Tree of Aeons - 296. Braided branches

He called me his ruin. Then he made me one.Alpha Shiloh's rejection wasn’t just a scar—it was a betrayal. He left me shattered. Broken. And I had to rebuild myself in silence.I almost forgot the way his touch once burned like salvation.Now he’s back.Not to beg forgiveness. To bargain. A deadly mission, he says. He promises freedom.But then presence ignites my wolf into a frenzy. She thrashes, desperate to claim him again. But I remember the coldness in his eyes when he exiled me. The way the pack turned their backs as I crawled into the wilderness, half-dead and wholly broken. Hate simmers hotter than desire.Yet here I am, bargaining with the devil who shattered me. Every moment we share is a lie. He doesn’t know about the shadows I’ve fed, the truth I’ve buried.Or the child.One whisper of its existence, and the pack will paint the forest with my blood.But the closer we get to completing his mission, the harder it is to hide… from him, or from the part of me that still craves him.Freedom has a price.So does vengeance.And I’m not sure which will destroy me first.

One scam package,That's all it took to drag the 17-year-old Cail into the world of the void....He thought he had ordered a limited-edition sneakers. But what came was a shady-looking package on his front gate. It smelled like rotten egg and sulfur. Inside the package was a strange box.It's filled with eccentric junk. They looked very intricate and mysterious. He thought, “I probably got someone else's package, a package from someone that was very interested in mysticism.”An old coin, a cracked compass, a ring with an ugly center stone, and some other weird looking trinkets.So he did what any broke student would do:He sold it. He figured someone might want them for cosplay or something. Well, except the gold-rimmed glasses that seemed to fit him very well.“Damn, I paid 7,000 nu for that sneaker; I better get something out from this scam package.”Then all hell broke loose. Strange people started approaching him.People brought that junk. Very strange people wearing suspicious get up trying to buy those stuff in the sketchiest manner possible.As he kept selling, he realized that the box was refilling, it seemed to have an endless supply of those strange stuff. Those people called it 'artifacts'.Then one day he woke up with a strange tattoo on his arm; inside the tattoo was an independent space containing the box. It is basically inseparable from him.“I didn't ask for any of this to happen. But now, strange people come to me with desperate offers. Money, memories, and even soul.”He's just trying to survive high school while earning some money!He had no idea what was going on, but apparently, this thing that he got? It's not just an artifact. It's a contract.As Cail navagates school life, part-time jobs, and otherworldly clients, he starts asking the real question:When did I become an artifact dealer?!By day, he is just an ordinary student, a NPC character.And by night? He is The Dealer. Selling ancient items and dealing with people that he probably shouldn't be talking to.“Since I'm already in this mess, might as well profit off of it.”

Xia Yu made a wish to eat until he vomited. And this particular wish brought him to a completely strange world which was full of cuisines.What, Chef God System?“You need to not only satisfy normal people's appetite but also all kinds of devils and ghosts. Use your food to move them!” the old man said to him coolly.So, Xia Yu would never stop running on the road of becoming a Chef God.