After the new county magistrate finished patrolling the streets, calm returned to the streets once more.
Zhang San returned to his counter, while Wang Xiaoer continued wiping the tables. As for Xiu Wangchou, he stared blankly at the retreating procession in the street, unconsciously clenching his fists.
Zhang San noticed all this but didn't say a word.
Wang Xiaoer sized up Xiu Wangchou for quite a while before finally plucking up the courage to walk over to him and ask, "Big brother, what's the matter?"
Xiu Wangchou looked back to see such a handsome little boy and smiled, "Nothing."
"Big brother, are you a chivalrous hero?"
Xiu Wangchou asked, "What makes you say that?"
While listening to their conversation, Zhang San frowned slightly.
Wang Xiaoer was clever yet simple-minded. He had better not fail to draw Xiu Wangchou out and instead end up being strung along by him.
However, Zhang San's worries were clearly unnecessary. Wang Xiaoer said in all his childish innocence: "You asked my uncle just now if he needed help driving away those bad guys."
Xiu Wangchou laughed and said, "So he's your uncle! But even if your uncle had said no, I, Xiu Wangchou, would still not have let those scoundrels off. You're right...I'm a hero, but I'm still far from calling myself a grand hero."
Wang Xiaoer's face lit up in delight. "Big brother, you really are a chivalrous hero!"
"Just an ordinary wandering hero, not a grand hero," Xiu Wangchou corrected.
However, Zhang San secretly thought to himself: Nonsense, what ordinary wandering hero has at least an intermediate level of martial arts skill?
Wang Xiaoer continued, "I'm called Wang Xiaoer. I've always wanted to be a wandering hero too. But people say there's no money in being a hero."
Xiu Wangchou burst out laughing at this naive yet interesting remark. He walked over and ruffled Wang Xiaoer's little head, smiling as he said, "Little one, money isn't everything. Heroes eliminate evil and help the good; grand heroes ensure peace and safety for the country and people. I have limited capabilities so becoming an ordinary hero will do. I don't need money."
Wang Xiaoer pouted. "Then what do you eat? From the looks of it, big brother, you probably can't even afford a painting."
But Xiu Wangchou wasn't angry in the least. He laughed. "Sometimes after driving away some bullies, people give me food or even money. Don't you worry about whether your big brother will starve."
Wang Xiaoer said, "Then big brother, you must protect us. I'll give you food in the future. But you won't be leaving our county too soon, right?"
Xiu Wangchou pinched Wang Xiaoer's cute little face and laughed. "No, I'll probably stay for one or two months more. After I finish my business here, I'll definitely protect you guys from being bullied by scoundrels. Alright?"
"Alright!" Wang Xiaoer nodded vigorously, then just stared at Xiu Wangchou admiringly without another word.
Xiu Wangchou bowed with fists clasped towards Zhang San before leaving the art shop.
...
"Master, Master, how did I do?"
"Not bad, you've got some skills."
The whispered conversation between master and disciple revealed that Wang Xiaoer's childish chatter with Xiu Wangchou earlier was no innocent exchange arising from a child's admiration for heroes.
Instead, Wang Xiaoer had designed everything he said earlier.
Zhang San watched the departing figure in the distance and said to Wang Xiaoer, "A sworn hero bent on eliminating evil who purposely came to my little shop to observe when the new county magistrate was patrolling and plans to stay in the county for a significant period... it looks like there'll be some chaos in this little county town in the days ahead."
Wang Xiaoer folded his arms and sighed while mimicking his late father "Gray Lion", "Nowadays, ten out of ten officials are corrupt."
Zhang San took one look at Wang Xiaoer before throwing a punch at him!
Clutching his head in pain, Wang Xiaoer complained, "Master, why did you hit me again?"
"Don't talk like adults."
"Oh...alright," Wang Xiaoer reluctantly agreed.
While still rubbing his head, Wang Xiaoer added, "But what that guy said sounded a lot like my dad."
"What did he say?"
"Ordinary heroes eliminate evil and help the good; grand heroes ensure peace and safety for the country and people. My dad said the exact same thing before and made me memorize it."
On hearing this, Zhang San stared down the street, muttering to himself, "Looks like there'll be some chaos in this little county town for some time to come..."
