Serenade - Chapter 75: A Hobby

Every night, he prayed. To every god on Earth.“Please, transport me to a fantasy world when I wake up tomorrow.”And then one day, his prayers were answered.Just not in the way he had hoped for.

The year is 2025. A devout Christian named Arthur Bennett wins a lottery to participate in a revolutionary virtual reality experience at a high-tech company called Elysium. The program utilizes a unique VR pod to immerse users in a world based on a popular anime.As the other participants—a mix of personalities with varying degrees of anime knowledge—prepare to enter the simulation, Arthur remains the only one who has never indulged in anime. Upon entering this new world, he discovers an unsettling truth: pain is excruciatingly real, despite the creators' claims of a dampened pain response.He eventually finds himself trapped in prison, unable to log out, and demanding to be released from the program. Calls go unanswered, and the world of ninjas becomes a nightmare where hunger, thirst, hygiene, and even death are all real.Angered that he was deceived, he abandons all sense of logic and vows to become a villain no one would have ever anticipated.

Su Qinglan sat cross-legged on the grass, holding the chubbiest tiger cub she’d ever seen.“Aww… Look at you,” she whispered, booping its tiny nose. “So cute I could eat you up...”A sudden shadow loomed over her.“What’s so good about this stinky cub?” a deep, amused voice asked.She blinked up… and froze.Towering above her was a tall tiger beast man, his golden eyes narrowed in a lazy, predatory smile.“Let’s have ours,” he said.Su Qinglan’s brain short-circuited.… Ours? OURS?!Before she could process, in the next moment she was hoisted up onto his broad shoulder like a sack of grain and carried straight toward the cave.Su Qinglan was so choked by the suddenness of it all… she forgot to even complain.***Su Qinglan’s knees knocked together as she stared up at the enormous serpent.Its cold, red eyes narrowed, the flick of its tongue tasting the air between them.“D-Don’t eat me,” she stammered, hugging herself. “I...I’m not tasty… really, I’m stringy and full of… uh… bad cholesterol.”The snake’s head lowered until it was mere inches from her face. Her fox ears twitched wildly.And then, before she could blink...its massive body shimmered, scales turning into bronzed skin and lean muscle.Standing before her was a man so breathtakingly handsome that Su Qinglan’s poor fox eyes watered just looking at him.Su Qinglan swallowed hard, her tail fluffing up in panic.“I… I…” Her voice cracked.Okay, new problem… the snake is hot.She squeezed her eyes shut.“If you… if you really want…” She blurted, her face burning, “…y-you can… take me.”***One moment Su Qinglan was fighting with the zombie king with all her might.Boom!The next, she woke up in a bizarre beast world… inside the body of a lazy, pampered, fat local tyrant everyone hated.The “original” Su Qinglan had been an arrogant, scheming villainess who spent her days bullying weaker beast women, chasing after handsome males, and terrorizing the tribe kids. Now, thanks to fate’s twisted sense of humor, Qinglan had inherited the body and the bad reputation.But honestly? Being fat in a beast world was still better than starving in the apocalypse. At least here, she could eat.The only problem? In this world, men weren’t just men, they were beastmen. Tall, strong, dangerous… And apparently, every beast woman was expected to have several husbands. The catch? The “original” Qinglan’s antics had scared away every decent male within a ten-mile radius.Armed with her apocalyptic survival instincts, a sharp tongue, and a mysterious system that suddenly activated...“Binding with host…“”Congratulations, host, for successfully arriving in the beast world.“Qinglan decided she wasn’t going to cry about fate.If she had to live here, then she’d live big, literally.

Wealthy, powerful and handsome; Gu Jingze is the cream of the crop in the entire country. Every guy wants to be him and every girl wants to be with him. His life is perfect… except that he has one tiny secret that keeps him from getting close to any woman—apparent impotency.

That is, until he wakes up in bed with a total stranger one day. The next thing he knows, he is forced to marry this stranger; a feisty and boisterous woman by the name of Lin Che.

Lin Che is an average girl whose only aim is to become a successful actress. Ostracized by her family and forced to become independent, she cooks up a scheme to attain her goal. But her plan fails and she ends up marrying this cold and seemingly heartless Gu Jingze. Not only that, she must now find her place in high society, where jealous women and devious plots lay abound – all while juggling her new career.

Two strangers under one roof: From the outset, they agree to stay out of each other’s lives, but he somehow always manages to appear during her moments of crisis. Slowly and unwittingly, Lin Che begins to find it difficult to imagine a future without him. Will their relationship grow, or is their marriage destined to remain just a contract?

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