The rain fell without apology.
It streaked down the glass façade of Tiancheng Plaza in long, slanted lines, blurring the neon lights into smears of color—blue, red, gold—like a city bleeding under the night. The open-air atrium on the ground floor buzzed with voices, laughter, the clink of wine glasses, and the low hum of wealth moving effortlessly through space.
Lin Yuan stood at the edge of it all, soaked to the bone.
His shoes were cheap canvas, waterlogged and squelching faintly each time he shifted his weight. His jacket—bought from a street stall three winters ago—hung heavy with rain, clinging to his shoulders. Damp hair plastered itself to his forehead, and droplets slid down the bridge of his nose, falling to the marble floor in quiet, humiliating taps.
He did not wipe them away.
Not because he didn't want to—but because his hands were shaking.
Across from him, under the bright canopy lights, stood Su Mei.
No—stood beside someone.
That distinction mattered more than anything else tonight.
Su Mei looked stunning. She always had. Her hair was done up elegantly, her makeup flawless, her slim figure wrapped in a white designer dress that probably cost more than Lin Yuan's entire wardrobe combined. The rain hadn't touched her. Why would it? She stood under shelter, under privilege, under someone else's protection.
Her arm was hooked through the elbow of a tall young man in a tailored suit.
Zhao Feng.
The name rippled through the crowd like a whisper that needed no explanation. The Zhao family—real estate, pharmaceuticals, private clubs, underground martial arts sponsorships. Tiancheng City's elite knew the name. The poor knew it too, though usually only in stories and warnings.
Zhao Feng smiled easily, lazily, the way people did when the world had never once said no to them.
And Su Mei smiled back.
That smile was what finally crushed something in Lin Yuan's chest.
"Lin Yuan," Su Mei said, her tone light, almost amused, as if greeting an acquaintance she barely remembered. "Why did you come here looking like that?"
Her eyes flicked down his soaked clothes, then back up with thinly veiled distaste.
The surrounding conversations quieted. People sensed drama the way sharks sensed blood.
Lin Yuan swallowed.
"You said… you said you wanted to talk," he replied. His voice was hoarse, scraped raw by the cold and something worse. "You said you needed time."
Zhao Feng laughed softly.
"Time?" He tilted his head, studying Lin Yuan openly, without shame. "Is that what you told him, Mei?"
Su Mei hesitated for half a second.
Then she sighed.
"Lin Yuan, let's not pretend anymore," she said. "We're not in the same world."
Each word landed like a measured strike.
"We've been together for three years," Lin Yuan said. "When your mother was sick, when you couldn't pay rent, when—"
"And I'm grateful," she interrupted. "I really am. But gratitude isn't love. And love doesn't pay for the future."
Zhao Feng slipped a hand around her waist, possessive, deliberate.
"I can give her that future," he said mildly. "You can't."
Someone snorted nearby.
Another person laughed outright.
Lin Yuan felt his ears burn. Heat rushed to his face, chased immediately by a freezing hollowness that spread from his chest to his limbs.
He looked around.
Well-dressed men and women watched openly now, expressions ranging from curiosity to contempt. Phones were subtly angled. Someone was already recording.
A poor graduate student, drenched in rain, being dumped in public by his girlfriend for a rich heir.
Classic.
"Lin Yuan," Su Mei said, lowering her voice as if doing him a favor. "Don't make this ugly. Take what dignity you have left and go."
Dignity.
The word echoed in his mind like a cruel joke.
He clenched his fists. His nails bit into his palms hard enough to draw blood, though he barely felt it.
"I just want to know one thing," he said quietly. "Did you ever mean it? Anything you said to me?"
Su Mei looked away.
That was answer enough.
Zhao Feng sighed theatrically.
"Look, friend," he said, stepping forward. The distance between them vanished in two casual strides. Zhao Feng was taller, broader, radiating a kind of casual physical confidence that came from years of expensive training and never having to fear consequences. "You should thank me."
"For what?" Lin Yuan asked.
"For taking her off your hands before reality crushed you even harder," Zhao Feng said. His eyes sharpened. "Men like you—no money, no background, no power—you're born to be stepped on. It's not personal. It's just the hierarchy."
He leaned closer.
"Know your place."
The words were soft.
The effect was devastating.
Something inside Lin Yuan cracked.
Not loudly. Not dramatically.
Just a quiet, final fracture.
The world seemed to tilt. Sounds dulled. The crowd blurred. The rain grew heavier, or maybe he just noticed it now, each drop like a needle against his skin.
He took a step back.
His heel slipped on the wet marble.
He went down hard.
Laughter erupted.
Not everyone laughed—but enough did.
Zhao Feng didn't even bother to hide his smile.
Su Mei covered her mouth, but her eyes were cold.
Lin Yuan pushed himself up on trembling arms, his palms slick with rain and blood. His vision swam. For a moment, he thought he might actually pass out here, on this polished floor, beneath the lights of a world that had never belonged to him.
Is this it? he thought.
Is this all I amount to?
Three years of effort. Endless part-time jobs. Scholarships fought for tooth and nail. Nights spent studying under flickering lights while others partied and networked and built connections he could never access.
