When system cheat becomes rampant!

[Tail Constellation: Recoil in Fear]

[Ability description: Prevents anything from moving forward]

Xiang Beifei carefully examined the stone pillar, which appeared ancient, even though it was only about a meter tall. Initially, it seemed to have some carvings, but they had been worn smooth and now had a gray-white sheen. Find more chapters on My Virtual Library Empire

"Able to stop in place? That's quite a peculiar ability," he said.

He wondered if it would work on desolate beasts. This constellation's power could be really useful for being pursued or tracking someone, or possibly for immobilizing an opponent during a fight.

Contemplating this, Xiang Beifei wanted to give it a try.

He walked over to the bedroom window and looked down. Below was an alley Xiang Beifei usually took on his way home, lined with lush trees whose leaves fluttered occasionally as people hurried by.

To the left of the road was a flower bed, planted with vibrant green hedges. He waved his hand, and the stone pillar turned into a gray light that flew out and landed in the middle of the hedge, where its branches and leaves engulfed the pillar, concealing it from view from outside the flower bed.

About a minute later, two girls around seven or eight years old appeared in the distance. They seemed to be sisters, each with pink butterfly bows in their hair, and they giggled as they passed by the small alley.

But as they reached about ten meters from the flower bed, they suddenly and simultaneously stopped!

The taller girl in yellow looked ahead in surprise. Her gaze wasn't directed at the stone pillar in the flower bed, but further down the alley as if something startling there had caught her attention.

"Sis, the path is blocked here!" the taller sister said.

However, her younger sister clutched her hand tightly and leaned against her, saying nervously, "Sister, that man looks scary! We can't go any further!"

"What do you mean? It's just a pile of sand here! They have dug up the road."

"But I saw that man smiling at us menacingly. We better go back," the younger sister insisted.

The older sister found it strange as she looked around for a long time but saw no one. Yet, she no longer wanted to continue forward and turned to lead her sister away.

"Huh? The sisters saw something different?"

Xiang Beifei stood by the window, pondering the alley below.

The "Recoil in Fear" stone pillar seemed to affect people differently; their reasons for stopping were not the same.

Xiang Beifei mused over this and continued experimenting for a while.

A man who approached within about five meters of the pillar suddenly turned pale, looked up at the sky in terror, and his body shook as though he was dreadfully frightened, unable to move forward.

An old woman leaning on a cane stopped about ten meters away from the pillar. Her cloudy eyes looked ahead in amazement, her expression reverent as if she had seen something deeply venerable, and beams of light seemed to radiate from her eyes.

Another boy with a backpack stopped about eleven meters from the pillar. He seemed to have seen something unbelievable, his mouth agape, muttering, "He's wearing... so little!"

After a few more tries, Xiang Beifei roughly figured out the pillar's ability. Different people had different resistances to the pillar; some needed to come closer to stop while others stopped from a distance.

Moreover, the reasons they "recoiled in fear" were all different; some were frightened by something, others stopped because the road seemed blocked, and some seemed to see something they dared not disturb.

"Recoil in Fear" had varying effects on different people, and the range over which it could stop them also differed.

He wondered if this ability could also be used to fend off desolate beasts.

He'd have to try it in the wastelands outside his domain next time.

As more and more people were affected by the pillar, many stopped at the entrance of the alley, blocking those ahead and causing curious onlookers from behind to crane their necks and impede traffic. He quickly retracted the pillar.

This ability, relatively speaking, wasn't as exciting to him as "Return to the Original State," but if used properly, it could become a very practical skill.

Xiang Beifei stretched his limbs. Not satisfied yet, he continued to sit cross-legged on the bed and practice. His meridians had already cleared near the spine, opening nearly half of them, but he still had a long way to go and could not slack off.

Around four in the afternoon, Xiang Qingde knocked on the door: "Beifei, Daming called to ask if you are free tonight. He wants to take you out for a meal."

Xiang Beifei stopped his practice and came out, asking, "Grandpa, has Uncle Kong's restaurant reopened?"

"He plans to talk about it in a couple of days, but he mentioned that he wants to treat you first; he would feel embarrassed to reopen without doing so," Xiang Qingde said with a smile.

It had been ten days since the attack by the desolate beast, and the demolished district had returned to normal with the help of some very powerful SSR-level System Awakeners. With their assistance, it only took two days to repair the damaged streets.

However, many items couldn't be restored by the system. People often exchanged system items in their daily lives, and for them, damaged system items were just that—damaged. Even powerful SSR-level healers couldn't restore them. What could only be restored were some non-systemic buildings and objects.

In such cases, the alliance handled matters cleanly, compensating every household for their losses. The sudden attack by the desolate beast was unexpected, but fortunately, everyone reacted quickly. Law enforcement arrived swiftly, and evacuations were carried out promptly, so other than some residents being injured, there were no fatalities.

