Ye Wangxing didn’t understand how the situation had happened until the investigation ended. How had he suddenly become an arms dealer?

But when the official investigation results came out, he realized that he hadn’t become an arms dealer. Instead, a group of merchants in the Middle East had secretly exported his company’s water pipes to war zones.

The reason was simple: the water pipes were of excellent quality, perfect for use as shells for careless cannons, and they were cheap. The middlemen still made a profit.

—Although Ye Wangxing still didn’t understand why those princes wanted to resell the pipes for profit.

Luckily, his company wasn’t the only one unlucky. The neighboring company selling gas cylinders had also made it onto the government’s protest list.

When Ye Wangxing came out, he ran into the neighbor. Both looked confused, as if they had been told: “Today, you are the company’s legal representative intern.”

“19, have you encountered something like this before…”

Ye Wangxing asked 19 after a long silence.

19 stayed silent. His war-zone host hadn’t experienced anything so extreme—they had the system as a backup—but he had heard of such cases, essentially using cheap weapons to deplete the other side’s high-end equipment.

But…

19 recalled the pricing of his own host’s water pipes and the neighbor’s gas cylinders and fell silent again.

—This was far too cheap!

As 19 and Ye Wangxing absorbed the shock to their worldview, netizens also rarely ignored the situation. They bombarded the official news posts with question marks.

“Did something happen? How did they suddenly become arms dealers?”

“…If you said the arms dealer was that CEO Qin, I could believe it. But CEO Ye? Wasn’t he taken by force? If he had that capability, would he be pinned down by the guy currently in Africa staring at giraffes?”

“Whenever I see ‘staring at giraffes’ I can’t help but laugh, but finance people really aren’t usually doing illegal stuff! Of course, I can’t guarantee overseas.”

“Your explanation is no explanation at all!”

When the investigation report was released, netizens stared at it in surprise. Then some couldn’t help but smile.

“Hahaha, first time I realized that being too good in quality could make you a cannon risk hahaha.”

“The gas cylinders never imagined they would one day face off against surface-to-air missiles hahaha!”

“Help! Quality is so good, I’m already tempted.”

It wasn’t just netizens who were intrigued, clients worldwide became interested. In the following days, Ye Group’s phones nearly exploded. The PR team was insufficient, and Ye Wangxing even brought his retired parents back to the company to answer calls.

Ye’s parents, already retired, had to come back as customer service because their son had caused such a stir: “…”

The Qin family also didn’t escape. Assistant Cui had to bring the assistant team to work overtime.

Overtime wasn’t enough—they also had to accompany their boss picking up his partner, occasionally act as chaperones, and prevent the boss’s younger brother or son from taking advantage of the situation to call CEO Ye.

Of course, the export business continued. They still sold to the same old Middle Eastern clients. As long as those clients promised not to use the goods for war purposes, the company continued sales.

The day after the news broke, Ye Group’s stock price started rising, even surpassing its previous highs, eventually stabilizing at a favorable number.

Qin Group’s stock also leveraged the news to make a comeback, taking down several competitors.

Once the two groups stabilized, the wealthy families in A City knew that the time for reckoning had come.

First to be reckoned with was the Liang family. Their second son had contributed most to the recent strike plan and had been used as a scapegoat by others.

Eventually, the Liang family got caught for tax evasion and business crimes. Mr. Liang went to prison, and the family had to pay massive taxes. Liang Qing was completely abandoned by his family.

Originally, they planned to send him to a remote area in the country to teach. But he insisted on going abroad to make a career.

—Then, after three days abroad, he got shot and ended up in the ICU.

Now all eyes turned to the Ye and Qin families.

Ye Wangxing thought: “…”No, he really didn’t give 19 any “overseas tycoon” attributes. Those previous statements were just bragging.

That guy got shot simply because he heard gunfire, thought it was firecrackers, got closer to watch, and was hit by stray bullets.

Fortunately, foreign media cleared them of wrongdoing.