For what?
To be humiliated like a stray dog in public?
A sharp pain lanced through his chest—not physical, but deeper. Something primal. Something that screamed injustice.
His breathing grew shallow.
The rain no longer felt cold.
It felt heavy.
Oppressive.
As if the sky itself were pressing down on him.
And then—
A sound rang out.
Not from the crowd.
Not from the city.
But from inside his head.
[Detecting extreme humiliation…][Emotional threshold exceeded.][Existential divergence confirmed.][Hundredfold Return System initializing…]
Lin Yuan froze.
The laughter around him faded into static.
The rain stopped mid-fall.
No—it didn't stop. He could still see the drops, but they were distant, unreal, as if he were watching them through thick glass.
The voice was cold. Mechanical. Absolute.
[Host identified: Lin Yuan.][Compatibility: 100%.][System Principle: Hundredfold Return.]
A translucent interface unfolded before his eyes, lines of pale blue light arranging themselves into something both alien and instinctively understandable.
His heart slammed against his ribs.
I'm hallucinating, he thought.
People didn't just… hear voices. Systems didn't awaken. This wasn't a novel. This wasn't—
[System Rule Explanation:]Any action taken by the Host will immediately return one hundredfold.][Return Type: Host must choose one.]→ Quantity ×100→ Quality ×100
His breath caught.
The words burned themselves into his mind with impossible clarity.
Anything.
Any action.
Hundredfold return.
No cooldown. No randomness. No failure.
Lin Yuan's mind—always sharp, always observant even in despair—latched onto the implications instantly.
Cultivation novels. Systems. Returns.
He had read enough to know this was not something to dismiss lightly.
But reality pressed in.
Zhao Feng's voice cut through the haze.
"Get him out of here," Zhao Feng said, waving dismissively to the security guards approaching. "He's ruining the mood."
Two guards stepped forward, hands already reaching.
Lin Yuan's humiliation spiked again, sharp and raw.
The system interface pulsed.
[Humiliation detected.][Eligible for conversion.]
Conversion?
Before he could process further, the guards grabbed his arms.
Their grip was firm. Professional.
Lin Yuan was dragged to his feet.
The crowd parted to make way, some disappointed the show was ending, others whispering excitedly.
As he was hauled toward the exit, something inside him snapped into place.
Fear vanished.
Despair burned away.
In its place—clarity.
Anything I do returns a hundredfold, he thought.
Then this… this humiliation… this effort… this resistance…
His lips curved, just slightly.
The guards didn't notice.
They shoved him toward the rain-soaked entrance.
"Next time, learn where you belong," one of them muttered.
Lin Yuan stumbled forward.
His foot crossed the threshold.
Rain slammed into him again.
Cold.
Real.
The system interface flared.
[Action Detected: Enduring humiliation without collapse.][Choose Return Type.]
Two options hovered before his mind.
Quantity.
Quality.
He understood instinctively.
Quantity would multiply amount—time, resources, energy.
Quality would refine, evolve, transcend.
This was his first deliberate choice.
The first moment where destiny could not be taken back.
He thought of Zhao Feng's contemptuous eyes.
Su Mei's averted gaze.
The laughter.
He thought of his weak body. His powerless status. His position at the very bottom of the hierarchy.
I don't need more of the same, he decided.
I need something better.
He made his choice.
"Quality," Lin Yuan whispered.
[Choice Confirmed: Quality ×100.][Processing…]
Pain exploded through his body.
It was not the pain of injury, but of change.
His muscles tightened, fibers twisting and reforging. His bones hummed, dense and resonant, as if infused with something heavier than calcium. His blood burned, carrying something new, something potent.
Information flooded his mind.
Breathing patterns.
Postures.
An instinctive understanding of qi—of an energy that had always existed, unseen, ignored by modern humanity.
[Humiliation → Mental Fortitude (Quality ×100).][Endurance → Body Foundation (Quality ×100).][Survival Instinct → Cultivation Aptitude (Quality ×100).]
Lin Yuan staggered, then straightened.
The rain still fell.
But he no longer felt cold.
He inhaled slowly.
The air felt… thick.
Alive.
With that single breath, something invisible flowed into him.
Not much.
But refined.
Pure.
His eyes sharpened.
The city looked different—edges clearer, movements slower. He could hear the rain striking different surfaces individually. He could sense the guards' heartbeats as they walked away, already losing interest in him.
Inside his chest, something settled.
A foundation.
Not power—not yet.
But potential, refined a hundred times over.
He stood alone in the rain, unnoticed now, just another soaked figure in a city full of them.
But Lin Yuan knew.
He felt it.
The hierarchy Zhao Feng spoke of?
It had just been rewritten.
Behind his eyes, the system interface remained, calm and unwavering.
[Hundredfold Return System: Active.]
Lin Yuan lifted his head and looked back through the glass at Tiancheng Plaza.
At the lights.
At the people.
At the world that had discarded him.
His expression was calm.
But deep within, something vast and irreversible had begun to turn.
And it would not stop.
Not ever.