Chapter 428: The Protagonist's Domino Effect of Despair
Long Hao felt that he might have been reborn into a fake life!
His fiancée, Su Hongmian, who should have been single, actually had a boyfriend, Shen Anyu.
And Shen Anyu was also deeply connected with Xu Ruoshui and Xu Ruoxue, that pair of stunning sisters.
Worse still, Asura Demon King Chu Yun, Alliance Master Yan Lingxiao, Lord of Youming Hall Ye Yan, and Immovable Bright King Xu Ping'an—these future prominent figures had their destinies completely changed.
Some were arrested, some died, and some disappeared.
The Asura Demon King, Chu Yun, had been apprehended by Yanxia's Female War God, An Zhiyue. The best-case scenario for him was life imprisonment, but it was far more probable that he would face a firing squad. After all, the Blood Skull Mercenary Group was a dark organization. While not entirely evil, they had a kill count that reached the heavens, accumulating sins of monstrous proportions, and were even implicated in the massacre of the Ji family.
Alliance Master Yan Lingxiao had long since been confirmed dead.
Youming Hall was annihilated by a mysterious force, and Ye Yan's fate—whether he was dead or alive—was a complete unknown.
And the Immovable Bright King, Xu Ping'an, had vanished without a trace after being expelled from the Xu Family.
A wave of vertigo washed over Long Hao, so intense that he had to brace himself against the cold, brick wall of a nearby building. The neon glow of Modu's skyline blurred into a dizzying smear of color, mocking him with its vibrancy while his own world was collapsing into shades of gray. His head was spinning, each piece of disastrous news a hammer blow against the foundation of his confidence.
'It can't be… It just can't be!'
"Thankfully," he gasped, his voice a ragged whisper that was swallowed by the city's ambient hum. "Thankfully, I know quite a few future prominent figures; it's impossible for all of them to meet with accidents, right?"
The thought was a desperate lifeline, and he clung to it, forcing himself to stand upright. He rekindled the flickering ember of his fighting spirit, his hands balling into tight, white-knuckled fists. He shot one last venomous glare back in the direction of Zhenxiu Pavilion, the memory of Shen Anyu's casual, dismissive arrogance burning like acid in his mind.
"Hmph, Shen Anyu, just you wait and see," he muttered, his voice thick with resentment. "Everything that happened today, one day I'll make you pay it back with interest!" A cruel, twisted smile touched his lips. "Once my Investment Return System truly takes off, you'll see how I get my revenge. You and all your women… they will all be mine."
In that moment, Shen Anyu was etched into Long Hao's little black book of vengeance, marked as the number one target. His hatred for Shen Anyu far surpassed the resentment he held for his ex-fiancée, Su Hongmian, the woman he had been so eager to humiliate since his rebirth.
After all, his grudge against Su Hongmian was rooted in the previous life's public humiliation. She had broken off their engagement in front of everyone, shredding his pride and staining the Long Family's reputation. It was a wound that had festered even across the barrier of death and rebirth.
But Su Hongmian was beautiful. So breathtakingly, achingly beautiful.
The moment he had seen her again in this life, her exquisite face framed by silky black hair, her eyes holding a cold fire he desperately wanted to conquer—his plans for simple humiliation had become muddled with a possessive, desperate desire. No matter how magnanimous Long Hao pretended to be, he wasn't nearly noble enough to let go of a woman like that.
His grand plan had been to rise like a phoenix, to become so powerful and dazzling that Su Hongmian would be forced to witness his glory, her heart filled with endless regret. He had fantasized about the day she would come back to him, chasing him all the way to the crematorium, her pride shattered, begging for another chance.
'Yes…' he imagined with a sick sense of satisfaction. 'I'd let her kneel. I'd watch the tears stream down that perfect face, and only when she had thoroughly debased herself would I consider forgiving her. I might even still take her as my wife, a beautiful trophy to remind me of my ultimate victory.'
But that fantasy, that driving motivation, had been utterly annihilated. Long Hao never expected that in this life, Su Hongmian already had a man. And that man, Shen Anyu, seemed to possess a fortune with women that defied all logic. He wasn't just Su Hongmian's boyfriend; he was intimately entangled with the stunning twin sisters, Xu Ruoshui and Xu Ruoxue.
Let alone Long Hao, what man on earth wouldn't be consumed by a corrosive mix of envy and jealousy?
Worse still was the intimidation, the utter powerlessness he had felt today. Shen Anyu had treated him like an insect, something to be flicked away without a second thought. Long Hao gnashed his teeth, the sound grating in the quiet alley. The humiliation was a physical weight, pressing down on him, suffocating him.
"The young master of the Yanxia Shen Family…" he spat, the words dripping with contempt. "Indeed, you have a prominent background and an amazing family. I, Long Hao, can't touch you right now. But I am a reborn soul! I have an Investment Return System! I hold all the trump cards, and my rise is just around the corner. A phoenix is destined to soar, and you are just a stepping stone on my path!"
Long Hao turned his head, forcing the disheartened, resentful, and envious expression from his face. He replaced it with a mask of manufactured confidence and optimism, a desperate attempt to shore up his crumbling psyche.
"Hmm, let me think…" he murmured, pacing back and forth. His mind raced, sifting through the catalog of future titans he held in his memory.
"Among the prominent figures who will rise in the next two and a half years… besides those who are already finished or missing… and that genius vocational student Wei Yunteng, who's already been mentioned and targeted by Shen Anyu… who else is easy to approach right now?" His eyes narrowed. "Especially those in Modu. I need to act fast."
He frowned, deep in thought, his brain working furiously to find a new chess piece. Suddenly, his eyes lit up with a flash of brilliance.
"I got it!" he exclaimed, snapping his fingers.
"Qi Fan!"
