Huaxia,
Southeast Province,
Jiangzhou City,
Suburbs.
In the dark, two figures chased each other at a breathtaking speed.
The one being chased was even holding a bowl of steaming hot dry noodles.
"Old Bai, I just came to your Huaxia for a bowl of noodles! You've been chasing me for so long—is your inner energy free?!"
"Golden Cat, damn it, have you lost all your shame for a bowl of noodles? How many times is this already?"
The former took a large, practiced slurp, and amid his satisfaction, complained resentfully:
"What the hell with 'Golden Cat'—I've told you countless times, it's Golden Lynx! Those guys in the headquarters cafeteria aren't even human; day in and day out it's dogshit Stargazing Pie with canned herring. You call that human food?"
Old Bai hurriedly regulated his breath to suppress his upset stomach:
"Then why don't you just apply to the Dragon Squad for a visa? Do you have to sneak around like a thief every single time?"
"Hehe, next tim—"
Before the words finished, a streak of purple lightning cut across the pitch-black night sky without warning.
Splat—
The bowl of hot dry noodles, which had only had one bite taken out of it, crashed to the ground.
In an instant, the two figures turned into dust.
A figure dressed in gorgeous Taoist robes slowly stood up and mechanically glanced around.
With a casual hand gesture to cast a spell, the figure soared away in one direction.
Within this limited space, time began to run backward frantically...
Splat—
The hot dry noodles fell to the ground once more.
"Old Bai, what just happened?! There's no way this noodle was poisoned, right?!"
Old Bai looked around alertly:
"I don't know. It's too bizarre!"
Golden Cat looked at the noodles on the ground with deep reluctance and swallowed hard:
"You Huaxia people are too mysterious. Damn it, if I ever come back here again, I'll live-stream myself dressing in women's clothes. Farewell!"
Meanwhile, on the top floor of the VIP ward at the Jiangzhou City First People's Hospital, a figure passed through the window and instantly merged with the patient on the bed.
A faint flash of light swept by, and the lifeless man on the bed suddenly opened his eyes.
The sharp glint flashing through his pupils silently pierced the ceiling and vanished into the boundless night sky.
Liu Bufan stared at the two drafty holes in the roof, and the corners of his mouth twitched involuntarily. *Damn it, the hospital isn't going to make me pay for this, are they?*
He immediately turned his head to glance at the electronic calendar on the wall:
August 17, 2019, 23:52.
"I didn't expect that with my current abilities, I could only rewind time by one hour in this spacetime..."
Time went back five years.
Liu Bufan was originally the eldest grandson of the Liu family, one of the five major families in Kyoto.
His privileged family background did not make him a so-called spoiled playboy. In society, the better-off a family is, the more importance they attach to children's education.
Yet just as Liu Bufan graduated and was about to slowly take over the family business and influence under the family's arrangements—
He ran away.
In his own words: This is not the life I want.
I still have a younger brother and a younger sister. Why should I have to do this dirty work just because I'm talented and good-looking?
*Ptui*, superficial humans.
Young master is hitting the road! ー(￣～￣)ξ
For the next year, no matter how the Liu family used their own influence and official resources to search for him, Liu Bufan seemed to have vanished completely without a trace.
Of course they couldn't find him! Because the moment Liu Bufan left Kyoto, he was snatched away by human traffickers...
He really only had himself to blame. To avoid drawing attention, Liu Bufan had specifically cross-dressed to escape.
As a result, the traffickers took one look and thought, *Oho, not a bad-looking chick*, and promptly knocked him out with a drug.
Normally, the Liu family was an Ancient Martial Arts family; logically speaking, Liu Bufan shouldn't have been easily knocked out by ordinary sedatives.
But he just had to court disaster!
After breaking through as a Transformation Energy Martial Artist at the age of 10, he had tinkered with a so-called scientific cultivation method and blindly concocted his own pills, ending up sealing his eight extraordinary meridians and successfully crippling himself.
