The Devil CEO's Contract Wife - Chapter 17: Dangerous Waters

The rivers and lakes carry wine with swords, the waist is slender and the palm is light.

The young man carried a long knife on his shoulder, and hung wine on his waist, striding forward, but the rivers and lakes in his heart were vaguely visible.

Turning a page in the book of troubled times, the rivers and lakes have been raining nightly for decades.

Looking back suddenly, the world has been shattered.

- Description from novelbuddy

In the autumn of the 28th year of the apocalypse, Gu Xi and her companions finally eliminated the last Zombie Emperor in the world.That night, at the celebration banquet held at the base, Gu Xi took the fine wine handed to her by a companion, and then... she collapsed headfirst.When she woke up again, it was already the 58th year of the apocalypse.30 years had passed, and the beautiful world that Gu Xi had once yearned for and for which she had fought tooth and nail did not appear.Although human society had restored order, a new food crisis arose—after plants and animals underwent a second mutation, a bizarre energy that the human body could not digest, absorb, or excrete through metabolism suddenly appeared within them.And she, Gu Xiaoxi, also had a brand-new identity—a refugee girl picked up from the ruins by a group of pioneers.The newly-minted undocumented girl, Gu Xiaoxi: No more fighting and killing, no more shouldering the future of all humanity; just needing to cultivate one hundred acres of wasteland to achieve the simple dream of eating well, drinking well, and getting a peaceful night's sleep is pretty good.Later, she discovered that her former companions had all become powerful figures, while she, the former apocalyptic hero, had become a person who was never recorded in history.Gu Xiaoxi: ?

Reincarnated into the muddy guts of a cursed swamp as a tsetse fly, former office worker and master-level cynic Buzz Windbreaker quickly discovers that survival is both absurd and magnificent. The air is thick with poison, the predators are many-limbed and spell-woven, and the prey? Just as desperate as he is.Yet with every drop of blood he drains from beast, beastkin, or unlucky mortal, Buzz unlocks fragments of an ancient arcane lattice that spirals beneath the skin of the world itself—a system of runes, incantation spirals, and primordial energy flows forgotten by even the highborn mages.His evolution isn't just physical: it is architectural. Each new form is built like a spell—symmetrical, efficient, cruel. Wings shimmer with sigil arrays. Proboscises become siphons of mana and memory. Legs are sharpened to runic blades. Jokes sting. Death stings harder.Soon, Buzz isn't just hunting. He is ascending.

Sophia Alcott, the daughter of Earl Alcott, lives a lonely life as a maligned and infamous shut in, with nothing to do but to work on her skills as a budding apothecary in the dusty storeroom she’s forced to call home.That is until she suddenly wakes up one day and finds herself in the body of an even more infamous villainess (one who actually earned her reputation) locked up in a tower.Although the only clue she has about how this happened is a cryptic note, instead of despairing about her new situation, she’s in awe at just how luxurious the treatment she’s receiving in this ‘prison’ is compared to how she had to live before.Meanwhile, back at Earl Alcott’s mansion, all hell is about to break loose.That’s because…