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 My eyes fluttered open.
 At this moment of awakening, I felt my stomach churn like a sloshing ocean of acid.
 I sat up hurriedly, my entire body aching in a way that it had never ached before. Bile rose up in my throat as I almost puked, luckily gulping it down at the last moment. My hands rubbed against the fluffy blanket upon which I had slept or passed out. I got out of the bed in a panic, though my legs were weak, and after a few wonky steps, I crashed to the floor. In desperation, I tried to stand once more, yet to no avail. My second attempt had only worsened the gut-wrenching turmoil that gripped my innards.
 Don’t hold it in, throw it up! This thought raced through my mind as I started heaving dryly, even sticking my finger down my throat in a desperate attempt to end my suffering. My eyes teared up, and spittle drooled from my mouth as I tried time and time again to empty my stomach, yet nothing came out.
 At that moment, I became aware of a ringing in my ears. A chill raced up my spine, and my entire body started shaking. Was this what it felt like to die? At that moment, it sure felt like I was experiencing my last moments of life.
 I lay curled up there for a long time. Each moment passed in agony. It felt like hours had gone by when my nausea began to gradually fade. My body was no longer trembling, and the ringing in my ears had disappeared completely. Thank God.
 I took a breath in and deeply exhaled, feeling a semblance of control returning to my body.
 What the hell had happened to me?
 I turned my head side to side, making a quick study of the room through my tear-filled eyes. I had never been here before, in this unrecognized room. Every piece of furniture was crafted from wood with not a single piece of modern technology to be found. There was a bright light shining from the wall opposite me. I forced myself to slowly crawl towards the light, feeling a wave of heat radiating from it as I came closer and closer. This light was not electrical in nature. There was no wiring connected to it, and what I had assumed to be a light bulb was some other thing entirely.
 ‘Where am I?’
 The sensations, the pain… This was all far too real to be a dream. I was awake. I was certain of this.
 Once more, I scanned the room, noticing the sizable pool my spittle had made as it had drooled from my mouth. Closer to the bed now, I shakily got to my feet and, in one hurried action, flopped down upon it.
 I came to believe that my location and the location of this room were the least of my concerns. No, what truly mattered was how I had gotten there as well as the reason for me being there in the first place.
 As my body started to relax and my mind started to clear, memories slowly started to seep back into my consciousness.
 I had been sitting in front of my desk, doing a test run of the RPG I had created. Now, some may ask why I had chosen to create a game all on my own.
 The answer is this: The game that I wished to play has not been created by another human, so, if it does not exist, create it! That, at least, explains the philosophy behind my creation. Every year new technologies came into being, enabling the gaming industry to pump out titles that looked impressive, even if the storyline and the worlds were not that unique. No, players wanted more than old titles re-recycled ad infinitum into shinier graphics: They wanted news things, fresh ideas, and they wanted them constantly. They wanted to row down an eternal river of novelty.
 Naturally, any gaming company would struggle to keep up with such a never-ending and voracious demand. So things became almost stagnant, especially with players like Yamche quickly finding every bug and exploit within a game and sharing it online for all to see and use. So that was the environment I had been used to, an environment where no game could evolve as fast as the expectations of its player base. So it was a given that Company K’s announcement caused tsunami-like ripples in the gaming world. They had stated boldly and bluntly that they were working on a new type of virtual reality game, something never seen before. Even if the release date was many years off, the project looked promising and went viral planet-wide within days.
 While all this was happening, another game developer had released their pride and joy, which in simple terms could be called a 3D RPG map and scenario creator. It was a game of vast complexity and gave the users much room in which to let their wildest dreams bloom into pixelated reality.
 There was no multiplayer component to the game, but for those who loved roleplaying, whether it had a social component or not, it was not a problem in the slightest. The release of the editor and not an entire standalone game had come about due to budgetary restrictions, as the developers could not afford to make the game they wished to make. Their second reason for the release was to share with gamers how difficult it was to make a game.
