The system summed it up: The male lead, the second male lead, and the female lead all grew up together as childhood friends. Just after the female lead turned eighteen, her father suffered a failed investment, the company’s capital chain snapped, and he was on the verge of bankruptcy.
The female lead’s stepmother convinced her father to send the female lead to curry favor with some powerful figure.
The female lead saw through her stepmother’s scheme, and, hoping for the best, told her father. In return, her father gave her a thorough scolding—after raising you in luxury all these years, I can't believe you turned out so naive. You should know who’s good to you, and who you should repay!
In despair, the female lead turned to the male lead and the second male lead for help. But the truth was, her father's downfall was orchestrated by the elders of the male lead’s and second male lead’s families working together—and both these boys had heard some whispers of this.
The female lead was, just as her father said, rather naive, but she wasn’t stupid. Especially as she watched her father teeter on the edge of bankruptcy, she experienced people’s coldness and warmth for the first time, which only made her mature faster.
Her father fought tooth and nail, but in the end, two years later, he went bankrupt and wound up in jail. When her stepmother visited him in prison, she told him her son wasn’t biologically his… thanked him for his “little gift”, and announced she was about to move abroad with the man she truly loved.
In a fit of rage, the female lead’s father nearly had a stroke on the spot.
On the verge of bankruptcy, he risked everything to transfer away part of his assets, with the lion’s share going to his wife and younger son!
The stepmother absconded with the money, and the female lead, faced with the mess left behind, was at her wits’ end. She struggled for a few years, wore herself out, and, with nowhere else to turn, offered herself to a rising tycoon—an up-and-coming newcomer, half-paralyzed and reliant on a wheelchair.
The female lead, regardless of her intellect, was always without peer in appearance.
As it happened, this newly returned magnate was not only the male lead’s little uncle, but also the love interest of the female lead’s stepmother.
That’s right. The male lead and the stepmother’s lover were cousins, and both the male lead and the second male lead had long known about the relationship between the stepmother and her lover. They tacitly chose to stay silent, and didn’t bother to warn the female lead when the stepmother ran off with the money.
At this point, the system couldn’t help muttering, “And yet, the male lead and second male lead firmly believe they truly love her. Though really, the female lead is something else as well.”
In order to save her father, the female lead deliberately appeared before the newcomer again and again, dressing up like his long-dead White Moonlight. Sure enough, she successfully pulled off a flash marriage and wed him.
Less than a year after the wedding, the female lead gave birth to a son.
Qin Jingzhou suddenly asked, “So the female lead’s child isn’t the magnate’s either?”
The system answered, “Right. He’s the male lead’s. And the male lead knows it too. The truth slips out eventually, no matter how hard the female lead tries to hide it. Once the magnate learned what happened, he wasted no time turning dark, shifting directly from third male lead to main antagonist. The main antagonist was powerful, but in the end, two fists couldn’t hold off four hands—once the male lead and second male lead became in-laws, it was like adding wings to a tiger…”
Qin Jingzhou couldn’t stop laughing. “I don’t even know what to say; I’m shocked. The situation where the male lead, female lead, and second male lead all end up married off to different people—this is a new one for us, right?”
“Right. This kind of bizarre story is pretty rare,” the system blinked, clearly in a good mood. “I thought you’d find it interesting too, Brother Zhou.”
Back to the story: the male and female leads carried on their affair and had a child, which not only enraged the main antagonist, but caught the second male lead completely off guard as well.
The main antagonist swore revenge, and the second male lead almost did too.
The more the second male lead thought about it, the angrier he got. Having a wife and daughter at home did little to curb his obsession with the female lead; he dreamed of enjoying beauties by his knee and ruling the world upon waking—after all, his life’s ambition was just that.
To make matters worse, a series of so-called “little misunderstandings” stoked the flames even higher, and the second male lead decided to team up with the main antagonist to take down the male and female leads.
When the female lead realized that the second male lead was not just jealous and fooling around, but genuinely out for blood, she approached him for multiple heartfelt conversations, and took some measures of her own. In the end, on the surface at least, she and the second male lead made peace.
At this point, the main antagonist saw promise in the new energy sector, set up his plans, and raked in considerable profits, whether intentionally or not causing the second male lead and his family, who treated the new energy industry as their own backyard, to suffer major losses.
For the sake of his own interests, the second male lead quickly changed sides. The male lead seized the opportunity to negotiate with him multiple times as well, and so the two teamed up once more to fully suppress the main antagonist.
Although the main antagonist had his own allies, he still couldn’t stand against the temporarily unified front of the male lead and second male lead, hitting one setback after another until his assets shrank by nearly half.
It’s like they say: when it rains, it pours. Hit as he was, the main antagonist suffered a relapse of an old illness, spent a spell in the hospital, then returned home to recover.
The main antagonist’s White Moonlight’s father lost heavily by investing with him, and went to demand an explanation. One thing led to another and, in the heat of the moment, the man set a fire.
Qin Jingzhou frowned slightly. “This part feels a bit forced.”
The system blinked too. “Yeah, it doesn’t feel quite right to me. The evidence was conclusive, so White Moonlight’s father went to jail. As for the main antagonist, he kept his life but was left disfigured. When the female lead heard the news, she brought their child back to him, and the two of them tangled together for several years. The main antagonist eventually died, leaving everything to the female lead and her son. She became a widow, never rekindling things with either the male lead or the second male lead, letting bygones be bygones with a smile, and choosing to live as the main antagonist’s widow. Still, she maintained an indescribable, ambiguous relationship with the two men.”
“Did the antagonist really die of illness?”
“Long-term emotional abuse and psychological torment—if you take it literally, yes, he died of illness.”
