A thermometer-like object appeared next to Zaizai. After observing it for a while, Ruan Ruoyin understood that this indicated the time Zaizai needed to absorb the Elixir.
Three days and three nights!
Ruan Ruoyin was stunned.
She had been so engrossed in the game all day that she couldn’t tear herself away, and now she was being told she’d have to wait three days and three nights before she could interact with Zaizai again…
She might as well just kill herself.
This was too painful.
Even more painful than a game server shutting down.
Ruan Ruoyin remembered that after logging out of the game, the in-game time would speed up to double the normal rate.
She quickly logged off.
That way, she’d only need to wait thirty-six hours for her Zaizai to finish absorbing the Elixir’s effects!
Ruan Ruoyin did a set of eye exercises, ordered some takeout, and planned to scroll through some videos to relax.
But after swiping through ten videos, nine of them were related to the Ruan family.
Some videos even showed members of the Ruan family, each one crying and apologizing to everyone, their words sounding more sincere than the last.
However, the comments section was filled with nothing but criticism.
Netizens these days were smart; they knew which issues were serious and which weren’t.
Problems with products that people consumed were no small matter.
They couldn’t be resolved with just a few words of apology.
Seeing the faces of the Ruan family members made Ruan Ruoyin feel disgusted.
She paused, closed the short video app, and opened a novel platform to read.
Perhaps because the authors liked to keep up with current events, several novels with particularly eye-catching titles had already been published—
“Rebirth: All the Health Products I Bought Were Switched Out!”
“Are You Kidding Me? I Asked for a Five-Hundred-Year-Old Ginseng, and You Gave Me a Plastic Fake?”
“Shocking! The Health Program I Joined Is Being Slammed Online!”
“Wait! You’re Giving Me a Ten-Year-Old Ginseng and Expecting Me to Live to a Hundred?”
Ruan Ruoyin: “…”
You all really know how to write books.
These titles were so provocative, clearly mocking the shady dealings of the Ruan Group.
But admittedly, they were quite attention-grabbing.
Ruan Ruoyin randomly picked one and started reading from the beginning with great interest.
To be honest, these authors were quite skilled, and their knowledge of health and wellness seemed particularly thorough.
Ruan Ruoyin scrolled down to read the readers’ comments. Good grief—the author’s health knowledge was entirely fabricated, not a single bit of it was true.
Ruan Ruoyin silently closed the book.
She wasn’t going to read any further; if she kept going, she’d be brainwashed by the fake health tips in the book.
Just as she closed the novel app, a notification popped up on WeChat: a stranger wanted to add her as a friend.
Ruan Ruoyin instinctively thought, “Ji Minchen is here to annoy me again.”
But when she opened it, the tone didn’t match Ji Minchen’s.
The blank WeChat profile picture had a friend request message that read:
“Ruan Ruoyin, you jinx, you vicious bitch! You offended Ji Minchen and made our Ruan family take the blame. Because of you, the family’s company is about to go bankrupt!”
Ruan Ruoyin’s face darkened. She had heard this kind of hateful language many times before, mostly from her cheap younger brother’s mouth.
In those old-fashioned tragic romance novels, the female lead always seemed to have an annoying younger brother.
Not only did he side with the female antagonist, but he also wished the female lead would drop dead.
Whenever something happened in the family, he would always blame it on the female lead.
Ruan Ruoyin had seen the term “jinx” in many books.
Ruan Ruoyin didn’t indulge the other person. With lightning-fast typing speed, she replied, “Are you sick? Did you eat too many of the Ruan family’s health products and damage your brain?”
The other side seemed quite shocked by Ruan Ruoyin’s harsh words, taking several minutes before replying:
【Ruan Ruoyin, what else can you do besides disgust us? If I had known your heart was so cold and hard, I shouldn’t have saved you from drowning the other day!】
Oh, so now they’re trying to provoke her by reminding her of the life-saving favor.
Ruan Ruoyin let out a scornful laugh. It wasn’t like she had accidentally fallen into the water herself—wasn’t it her cheap brother who had pulled a trick to push her in?
At the time, she had been in a hurry to leave the Ruan family when something tripped her. Later, she recalled that the thing that tripped her was her cheap brother’s racing car model.
As for saving her, it was only because he was afraid of being held responsible for a life.
She wasn’t the original naive and innocent female lead. She saw right through her cheap brother’s tricks.
Ruan Ruoyin didn’t hold back and replied with two words: 【Idiot.】
Her cheap brother was named Ruan Tianyi. He had a short temper, was easily angered, and looked rather ordinary—utterly useless. In the future, he would become Shen Qingxue’s loyal lapdog.
Hmm, and he would keep pestering her to give her kidney to Shen Qingxue.
Just thinking about it made her angry.
Ruan Ruoyin smiled as she blocked the WeChat account with the blank profile picture.
If Ruan Tianyi ever really came to her one day demanding her kidney, she wouldn’t mind cutting out his kidney and feeding it to the cute fish in the lake.
Ruan Family Residence.
The atmosphere in the living room was tense and cold.
Ruan Tianyi angrily threw his phone, his buzz cut making his ordinary face look even plainer. He kicked the exquisite gold-threaded sofa. “I’m so pissed. That jinx just called me an idiot and blocked me.”
Mrs. Ruan pulled Ruan Tianyi to sit down. With her meticulously applied makeup, she looked every bit the aristocratic lady. Calmly, she said, “If she blocked you, just create another account. Tianyi, don’t argue with her for now. Say something soft to coax her back to the Ruan family’s old mansion. Once we hand her over to Ji Minchen, she’ll know what fear is.”
Ruan Tianyi raised an eyebrow, thinking about the problems the Ruan family was currently facing. He could only purse his lips in humiliation. “Got it, Mom.”
Ruan Tianyi picked up his cracked-screen phone, created another WeChat account, and searched for Ruan Ruoyin’s WeChat.
The search results were blank.
Ruan Tianyi: “…”
Did Ruan Ruoyin set her privacy settings?
WeChat had friend request permission settings. If Ruan Ruoyin had turned off the search permission, it meant he couldn’t add her.
Ruan Tianyi threw his phone again, furious. “Mom, that bitch isn’t accepting friend requests anymore!”
“How dare she!” Mrs. Ruan’s confident expression changed.
Ji Minchen had given the Ruan family an ultimatum: if they couldn’t deliver Ruan Ruoyin to his bed within three days, the Ruan Group would truly go bankrupt, and her days as a wealthy lady would be over.
She had planned to trick Ruan Ruoyin into coming back, feed her some drugs, brainwash her, and make her willingly climb into Ji Minchen’s bed…
But Ruan Ruoyin had no intention of having any further contact with them. She had simply disabled friend requests. As for her phone number, there was no need to even think about it—it was definitely unreachable.
Mrs. Ruan’s red nails dug into the flesh of her palm. She whispered a few words into Ruan Tianyi’s ear. Ruan Tianyi was stunned for a moment, then suddenly sneered. “Mom, you really have more tricks up your sleeve. Wait at home for my good news. I’ll go find someone right away!”
Ruan Ruoyin was eating takeout when she felt the urge to open The Path of Cultivation for the Peerless Demon Lord again.
She missed her Zaizai.
The game loaded quickly. After a brief moment of blurriness, the images became clear.
Opening shock—
The Chibi Character’s upper body was unclothed, and due to the nourishment of the Elixir, his sickly pale complexion had transformed into a healthy, luminous white. Mist swirled around, condensing into glistening droplets that slowly trickled down his skin…