The Art of Wealth: I Became a Billionaire - Chapter 33: The $2.7 Billion Trap [2]

The hearse with the weird odor slowed to a stop before the entrance. The sound of pebbles could be heard bouncing on the ceiling. There were footsteps coming from the corridor, and there seemed to be someone sawing next door. The door knob to the room rattled slightly, and the faucet in the bathroom kept dripping even though it had been screwed shut. There was a rubber ball that rolled on its own underneath the bed. Wet footsteps started to surface one after another on the floor. At 3 am, Chen Ge held a cleaver in his hand as he hid beside the room heater. The call he was trying to make was finally answered. “Landlord, is this what you meant by ‘the house can be a little crowded at night’!?”

Meet Alex Knight, a hardworking young man burdened by crushing debt and a bleak future. When his new boss turns his life into a waking nightmare, Alex finds himself trapped in a job he can't escape, his future held hostage by the whims of a tyrant.Just when he believes he has one anchor left—his girlfriend's love—a devastating betrayal leaves him utterly broken.But then the world changes. The system descends, dragging everyone into a chaotic new reality. Alex becomes the first to sync with it, earning a mysterious title:[Apocalypse Baby][You have awakened the skill: Exploding Touch][Anything you touch turns into a bomb.]Armed with a deadly gift, Alex rises from the ashes of his former life to become an unstoppable force in an urban fantasy world where power rules and vengeance drives him forward.

Romance Carnival 1st Prize. BEWARE THE FURY OF A PATIENT WOMAN. Rosalind Lux died after learning of her husband and sister’s betrayal. And just as she thought she finally found peace, she woke up forty years before her death. With memories from her past life intact, Rosalind vowed revenge. Her plans quickly brought her into the arms of a Duke whose enticing gaze contained mysteries that threatened not just her plans but her heart and body. …. BEWARE THE LOVE OF A CURSED MAN. Punished by the Goddess for his greed, Lucas Benjamen Rothley had been guarding the North for as long as he could remember. For hundreds of years, no woman has ever stirred his heart. That was until the fearsome Rosalind Lux stumbled into his life. Soon, he realized Rosalind wasn’t quite the damsel that she liked everyone to believe. She is hiding a secret so dark it could either end his curse or throw his life amiss.

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?