But judging by some wealthy families’ reactions, they didn’t believe it.

Still, that wasn’t Ye Wangxing’s concern, because the real reckoning was next.

Other wealthy families who had acted behind the scenes only lost some money, the companies weren’t significantly damaged.

But the Xu and An families suffered. They had previously tried to cautiously test Ye Group for a gain due to An Yang, but unexpectedly, they gained nothing and ended up losing teeth.

After their groups shrank and many businesses were cut, only two or three companies remained—similar to the original Ye Group—but they didn’t have the Qin family backing them. Even marriage alliances no longer dared approach them.

Xu Feng was boycotted by everyone because of the concert incident. Even if Brother Zhang tried to persuade him, as long as he endured the criticism and continued the concert, someone would always come out of curiosity, and he could still make money.

But Xu Feng, unable to see reality clearly, always thought that expecting him to sell his dignity for that little money was impossible. When he willfully declared that he wanted to terminate his contract, he realized that the money he had to compensate would wipe out his entire fortune.

His family no longer intended to give him funds. They had originally planned to get some money from Xu Feng to support their company, but when they learned that he had frivolously lost tens of millions in assets, they even considered sending him abroad, like the Liang family.

Even Grandpa Xu didn’t want to look at his usually cherished grandson because of the company’s problems.

Thus, Xu Feng could only enter the industry in style and leave the entertainment circle in disgrace.

On the day he left, Brother Zhang still persuaded Xu Feng that even if he retired from the entertainment industry, he could do livestream e-commerce, and if he was capable, he could earn several million a year.

But judging from Xu Feng’s furious expression before leaving, making him do livestream e-commerce might as well have been asking him to die.

After fulfilling his last duty, Brother Zhang was assigned a new artist. He was grateful that this new artist was a normal person, at least someone who wouldn’t call him at 2 a.m. while he was sleeping with his cat.

The Xu family eventually fell completely from the top-tier wealthy circle.

However, they still found slight consolation: the An family, who had followed behind them, fared even worse.

The An family had relied on the Xu family to survive. Once the Xu family’s funds were cut off, the An family suffocated like an oxygen tube had been pulled away.

On top of struggling to breathe, a powerful hand tightly gripped the An family’s lifeline. Half a month later, the An family directly declared bankruptcy.

Later, the An parents even called An Yang specifically to scold him, calling him a traitor. But An Yang didn’t care, he only knew that the An parents had been living in poverty recently.

They hoped An Yang would give them money to help them rise again, but now they couldn’t even enter Ye Group’s gates, and An Yang would definitely not appear. They could only angrily complain to their remaining friends that An Yang was an unfilial son.

Since they still had some money, someone soon introduced a new project to them. Whether the An parents truly believed it or were blinded by greed, they chose to trust this person.

Thus, when An Yang woke up, he saw a long message from his parents: they were going to follow their friend to get rich.

“…If you end up being cheated into poverty by your CEO Ye, we won’t give you a single penny.”

An Yang felt relieved reading this. Not giving a penny wasn’t much of a punishment, as long as they didn’t contact him, it was fine.

He even wondered if it was a scam, but when he called the police, they told him it was indeed a multinational company operating internationally. An Yang relaxed and stopped worrying about his parents.

Meanwhile, Ye Wangxing looked at 19 reporting in front of him and asked in disbelief: “Did the An couple’s so-called multinational business go to the Russians side? They originally planned to make war profits but didn’t have enough funds, so they chose to become mercenaries?”

19 nodded heavily.

Ye Wangxing was shocked for a while and murmured: “Even if they wanted to die, they wouldn’t go fill in the lines, right?”

The An couple’s recklessness indeed surprised Ye Wangxing, but he quickly pushed it out of his mind.

After all, their mission was over, they were leaving this world.

But before leaving, they still had to bring Qin Shi back. Otherwise, given his previous persona, if they really left, Qin Shi would spend his whole life in Africa.