 Their product surpassed all expectations and became a massive hit, sending their stock prices soaring overnight. Many players worldwide took this opportunity to create the game they had always longed for.
 It was a bit messy in the beginning, with a lot of trial and error involved. Regular blog posts by the developers helped those who struggled, though, teaching them the basics and few hidden features.
 The player had full control over their characters and could tweak the appearance and attributes of the non-player characters as well. New types of monsters and weapons were showcased by the company, and players could both download and upload these when they logged onto the website. The players felt like gods.
 Well, I had felt like a god when I created ‘The Twenty-Four Hearts of Pernen’.
 I started by crafting the basic geometries of my world. Soon I began adding environs and biomes as I laid down lush forests and jungles, vast arid deserts, lakes of lava, and great mountain peaks were hidden entirely under the ocean’s waves. I was over-ambitious from the start, with the world I had created becoming so vast that it became difficult for me to work on it alone as well as comprehensively beta-test it.
 Ultimately, I wished to play in this world, and for that happen, there had to be life. I started from one side, the plan being to systematically fill the map with the life sector by sector. So my first steps in this regard were the creation of a village and villagers, adding dialog and quest prompts as needed.
 The game became my life, and as I had started coding it when I was in high school, I knew I had plenty of time ahead of me to go wild with it. I never went out to bars to drink with my friends; no, ‘The Twenty-Four Hearts of Pernen’ consumed my free time.
 I then made my creation public, accompanying it with a blog to keep anyone who liked my world up to date as to newer versions and possible tweaks. People played it, some liked it and left positive reviews, and a few even went so far as donating money to me and my project. A year passed since my first upload, and by now, I could scarcely believe how complex everything had become.
 Had I truly created this on my own?
 The company had by now featured my game upon its main page, even paying me a stipend due to my dedication and frequent updates. By now, a great many people had come to like my work, their patronage freeing me from the need to get a temp job. All the people who were playing it also meant that bugs and glitches were found and fixed at an increased pace. The biggest part of my project that remained to be done was the creation of the central political force. Unfortunately, I had to pause development at that point to serve my mandatory military service. This disappointed many people, yet they remained patient because they knew it was worth the wait.
 So, finally, after four years in development, I finished my game. I had implemented everything that I had set out to implement. I had ceased all major updates, only adding a dungeon here or a quest there if the whim struck me. Achievements and titles were also added from time to time, as a form of fan service.
 I was content with this state of affairs. Moreover, I felt deeply honored by the gaming community, for my creation was within the official list of ten games that every human should play at least once.
 Then, many days after my ‘retirement’, Company K approached me with an offer. They had chanced upon the idea of converting my entire game into a VR experience. I jumped at this opportunity, knowing that no one made virtual reality games that could even come close to Company K’s level.
 I scanned over their offer and promptly gave them every scrap of code, texture, and lore that they would require. Their estimated time-frame for completing the project was between four and ten years, which was a long time to wait. I was not fazed, however, knowing that such things did take inordinate amounts of time to create. The large, and I mean a large amount of money they had given me did not hurt either, so I left them to their labors. When I finally had time for myself after all the signing of documents and compiling of data, I decided to take a break and do the one thing that I loved above all else: Playing my game. I crafted my new character and…
 That was the last thing that I remembered. Had someone kidnapped me? If that was the case, why lock me in such a spacious and luxurious room? I sat on the bed, chewing idly at my nails. Various scenarios flashed through my mind. There was something that felt very, very wrong, yet I could not figure out exactly what it was. My gaze fell upon my legs.
 “Why… why are my legs so damned thin?” Suddenly the disparity in my surroundings and my relative size became apparent: The room was not over-sized, no, it was I who was smaller, almost child-sized!
 How had I failed to notice this? With a mute sort of dread, I stared at my hands. They were not the hands that I knew, the hands that I had used since my birth.
