Desolate Era - Book 5, Chapter 17 - Longing! Rain Line!

“Block him.”“He's technically still my boss.”“Then block him with dignity.”The call ended again.And then started again.I let out a sound somewhere between a growl and a sob, then finally answered with the enthusiasm of a snail crawling through salt.“Yes, Mr. Walton?”“Have you changed your mind yet?”I collapsed onto the towel and gazed at the sky as though it might consume me entirely if I pleaded sweetly enough.“Do you ever take a break?” I asked, shielding my eyes with one hand.“You're avoiding the question.”“Because it's a dumb question.”He exhaled, the sound sharp and irritated even over phone. “It's not a dumb question. It's a business offer.”“It's a weird offer-one that I already said no to.”There was a brief pause, and I could practically hear him clenching his jaw through the speaker.“You are acting unreasonably.”“ Unreasonable?” I sat up. “I'm not the one drafting fake girlfriend contracts like it's a normal Tuesday.”“Isabella-”“Certainly not, Mr. Walton.” I mimicked his tone perfectly. “I told you I'm not doing it. You need to find someone else to play pretend with.”SYNOPSISIsabella Miller thought saying no to her boss’s fake dating offer was the end of the story.But Adrien Walton doesn’t take no—especially not when he’s convinced she’s a gold digger.Suddenly, her student loans are piling up, her father’s vet clinic is on the brink of eviction and her brother is about to be kicked out of college. Coincidence? She thinks not.Adrien Walton is calm, calculating—and he's just pulled every string to corner Isabella into the perfect position.Now she’s stuck choosing between pride and survival.So she agrees to his offer: be his fake girlfriend.No feelings attached. No drama. Just business.Or so she thought.“Conference Room B. Fifteen minutes,” he said, passing by without a glance.The folder he pushed across the table landed with a thud.I opened it. The contract. All of it.---Enemies to lovers? Check.Slow burn? Hmmnyea.Banter so sharp it might file your nails? Yes.Delicious workplace tension? Of course.Tension that could melt steel?Absolutely.Smut?? Wanna find out?Welcome to corporate romance warfare. There’s no escaping this contract.

Soren transmigrated into Lover’s Labyrinth, a dating sim, not as a protagonist, but as a side character.That should have been fine. But instead, he awakened the Perverted Harem System, which gave shameless quests so absurd that even thinking about them made him seethe in anger.“This is a dating sim, not a pornhwa,” he roared in rage.From academy life to dungeon trials, his peaceful plan began to collapse as the system dragged him into chaos, embarrassment, and dangerously effective “accidental” progress.If he wanted to survive one event after another, he had to complete indecent missions without getting himself killed or exposed, all while simultaneously building a perverted harem of heroines far stronger than him.Surely… nothing could go wrong. Right?***

Orphaned at the mere age of seven and thrown out on the streets with no place to go. Kana lived the life of a street rat. She did what she could to survive from digging through the trash and stealing what she could. But even after almost ten years of surviving, her life still ended short.

A mediocre, low-born beggar, he relied on only his firm and indomitable spirit to desperately cultivate but still could not exceed the masses. Then by fortune’s favor, he awakened a long-extinct ancient martial soul. Since that day, he soared like a comet on the path of cultivation. From his humble beginnings as an outsider in the Ling Clan, his name, Ling Xiao, would ring throughout the world.