The Godsfall Chronicles - Book 7, Chapter 82 - City Beneath the Emerald Star

[Debt collection + metaphysics + cool writing]

Ling Chu is dead.

Inexplicably, he traveled through time and became the eldest girl of Shangshu Mansion.

However, he was not favored. He was ordered by the Taoist priests when he was just born to punish his relatives.

He was sent to a Taoist temple for foster care since he was a child, and was not taken back to his hometown until he was a child.

She thought she would live a happy and beautiful life from now on, but what greeted her was an imperial edict to behead everyone in her family.

In order to save her life, she risked her life and cooperated with Jin Yiwei to ransack her home.

For this reason, everyone rebelled against their relatives.

Others thought she was going to cry bitterly, confess to her family and ask for forgiveness.

But she was busy collecting debts, making money, and helping ghosts fulfill their last wishes and accumulate merit to extend her life.

Just when she was living a happy life as a child, she discovered that her parents were both fake.

Just when everyone in Kyoto was waiting for her to go back and fight with the fake daughter,

But she turned around and joined the frightened Jin Yiwei, and was busy following the God of Death every day to ransack homes all over the capital.

- Description from novelbuddy

“I was born as a princess in the most powerful lineage in the world… but that lineage is now on the verge of collapse.”In a kingdom where strength is everything, royal blood has long ceased to produce true powerhouses. Sects and clans are just waiting for our family to show weakness so they can tear us apart.But this lineage is not dead yet.He is still here.A being feared even by the strongest cultivators.The only reason this kingdom still stands.And me?If I want to survive in a world where only power matters… I must become a monster feared by all.

“That baby is mine, and so are you,” He declared, pointing at Kate’s belly while his deep green eyes gazed at Kate, like a viper ready to strike.Kate couldn’t believe that he– Henry Grant, her new boss eight years younger than her, was the father of her unborn child.“We should be together by default. But I will give you a choice. Go and suffer with your deadbeat husband, or come with me, I will show you the fun you’ve missed.”=====For the past five years of her marriage, Katherine “Kate” Woods, 32, had always believed she was infertile. She was unable to conceive a child and her deadbeat husband Matt always insulted her for it, calling her a useless woman despite never finding a job himself, forcing Kate to be the sole breadwinner of their family.Yet, he still had the nerve to cheat on her with her own sister!Heartbroken, Kate escaped to her office late at night with four bottles of strong red wine. To her surprise, she wasn’t alone.A handsome young man stood in her office, watching her.He refused to give her his name, but offered to keep her company for the night. With lust and booze coursing through her veins, Kate readily abandoned herself to her basest, most repressed instincts, seducing the nameless but willing visitor.In her drunken stupor, she boldly declared, ”If my husband wants to sleep with every woman on earth, then two can play that game.“She didn’t care if they did it raw, as she always thought she was barren. Only to find herself staring at a positive pregnancy test a month later.Kate Woods, the supposedly ‘barren woman,’ was pregnant.The stranger had accomplished in one night what Matt could not in five years.Now that Henry has given her a choice, would Kate leave her deadbeat husband and jump into the sea of uncertainty with this young man?Or would she stay with Matt, her husband who cheated on her for the sake of their families?

Eric Maddox, a 70-year-old American retired football coach once hailed for his tactical brilliance, now forgotten by time—closes his eyes for what he believes is a normal nap in his quiet Florida retirement home.But when he opens them, he's not staring at ceiling tiles, instead, he's on a touchline.Wearing boots in the rain.With players running on the pitch, fans jeering behind barriers, and the smell of cheap turf pellets in the air.“What the hell is this?”He’s twenty-five again, but it’s not Earth. It’s a world where football reigns supreme. A world where the sport is religion, its practitioners, deities in cleats. Coaches are revered, players are worshipped, and even the kit man gets treated like royalty.But there's one catch: none of it is familiar. The clubs, the players, the leagues, the competitions, and even the currency—they're all different. Alien. Like waking up in a dream where the rules are the same, but the language is foreign.As if that wasn’t enough, the body he’s now in? A youth coach with a laughable win record, a looming divorce, and a measly fifty thousand in the bank that his ex-wife is fighting tooth and nail to take. All of it.Just when the spiral seems inevitable, a monotone chime pierces the noise.[Initiating Golden Finger…][…45%… 75%… 100%][System Integration Complete.][Welcome, host. You are now bound to the Pro Manager System. Objective: Dominate the Football World. A new era begins]From washed-up has-been to chosen one of destiny, Eric Maddox is about to trade arthritis pills for tactical boards, and shuffleboard for Prestigious Cup glory.Because in this world, tactics are power.And on this touchline, he’s about to become a god.