Don't be So Proud - Chapter 3.3 — Like a Pear Blossom Bathed in Springtime Rain

-- WSA 2025 Entry --“Five… Four… Three… Two… One…”As the countdown towards the new year went on to the last second, Miles looked up to the sky, just as everybody else did.In the middle of the crowded street, Miles for once felt like he belonged. Being a teenage gamer, living with his parents, and trying to build a life as a streamer, he did not feel like leaving his room every day.But there, in the middle of that crowded street, with everyone around him paying attention to the sky, the countdown on the digital billboard, and mostly anything else but him., Miles felt like a ghost.A welcomed ghost, but a ghost, after all.With a smile on his unseen face, he looked up as the countdown reached one, and everybody sang in unison.‘HAPPY NEW YEAR!”But Miles’ eyes widened as he watched in utter horror, and curiosity, even, hovering above him, a holographic screen with a few lines of text written in it.All around him, although he did not pay much attention to it, a few other people seemed to experience the same situation.[Updating home-world 39515’s version][Version 20.25 update brings a lot of fun and games with the new and improved survival mode][Do you want to convert your previous avatar to home-world 39515’s latest version?][Yes] [No]“Survival… Mode?” Miles’ lips quivered.Before he could think of anything else, though, the people around him began to scream…

At the age of 12, Shen Yue accidentally fell into a pond while feeding fish. That’s when she realized that her parents were not her real parents, and her five brothers were not her real brothers either. She was just a fake heiress to the Shen family!

Knowing she was destined to lose everything, Shen Yue decided to just lie down and give up. If she was going to lose it all anyway, she might as well just lie down and relax.

“Big brother, is working at the company fun? Let me check it out,” she thought, wanting to enjoy the perks of being a Shen daughter while she still could. Those luxuries would be out of reach soon enough.

“Second brother, is acting fun? Let me give it a try,” she schemed. What? They pay you just to lie still like a corpse? This is a job she had to get!

“Third brother, is that gun realistic? Let me see,” she said, examining the firearm. Not bad, though the recoil is too strong. She’d need to find a smaller one to play with next time.

“Fourth brother, will the teachers be mad if I sneak into your research institute? Let me take a peek,” she plotted, eyeing her handsome professor. A little hugging wouldn’t hurt!

“Fifth brother, that medicine you’re working on smells nice. Mind if I try a little taste…” she asked casually before sampling it. Tastes good! But now my head feels itchy—I better not be growing a brain!

On the day the real heiress returned, Shen Yue’s five brothers shielded her behind them. “Dear sister, can we keep her with us? She’s a bit slow, it’d be dangerous for her out there alone.”

The true heiress scoffed coldly, masking her sly intentions beneath a guise of innocence.

But in the end, she realized this Shen Yue really was quite dim-witted. Oh well, might as well let her stay.

Mo Zhu’s mother remarried after her father went missing, and she had lived in the countryside with her elderly grandmother ever since. The girl who had no parents wanted to protect herself. Therefore, to avoid getting bullied, she had turned wild since she was a child—she played truant, fought, and drank. There was nothing she did not know how to do. She was a problematic student in the eyes of her teachers, a big sister in the eyes of her classmates, and a hooligan in the eyes of her acquaintances.

Ever wonder how it would feel to live life from the beginning all over again?

When Earth falls to ruin and humanity’s survival is at stake, all of mankind is forced to enter the fantasy universe of the world’s hottest VRMMORPG, Xianxia Online. To uphold law and order, past players’ profiles were erased and forced to start anew, while law enforcers and authority figures such as government officials were granted powerful positions right off the start. After all, this was a world where dog eats dog, and the weak are cruelly left behind.

Xuan, alias Zero, had been the top player and a legendary figure on the leaderboards of the game when the news struck. He had been mere inches away from being the first player cultivator to ever enter Godhood, but now, everything he had once possessed—divine weapons, legendary artifacts, and mythical beasts for pets—was gone, along with his thousands of years of cultivation. Having always been a lone wolf and remained anonymous, this reset hit him harder than most players, who could comfortably rely on others for help when needed.

But no matter. The path of cultivation was riddled with challenges and hardships—since when did he let something as trivial as this stop him? He may have lost all of his riches, but he still had the most powerful weapons of all by his side—knowledge and experience. Combine that with the various secret treasure stashes he had around the world of Xianxia Online, and his climb back to the pinnacle of strength would be inevitable. Very soon, he will rise to the top again, and crush those who dared to try and tie him down.

This game was mankind's world now. And he... was the apex predator.

Witness as Xuan climbs his way back to the peak of cultivation and dominates everyone else in existence!