 “This isn’t my body!” As I shouted this, I realized that even my voice was not my own. Horrified by what I had observed, I stumbled to the dresser. A mirror, I needed a mirror! I pulled the drawers out in haste, throwing out various objects in my frantic search. In the third drawer, I finally found a small gilded hand mirror. The face I saw upon that glass stared at me in horror. It was the face of a stranger.
 “This… This can’t be!”
 There was no doubt. The visage I now wore was the face, the exact face, of one of the characters within my game.
 At that moment, something materialized into the air in front of me. I nearly crashed into the drawer; such was my fright. Floating before me was a translucent rectangular window consisting of some strange energy. It was lined with a neat green border, reminding me of the style of old text-based RPGs. A line of text floated in the exact center of this window.
 [Soul Sync Completed]
 The window flashed out of existence, new ones soon taking up its place.
 [We sincerely welcome Master’s participation!]
 [All systems are functional]
 [Authorization Granted: Initiate project ‘Destruction of Destiny’]
 “Am I playing my own game? No… No!”
 I briefly entertained the thought that Company K had kidnapped me and was using me as a test subject.
 Yet, this was an impossibility. I had handed my data over to Company K less than a day ago. It was not within the realm of possibility for them to have created a VR version of my work within such a short span of time. A few more system messages flashed in and out of existence until they ceased to appear. This felt in no way or form like a dream, yet, the reality of the thing… I had to be dreaming! What other conclusions could a rational man reach in such a situation? As these thoughts rushed through my mind, I felt the hairs on my neck prickle under the influence of some primal instinct. I spun around, and my heart almost leaped out of my ribcage.
 A man was seated in the chair, his fingers steeped as he stared directly at me. How he had entered the room was a mystery. Moment by moment, I felt as if I was losing grip on my sanity.
 “How did… you…” I stammered, the words failing to leave my tongue. This stranger had a very weird look about him, and yet I knew his name, this without ever having met him! Just the mere act of looking at him had planted his name into my mind. And that name terrified me beyond all sense.
 He smiled at me, maybe kindly, or perhaps like a vulture studying a carcass. I could not really tell.
 The man was handsome in an otherworldly, almost alien way. His voice, when he finally spoke, was quiet yet had a strange modulation to it, almost as if he inhabited another dimension entirely.
 “It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Creator. I know that you now know my name, which is Xian, Xian the First Monarch. Xian, the second being forged by your very hands. I greet you, and long I have waited to do so.”
 He had bowed his head while he had spoken, perhaps in mockery or, and this possibility horrified me all the more, in worship.
 I knew Xian, as a toymaker knew every groove and splinter of a wooden doll. He was a mighty being, one of the seven monarchs that I had chosen to rule over the nether realms of my world.
 There was only one being in ‘The Twenty-Four Hearts of Pernen’ that was mightier than the man who sat before me, and that was Lord Pernen himself.
 Suffice it to say; I was very confused upon reaching this point in time.
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 I made a game.
 When I woke up, I was in that game.
 When I was in confusion and embarrassment, the one who brought me into this world appeared and said:
 “Oh, Creator. This is a game only for you, but it is also a ‘duty’.”
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 From the author of Keyboard Immortal, 
 When the protagonist wakes up and finds that he has become Song Qingshu, he also discovers that this is a chaotic world that incorporates Jin Yong’s 14 novels.
 “Girl, your smile is so sweet!”
 “Madam, you smell so good!”
 The same characters placed in a different arena.
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 “Ah……painful”
 Lying on the cold operating table, the girl’s sentimental feelings faded, a mysterious man took her innocence.
 Meeting again, the mysterious man was actually a black bellied VIP, capturing her home, wanting to spoil her.
 “Reporting to the Boss, some slag man came looking for the madame.”
 “Directly bury him alive.”
 “Reporting to the Boss, some slag lady was jealous that the Mrs. came first in a medical contest, and slapped the lady in the face.”
 “Her slag face will be broken, send her straight to hell on earth to die.”
 “Reporting to the Boss, the enemy is going to catch your wife and use her as a military doctor.”
 “Immediately dispatch the armed forces, and bomb the enemy!”