Upon saying this, Zhang San froze briefly.
He recalled the hoodlums who came earlier to collect "protection fees" followed soon after by the county magistrate brazenly striding down the streets.
But no matter how chaotic things became, just how chaotic could they get?
This was what Zhang San wondered to himself.
...
Not far away on the street, Xiu Wangchou garbed in white halted and glanced back in the general direction of the art shop.
He murmured to himself, "Was it my imagination? But from my observations, that art shop owner doesn't seem capable of any martial arts. Yet for some reason... he appeared to be blocking the view for me at that time while pretending to just be an onlooker."
"And why did his gaze when asking about the grass ring..."
The hero bent on righting wrongs and eliminating evil, Xiu Wangchou lacked Zhang San's cunning wit. No matter how much he wracked his brains, he couldn't figure out anything odd about Zhang San's words and behavior earlier.
Instead, Xiu Wangchou began suspecting he was being overly sensitive.
How could he harbor misgivings about an ordinary scholar?
Yet there was one remark during his decidedly ordinary conversation with Zhang San that Xiu Wangchou couldn't get out of his mind.
"Four rings interlinked with floral calyx in the center—quite an exceptional craftsmanship."
This was a braiding technique passed down through generations in a tiny village that had vanished in the northern Dawu Country. While it probably wasn't peerless in all the world, one glimpse was enough to tell it demanded exceptional technique—those who could recognize it were likely few and far between.
Xiu Wangchou muttered to himself, "But everyone else died that year, and I should have been the only survivor..."
Xiu Wangchou was twelve years old at the time. He had hidden in the grass and watched his clansmen murdered one by one...
How could there possibly be any other survivors aside from him?
Perhaps everything really was just a coincidence. That scholar just happened to be familiar with that braiding technique. After all it was merely a small village. Some people who left to work could have brought the technique with them. That would make perfect sense.
Consoling himself thusly, Xiu Wangchou gradually departed.
That night, inside the secret chamber in Zhang San's room.
"Wow, Master! You actually have a secret chamber! I've only ever seen them in storybooks!"
"What's so strange about that? Doesn't your dad have one too?"
Wang Xiaoer candidly admitted, "Why would my dad have something like that? My house is so small and I know every corner of it."
Zhang San frowned slightly then asked, "Then where does he do his missions?"
"Missions? He just carries them out as per normal—puts on a mask, grabs a blade, heads out, and comes back when it's done."
On hearing this, Zhang San—a man who had lived his life cautiously, even going so far as to take aromatic trichome powder when killing ordinary people—couldn't help sighing, "Your dad is pretty fierce."
Thinking it was praise for his father, Wang Xiaoer proudly proclaimed, "Of course! My dad is a high-level expert of the intermediate stage!"
Zhang San shook his head. He pulled out a large chest from below his counter full of all kinds of hidden weapons, poisons, disguises and other materials. "From today onwards, you'll read these books."
Curious, Wang Xiaoer asked, "Master, what kind of books are these?"
"Martial arts manuals," Zhang San replied.
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.
] This is a dark fantasy-themed dating simulation game. The main gameplay involves containing various monster girls and investigating the truth of a world shrouded in mist alongside your companions. However, due to his love for the dark and bizarre atmosphere, Luo Wei ended up turning a dating game into a detective mystery game. Women? Women only slow down his quickdraw! To Luo Wei, the female leads in the game are more like tools to perfectly clear levels and squeeze out rewards. For Luo Wei, flirting with every girl he meets and then discarding them is standard procedure. Worried about characters losing affection points? No need. With his maxed-out charm stat, Luo Wei is practically a "human incubus." A little psychological manipulation and those points come right back. It's a bit scummy, but the paper cutout heroines in the game won't actually come at him with real cleavers. However... Luo Wei has transmigrated. He's accidentally entered the second playthrough of this game. His past actions have caused all the girls to transform into terrifying yanderes. Due to the game's setting, most of the heroines he once contained are "troubled girls." Obsessive, twisted, mentally unstable, all aggressive yanderes... The type who will kill you if they can't have you... Luo Wei wants to cry but has no tears left. "I really just want to survive..." In short, this is a story of battling wits and engaging in a love-hate relationship with yanderes.
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.
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!
