute point, 2000 points]
"Oh, just some things I've collected, and some musical instruments..."
The young man looked up and spoke.
His voice was surprisingly gentle, pleasantly soothing to hear, though it created a stark contrast with his appearance.
Hearing about musical instruments, Ning Yu wondered if he might be some underground musician.
"Could I take a look?"
Ning Yu feigned interest: Points, here I come!
"Um... little sister, do you have any family? Would you like to bring them along?"
The young man showed a hesitant expression, clearly aware of the problem with his setup: nobody would dare follow him home!
Yet here was this beautiful silver-haired girl, actually proposing to go see his items.
Though he wasn't a bad person, he worried about what would happen if her family found out and came to accuse him or take her away.
"It's fine, no need!"
Ning Yu smiled softly, appearing innocently gullible. Nearby passersby who witnessed this wanted to step in and warn her.
They feared she might be falling for some trick, following such a scary-looking person.
"Well... shall we go then?"
The young man stopped hesitating - if she wasn't afraid, why should he be?
So they left the free trade zone together.
Ning Yu followed behind him, carefully observing his thin frame that seemed somewhat malnourished.
"Why are you selling your household items?"
She asked casually.
"Well, I'm about to run out of food, so I'm planning to sell some things from home and find a proper job at the base."
Now she understood what he meant.
Soon, they arrived at his apartment building.
The young man took out his keys and opened the door but deliberately left it wide open, presumably to avoid suspicion and to prevent Ning Yu from feeling scared.
Of course, Ning Yu wasn't afraid of him - she wouldn't be afraid even if there were 1000 of him.
His apartment was surprisingly neat, with everything arranged in perfect order, completely different from what Ning Yu had expected.
As someone with mild OCD, Ning Yu found it quite pleasing to the eye.
The entire room had a subtle, pleasant fragrance - it was hard to imagine from his appearance that he was such a clean and orderly person.
"Please come in."
He gestured and walked in first, beginning to bring out items from the room.
Soon he brought out electric guitars, bass guitars, several MIDI keyboards, a mixing console, an electric piano, and other items.
He continued bringing out many related components, all music-related.
"Were you... in a band?"
Ning Yu asked curiously.
The man scratched his head somewhat embarrassedly:
"Yeah... but now with the apocalypse, these things don't mean much anymore. My friends have all gone to work at the base."
"These items have lost their value along with that."
"Rather than letting them collect dust here, might as well sell them to someone who needs them. Some are also consigned by friends."
He glanced at Ning Yu again, thinking that at her age, she was probably still learning basic musical notation in school.
He suddenly felt disappointed, not expecting Ning Yu would want to buy any of these things.
However, after squatting there for so long, he was grateful that someone finally came to inquire - he had almost given up.
"Little sister, how about this? Are you interested?"
He sat on a cajon, which looked like a stool but was actually an instrument that could produce drum sounds when struck while sitting on it.
He tapped out a simple rhythm and nodded along with it, seemingly already imagining the melody.
He thought that among all these items, this simple instrument might be the only thing that could interest Ning Yu.
However, Ning Yu had different ideas.
She stepped forward and turned on the electric piano, listening to the young man's rhythm.
She placed her left hand on the lower register of the piano and started playing a series of bass notes.
"Hm?"
The young man suddenly turned to look at Ning Yu with surprised eyes: this young girl seemed to be playing a walking bass, a simple 2-5-1 progression.
She wasn't rushing into improvisation, but rather seemed to be building up with the rhythm, still in the introductory phase.
"Little sister, have you studied music?"
"Oh wow, not bad!"
Listening to Ning Yu's left-hand playing, he seemed to get excited and moved to the drum set nearby, starting to play a lively rhythm.
Ning Yu glanced at him, her left hand changing the rhythm pattern as her right hand joined in with the melody.
In this corner apartment during the apocalypse, a spontaneous Bossa Nova improvisation suddenly came to life, performed by Ning Yu and this stranger.
The light, lazy, melodious feeling seemed to transport everything back to the time before the apocalypse.
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
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.
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.
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!"
