Chapter 849: The Fastest Ending of a Child of Destiny!
[Ding! Child of Destiny Zhao Hao's mind has been severely shaken. Plundering +66,666 Destiny Value!]
[Ding! Child of Destiny Zhao Hao's emotions have completely ruptured. Plundering +9,999 Destiny Value!]
Zhao Hao sat frozen, his face the color of wet ash. A cold, uncontrollable tremor wracked his limbs, making his fingers twitch violently against his thighs. He stared at his darkened phone screen as if a ghost had just crawled out of the glass.
He wasn't an idiot. The sheer scale of this blackout meant only one thing: he was being hunted.
There was absolutely no other logical reason for him to be permanently banned across every single major live-streaming platform simultaneously. He was an outdoor survival streamer. His content was completely clean, devoid of politics or scandal. Yet, it wasn't just the domestic platforms that had pulled the plug—even the overseas networks had instantly terminated his accounts.
Who possessed that kind of suffocating, world-spanning authority?
"The Shen Corporation," Zhao Hao hissed, the words grinding through his clenched teeth like crushed glass.
Back in his days as an arrogant rich second-generation heir, he had certainly stepped on a few toes. He had been haughty, careless, and quick to offend. But none of those petty rivals wielded the kind of god-like influence required to ground him so thoroughly, cutting off his avenues to the heavens and the earth alike.
Only an apex financial leviathan like the Shen Corporation wielded that brand of terrifying, absolute power.
But why?
Rage boiled in his chest, immediately smothered by a suffocating blanket of confusion.
Yes, he possessed the [Live Wilderness Challenge System]. Yes, his ambitions had swelled to the point where he secretly fantasized about overturning the Shen Corporation, dreaming of the day he would force the almighty Yanxia's Shen Clan to grovel at his feet for scraps.
But fantasies were just that. Zhao Hao knew his current reality perfectly well. Compared to Yanxia's Shen Clan, he wasn't even a speck of dust.
Even his father—a man he had idolized since childhood, a titan who controlled a multi-billion dollar listed company and dominated a niche industry—had been utterly defenseless against the Shen Corporation. They had bankrupted his father's empire with the casual ease of swatting a fly.
So how could a minor, internet-famous outdoor streamer possibly attract the gaze of the Shen Corporation's highest echelons?
Did the Shen Clan somehow know about his System? Did they foresee his rise?
If their goal was to cut the weeds and pull up the roots, why wait an entire year to strike?
Zhao Hao's mind spun in agonizing circles, entirely unable to pierce through the fog of his own irrelevance.
"No. No, I have to find a way to stream right now," Zhao Hao muttered, panic finally breaking his paralysis. He scrambled to his feet, his breath coming in short, desperate gasps. "If I can't stream, the System is useless!"
He had banked everything on defying his fate. He was supposed to rise from the ashes, acquire massive tech giants like Douyin and Kuaishou, and make the Shen Clan pay in blood.
If his broadcast was dead, his cheat was dead.
A series of cold, mechanical voices suddenly echoed in his skull, freezing the blood in his veins.
[Warning: The live stream room has been banned. Host, please unfreeze your account and initiate the live stream challenge mission immediately!]
[Warning: The live stream room has been banned. Host, please...]
[Alert: The Live Wilderness Challenge System has detected that the Host's current social connections and resources are insufficient to unfreeze the account. Mission initiation impossible.]
[Critical Alert: The mission has permanently failed. The Live Wilderness Challenge System is preparing for detachment. Countdown: 10, 9, 8...]
Zhao Hao's sanity snapped.
Without his cheat, how could he ever rise? How could he exact his vengeance on the Shen family? How could he ever hope to clear the astronomical, crushing debt that would otherwise chain him for the rest of his miserable life?
"No! No, please, don't!" Zhao Hao screamed, dropping to his knees and clawing at his own hair. "System Father, don't leave! I'll find a way! I'll force a broadcast! Please don't abandon me!"
He collapsed into the dirt, weeping uncontrollably.
… …
[Ding! Master, would you like to spend 1,000,000 Destiny Value to devour the Live Wilderness Challenge System?]
High above the weeping, broken man, hidden perfectly within the dense canopy of an ancient tree, the true architect of this despair sat casually on a thick branch.
Shen Anyu rested his chin on his hand, a dry, amused smile playing on his lips as he looked down.
'Is that it? Does he have any other hidden trump cards, or is he really just done?' Shen Anyu thought, raising a single, elegant eyebrow.
He hadn't even exerted himself. A few casual text messages to his subordinates, a few strings pulled, and the so-called Child of Destiny was already a sobbing mess in the dirt.
Crushed entirely by the sheer weight of Shen Anyu's background.
It was a classic flaw in the grand design of the universe. Most Children of Destiny started out as insignificant ants, relying on time and hidden growth to become formidable threats.
The ultimate weapon against them was simply information asymmetry.
If the Soul Emperor had known from the very beginning that a mere boy named Xiao Yan would eventually be his downfall, ten thousand Medicine Elders wouldn't have been able to save the kid. The Soul Emperor would have just crushed him on day one—perhaps even turning the whole story into some depraved, dark villain fantasy.