Since he was 19’s biological entity, they decided to call him back.

Ye Wangxing thought this and instructed 19 accordingly. 19 didn’t mind, he didn’t think the host was wasting effort.

For such a harmless matter, as long as the host was happy, it was enough.

19 looked at the health emotion monitoring system displayed on the screen.

But in other people’s eyes, it wasn’t like that.

An Yang watched as CEO Ye, after everything was over, gave many projects to Qin Shi, went home with CEO Qin, and even brought back Teacher Qin.

When picking them up at the airport, he didn’t forget to bring the Qin brothers along.

So, who did CEO Ye really love—the three of them?

An Yang’s wailing went unheard by Ye Wangxing, who was in the dorm provided by the system company, his eyes shining as he counted the spoils of this mission.

 

[Task Panel]

Name: [Ye Wangxing]

Gender: [Male]

Age: [24]

Current Role: [Chairman of Ye Group]

Attention Value: [53,794]

Mini World Currency: [5,125,635]

Gold (transferable to the real world): [3,600 g]

Main Quest: [None]

Reward: [None]

Side Quests:

Quest 1: [None]

Quest 2: [None]

 

This year-long Small World quest brought Ye Wangxing several million Mini World Currency and nearly 4 kg of gold.

After completing the two quests, Ye Wangxing’s attention value also surged sharply to 50,000.

This profit absolutely surpassed most questers of the same period.

When 17 came over to visit, he also expressed admiration for Ye Wangxing’s abilities.

“Boss, the task reward doubling is exactly what you deserved. Your quest skills and ability to handle aftermaths—how long has it been since we’ve seen a host so diligent in completing quests?”

17’s eyes glistened with emotion, making Ye Wangxing feel slightly embarrassed. He quietly asked 19 if it was really like that.

19 quietly responded: “Pretty much. Over the past ten years, many hosts, after improving their abilities later on, wanted to go solo. Some even damaged the system’s data modules and CPU.”

Ye Wangxing didn’t understand why those hosts wanted to go solo, or why they would damage the system. Without knowing the full truth, he didn’t judge. But…

Ye Wangxing looked up at 19, who sat there organizing the previous world’s quest reports while telling him about his original world.

He wasn’t going to act against 19 anyway.

“…Host, only two days have passed in your original world. One quest usually takes one to five days. So you don’t need to rush for now.”

Hearing this, Ye Wangxing’s earlier worries were eased. He smiled at 19 and said: “That’s great.”

He then sat next to 19, discussing the last quest report. After finishing, he intended to check the Small World follow-up. A burning gaze made him lift his head.

17, sitting aside waiting to issue the new quest: “…Bro, I’m still here.”

Ye Wangxing immediately apologized to 17, but 17 didn’t mind much. After accepting Ye Wangxing’s apology and handing over the task, he left.

While Ye Wangxing regretted leaving his guest waiting, he accepted the quest and sent the person out before checking the Small World follow-up.

19 quietly waited on the sofa. Once the host returned, they cozied up together to transmit the follow-up.

Their previous co-sleeping in the last world had some effect. Ye Wangxing had already gotten used to leaning close to 19 to watch the Small World follow-up, and 19 didn’t notice anything wrong, starting to transmit memories.

The four people in the Small World, according to the main system’s personality calculations, didn’t get along well. Luckily, Ye Wangxing had already brought Qin Shi back to the country, otherwise, he couldn’t have returned.

Under Ye’s control, their conflicts were only verbal skirmishes or minor mistakes, and the other two could be sent to Africa by Chairman Qin if misbehaving.

After two months with Ye guiding Qin to Africa, those small issues were resolved.

An Yang continued working diligently at Ye Group, his career thriving. Love life had no news, but to Ye Wangxing, that was fine.

Compared to An Yang, Yun Cheng faced bigger career setbacks.

A year later, Yun Cheng had successfully taken the pocket project’s money and split with the junior owner. Unfortunately, Xu Feng saw him, stabbed him, and Yun Cheng almost ended up in the ICU.

