MMORPG: Martial Gamer - Chapter 25: Duel

Pei Jiu picked up a girl by the riverside. He settled her on the mountain, and planned to send her back once she recovered. This delicate girl was a useless crybaby, so Pei Jiu had to be a nice person. He cooked her food and washed her clothes. He let the troublesome girl ride on his shoulders so she could pick fruits. During winter, he would warm up the bed for her. One day, she hugged Pei Jiu’s arm with a smile. “Big Brother Pei, you’re really an honest and a good man. I will marry you and give birth to your babies!”

Pei Jiu eyed her critically and scathingly enumerated her shortcomings. She was ignorant and spoiled. She only knew how to pester and flirt with people all day long. Give birth to babies? Go ahead, give birth to caterpillars.

The delicate girl bawled so hard that she passed out. The next day, Pei Jiu returned to his mansion and told his servants to prepare for his wedding ceremony. When he returned to the mountain in the evening, Pei Jiu opened the door as usual, but he found that the cheeky girl had disappeared. He searched the whole mountain for her to no avail. No one would act like a spoiled brat in front of him anymore. What a headache.

Note : 娇 (jiāo) : tender/delicate/pampered/spoiled

- Description from Novelupdates

Eira Hax, the daughter of a once-wealthy heiress, has spent her entire life in the shadows.Twenty-two years ago, her mother, a kind-hearted but naive woman, was deceived by her husband, a ruthless businessman. He stole her entire fortune and framed her for a crime, sending her to prison, unaware that she was pregnant and secretly battling terminal cancer.Eira’s mother died alone behind bars, but not before giving birth to Eira, entrusting her with a burning desire for revenge.Now, two decades later, Eira returns with one goal: to destroy the man who ruined her mother’s life—her own father.To do so, she strategically marries his most powerful rival, Callian Reed, a man as dangerous as he is influential. Together, they plot to destroy her father’s empire, piece by piece.But as Eira is pulled deeper into a world of business, power and revenge, she’s forced to confront her own problems and decide just how far she’s willing to go to avenge her mother.“I’m not your enemy, darling…you should know that by now.”“Callian, everything you do is not written in our contract. Why are you breaking it?”“The more I learn about you, the more I hate everyone who hurt you. So please, Eira, let me get rid of them for you.”

I am currently re-writing the first chapters of this story. They are quite rough and bounce around a lot and I can do better. At some point, I will replace these with the better chapters.Sometime in 2024 Aethon Books will publish the first volume of this story on Amazon, KU, and audible. This will mean the story will be stubbed. I will notify people far in advance of that.In the dystopian world of the future, life is rough when you live at the bottom. Jobs are non-existent. Far too many people live in poverty, crammed into huge buildings called Habitats. With no jobs in the real world, many people can only find work online in VR worlds as servants to the very rich. And it's getting worse. The old internet is unusable and hacked to pieces. The new system needs AI to run things, but all but one of them were destroyed. The last sentient AI is ordered to create a new game world so the rich can have a playground, and the corporations that rule the world can have a new global market place. Everyone wants a piece of the new game. The guilds are competing to be the first to find the dungeons and kill the biggest monster. The corporations are claiming land and putting in their online market places. Ozzy and his friends just want a paycheck.Four friends sign five year contracts as virtual serfs in a small village, and can't go adventuring at all to gain money. They don't have many choices. They can work as a blacksmith, barmaid and shepherd for all those years....or they can cheat and find ways to take advantage of the system and carve out a section of the game world for themselves, and earn a fortune in the real world.When they give you a mop and not a sword, you have to find the loopholes and change the rules.

“I’ll see you on the other side of the stars,” she whispered before breathing her last.