"The future richest man in the world, the super tycoon Qi Fan! He should be studying at Modu University right now, probably a sophomore or junior? But it's summer vacation, so he might be home. No matter, I'll go to Modu University first and inquire about his home address."
Thinking of Qi Fan ignited another spark of envy in Long Hao's heart. In his previous life, Qi Fan had been a legend. Hailed as a super tycoon, he spent money like water, giving out rewards and gifts that shattered records. He once directly gifted a beautiful streamer eighty million yuan in a single night, spamming the platform with an endless stream of digital carnivals until he single-handedly dominated the hot searches for a week.
He had also spent fifty billion to buy and transform an entire island, building an absurdly luxurious palace where he housed countless beautiful women. He was the living embodiment of every man's wildest fantasy.
No one knew the true extent of Qi Fan's wealth, only that it seemed inexhaustible. Even the publicly acknowledged world's richest man wasn't as ostentatious as him. In the hearts of the masses two and a half years from now, Qi Fan was the undisputed super tycoon, the true god of wealth.
'Qi Fan's family background was a complete mystery in my past life,' Long Hao recalled. 'Many speculated he came from some hidden, super-rich family, but he was always extremely low-key at school, even working part-time jobs at Modu University. A perfect investment target! He's just a student now, probably strapped for cash. A small investment from me will seem like a lifeline to him, and the system will reward me a hundredfold, a thousandfold!'
"Oh, right! I remember Qi Fan loved going online to tip beautiful streamers. His Douyin account… the nickname was 'Ordinary, Not Ordinary.' It should already be pretty famous. I'll search for it!"
A renewed sense of purpose surged through him. He pulled out his phone, his fingers flying across the screen as he typed in the familiar name.
"Shocking! Douyin Tycoon 'Ordinary, Not Ordinary' Actually…"
The headline appeared almost instantly.
"Sure enough, Qi Fan is already famous now." Long Hao's spirits lifted, a genuine smile finally gracing his lips. This was it. This was the turning point. He immediately tapped the title, eager to read about his future golden goose.
But as the page loaded and his eyes scanned the first few lines, the smile froze on his face. It cracked, shattered, and fell away, replaced by an expression of pure, unadulterated shock.
He was completely, utterly dumbfounded.
[Ding! Child of Destiny Long Hao is dumbfounded, plundering +9999 Destiny Points!]
[Ding! Child of Destiny Long Hao doubts life, plundering +23333 Destiny Points!]
…
The article was a news report, dated over a month ago.
Recently, a sophomore student from Modu University, identified only as Classmate Qi, unexpectedly died of a sudden heart attack. The tragic incident accidentally exposed his mysterious identity…
It turned out that Classmate Qi was none other than the tycoon 'Ordinary, Not Ordinary,' who had recently made waves by spending millions on the Douyin platform…
"Qi Fan… died of a sudden heart attack? He's dead??"
Long Hao's eyes widened until they felt like they would pop from their sockets. His fingers, now trembling violently, scrolled frantically through other videos and news articles. The story was the same everywhere. Report after report confirmed it. He dove into the comment sections, his heart sinking with every post he read.
"I'm Qi Fan's classmate. He was always super low-key, but a couple of months ago he just stopped pretending. He started driving a supercar to campus and even laid out nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine roses to confess to our Modu University campus belle, Liu Mi. Although it didn't succeed, I never expected him to die of a sudden heart attack. What a pity."
"Life is so unpredictable. To be that rich and die so young, tsk tsk."
…
Long Hao's face was a blank mask of horror. He stared at the date of the articles. It had happened over a month ago.
'What… what is going on?' The question echoed in the silent, screaming cavern of his mind.
The future richest man in the world, the legendary super tycoon Qi Fan, was just… gone? Dead from a heart attack? It had to be a joke. It had to be fake news.
"Did I reincarnate into a parallel world?" he whispered, his voice cracking. "Is that it? Otherwise, why do I know so many things, yet they all turn out to be similar but not quite right?"
His mind spun, grasping for a logical explanation. "Or… is it that some other change altered all of this? The butterfly effect?" A chilling thought pierced through his panic. 'Shen Anyu…' Could one man's existence cause such massive, catastrophic ripples in the river of time?
Long Hao's shoulders slumped. The weight of repeated failure was crushing him. Another future prominent figure, another reliable investment target, had turned to smoke.
After a long moment of dejected silence, he forced himself to take a deep, shuddering breath. He slapped his own cheeks, the sting bringing a sliver of clarity.
"Long Hao, Long Hao, don't be discouraged, don't be depressed," he chanted under his breath like a prayer. "It's impossible for every single future prominent figure to meet with an accident, right? There must be one left!"
His eyes regained a sliver of their desperate light. He had one more ace up his sleeve. A big one.
"My next investment target… Dragon King Mr. Han! He's the underground emperor of Modu's Dark World. His strength and influence are both immense. It's impossible for him to be as unlucky as Qi Fan and just drop dead of a heart attack, right?"
A smug, knowing look began to creep back onto his face.
"Dragon King Mr. Han, hmm… At this point in time, he should still be a live-in son-in-law in the Liu Family, probably serving his parents-in-law foot-washing water as we speak."
"Hehe," he chuckled, the sound a bit unhinged. "Besides me, who in this world would ever guess that the dignified underground emperor of Modu's Dark World, the powerful and terrifying Dragon King Mr. Han, is, on the surface, just a useless live-in son-in-law who washes his in-laws' feet?"
Long Hao's face was once again filled with the pride and arrogance that his rebirth and foresight afforded him. The feeling of holding a secret that no one else knew was intoxicating, a potent drug that numbed the pain of his recent failures.
This time, there will definitely be no accidents. Otherwise, I'll take a dump and eat it right here…
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