The Stepmother's Counterattack: Raising a Child in a Bygone Era - Chapter 54 - The Dog Man is a bit domineering and forceful on the body

“I Possessed the Academy’s Silver-Rank Examiner.”I was on the verge of becoming someone who’d be pushed around by students left and right…◎ [Silver Gatekeeper]“No one can pass without the Gatekeeper’s permission.”I awakened an absurdly overpowered trait.TN: This novel follows a protagonist who becomes a rank examiner, tasked with evaluating students at an academy to determine whether they are worthy of advancing from Bronze to Silver rank. Known as the Silver Gatekeeper, he has the authority to decide which students can progress. As a gatekeeper, he possesses overpowered abilities, making him powerful when fighting on the examination field.

When you grow up, you’re mine.

~~~

Lu Feng, with her fiery character and short temper, only had one fatal weakness. That was the lukewarm and soft Xu Mu.

There were so many youths in the capital, yet she took fancy to none of them. She instead sought after her newly arrived neighbor’s sweetie and secretly planned to kidnap him home.

Until one day, the two became cousins…

Lu Feng: … That nutrient-rich water cannot flow into someone else’s field!

Xu Mu: =v=

~~~

Xu Mu: What am I to you?

Lu Feng: You are my sweetest candied fruit!

~~~

In their previous life, Xu Mu and Lu Feng were married for only half a year when she died in battle. Xu Mu couldn’t bear the news of her death and followed her three days later.

Who knew that after he died, time flowed backward and returned him to their childhood. Xu Mu sat on his bed, dazed. In this life, he needed to think of a way to first find his wife, then chase her with all his strength. Only until he made up their past life to her would he “leave”.

Xu Mu: Last life, I didn’t love you enough. This life, I want to love you even more. Starting from innocent little childhood friends to the grey-haired and weak elderly, I will not let you go.

- Description from Novelupdates

“The harder I try to hate you, the deeper I fall for you.”

His presence irked her to the core, but whenever he got out of her sight, she missed him?!

….

A tyrant, known to be the city’s infamous playboy.

As an executive assistant, she was forced to work under him by the most cruel twist of fate.

If losing her job overnight was a nightmare, then working under a boss like Desmond Fort was hell. He was an arrogant narcissist with an ego bigger than the whole of Imperium city, but that was not what angered her the most.

The most infuriating fact was that despite his constant assholery, her heart seemed to stupidly skip a beat every time he gazed at her with those devilishly charming eyes.

She knew she was making a mistake but that didn't stop her from sinking deeper and deeper into his charm.

All she wanted now was to leave! But leaving hell was not nearly as easy as getting in.

I am currently re-writing the first chapters of this story. They are quite rough and bounce around a lot and I can do better. At some point, I will replace these with the better chapters.Sometime in 2024 Aethon Books will publish the first volume of this story on Amazon, KU, and audible. This will mean the story will be stubbed. I will notify people far in advance of that.In the dystopian world of the future, life is rough when you live at the bottom. Jobs are non-existent. Far too many people live in poverty, crammed into huge buildings called Habitats. With no jobs in the real world, many people can only find work online in VR worlds as servants to the very rich. And it's getting worse. The old internet is unusable and hacked to pieces. The new system needs AI to run things, but all but one of them were destroyed. The last sentient AI is ordered to create a new game world so the rich can have a playground, and the corporations that rule the world can have a new global market place. Everyone wants a piece of the new game. The guilds are competing to be the first to find the dungeons and kill the biggest monster. The corporations are claiming land and putting in their online market places. Ozzy and his friends just want a paycheck.Four friends sign five year contracts as virtual serfs in a small village, and can't go adventuring at all to gain money. They don't have many choices. They can work as a blacksmith, barmaid and shepherd for all those years....or they can cheat and find ways to take advantage of the system and carve out a section of the game world for themselves, and earn a fortune in the real world.When they give you a mop and not a sword, you have to find the loopholes and change the rules.