Because he forgot to pay social insurance and medical insurance while chasing deals, he didn’t get much reimbursement. Half the money from the pocket project went to his medical fees.

Could Xu Feng compensate him?

Xu Feng had no money.

This former celebrity, after leaving the entertainment industry because he treated fans poorly and tried to confess at the concert, didn’t want to livestream for sales. He wanted to freeload at home or join a company, but the Xu family had almost no companies for him.

He became a dependent with only 3,000 yuan pocket money per month.

For most people, this would be enough, but Xu Feng was extravagant, and the money wasn’t enough each month. He didn’t want to livestream either. Under friends’ bad influence, he took out online loans, going down a path of no return.

By the time he realized and wanted to livestream, the market for retired celebrities was already occupied by others.

The most famous was Qin Shi, cooperating officially and appearing daily in agricultural support livestreams.

And with Xu Feng’s temper, if manufacturers approached him to sell products, facing fans’ curses and other malicious bystanders in the livestream, he would curse openly, so the manufacturers stopped seeking him out.

After completely losing his income, Xu Feng had to rely on his family. But he didn’t blame them, his personality made him blame others, but he didn’t want to blame An Yang, who was now the apple of his eye. So it was obvious whom he wanted to blame.

This was why, upon seeing Yun Cheng, he had gone and stabbed him.

However, that stab also sent him to jail.

The Xu family even lost the last bit of face they had left.

It could only be said that some people’s suffering had begun the moment their personalities were fixed.

And the same applied to the An Yang couple.

As for why it applied…

Ye Wangxing looked at An Yang in the company with a subtle expression, confused as he received a courier document from the country opposite China.

After opening it, An Yang looked completely baffled as he received a notice of sacrifice from that country.

And the two people listed were the An Yang couple.

They had pursued their dreams and gone to that country, but their greed exceeded their abilities, and they died on the battlefield.

Not even a pension was provided.

An Yang didn’t know whether to cry or laugh. After being dazed for a while, he buried his parents’ ashes. The only good thing the An Yang parents had done was that their debts had been cleared.

“Guess it’s a happy ending for everyone.”

Ye Wangxing thought, opening the next world’s quest.

As an outstanding newcomer, Ye Wangxing’s next world quest naturally skipped those ordinary tasks meant to help newcomers adapt to the process.

It jumped directly to a supernatural world with paranormal powers.

Although the task difficulty was relatively low within its category, for Ye Wangxing as a newcomer, it was already high.

Fortunately, the difficulty was in combat power, not interpersonal relationships, and interpersonal relationships were even simpler to balance the combat power.

For Ye Wangxing, this reduced the challenge.

But besides that, this quest had another difficulty.

“It’s actually a supporting character with a role, not a background prop. And the protagonist is reborn…”

Ye Wangxing murmured.

“Host, is there anything difficult?”

19 asked, coming closer.

Ye Wangxing shook his head: “It’s not exactly difficult, only the protagonist is reborn. I’m just a bit worried about adapting to the power system in the supernatural world.”

Hearing his host’s concern, 19 quietly arranged a training ground at the company.

—Real, hands-on teaching.

“Quick, move! That vengeful ghost isn’t something a few young people can handle!”

Master Li Guan frowned, running into the temple with his fellow Daoists behind him.

As he ran, he regretted that he had only bought the temple because it was cheap. Having spent money on magical tools, he had felt tight in the wallet and thought he could take advantage by buying it.

After all, he was a Taoist himself. Even if there were demons or ghosts, who would fight whom was uncertain.

But who knew that the vengeful ghost was smart? When he was inside the temple, the ghost never appeared. The moment he left for a religious association meeting, the ghost immediately caused chaos.

Thinking this, Master Li Guan wished he could stick a few more Lightness Talismans on himself, after all, the temple had his talented little apprentice!

Not to mention the little apprentice’s friends and the young members of the Zhou family.