The street had long returned to normal, with many shops back in business. Life's order was smoothly maintained with the help of the alliance. But Kong Daming's restaurant hadn't reopened yet—though that was imminent, as many were eagerly waiting for the "Kong's Mansion Feast" to begin.

After all, Kong Daming was also a hero who had fought against the desolate beast.

"All right, I'll go in the evening,"

Xiang Beifei nodded. Kong Daming's family was like his own, and having a meal was no big deal.

Xiang Qingde immediately made a call, and Kong Daming quickly started making arrangements. By the time he and his grandson arrived at the restaurant, Kong Daming had already prepared dinner.

"Haha, our honored guest has arrived! Come, come, take a seat."

Kong Daming looked hale and hearty. His health had long recovered and only his vital energy had issues, but this did not majorly affect daily life. After all, he was a retired pioneer and seldom ventured into the desolate regions beyond the domain.

A moment later, Lu Hong's family also arrived, and Kong Daming had invited them too. He had wanted to invite the other five pioneers who participated in the recent battle, but two were out on errands, and they couldn't all be gathered, so he decided to leave it for next time.

"Uncle Lu, how is your recovery going?" Xiang Beifei asked.

"Thanks to you! Beifei, I'm feeling great," Lu Hong replied with a smile.

After exchanging greetings, Xiang Beifei met Lu Hong's wife, Xie Qinghui, for the first time. Her awakened system was an "S-class Research System," her path was the literary Dao, and she was the technical director of a publicly listed system technology innovation company.

"Beifei, it's been a while. I must thank you again for this time," said Xie Qinghui, wearing glasses and appearing very approachable.

"Auntie, you're too kind," Xiang Beifei replied.

Lu Zhiwei, sitting beside them, was resting her chin in her hand and looking at him in a curious manner.

"What's wrong? Something amiss?" Xiang Beifei asked.

"I thought you were as dull as a plank of wood," Lu Zhiwei said, stroking her chin, "but it turns out you do have standards."

"Standards?" Xiang Beifei exclaimed in surprise.

Kong Xiuwen chuckled on the side, "How could you not have standards? I have them too."

Xiang Beifei still looked puzzled.

Kong Xiuwen clapped a hand on Xiang Beifei's shoulder and said, "Come on, stop pretending, we all know about your standards now."

"Wait, what standards do you know about?" Xiang Beifei asked.

Lu Zhiwei and Kong Xiuwen looked at each other, realizing that Xiang Beifei wasn't just playing dumb.

"What, you mean to say you, the person involved, don't know?" Kong Xiuwen asked, quite surprised, "Your criteria for choosing a spouse!"

Criteria for choosing a spouse?

Xiang Beifei was stunned for a moment. Why were they suddenly talking about this?

"Where did you hear this?" Xiang Beifei inquired.

"It's making quite the buzz online!" Kong Xiuwen took out his phone, swiped a few times, then handed it over to him.

Taking the phone, Xiang Beifei looked at the news article. It read:

[The hero who saved the Western District, Xiang Beifei's criteria for choosing a spouse! All the single ladies, are you ready?]

Xiang Beifei looked at the article in astonishment.

The article precisely listed the criteria he had mentioned to Mu Yiqing last time, from BMI to eyesight to heart rate, to lung capacity, up to climbing thirty flights of stairs, and the standing long jump — not a word was amiss!

That guy, Mu Yiqing, had actually leaked this!

"To think they took it seriously, who knows what was meant by that."

Xiang Beifei mused.

As a member of the Jiuzhou Alliance, it was impossible for such a criteria for choosing a spouse to leak by accident, given the many high-level confidential measures in place. If it wasn't Mu Yiqing's doing deliberately, such an article could never have appeared.

He just didn't understand why she released that criteria — was it deliberately to cause him trouble?

The problem was, those criteria weren't even real.

Kong Xiuwen grinned mischievously, "It seems you didn't even know you've become a big internet star. You have a bunch of fan clubs backing you, didn't you know?"

"Fan clubs?"

Xiang Beifei found this quite novel, not really having a concept of it.

"That's right, just check your Weibo account and see how many followers you have," Kong Xiuwen said.

Xiang Beifei subconsciously took out his phone. These past ten days he had been isolated, practicing and hardly ever online. He had even created a Weibo account for the Yu Lei incident but had never made it public, and almost no one knew his account. He had only posted a single Weibo saying, "Do not spread rumors," which at the time hadn't received even one like.

However, when he logged into Weibo, he was stunned to find that his followers had skyrocketed to 920,000! His DMs were maxed out at 9999+, with likes, comments over twenty thousand, and shares surpassing ten thousand!