Vaudevillain - VV4, 20 - Stalling For Time

Liu Xu’er had once hoped that if she were to be reborn, she would be born to old money, and have a rich, handsome and tall husband. That way, she could have a carefree life of luxury!

Then she actually was reborn…. to a family that had been poor for generations, and lost her rich, handsome and tall husband.

Wait, why does this little husband sound so familiar?

Surely it can’t be…. Liu Xu’er helplessly thought – Heaven, must he too be sent here? Would it have been so difficult to have given me a different husband…

- Description from Novelupdates

In the world of cultivation, countless tales follow righteous protagonists, fated heroes blessed by destiny, or those chosen by heaven to walk the path of immortality.But what of those who stand in their way?What of the villains? The so-called obstacles to the hero’s journey—do they not bleed, dream, and struggle as well?Xiao Ning was never meant to succeed.From the very beginning, the Grand Dao wove him as a stepping stone—a necessary sacrifice to elevate another. His path, like that of all designated ‘villains,’ was doomed to failure by design.But what happens when that design is defied?After death, Xiao Ning awakens—not in the cycle of reincarnation, but in the cold silence beyond it. There, he is offered the Eternal Paradox Codex—a forbidden artifact containing the hidden truths of the Grand Dao System itself.Rules. Loopholes. Vulnerabilities.Knowledge not meant for those like him.With this power, Xiao Ning is granted a single, impossible choice: accept oblivion, or step outside the Grand Dao entirely—to abandon fate, sever karma, and cultivate a path unbound by heaven or law.It is Xiao Ning’s journey, from ashes to something beyond comprehension.Not to become an Immortal among men.But something even the heavens dare not bind.If fate is a chain…Then let him forge his own path in the void beyond.Welcome to this humble tale.The cultivation world is vast and unkind.Let us begin again—on our terms.

"In her previous life, she is used by her first love to send her own company into the tiger's den. She becomes bankrupt, gets kicked out of the house by her father, and becomes the target of ridicule by the family. Worst of all, she believes her best friend's lies, thinking that everything was done by her ‘husband’. Under her best friend's ploys, she almost kills him and is ultimately sentenced to prison, where she dies of depression.

John Mirage was a young hacker, waiting for his court trial, when he was presented with a choice. Joining a secret ‘fake’ government program, he ended up playing right in a totally unexpected foul play from the future!He found himself travelling into the future, inside a VR game called “Athanasia”, where he gained a Hacker System, lots of abilities, and was facing a grand scheme that ran deeper than anyone thought!The fight between humans and machines in the future wasn’t just brutal and cunning; it also spanned to include the VR game, the real world, and even a totally alien world, with different powers in play, even alien races! And John was standing right in the heart of all this, as the variable and anomaly no one expected!Armed with his system, John will struggle to complete quests, learn new abilities, hack everything, increase his system synchronisation level and upgrade his system to become a powerhouse and an unexpected variable in that war!John will fight on different fronts, against overwhelming odds, and find a way to hack his success through all adversaries!