The Next Big Thing - Chapter 52: Happy New Year

Life isn’t dramatic.

Takasugi Shinsaku once mentioned, “The mind to bring interest to an otherwise uninteresting world”, but if you’ll let me have my say, “An otherwise uninteresting world is also interesting”.

The world is just right with this level of boredom.

That is the conclusion to the results of my, Kagoshima Akira’s seventeen years of lived experience.

It’s not like anything’s ever going to happen.

I mean.

Witches from other worlds,

and cyber soldiers paying a visit from the future,

and psychics fighting under the instruction of research institutions

don’t exist, after all.

When powerless, unfavoured Princess Soleia was arranged to marry the newly titled Duke Orion Elsher, she assumed they would find love eventually.Who knew that her father would send off her husband mere hours later to fight a war?Soleia was left alone to deal with an impoverished fief, a crumbling estate, and spiteful, vindictive relatives of the Duke who all wished to see her gone.She couldn’t leave― there was nowhere else to go. Soleia desperately wanted her husband to return so he could offer her a helping hand. However, when he did, he returned with Elowyn, a woman he claimed was his true love.A woman hellbent on taking her place as the rightful Duchess, no matter what she had to do to get Soleia out of the way.Mistreated, misunderstood, and miserable, Soleia was eventually thrown out of the estate she helped build.Fortunately, when one door closes, another one opens. Unknown to Soleia, a man more powerful than her husband had been watching her, waiting for the right time to snatch her into his gilded cage. Duke Elsher had been foolish to let go― but the crown prince of Raxuvia wouldn’t make the same mistake.***Prequel to Stolen by the Rebel King.

Jiang Tong was a person who had no tomorrow. She was stuck in an endless loop, repeating the same day, 4th April of the year 2022. From the initial excitement up until despair, Jiang Tong had tried everything to escape. She killed herself countless times, using different methods, but she would always wake up on the day of 4th April 2022. To pass her unlimited time, she learned more than a thousand and three hundred skills. From languages, to shooting skills, culinary skills, performing arts, etc. Jiang Tong learned everything imaginable. She enjoyed the excitement and hotblooded fights brought about by wrestling; she enjoyed the speed and thrill brought about by car racing; the pleasure of seducing and tasting all kinds of handsome men; the therapeutic sensations of playing various instruments.

No matter how much trouble she got into, when it got to four in the morning, she would suddenly fall asleep and wake up on the morning of 4th April. Until… After countless trials and errors, she finally managed to bed Z City’s most dignified but also the weakest young master, Ji Lanzhou. Ji Lanzhou was the Ji family’s youngest young master. Due to his frail body, he was the apple of the Ji family’s eye. No one in Z City dared to mess with him. But Jiang Tong didn’t care because she would have to relive this day again tomorrow. Yet… When dawn came, Jiang Tong was shocked to find Ji Lanzhou sleeping on her bed when she opened her eyes. The man even looked pale from having overexerted himself. Jiang Tong was delighted! She looked at her phone, and the date showed 5th April, 2022! After five hundred years, more than a hundred and eighty days, she was finally out of the loop! Ji Lanzhou woke up to see Jiang Tong laughing and crying like a mad woman. He pursed his pale lips and said, “Liar.” Jiang Tong raised an eyebrow. “It was an accident, Sweetie. So now I have to run for my life.” Ji Lanzhou was baffled.

“I was nothing... and now, I have one chance to steal everything.”In his previous world, Ethan was just another failure. No talents, no dreams, no hope.But death wasn’t the end it was a new beginning.He wakes up in the body of “Valerian Lucard,” the son of a great family... but the weakest among them. Neglected, shunned, broken.But this time, things are different.He has an unbelievable ability:Fate Theft.Skills, talents, future opportunities... he can steal them, but at a heavy price.And the worst part? What’s stolen... never lasts.Now begins his race against everyone: the elites, the geniuses, the chosen heroes.Not because he's strong, but because he refuses to be nothing... ever again.In this world, either you steal glory... or everything gets stolen from you.