Joy of Life - Chapter 12

Lao Chen was just an old, underpaid security guard in a rundown apartment complex, living a miserable life under a stingy, ungrateful boss.His wife left him, his daughter wanted nothing to do with him, and poverty was his only constant companion.In the end, death came in the form of a drunk driver, leaving him broken and forgotten on the cold pavement.But fate wasn’t done with him. In his final moments, he prayed—desperate, pleading to any deity who would listen.And someone did.The God of Wealth and Love took pity on his wasted life and granted him a second chance.Wake up again as Zhao Yiming, a 25-year-old gambler and alcoholic drowning in debt with nothing but a good face and a strong body to his name, he was given the Affinity Money Maker System—a mysterious power that let him gain wealth and influence by forming relationships, whether as lovers, friends, or even enemies.Before he knew it, he had stumbled his way into unimaginable riches.But things never go as planned. One moment of recklessness—one affair with the wrong woman—led to an unexpected murder.Now, the system has thrown him onto a new path: The Villain Route. With a negative perk that keeps the police off his trail but tightens the noose around his future, Zhao Yiming is faced with an impossible choice.Will he claw his way to the top and become the billionaire he was meant to be? Or will his second life end behind bars, just as tragic as his first?

Book I: Lost ThingsTristan Abrascal is a thief, one of many making their living under the perpetual twilight of the greatest city in all of Vesper. Quick wit and a contract with a capricious goddess have always kept him one step ahead, until one night he crosses a line by accident that burns all the bridges he had left. But not all is lost, as his mentor offers a way out of peril that turns out to be more than a simple escape.It is also an opportunity to get even with the infanzones, the nobles he’s lived under all his life, and it so happens that Tristan has a full ledger’s worth of scores to settle with them.Lady Angharad Tredegar has fled halfway across the world, leaving behind a ruin of a life: her family butchered by a ruthless enemy, their estate torched and their nobility revoked. Yet no matter how far she flees the blades of assassins follow, and she finds herself growing desperate for any protection. She has one relative left to call on, her estranged uncle, but she finds that the safety he offers comes at a cost.Angharad has sworn revenge, however, and her honour will allow for no compromise. She will do what she must to survive so that one day bloody vengeance can be visited upon her enemies.The paths of the two take them to the doorstep of the Watch, but for desperate souls like them enrolment is a lost cause. They will have to do it the hard way instead, by surviving the trials on the isle known as the Dominion of Lost Things.Where every year many go, and few return.Book II: Good TreasonsThe trials of the Dominion are over.The four survivors have become students of Scholomance, enrolling together as a cabal, yet even on those infamous grounds they soon learn none are beyond the reach of their pasts.Angharad Tredegar is returned to a semblance of the world she left behind, but finds her honor sorely tested by bargains offered - every bit as tempting as in the stories and even deadlier.Tristan Abrascal needs answers. Mysterious enemies keep trying to abduct him, his classroom does not exist and he’s now had several conversations with dead people. Worst of all, his carrots keep dying.Maryam Khaimov is going mad, which would worry her less if it were happening on schedule. More frightening yet is the possibility that she is not, and there truly is someone else going around wearing her face.Song Ren must forge the others into a functional unit, all the while fending off enemies on all sides: rival cabals, vengeful countrymen and the deluge of implacable foes her companions simply cannot seem to stop attracting.Failure is not an option, for Song must bring back honor to her family’s name whatever the cost: it is the only way to keep their disgrace from literally eating them all alive.And as the four chase shadows in Scholomance, in the distance looms the greater test awaiting them in the Asphodel Rectorate. Asphodel is a faded power, the rotten carcass of what it once was, but under that rot looms darker things - of which monsters might just be the least dangerous.Besides, is treason really such an evil when you have the best of reasons for it?

You are the ruler, I am a subject, you want loyalty, I’ll give you loyalty. You are the ruler, I am the subject, you want my sacrifice, I will sacrifice for you. This lifetime, we’ll only be ruler and subject…… cannot become the one who accompanies you to experience everything.

A deposed empress, a failure of a substitute. Charging into battle, he was the emperor, and she, his general. But within the intimacy of their military tent, he was her husband, and she, his wife.

But everything was star-crossed. For the one he loved the most, he would push her into hell again and again.

- Description from Novelupdates

[Warning: Mature content, lemons, comedy, face-slapping, and a smart protagonist!]“So many beautiful girls!”After an unfortunate science experiment gone wrong, 25-year-old virgin Ren Kisaragi, wakes up in a strange new world.A world where curses manifest as eldritch horrors, bringing destruction with every breath.A world where female weavers command the very laws of reality and bend the elements to their will, while male warriors, blessed with monstrous strength, can shatter mountains with a single blow.It doesn’t take long before he realizes he has reincarnated into “Mystic Chronicles”, a fantasy novel he once read and dropped out of boredom.However, he isn't the protagonist or even a side character, he’s just a nameless extra, a mere background figure destined to fade into obscurity.But there’s one problem. He’s somehow enrolled at Imperial Academy, the most prestigious weaver academy in the kingdom… which is supposed to be an all-girls school!And as the only male weaver in an entire academy of talented (and terrifying) female weavers, his existence alone is enough to shatter the balance of the world.With a suspiciously broken cheat, an entire school of powerful and competitive girls watching his every move, and curses lurking in the shadows, Ren must navigate this chaotic new life before he gets caught up in a story that was never meant to include him.But maybe—just maybe—he can turn this anomaly into an advantage. And if fate allows, fulfill his lifelong dream of being surrounded by beautiful, ambitious women while he's at it.Can he survive this world where he's the ultimate anomaly?