Very Pure and Ambiguous: The Prequel - VPAATP - Chapter V4C165 – The Legend Of The Bridge of Sighs

“Block him.”“He's technically still my boss.”“Then block him with dignity.”The call ended again.And then started again.I let out a sound somewhere between a growl and a sob, then finally answered with the enthusiasm of a snail crawling through salt.“Yes, Mr. Walton?”“Have you changed your mind yet?”I collapsed onto the towel and gazed at the sky as though it might consume me entirely if I pleaded sweetly enough.“Do you ever take a break?” I asked, shielding my eyes with one hand.“You're avoiding the question.”“Because it's a dumb question.”He exhaled, the sound sharp and irritated even over phone. “It's not a dumb question. It's a business offer.”“It's a weird offer-one that I already said no to.”There was a brief pause, and I could practically hear him clenching his jaw through the speaker.“You are acting unreasonably.”“ Unreasonable?” I sat up. “I'm not the one drafting fake girlfriend contracts like it's a normal Tuesday.”“Isabella-”“Certainly not, Mr. Walton.” I mimicked his tone perfectly. “I told you I'm not doing it. You need to find someone else to play pretend with.”SYNOPSISIsabella Miller thought saying no to her boss’s fake dating offer was the end of the story.But Adrien Walton doesn’t take no—especially not when he’s convinced she’s a gold digger.Suddenly, her student loans are piling up, her father’s vet clinic is on the brink of eviction and her brother is about to be kicked out of college. Coincidence? She thinks not.Adrien Walton is calm, calculating—and he's just pulled every string to corner Isabella into the perfect position.Now she’s stuck choosing between pride and survival.So she agrees to his offer: be his fake girlfriend.No feelings attached. No drama. Just business.Or so she thought.“Conference Room B. Fifteen minutes,” he said, passing by without a glance.The folder he pushed across the table landed with a thud.I opened it. The contract. All of it.---Enemies to lovers? Check.Slow burn? Hmmnyea.Banter so sharp it might file your nails? Yes.Delicious workplace tension? Of course.Tension that could melt steel?Absolutely.Smut?? Wanna find out?Welcome to corporate romance warfare. There’s no escaping this contract.

In her previous life, she tried her best, she struggled. In the end, she has lost to her own mediocrity.

In this life, she resigned to her fate.

//

After her mother passed away, Xia Rou reincarnated as an orphan and she got taken in by her mother’s lover. Once again she stepped into Cao family, and once again she had to confront the people she loved and hated……

She dares not to expect anything, only except that she won’t suffer any more in this life……

- Description from Novelupdates

When his family company went bankrupt, Qi Lin sought help from relatives and friends he had helped before.Qi Lin: “Brother Wang, I treated you to breakfast for three years in high school~”Wang Cheng: “I, Wang Cheng, am not an ungrateful person. Bring me 1000 bowls of hot dry noodles for my old classmate.”Qi Lin: “Xueyao, do you remember when you were looking for a job, you stayed at my villa for three years?”Qi Xueyao: “I paid you three years’ rent for a 10-square-meter room. Why don’t you move your whole family in?”Qi Lin helped these people back then, but now they’re indifferent to him.Disheartened, Qi Lin jumped from a high-rise building in despair.He thought he would die like that, but when Qi Lin opened his eyes again, he found himself back in his third year of high school.The family company hadn’t gone bankrupt, and he was still a rich second-generation playboy.Recalling the scenes after his family went bankrupt, Qi Lin sneered coldly.Since I was all about fooling around and waiting for death, why not become a rich second-generation with no morals?

Anton is a great-grandfather. He is living quite a happy life, despite his advanced age and declining health… until a group of cultivator bandits moves into the area. The nearby guardians of the area, the Order of Ninety-Nine Stars, are unable to track them down as they continue to ravage nearby towns. During one desperate winter Anton is out on a hunt when his family- his entire village- is killed or taken as slaves by the bandits. He lacks the strength to fight them, and he wasn’t even present for their arrival to die with his loved ones. At the pit of his despair, he wonders if he ever had any chance to change things. What could he even do? He cannot even pull his best bow, and his eyesight is failing. If he had been a cultivator… perhaps there might have been a chance, but he was decades- perhaps even most of his life- too late.Participant in the Royal Road Writathon challenge (2022)Notes on cultivation levels:There are five general stages of cultivation, though the fifth is extremely rare. Each cultivation style might have their own name for the stages.1. Body Tempering2. Spirit Building/ occasionally System Creation (Ninety-Nine Stars)3. Constellation Formation (Ninety-Nine Stars)4. Life Transformation/Galaxy Construction (Ninety-Nine Stars)5. Ascension