 “Reporting to the boss, the lady ran away from home, she said to tell the president she wants to give him a child……”
 “F***, I did not feed her last night! Catch her, the army has seven days and seven nights of holiday, I have business to attend to!”
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 The actor Fu Yichen suddenly found himself bound to a [Mary Sue Reversal System] and was forced to travel through Mary Sue worlds one after another, where blood and thunder flew from left to right. With only one purpose, that is to reverse the mentally ret*rded Mary Sue endings of the Male lead.
 However, in the end, the male protagonist falls into Fu Yichen’s arms.
 Moreover, why is this male protagonist’s face… Film Emperor Su? Male god Su?
 Fu Yichen: ??? Black question mark +1
 Tr*sh system: ???? Black question mark +1
 Fu Yichen: Because… because of tr*sh settings.
 Tr*sh system: Zhan Zhan is so handsome, and Mary Sue should die!
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 When people are poor, they breathe wrong. 
 Ding, congratulations to the host, you will get a certain amount of money every time you breathe. 
 Ding, you get a spicy consumption card when you eat a crayfish with explosive taste. 
 Ding, your sleep quality is very high today. Gain energy + 20% of your daily buff. 
 Different Shenhao system, everything in life will bring surprises. 
 Coach, I want to learn to race!
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 One night she gets drunk and mistakes the most well-known Mafia boss for a host and intends to sleep with him. 
 Oh my! What should I do? It’s best to run away!
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 In order to avoid marrying an old man from the neighboring county, she must run away. The first time she escaped, the general entered the city, and she rolled and fell in front of him, no, she kneeled in front of him (really not on purpose). The second time she escaped, the general came to visit her house, and the general caught her (he must have done it on purpose). The third time, she was bruised and battered, almost desperate, and he came galloping and took her into his arms. (He was very well-intentioned.) The general said, ” Although I do not want to hold a favor to you, it is true that you owe me a favor.” So?&nbsp;
 &nbsp;An Ruochen is unwilling to submit to fate and meets General Long three times when she runs away from home. She expects to get help from a powerful man, but she is involved in a secret conspiracy instead. Vicious family, a missing younger sister, a mysterious spy, and power struggles. An Ruochen becomes the key to solving the mysteries and becomes the core of General Long’s heart.&nbsp;
 One sentence synopsis: The right person at the right time changes everything.
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 A man was transported to Ancient China and eventually became a servant of a declining household without a male heir. He utilized his wits and modern knowledge to help the household and eventually become trapped in the sea of political turmoils of the period. 
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 This novel is also known as Mr. President, Unbridled Love“Become Mrs. Lu, I will give you all you want” 
 “Baby, let me hug you” 
 “Well … No, I’m going to be late …” 
 His proposal is so overbearing, in order to retaliate to that scum, she promised to be his wife for one year. The first time she met him, she was eaten by him. The second time he met her, she got drugged and he was the only antidote. The third time they met, they rushed to get the marriage certificate. She returns to his home and became the envy of the city Mrs. Lu. 
 Rumors say the ruthless and cold Chen Shao dotes on her to the extreme. Little did he know, the way he spoiled her, taking a damage on her. One day she could not stand the man strong tyrannical way of loving, Leaving a paper of divorce agreement, she climbs over the wall to escape…….. 
 However unexpectedly, the moment she barely climbs over the wall, the man grabbed her ankle pulling her down. she fell in his bosom, with his hoarse voice he asked her: ” Woman, Where do you want to take my son?”
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 When he woke up, one billion people from Blue Star traveled through another world. 
 Own your own territory and become a lord. 
 You need to struggle to survive in a strange world and conquer cities. 
 Lei Xiao has obtained the god-level talent "Golden Finger", which can turn stones into gold and upgrade items. 
