The Devil's Duchess - Chapter 29: The wrong bride

After five years, Ning Xi has returned and is out to take revenge on the sister who turned her parents against her and the childhood sweetheart who betrayed her for her sister. She aims to fulfill her childhood dream and become a famous actress. However, her sister is still out to get her, and she has to avoid all her underhanded schemes.

One day, after falling into one of her sisters’ schemes, she meets an adorable kid and saves him. This is how Ning Xi found herself staying at the autistic little kid’s house to help him come out of his shell. Slowly, his father, Lu Tingxiao, starts falling for her too.

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“Mr. Xu, are you really a Heavenly Master?”

“As genuine as they come, more real than gold!”

“I’ve heard that your reputation in the supernatural circle is really bad, even to the point where a ghost once called the police saying you were threatening him?”

“Impossible!”

“It wasn’t me!”

“Don’t talk nonsense!”

Xu Yang clenched the Thousand-Year Peachwood Sword in his hand, and said, “What’s the name of that ghost? Would you dare to let him confront me face to face?”

(PS: This book is also known as ‘This Heavenly Master is too Vicious’, ‘Scaring Ghosts Makes You Stronger’.)

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.

Kaidan (Kaidan refers to eerie tales of strange, mysterious, rare, or bewitching ghosts and monsters from Japanese folklore.) feed on cognition, wield information as weapons, and use information as currency, existing between the peculiarities of neither life nor death.They exist in human rumors and dwell in the shadows of the world.“Does this mean I will become a Kaidan?”In ancient times, they were worshipped as deities, empowered by faith.“Then I am a deity!”In more recent ancient times, they were regarded as demons and fed on fear.“I will become the master of Kaidan!”However, as the tides of time washed over, they gradually vanished, leaving behind only texts considered to be delusions.“To restore the glory of Kaidan is an undeniable duty of ours.”But you are not yet a Kaidan, hmm, nor a person.“Well, becoming a Kaidan counts as success.”