MTL - Denghuaxiao - Chapter 17 Retreat to advance

The ordinary world is not ordinary, ordinary people are not ordinary, and safe places are not safe.

This is a story of a passer-by male protagonist who is entangled by various girls with strange hobbies or even non-human beings while surviving in the cracks and opening a harem.

- Description from novelbuddy

She is one the most famous thieves of the twenty-first century and the legendary racing queen who is unrivalled in the underworld.

She is a carefree girl who comes and goes as she pleases like the wind.

He is a powerful underworld boss, known to be cruel and merciless.

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He didn’t think that someone would dare to provoke him by touching what belonged to him. Since they had shown him enmity, then he would return it in her stead.

Passion. Love. Hate. Pain.

It was all impossible to unravel.

- Description from Novelupdates

They call him Ghost.A name whispered in fear across warzones, black markets, and underworld circles.To the world, he's a phantom—a faceless mercenary who leaves no trace but bodies in his wake.To his enemies, he’s a death sentence.To his brothers-in-arms in Graveyard, he’s family.But to himself... he's a haunted man searching for a past stolen in gunfire and smoke.After a flawless mission deep in the Eastern Province, Ghost returns to the hidden forest base he's called home for sixteen years. Yet the victory is short-lived. His foster father, the commander delivers an unexpected order:“That was your last mission.”Now, Ghost—real name Miles Sterling—must step out of the shadows of war and into a world he’s never known. Guided only by a scarred letter, a fading memory, and the voice of a woman he hasn’t seen since the day everything was taken from him.But war forged more than his body and name.Behind the mask, behind the scars, Miles has another secret.One he’s kept hidden even from his brothers in arms.He’s not just a weapon.He’s a ghost with a fortune—a hidden empire he built in silence, across borders and black markets, forged in strategy and blood.A man of many names, and many shadows.Beneath the bullets, tattoos, and silence lies a truth buried in ashes.And Ghost is about to dig it up—one letter, one enemy, one memory at a time.

A calculating merchant of noble birth lives a comfortable life managing his guild's business at the Imperial Academy—until lightning strikes him, leaving him with prophetic visions of a disastrous future. In these visions, he's expelled from his family, branded a traitor who aids demons, and worst of all, becomes a penniless beggar. When the supposed “protagonist” of these prophecies enrolls at the academy, he realizes his countdown to ruin has begun. Now he must use his foresight to rewrite a story where he's cast as a third-rate villain, all while navigating ancient dungeons, demonic threats, and the troublesome “hero” who might be the key to changing his fate.#MoneyIsEverything