 [Congratulations, your "Tier 1 Recruitment Order" has been upgraded to a "Tier 5 Recruitment Order"! 】 
 [Congratulations, your "Second-Order Weapon: Falling Moon Blade" has been upgraded to 101 "Second-Order Weapon: Falling Moon Blade"! 】 
 [Congratulations, your "Tier 3 Weapon: Earth Two-handed Sword" has been upgraded to "Tier 5 Weapon: Dragon Slaying Sword"! 】 
 ... 
 [Congratulations, you have become the first lord in the world to be promoted to a level 2 mansion! 】 
 【Congratulations, you have become the first lord in the world to kill a BOSS! 】 
 【Congratulations, you have become the first lord in the world to conquer a city! 】 
 ... 
 When others were still working hard to collect resources, Lei Xiao monopolized the market and let everyone work for him. 
 While others were still working hard to build villages, Lei Xiao's majestic city had already sprung up. 
 When others were still using their peasants to fight the surrounding monsters, Lei Xiao had already commanded the army and began to attack the city. 
 PS: No CP, no Madonna, no dog licking, no waste wood.
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 In a world where everyone has a system, Liang Yu, who had lost his previous system, finally received a second one. This time, he was playing the second male lead instead of a cannon fodder.
 He has one mission.
 Bend the male lead.
 Liang Yu: I can do this task just fine. But Lord God, please don’t drop the novel again.
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 With one sentence from Qu Chenzhou, he killed Prince Liu’s family.
 The reason was that he was the sword in the hands of the emperor, and the Prince was a thorn in the emperor’s eyes.
 But the words were what Qu Chenzhou said himself.
 After the Prince defected, he vowed that one day he would surely throw away his bones as ashes,
 And for this word, he waited for the Prince in the capital for many years.
 Until he died.
 He confessed that he was sinful, and he didn’t ask the Prince to understand his secret help over the years,
 He just wanted to pay off his sinful debt.
 So in front of Prince Liu, he died in the most tragic manner.
 But he didn’t see the Prince holding his body in pain, almost in madness.
 “——Qu Chenzhou, how dare you lie to me!”
 Yuande’s seventh year, Winter.
 Qu Chenzhou died, and all parties clapped and cheered.
 Except for one person who seemed as if he had lost everything.
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 In Victorian England, occult practitioners and the Nightmen Police, who hunted occult practitioners, were at odds and engaged in a fight to the death. Legend has it that one of the occult practitioners was a mysterious merchant who ran the world’s largest underground black market in the occult arts, offering a variety of rare treasures. Word says that the Nightmen have a newly appointed young detective whose decisive actions have solved many cases, and occult practitioners are terror-stricken hearing his name.
 Duan FeiZhou: Good, both are me.
 He transmigrated to this era because he accidentally clicked on an email titled “Congratulations on your million dollar inheritance” and confusingly agreed to join the Nightmen’s side to fight against the occult practitioners.
 Who knew that the next day he would inherit a mysterious inheritance from his uncle – the owner of the world’s most prominent black market of secret arts underground trading… This was a bit awkward.
 Duan FeiZhou decided to stay away from the strife to avoid falling off the horse and became a salted fish.
 On the one hand, crazy black market customers hope that the black market will close down as soon as possible. On the other hand, the Nightmen are negatively idle, hoping that he is quickly fired. However, the more he rushed customers, the more the business of the black market became red hot. The more negativity, the more he was promoted in the Nightmen.
 Seeing that the double-sided was becoming a bigger hassle, he was afraid his mask would fall off..
 The Scotland Yard’s NIghtmen Leader, code name Z, has white hair, blind eyes, mechanical prosthetics, metal spine, all from war damage; his hobby is hand-rolling cigars, and if he can not save the hostages, he will shoot them together with the criminals. His highest ideal in life is to exterminate all the occult practitioners in the world.
 He thought he had a heart of gold with a painful past, but step by step, he was impressed and conquered by the new young Nightman… He also reformed him.
 Until one day, he learned that the young man who tugged at his heartstrings was his lifelong enemy – the owner of the world’s largest underground black market for secret arts.
 Z: Oh well.
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24 Hearts

Chapter 2

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24 Hearts

Chapter 2

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