Rise (Web Novel CN) - Chapter 425: Dead Heat

When Lu Yuan woke up, he found himself ten years in the past.Lu Yuan then made the choice no one understood.He liquidated his family fortune, dumped billions into “worthless” relics, and earned the title of the biggest idiot heir alive.But no one knew that three months later, the Global Awakening would arrive. Humanity would evolve. Alien horrors would invade. And cash? Just colored paper.Armed with knowledge of the next decade, Lu Yuan began his insane preparations. He spent billions to claim treasures no one else valued: the ancient Bodhi Tree that granted billionfold talent; the complete Dao De Jing; a farmland where a landed meteorite held a celestial sword embryo.The world mocked him as a prodigal heir. The antique world whispered about a mysterious buyer.The world laughed at him until the Awakening came. Then they trembled. Lu Yuan was invincible across the earth.Beneath immortals, none can defeat me. Before immortals, I’ll trade life for life.

After a one-night stand, she faked her death and transformed into his flash-married ugly wife, while he didn't know that she was the woman from that night.Is the ugly wife really so unfashionable and greedy for food and lust? It's all an act. She's only trying to hide her real identity.They survived in the cracks of various schemes. When her hidden identities were exposed, the man's eyes were filled with coldness: “You pretended to be ugly and dumb, are you kidding me?”She smiled faintly: “Didn't you get any joy and pleasure from it?”He frowned: “You deceived me for my looks!”She held her forehead: “I can only blame you for being so good-looking!”He looked as if he wanted to swallow her whole: “I'm not someone to mess with.”She responded calmly: “It's getting late. Time to wash up and go to bed!”

“Mr. Lei, rumor has it that you have a crush on me?”

With a cold icy face, the man ignored her question and continued reading his documents. He later decided to explain himself, “I swear to God I want nothing to do with you! The b*stard who spread the rumor is a dog!”

Snap! Suddenly, a pencil snapped in his hands while their eyes meet. The surrounding seemed to have frozen.

A few moments passed…

“Grrr woof!” Lei Xiao barked…

After being torn from the only life she knew, 16-year-old Margo is forced into a new home with strangers who call themselves her parents. Haunted by memories of her past and consumed by feelings of isolation, she struggles to adapt to her unfamiliar surroundings. School offers little relief—until she meets Lucien, a mysterious boy who appears just when she needs a friend the most.Gabriel is everything Margo needs: kind, attentive, and always ready to whisk her away from her troubles. Each night, he invites her to secret places—an abandoned playground, a fog-choked garden, a crumbling train station at the edge of town—each more unsettling than the last. Yet with every chilling rendezvous, Margo feels more alive... more seen.But something isn’t right. Gabriel never comes to school during the day. Her adoptive parents never see him. And when they catch her talking to thin air, their concern deepens into fear. They say Gabriel isn't real—that he’s a figment of her imagination. Margo wants to believe them, but Gabriel feels real. More real than anything else in her life.As the nights grow colder and more twisted, Gabriel’s true nature begins to surface. Shadows move where they shouldn’t. Time warps in his presence. And the places they visit seem to echo with whispers from another world. Margo is forced to ask herself: Who—or what—is Gabriel? Why does he only want her? And what will happen on the final night he asks her to come with him?As the line between reality and delusion begins to crumble, Margo must make an impossible choice: stay in a world where she feels loved, or return to one that barely feels real.But one thing is certain—some friendships never let go.