Heretical Fishing - Chapter 16Book 4: : Martial

Left out during the elementary school picnic.

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.

“Some connections are written long before two hearts ever meet.”Arjun never believed in fate, just another lost soul buried in the noise of textbooks and deadlines.Ayesha was a quiet storm, hiding a fragile heart behind glowing smiles and disappearing messages.They were just two strangers, separated by borders, bound by pixels on a screen.But what starts as casual texts in the dead of night slowly turns into something neither of them can explain.A bond stitched through unseen heartbeats.A love whispered through endless silences.But every heartbeat carries secrets... and some secrets are too heavy to cross the distance.When time begins slipping through Ayesha's fingers, Arjun finds himself caught between holding on or letting go.Will their hearts find each other in the silence or will destiny write their last message before they ever meet?

In the third year of the Republic of China, Yao Zhi was 14 years old and the jewel of the governor’s office.

At that time, the young man next to the marshal’s mansion was still physically disabled and had his feet deep in the mud. Yao Zhi stretched out her hand and tried to help him, but the boy, who looked fierce, shut his eyes and was heartless. Yao Zhi has been the white moonlight of all young men in Beijing since childhood. Her crescent eyes were curved, and her beauty was incomparable.

Shen Xu regarded her as a god in his heart and never dared to put her in the bottom of his heart.

He looked up at the gods on a bright moonlit night, never thinking that one day she would take the initiative and rush into his chest. Yao Zhi, who became the pinnacle of his two lives, grabbed his clothes and said quietly.

“Shen Xu, if you ignore me again, I’ll kiss someone else.” Shen Xu couldn’t suppress his youthful emotions. He held the god’s waist tightly. He had no choice but to beg her repeatedly. “Zhizhi… “

“Don’t leave me,” she said, knowing that he was young and humble and that he had feelings as deep as the sea for her.

She wouldn’t leave. She would be the apex of the young man’s heart and stay together with him.

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