Monster Breeder - 27. Twisted Treefolk Part 1

Though it may be a dream weathered, crumpled, fading,I held on without surrender.Through each repeated day, running toward tomorrow’s light,I became a knight, resolute and bright.

The year he was fifteen, Ling Ke realized he was gay, and that he fell in love with a hot guy the same gender he was! Ling Ke spied on the other’s online friend group, payed attention to that person’s every move, and privately, started his fanatical fanboying actions. Unfortunately, the hot guy he liked was someone who changed girlfriends like he changed clothes, a pretentious and straight male.

A few years later, Ling Ke and the hot guy he was secretly in love with got into the same university and became good friends. In order to prevent his beloved from hating him, Ling Ke repressed his true feelings and forced himself to pretend to be a 24k, pure gold straight guy.
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Having high-spec looks, Qi Feng was a networking expert, but in order to preserve his all-around shining and popular hearthrob image, he always hid his true sexuality, that he was gay. He got himself (fake) girlfriends all throughout school, literally playing himself into being branded as a skirt-chaser.

Until one day, he met his true love. The other looked delicate and gentle, cold and out-of-reach, as if the ideal lover he’d dreamed of in his heart.

Except, there was just one thing. That guy also looked completely straight……

In short, this is the love story of two scared, in-the-closet gay guys pretending to be straight while mutually trying to feel the other out.

- Description from Novelupdates

The year is 2025. A devout Christian named Arthur Bennett wins a lottery to participate in a revolutionary virtual reality experience at a high-tech company called Elysium. The program utilizes a unique VR pod to immerse users in a world based on a popular anime.As the other participants—a mix of personalities with varying degrees of anime knowledge—prepare to enter the simulation, Arthur remains the only one who has never indulged in anime. Upon entering this new world, he discovers an unsettling truth: pain is excruciatingly real, despite the creators' claims of a dampened pain response.He eventually finds himself trapped in prison, unable to log out, and demanding to be released from the program. Calls go unanswered, and the world of ninjas becomes a nightmare where hunger, thirst, hygiene, and even death are all real.Angered that he was deceived, he abandons all sense of logic and vows to become a villain no one would have ever anticipated.

Seven years ago, she freely and easily abandoned ￥100 and ran away, carrying her unborn son with her. Seven years later, she returned with the lady killer’s genius son, never expecting that her darling son would sell her out to MBS International. Unexpectedly, her immediate superior was the Mr. ￥100 from seven years ago!