Qin Jingzhou laughed again. “What a character, that antagonist. He’s basically just a prop, existing only so the plot can run as one woman and two kings. After all this drama, I bet in the end it was just a game of capital taking advantage and all the new tech never left the drawing board?”
The system said, “Of course. Otherwise, why would the World Will be so annoyed as to call for external intervention?” After a moment, it added, “The World Will always felt something was off. The male and female leads she’d handpicked shouldn’t have ended up like this—so just to be safe, she specified when issuing the mission that the agent must have a certain cultivation level and must be a righteous cultivator, and that those with other World Wills’ blessings take precedence.”
“Pretty high standards.”
The system replied, “Well, the reward lives up to it.”
Qin Jingzhou had done quite a few missions, but his recent ones had all followed the “who cares about money, just making friends” path, so he’d only saved up about twenty percent of the resources needed for advancement.
This time, the World Will’s baseline reward alone amounted to roughly fifteen percent of the needed resources, and she promised to add more if the mission was done well.
Qin Jingzhou admitted with a grin, “I’m tempted. She’s offering a lot.”
The system laughed too, but still fulfilled its duty. “Brother Zhou, as much as the male and female leads are awful this time, the main antagonist is nasty as well. As the saying goes, even the pitiful have their hateful side.”
“The ones we’ve met before have mostly been good kids, so I’ve done my best to play the kindly father. Playing a harsher old man, switching things up once in a while, doesn’t sound so bad.”
“I’ll take the mission officially now. And Brother Zhou, because of your reputation, my own standing’s improved too. For the first time, I was able to connect with the World Will ahead of time and get a detailed mission brief.” Before Qin Jingzhou could reply, the system continued, “Brother Zhou, the current point in time is just after the main antagonist was hospitalized with burns.”
The main antagonist’s name was Lu Jiuxiao; he took his mother’s surname.
In this world, the Lu family was one of the very top-tier wealthy clans. They were famous not just for their multibillion-dollar assets, but also for an endless stream of scandals and gossip.
The current head of the Lu family was the male lead’s great-grandfather, now in his nineties. Lu Jiuxiao’s mother was his beloved daughter in old age. During her life, she was showered with affection, and after she died of cancer, the old master transferred much of his doting to Lu Jiuxiao. Even though Lu Jiuxiao couldn’t walk or leave his wheelchair, the old man seriously considered making him the heir.
He wasn’t just putting on a show to provoke other sons and grandsons—he meant it.
This much, the male lead, his father, and grandfather all knew perfectly well. So even if the female lead hadn’t come between him and Lu Jiuxiao, the male lead and his little uncle would have fought “to the bitter end”… When billions are at stake, it’s life and death—the male lead was every bit as determined.
As for Lu Jiuxiao’s father, Cheng Jingzhou, he was a textbook freeloader. Good looks and a smooth tongue won over the heiress, even letting the son raise the father’s social standing. But less than three carefree years after marrying up, the heiress grew bored and, with a severance payment, sent him packing.
After the divorce, Cheng Jingzhou felt too ashamed to face people, so he just hid out in his apartment, gaming and avoiding reality. He holed up for more than twenty years—no wonder Lu Jiuxiao had always treated his dad as if he were dead.
In truth, Cheng Jingzhou really was dead. When Qin Jingzhou came over, the body was already starting to rot.
Cheng Jingzhou’s parents had died in a car accident, so he was actually raised by his grandparents, who had, over those past twenty years, died one after the other in deep disappointment.
When Qin Jingzhou took over Cheng Jingzhou’s body, he could distinctly sense the lingering wish in it—to make something of himself. He also confirmed the original host had died from a heart attack, and suffered from serious mental illness, enough to cause organic disease.
But for Qin Jingzhou, none of this was an issue. With practiced ease, he spent some of his own resources to fix the body—this world wasn’t a no-magic world, but the spiritual energy here was barely there, nowhere near enough for immortal cultivation. A handful of martial arts masters at the qi refining level was about the limit.
With spiritual energy so scarce, his abilities were limited as well.
Qin Jingzhou tidied up the original host’s home a bit, found some materials, and put together a six-sided die. Just as he was about to roll it to decide which field he should “make something of himself” in, there came a banging at the door.
Because the body was close to decomposition, this time Qin Jingzhou never got the host’s memories. He got up to open the door and asked the system, “Just from the way they’re knocking, they sound pretty aggressive. The original host didn’t owe someone a love debt, did he?”
The apartment was in a somewhat old complex, but the tasteful decor, powerful computer, and the feel of the clothes the original host wore made it clear this was a pretty comfortable life.
“Wasn’t the original host always shut up at home playing games? He used to brag to people online that his family had a special legacy and he’d made it big through cultivation.”
“Just boasting online gets you in trouble? If that were true, there’d be no keyboard immortals left in the world.”
The system skimmed the story for him. “The ones at the door should be two rich heirs who liked to play games. They know the original host’s background and identity and, egged on by the second male lead, came over looking for trouble. If we don’t show up, those two end up cleaning up the original host’s corpse and breaking with the second male lead.”
Qin Jingzhou swung the door open. Sure enough, there were two young men standing outside. One was standing up straight, and the other… was sitting in a wheelchair.
Their eyes met. The young man in the wheelchair blushed and lowered his head slightly. The one standing held it in for a few seconds before squeezing out, “Hello, Uncle Cheng.”
Qin Jingzhou nodded, “Here for treatment for your legs? All right, come in.” No need to roll the die anymore.
Little did he know that his offhand remark sent shockwaves through the hearts of the two visitors: Wasn’t he the guy kicked out of the Lu family, forced to scrounge for a living online as nothing but a fraud?