Xie Lian spent three years escaping from that godforsaken place where no human could live. With his completion reward in hand, he settled down, intending to give up on life and spend his retirement years lazing around like a salted fish.
If only reality were that nice.
One sunny morning, Xie Lian was carrying a bag of groceries home when he walked into the elevator and saw someone familiar.
No, not someone. A familiar ghost.
The ghost was curled into a ball, black energy pouring off it, looking both obsequious and pitiful.
"Boss, please let me go..."
Xie Lian: (politely smiling) (stomps on it)
*
When turmoil breaks out in the hidden side of the world, the dark underworld, the ordinary world can't stay out of it.
But Xie Lian can't understand how things got so bad after only a year away. The underworld had always remained stable while he was there.
Even the System, which had sworn it would never see Xie Lian again, is begging him to come back and help.
Xie Lian, who has already started enjoying his retirement, gives the System a smile it knows well, and that sends a chill down its spine.
"Come out of retirement and work for us again? No, I refuse."
He'd already sacrificed half his life during those three years. No matter how you looked at it, he'd given the world far more than he'd gotten back.
"You can't keep shearing the same sheep. Find someone else."
The System is practically on its knees.
But Xie Lian is the someone else it found!
*
The boundary between the hidden and ordinary worlds is dissolving. Countless bizarre entities are trying to escape from the hidden world's instances and invade reality.
In that strange and unpredictable world, some fear him, some hate him; some revere him, some covet him. But they're all kept beyond the barrier, unable to disturb Xie Lian's comfortable life.
Except for the "teammate" Xie Lian personally buried in the deepest part of the hidden world. Able to pass freely between the two worlds, he came straight after Xie Lian, his body dripping with rain that didn't belong to this world as he suddenly appeared in Xie Lian's living room.
His appearance was identical, but one glance was enough for Xie Lian to know he was a fake.
Xie Lian: "My partner isn't this promiscuous. I want a refund."
Ex-husband: "...Heh."
*
My partner's dead, not out of love.
Retired Infinite Flow powerhouse bottom x resurrected ex-husband top
An ex who died 800 years ago has climbed out of his grave.
Upcoming:
The world we live in isn't the only one.
"Anomalies" can happen around us at any time. Remember: Observe the "existences" around you carefully, but don't let them discover that you've noticed them.
Especially when one of them wears the face you know best and calls out to you affectionately...
*
That's Not My Brother
Fang Chi could swear it was an accident.
But when he saw his brother lying in a pool of blood, he could only sit helplessly on the sofa, doing nothing as he quietly waited for his brother to stop breathing.
Fang Chi thought it was all over, but this was only the beginning of a nightmare.
When Fang Chi woke from a deep sleep, his brother was walking out of his room. In a strange, garbled accent, he said:
"Bro, I'm hungry."
Fang Chi wondered if he was going crazy. Otherwise, why was the person he'd killed countless times standing in front of him, perfectly fine? Fang Chi tried again and again, but every morning his brother would reappear, looking at him with increasingly unfamiliar eyes and smiling more and more like someone else.
Black sand covered Fang Chi's mouth and nose, clinging to him intimately from inside and out. He was swallowed whole, letting the shifting sands bury him.
*
The Monster Keeper
Xiang Yan worked at a secret laboratory, living like a wage slave in endless darkness. His only comfort was the little monster he'd raised himself.
It was well-behaved and clingy, rubbing against his palm every day, wanting him to pick it up.
It grew bigger and bigger, and became more and more attached to him. It wouldn't let anyone but him touch it.
As Xiang Yan watched the little monster in his care grow up, he felt an indescribable sense of pride.
It was just too attached to him, to the point that it was affecting his work.
So Xiang Yan had to isolate it by itself, thinking only that the kid was much too possessive.
Until one day, he noticed more and more unexplained marks on his body. The weight crawling on top of him at night wasn't a dream.
The little monster pinned him beneath it, hot, sticky breaths blowing across his face.
All Xiang Yan could think was that the little monster seemed to be in heat...
*
The Bionic Lover
Lu Yisheng was intensely avoidant. After falling in love with someone, instead of confessing, he chose to avoid them and buy an AI companion.
With enough code and a rich enough set of plugins, it could even resemble the real person more closely than a human could.
Lu Yisheng was happy with his intelligent companion. The only problem was that it still didn't feel enough like the person he loved.
He needed to add more data...
For the first time, Lu Yisheng became a creator, teaching a "life" from scratch.
He shaped every movement and every habit with his own hands. Every word came from his code, and every thought followed his will.
Lu Yisheng was perfectly happy controlling every part of it. Sometimes, though, he felt like a pervert with too much of a need for control.
The only problem was that lately it had been staring at him all night.
Its eyes never blinked in the dark, as if waiting for something.
So who was controlling whom? Lu Yisheng didn't know the answer.
But now he couldn't live without it...
*
This work consists of three short stories about nonhuman beings. All feature nonhuman tops and human bottoms.
The stories and characters are fictional. Don't draw parallels with reality; it's all made up by the author.
[Universal disclaimer: There are too many elements, and they involve spoilers, so no content warnings are provided.]
Theme: Protecting the world is everyone's responsibility
After a Straight Man Became Long Aotian's Furnace Cauldron
After Becoming a Wealthy Young Master’s Tutor
Why Is This S-Rank Mad Dog Clinging to Me Now?
On the Compatibility of No Longer Human and Blood Demon Arts
Climbing to the Top [Esports]
Drawing the BOSS as a Suit-Wearing Thug
After I Was Forced to Team Up with a Big Shot
I Became a Faction Mentor, and the Players Spoiled Me Instead
After the Spoiled Young Master Gave Up Chasing His Husband
After the Sickly Beauty Lured Daddy In
After My Husband's Death, I Was Forced to Seek Shelter with the Powerful Men Who Covet Me
Back to When My Husband Was Young
The Flawed Ones Game
The Demon Lord Raises a Baby Online
I Became an Evil God, But I Didn't Mean to Be This Hilarious
The Tragic Novel's Male Lead Reborn as a Sweet-Loved Male Insect
Who Would Keep Their Archnemesis as a Caged Bird?
Love Hits the Limit
A Guide to Making It in the Immortal Court
Why Is the Villain So Cruel?
We've caught up! [Okay] I'm going to catch up on the previous content. Keep up the good work with the updates!
Haha, they're all crazy, not a single one of them is normal.
The management bureau is incompetent and always acts on a whim. They're like the naive, saintly protagonists in those old novels.
I suddenly understand what it meant before. It's like a person dies and should lose consciousness and decompose, but now this person has come back to life through some unknown force, retaining their previous memories and consciousness. In the case of the Ship of Theseus, it's the same ship, but the propulsion system has changed.
Are you starting to reminisce about your journey from childhood? The original five members are all gone; it's such a heartbreaking memoir.
Are we finally starting to reminisce?
Xie's personality is straightforward, not pretentious, and very generous and magnanimous; I like her a lot. But this system is so contradictory. I just don't understand why it's so contradictory when it encounters someone like Xie.
This "doctor" doesn't seem to be on the right side; he can see other people's memories.
This chapter is a bit strange. Why are they arguing? Neither of them will say what they went through before they start fighting.
Maybe this instance is a bit too long? I found it on the shelf and came in to find that only a very short instance was completed, while this one is almost as long as the previous one and still not finished. I was actually a little worried. I didn't quite grasp the specific past stories of the main characters from the previous plot, so maybe they need some clearer romantic scenes that show their past entanglements?