World Suppression

Bathroom

Just as Jiang Hou was recalling everything that had happened today, a girl's voice came from outside. "Jiang Hou, are you in there?"

"Yeah, it's me." Jiang Hou came back to his senses and answered.

Outside the bathroom stood a young girl in pink pajamas.

Her face was fair and slightly round, her brows and eyes picturesque, and her nose delicate. She was very pretty, especially those beautiful blue eyes that looked like sapphires beneath the light.

But her brows were slightly furrowed at the moment. "Why did you come back so late? It's already past ten. Didn't you say you were going for a walk in the park?"

"Ahem... Well, I fell asleep on a bench." Jiang Hou came up with an excuse.

"You could fall asleep on a park bench? Be careful not to catch a cold."

"Yeah, it won't happen again."

"Fine, as long as you're okay. Finish washing up and get to bed early..."

"Okay."

Hearing the sound of the door closing outside, a hint of warmth appeared in Jiang Hou's eyes.

The girl from earlier was Qin Siyu, the daughter of the homeowner, Qin Buyi. As for Jiang Hou, he could be considered Qin Buyi's adopted son.

When Jiang Hou was seven, his family got into a car accident while traveling. His parents and grandfather all died in that accident, leaving the few-year-old him an orphan.

Although his relatives helped handle the funeral arrangements, none of them were willing to raise an extra burden.

In the end, Qin Buyi, who learned of the matter, drove over from the neighboring province, found Jiang Hou, and adopted him as his father's former comrade-in-arms.

Besides Qin Buyi himself, there was also a daughter in the family who was one month younger than Jiang Hou.

As for Qin Buyi's wife, Jiang Hou had heard that she was from another country. When Qin Siyu was very young, she returned to her homeland for some reason and never came back.

That was how the three of them formed a new family.

Fortunately, Qin Buyi had a decent job. He was the head of security at a mining site, and his monthly income was enough to cover the family's expenses. That was how he managed, through many hardships, to raise the two of them to this age.

Qin Siyu had not rejected Jiang Hou when he suddenly appeared in her life either. The two had always gotten along well since childhood.

It was just that after they entered high school, the girl occasionally nagged him.

She said that all he ever did was stay cooped up at home, that he never cared about his appearance, and that he would not even cut his hair when it got long. No wonder he was already in his senior year and still could not find a girlfriend.

Jiang Hou merely smiled every time and never took it to heart.

His adult mindset had made him seem out of place among those around him ever since infancy. Once he grew older, he could not get along with his so-called peers either.

It could not be helped. In his eyes, the things those children played with were too childish.

Their behavior and manner of speaking were completely on different wavelengths from his.

As for relying on the advantages of being a transmigrator to build a fortune step by step from childhood, it was enough just to think about it.

This was not Earth, nor had he been reborn ten or twenty years in the past. Without the advantage of foresight and unfamiliar with the world, how was he supposed to get started?

And if someone's behavior, speech, and way of thinking exceeded what was appropriate for their age, they would seem strange to those around them and attract too much attention.

For example, an elementary school student constantly making the sort of observations on life that only adults would make would always seem odd.

Thus, Jiang Hou had appeared withdrawn since childhood. He was quiet by nature and had few friends. Only when he was with Qin Siyu and Qin Buyi did he speak a little more.

Of course, that quiet personality was only how others saw him.

Having experienced death, coupled with the upheaval in his childhood family, Jiang Hou had become somewhat detached. He viewed many people and matters lightly and had little interest in them.

As long as he felt comfortable living his own life, that was enough.

Lost in thought, Jiang Hou turned off the shower, picked up a towel, and began drying his hair. As he did, his gaze fell on the mirror.

The youth in the mirror had damp, disheveled hair and a tall, straight figure. The muscles of his arms and chest bulged noticeably, especially the outlines of the six muscles on his abdomen.

Even Jiang Hou had to admit that his reflection looked pretty good.

Yet before tonight, he had merely been an ordinary high school student with somewhat delicate features, and even a few pimples typical of his age on his face.

Although he was 1.78 meters tall, he had been somewhat thin due to his lack of exercise.

But now, he felt that he had probably reached 1.8 meters! "Handsome!" Jiang Hou narcissistically praised himself, raised an arm in a bodybuilding pose, then dried his hair and got dressed before heading out.

By then, Qin Siyu had already returned to her room, but Jiang Hou knew she definitely was not asleep yet and was playing on her phone.

With the spread of smartphones, the internet had become integrated into every aspect of people's lives—games, entertainment, socializing, daily life—making it impossible for everyone to live without it.

Jiang Hou shook his head, switched off the hallway light, and returned to his room as well.

Qin Buyi's workplace was rather far away, and driving back and forth took several hours. Since Qin Siyu started high school, he had been staying at the company and only came home on Sundays.

Therefore, it was usually just the two of them at home.

After returning to his room, Jiang Hou lay on his bed and looked at the back of his left hand.

The black mark had shrunk along with him when he returned to human form. It was about ten centimeters long and five centimeters wide, covering most of the back of his hand. It was rather conspicuous.

"I'll need to cover this thing up somehow." Jiang Hou pondered.

He had entered the ruins because of that black mist. Since he could enter, others could as well. There might even have already been many people who had gone in.

Moreover, after returning, Jiang Hou had felt an invisible suppression. That powerful force had directly forced him from the Black Giant Ape form back into human form.

Although he felt that he could still forcibly transform into the Behemoth Form, the expenditure of "stamina" would become terrifyingly great.

Under such circumstances, Jiang Hou could not easily use his Behemoth Form as a trump card. He was left with physical abilities only two or three times those of an ordinary person, and a handgun could take him out.

However, this suppressive force did not seem to affect physical constitution. It only targeted supernatural power, which was good news for Jiang Hou.

Once his Behemoth Form continued growing in the future and exceeded a hundred or even several hundred meters in size, the various attributes of his human form would also rise to astonishing levels.

By then, when his movement speed surpassed the speed of sound and his strength was enough to blow up a building with one punch, he would no longer need to worry about his safety.

At that thought, a smile appeared on Jiang Hou's face.

Of course, for now, it was enough just to think about it. The ruins were not a paradise, but hell. Those monsters and ferocious beasts would not simply stand there and let him kill them.

Perhaps the next time he entered, he would encounter some terrifying creature and be killed in a single strike.

After letting his imagination run wild for a while, Jiang Hou took out his phone, opened a video app, and after a brief pause, typed "strange incidents across the country" into the search bar.

A pile of videos related to the title immediately appeared.

Cultivator undergoes tribulation in the rain, takes heavenly lightning without injury

Mysterious creature spotted in the Qingshan River, suspected to be the legendary water monster

Dense fog shrouds the area as many witness the silhouette of a massive creature

Giant titan python corpse discovered, reaching an astonishing length of twenty-seven meters and exceeding the world record

A roundup of the ten greatest mysterious creatures from recent years... These video titles were all exaggerated, making it seem as though there truly were so many mystical creatures and cultivators.

But once Jiang Hou clicked into the videos, he could clearly see the traces of Photoshop on those monster images. Even the tribulation scene had simply been edited to add a person.

As he kept scrolling, Jiang Hou did not even know when he fell asleep.

It was not until the next morning, when a sudden knock sounded at the door, that he woke with a start.

"Jiang Hou, get up."

Awakened by the noise, Jiang Hou opened his eyes and stared blankly at the ceiling for a moment before reacting.

"Coming."

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