When Master Li Guan saw his little apprentice sending a desperate help message, he was nearly scared out of his wits and barely stabilized himself, ultimately using a talisman to heal himself.

Without another word, he dragged the members of the religious association to the temple.

He thought if his little apprentice, who could draw true talismans after glancing at a tutorial, fell into the ghost’s hands, even the founder would be furious if resurrected.

Thinking this, Master Li Guan gritted his teeth and quickened his pace. His colleagues thought he overreacted, but considering the importance of a talented little apprentice, they quietly sped up as well.

“Apprentice, don’t be afraid! Master is here!”

Master Li Guan stormed into the temple shouting, but his words got stuck in his throat the next second.

The figure in front of him wasn’t the red-clothed vengeful ghost he expected.

Though it wore red with intricate gold embroidery, its face didn’t radiate ghostly energy. Except for occasional black mist and floating in midair, it looked almost like a normal person.

Its face was exceptionally handsome, even when it pinched someone’s face with long black nails, it looked elegant.

The black nails weren’t claw-like but ordinary length, like painted black.

This alone made Master Li Guan’s hair stand on end.

“…Ghost Emperor.”

Master Li Guan clenched his teeth, trying not to lose composure.

This Ghost Emperor wasn’t some overused title in fantasy novels. There were only four Ghost Emperors in the country.

Due to modern pollution reducing spiritual energy, they hadn’t appeared for a long time.

Most rested in the underworld and didn’t interfere with the mortal world unless there were major changes, fighting for underworld resources.

Master Li Guan thought the Ghost Emperor wouldn’t act personally but still felt his hair stand on end.

The Ghost Emperor glanced lightly at him and then looked at the person in his hand.

Master Li Guan noticed the Emperor’s posture: though it looked like it was holding the person by the neck, it was actually holding the face, and the other hand tugged the back of the clothing, as if afraid the person would be choked.

But the person looked so familiar.

Master Li Guan scrutinized the person in the Ghost Emperor’s hand.

Soft hair, handsome face, large black eyes full of shock. It looked like a small rabbit except for the large eyes.

—Whoa, that’s his precious little apprentice!

Master Li Guan panicked and was about to rush forward, but the next second…

“Uh—!”

The sudden surge of pressure forced Master Li Guan to kneel, one knee on the ground.

Everyone present was suppressed and couldn’t move.

Then the Ghost Emperor finally spoke, his voice hoarse as if he hadn’t spoken in a long time.

“Boy, answer my question. Do not deceive me. If I find out…”

The Ghost Emperor intensified his pressure. Master Li Guan groaned, feeling a metallic taste in his throat.

He couldn’t help but think, could he and his apprentice die here today?

He lifted his head slightly, looking for an opening, and noticed the boy in front of him, probably his apprentice’s friend, secretly holding a peach wood sword. Another unfamiliar boy held a set of talismans.

Master Li Guan didn’t know why they had these items or how they could move, but he set that aside and began signaling to his colleagues.

While preparing, the boy who had struggled in the Ghost Emperor’s hand calmed down and nodded frantically after hearing the threat.

Though he didn’t notice the Ghost Emperor’s eyes, which were filled with guilt, some present saw it, some didn’t.

Master Li Guan didn’t see. He finished signaling to colleagues, ready to rescue the boy.

The Ghost Emperor held the boy’s face firmly, forcing him to look into his eyes, studying the panic there before speaking again.

Master Li Guan readied himself.

“You… under what circumstances would you kiss your enemy?”

Everyone present: “…” Huh?

Master Li Guan almost stumbled to the ground.

His somewhat scatterbrained little apprentice in the air, despite looking distracted, actually answered seriously.

“…Uh, when I want to annoy him?”

“….”

Master Li Guan noticed the Ghost Emperor pause slightly. The Emperor pinched the apprentice’s face, bringing their faces just a few centimeters apart, and grit his teeth to speak.

“I don’t believe it!”

 

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