Ning Yu carefully pondered this question.
After quite a while, she answered sincerely and directly:
"I would be sad."
She didn't hide her feelings, because that sensation had been very clear in the dream.
Shen Yiyue hadn't expected Ning Yu to be so straightforward; she had thought Ning Yu would beat around the bush.
"So... am I an important person to you too?"
She tentatively asked a question she had always wanted to ask but never dared to.
"Of course."
This time Ning Yu didn't hesitate, but nodded directly.
Shen Yiyue, as if she had been waiting for this answer for a long time, suddenly covered her mouth, looking like she was about to cry.
"Did I say something wrong? Why are you suddenly..."
Ning Yu, seeing her like this, thought she had made her sad.
"No, no, I just... I'm just really happy..."
Shen Yiyue quickly shook her head.
"I just received an answer I didn't dare hope for, so I'm very happy."
She showed a genuine smile and said to Ning Yu:
"So I won't disappear, and you can't disappear from my side either."
She wrapped both hands around Ning Yu's arm, acting coquettishly, making a sort of promise with Ning Yu.
"Alright."
Ning Yu agreed and turned to look at her, noticing Shen Yiyue's black hair was somewhat messy from sleep, and reached out to gently tuck it behind her ear.
This revealed her cute ear, which was already slightly red at the base.
Shen Yiyue seemed to realize her shy reaction had been noticed, so she turned her head away again, feeling too shy to look at Ning Yu.
However, seeing how gently Ning Yu helped arrange her hair made her heart feel warm.
Although Ning Yu usually appeared cold, now she could occasionally see emotions flowing from her heart.
She didn't want to be greedy; Ning Yu was already changing, and that was enough. She could and was willing to wait.
The night was still long, and Ning Yu didn't return to her own room to rest.
They chatted casually until the sky began to lighten, when Ning Yu realized Shen Yiyue had accidentally fallen asleep while listening.
She looked at Shen Yiyue's cute appearance as she slept sitting up and shook her head with a smile.
This silly girl didn't say anything even when she was tired, just forcing herself to stay awake to talk with her.
Ning Yu gently helped her lie down, covered her with a blanket, and then left her room.
Now she no longer had any doubts.
Because she had an unprecedented sense of existence.
......
Several days later.
Ning Yu sat in an empty apartment, waiting for Lin Hao.
He had contacted her again today, seemingly having made new discoveries. Ning Yu guessed it was about the virus metadata information.
Ning Yu had arrived at the agreed apartment early in the morning, waiting for Lin Hao.
Today was also Ji Mengyao's birthday. Last time, Shen Yiyue said Ji Mengyao had invited them over for drinks and dinner, so they would be going to Ji Mengyao's place tonight.
She and Shen Yiyue had both prepared simple birthday gifts for her.
Ning Yu was wearing the black baseball cap that Ji Mengyao had given her last time, though this time she hadn't tied her hair in twin tails. Ning Yu thought it was too troublesome, so she simply let her silver hair fall loose from behind the cap.
However, this did nothing to hide her beauty; in fact, her charm had been increasing lately.
After waiting a while longer, Ning Yu checked the time and noticed it was about 30 minutes past the agreed time, which seemed a bit odd.
Lin Hao was never late, and she usually arrived about 15 minutes early.
Such a long delay today was quite unusual.
Ning Yu narrowed her eyes in thought and waited another 10 minutes. By now, she had a thoroughly bad feeling.
Could it be... he had discovered something extraordinary?
This strong intuition made Ning Yu absolutely certain that something might have happened to Lin Hao.
She didn't hesitate any longer, left a note on the table in their special code that only the two of them could understand, and then climbed out through the window.
......
In a dark room, Lin Hao groggily woke up.
He felt a splitting pain in the back of his head, and his whole body felt dizzy with a strong sense of vertigo.
Where was he?
He touched the back of his head, and immediately felt something wet and warm, which alarmed him.
Looking at his hand, it was covered in blood.
His head must have been struck by some heavy object and was now bleeding, which was a very dangerous situation.
He struggled to stand up, having just pulled in his outstretched legs and trying to use his core muscles to rise.
"Bang!"
Intense light suddenly blazed on, making his eyes blur, forcing him to shield them with his hand.
"You're awake?"
A man's cold voice rang out.
Lin Hao's eyes hadn't adjusted yet, making it impossible to see who was there, but hearing that voice felt incredibly familiar.
"Yan Xing?"
Lin Hao spoke the person's name, and his eyes finally slowly adjusted, revealing a man wearing the same research team clothes as him.
He had short hair and slightly chubby cheeks, looking honest and simple, but his eyes now held cruelty and playfulness.
"What did you do to me? Wasn't I supposed to be in the team..."
Yan Xing was his colleague from the same research team, and like him, one of Zhuang Wugou's right-hand men.
However, Lin Hao's knowledge and talent far exceeded Yan Xing's, so Zhuang Wugou often favored Lin Hao, giving him many privileges and important tasks.
"I never thought you would do such a stupid thing."
Yan Xing said with a gloomy smile.
"Wh...what?!"
Lin Hao was shocked, not understanding what stupid thing he was referring to.
But he had indeed been keeping secrets from the Ark Organization, researching the virus serum's secrets, and had left a backdoor in the system database machine.
"You thought no one knew what you were doing, but old Zhuang discovered you long ago."
"I thought I had no hope of being valued and would have to work under you, following your orders."
"You, you, you just handed over this great opportunity to me? Hahaha!"
Yan Xing blurted out everything, seeming delighted at Lin Hao's misfortune.
"What... what are you talking about? What do you mean working under me, what opportunity?"
Lin Hao felt a chill in his heart, knowing he had been exposed. He hadn't expected Zhuang Wugou to have discovered him so early, so why act against him only now?
But he really didn't understand what Yan Xing was talking about, what opportunity, what about being above or below.
"You're still pretending?!"
Yan Xing seemed triggered by Lin Hao's questions, gritting his teeth and saying viciously:
"All your hard work and research, trying to curry favor, wasn't it just to gain old Zhuang's trust and become the second-in-command of the base! Stop acting like a good person!"
Lin Hao looked at him and finally seemed to understand what he was talking about.
Unfortunately, he had never thought about any of these things. Everything he had done was for his wife, Lin Xiaolu.
He just wanted to avenge her with his own hands.
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.
't think I'm that capable, I'm just trying my best to stay alive. I've been kind all my life, never did anything bad, yet worldly suffering spared me not one bit. The human world is a nice place, but I won't come back in my next life. A kind young man, who wanted to just get by singing, but through repeated deceits and betrayals, has gone down an irredeemable path.
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 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."