'As for this Live Wilderness Challenge System... should I eat it?' Shen Anyu pondered, his dark eyes analyzing the invisible code floating in his peripheral vision.
Not all Systems were created equal. Devouring a garbage System was just a waste of perfectly good Destiny Value.
So far, he had consumed three: the Simp Gold Cashback System, the Investment Return System, and the Goddess Future Diary System.
The latter two were exceptional tools. The first one, however, was practically a joke.
The Simp Gold Cashback System only returned mundane, secular wealth. What was the point of that? Did Young Master Shen look like a man who lacked pocket change?
The Investment Return System was a direct, superior upgrade. It didn't just multiply wealth; it provided returns on cultivation resources, martial comprehension, and rare artifacts. Its value was immeasurable.
Then there was the Goddess Future Diary System. He hadn't fully used it yet, but the potential was staggering. If he managed to acquire the diary of a truly powerful Destined Heroine, the foresight would be a lethal advantage.
He didn't even need to aim for mythical figures like Goddess Nuwa or the Three Heavens Maidens—those entities were far too distant. Just securing the diary of a Nascent Soul or Soul Formation female cultivator would be an absolute steal.
When that day came, Young Master Shen wouldn't mind leaning into the joke. Sugar mommy, I'm hungry. Feed me.
Age wasn't an issue in the cultivation world. As the mortal saying went: a woman three years older brings a gold brick. A female cultivator three thousand years older brings an immortal elixir.
But this Live Wilderness Challenge System? What was Shen Anyu supposed to do with it? Go out into the woods, set up a camera, and rap for teenagers?
A System's utility could usually be judged by the ceiling of its original host.
Long Hao, the original owner of the Investment Return System, and Ren Zhacheng, the owner of the Goddess Future Diary, both possessed terrifying latent potential.
Zhao Hao? His potential was aggressively mediocre.
'Utter trash,' Shen Anyu concluded, shaking his head slightly. He wasn't going to burn a million Destiny Value on garbage.
The almighty "System Father" that Zhao Hao was currently begging on his knees for was nothing more than a discarded scrap in Shen Anyu's eyes.
… …
[Ding! Child of Destiny Zhao Hao has lost the Live Wilderness Challenge System. Plundering +500,000 Destiny Value!]
[Ding! Child of Destiny Zhao Hao's mental state has completely collapsed. Plundering +5,567 Destiny Value!]
[Ding! Zhao Hao's Destiny Value has been cleared. The Child of Destiny Halo has shattered. He has permanently lost his status as a Child of Destiny!]
A faint, ethereal golden light flickered in the depths of Shen Anyu's dark pupils as he silently activated the Heavenly Secret Qi Observation Technique.
Through his enhanced vision, he watched the thick, lush canopy of golden-purple Luck that had previously crowned Zhao Hao's head evaporate into thin air.
Down below, Zhao Hao's face lost whatever color it had left.
"It's gone... it's all gone..."
He slumped backward into the dirt, his eyes glassy and entirely devoid of light. An empty husk.
Shen Anyu felt absolutely no desire to jump down and gloat.
If Zhao Hao still possessed even a sliver of Destiny Value, torturing his mind further would have yielded a profitable harvest. But the boy was drained dry. The halo was broken. There was no point in wasting breath on a dead man walking.
Young Master Shen only engaged in trash talk when it served a tactical purpose—to shatter a protagonist's Dao heart.
He understood the golden rule of this world better than anyone: villains die from talking too much.
'Now that Zhao Hao is dealt with, I should head back to Baiwu Valley. I've been working hard all morning; it's time to enjoy a soft embrace. Yaner, Lingyin, Murong Jieyu... and Qingqing and Chen Yuhua are all waiting for me.'
A devastatingly handsome, lazy smile graced Shen Anyu's lips—the kind of smile that could effortlessly ruin a young maiden's life.
Though Zhao Hao was no longer a Child of Destiny, Shen Anyu was a creature of excellent habits.
Failing to cut the grass at the roots only allowed it to grow back with the spring breeze. Countless arrogant villains had been overturned by leaving a crippled protagonist alive.
Shen Anyu shifted his weight, preparing to deliver the final, silent killing blow.
Suddenly, he paused.
His gaze snapped upward, piercing through the foliage toward the southwest. Without a sound, his figure blurred and vanished completely from the branch.
A split second later, a clear, melodious, and incredibly soft female voice drifted through the empty woods.
"Eh? Was I mistaken?"
[Akarin's Note: Soul Emperor, Xiao Yan, and Medicine Elder are references to the immensely popular xianxia novel Battle Through the Heavens (Doupo Cangqiong). The Soul Emperor is the final villain who allowed the protagonist, Xiao Yan, to grow too powerful before taking him seriously.]
[Akarin's Note: "A woman three years older brings a gold brick" (女大三抱金砖) is a traditional Chinese proverb suggesting that marrying a slightly older woman brings fortune and maturity to the household. Shen Anyu humorously exaggerates this for immortal cultivators.]
[Akarin's Note: "Simp" is used here to localize "Licking Dog" (舔狗), Chinese internet slang for someone who abandons all dignity to endlessly pander to a romantic interest who doesn't reciprocate.]
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