From then on, aside from his handsome appearance and a hyper-genius brain, he was practically useless.
The family sent three successive batches of people—Grandpa Liu, Father Liu, and Mother Liu took turns trying—yet there wasn't the slightest sign of the seals breaking. He failed at practicing anything he tried, and he wasn't even first place when it came to eating.
However, the family never gave up on this eldest grandson. They unexpectedly discovered that while the boy was hopeless at martial arts, he excelled at intellectual pursuits.
Skipping grades all the way, he earned dual doctorates from Huaxia's top institution, the Huaxia Imperial Institute of Technology, by the age of 20.
Ever since he started helping manage the family business part-time at age 15, the total assets had more than doubled in five years.
You must understand that once assets reach a certain level, doubling them is no ordinary feat.
Therefore, after a unanimous decision at the Liu family meeting: *Once this brat graduates, you will march right into the corporation and rake in stacks of cash for us!*
And then Liu Bufan ran away.
Then he was drugged.
Then he was hauled across mountains and sold to a remote mountain village.
Then both the buyer and the seller were dumbfounded.
Then amid a friendly atmosphere where the seller refused to accept returns upon delivery and the buyer complained that the goods did not match the description, he stole the traffickers' van and ran away again.
He fled to an internet cafe in a small town, hacked the household registration system to create a fake identity for himself, and brazenly went to the local police station to apply for a new ID card.
His name was still Liu Bufan, but his ID number and native place had changed.
Whether his luck was just that bad or not, the moment he stepped out of the police station after eating a plate of rice with toppings, he was drugged once again, this time ending up in a pyramid scheme organization.
When the pyramid scheme boss tried to brainwash Liu Bufan with the "1040 Project," Liu Bufan spent three days using a freshly made-up "1040 PLUS Project" to reverse-brainwash the entire organization, while also figuring out his current location: Jiangzhou City in Southeast Province.
Just as Liu Bufan was about to regain his freedom, that bunch of traffickers came over, cursing up a storm.
This forced Liu Bufan to marvel at what kind of fate allowed them to meet again over a thousand miles apart.
Moreover, it was obvious that these people were in cahoots with the pyramid scheme organizers—they brought kidnapped men in for the pyramid schemes and sold off the women with good looks.
A one-stop shop for pre-sales and after-sales service, and they never left empty-handed.
Enemies meeting each other stirred up old hatreds. When it came to arguing with words, Liu Bufan didn't fear anyone, but if these people lacked martial ethics and resorted to violence... well, let's just pretend I said nothing.
After being beaten black and blue, those people decided that as long as someone wanted them, men could be sold too!
So after contacting a buyer, Liu Bufan once again boarded the van bound for the mountain village.
Just as this gang of traffickers was driving Liu Bufan toward the trading spot, a stroke of good luck occurred.
He got into a car accident.
The incident happened very suddenly. The entire vehicle was smashed out of shape, and the fuel tank was leaking and about to explode. Just as Liu Bufan was drifting into unconsciousness, a slender, beautiful figure pulled him out of the car.
Even in the face of life and death, romance arrived so abruptly. Dazed, Liu Bufan saw the flustered and slightly familiar beauty before him, feeling that he had found the meaning of the second half of his life—his handsome self finally had a cabbage patch to entrust itself to.
Just as he was daydreaming about what their future children would be named, a slap came flying across his face.
*Smack~~~*
"Hey, hey, can you hear me talking?"
"I do!"
Jiang Wan'er was stunned. What on earth was this? *You do? Do what?*
Yet as soon as he finished those three words, Liu Bufan passed out.
Afterward, he was sent to the best hospital in Jiangzhou City, and Jiang Wan'er stayed to accompany him the whole time.
Some might ask: Why was Jiang Wan'er there too?
Don't ask. If you do, who else do you think crashed into Liu Bufan in the first place?