Standing Next To You - Chapter 48: All Too Familiar

An alien abduction romance. Updates Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.Grant has a tolerance for boredom. Late shift in a middle-of-nowhere facility? Sign him up. If the money's good, he'll happily take the peace and quiet of a long night watching an empty cell.And then he meets Subject B-31. Blue, beautiful, and completely inhuman. Her captors call her Batty, thanks to her big ears and the way she hangs upside down by her tail.He's told not to talk to her. He's told to think of her as a test subject, not a person. He's told to cash his checks and live his humble life. He's told to ignore the sorrow on her face and the desperation in her crimson eyes. Maybe he should have listened. When he finally busts her out, the rescue isn't a rescue at all: it's an abduction.Batty is Princess Sykora, of the tyrannical Taiikari Empire. She commands the Black Pike, a massive voidship on the imperial frontier. Grant must learn a new life, in a firmament filled with ambitious nobles, deadly rivals, and the sinister smiles of the Taiikari Imperial Court. And he'll have to learn fast.Because when the Princess of the Void looks at Grant, she doesn't just see a savior—she sees a husband.And she isn't asking.

The MMORPG ’EVR’ was released unexpectedly one day, along with its advanced equipment that allowed players to fully immerse themselves in the game, even though prior VR technology wasn’t nearly as realistic. To prevent people from replacing their real lives with the game, the servers were shut down during the day and on weekends. I was the best at the game, but since I had no friends or family, I could only watch and bet on sports while waiting for the servers to reopen—until the day I died and regressed to a week before the game was released. I know everything that will happen in the game. I know the game is not just realistic; it’s real. And for some reason, I don’t need to log out!

Starting from today, I am retired. But what should I be doing? I neither have the skills, nor the mind to do business, my only advantage is this pair of hands which have taken this world. What a headache…

Note: The usage of the term “retired” here doesn’t mean retiring from old age, work etc. It’s a specific term to refer to not involving oneself in the affairs of a certain society.

The fake heiress was sent back to the slums. Her biological father was addicted to alcohol, her biological mother was addicted to gambling, and her biological younger brother dropped out of school at a young age due to an obsession with gaming.Sang Ning brought her whole messed-up family onto a variety show. The real heiress's family showcased a tear-jerking, heartwarming picture, while her family was staging daily dramatic soap operas.On the day before the variety show recording, Sang Ning's biological mom openly flirted with a young male idol. Her younger brother mocked their biological father for being old and unattractive, claiming he deserved to be abandoned. In a fit of rage, her father smashed his brother’s headphones.Brother: “Damn it, I spent a whole month collecting trash to afford these!”And thus, the whole family ended up fighting.When the show officially started recording, Sang Ning's father took the top male star’s father to a villager’s house to freeload some alcohol, drinking to intoxication. Sang Ning's mother dragged a popular idol’s grandmother to a mahjong table, losing even her underwear. Sang Ning's brother pointed at her nose and cursed, “I’d rather jump off a cliff than keep studying!”Later, at Sang Ning’s wedding to a business mogul, the sharp-eyed reporters noticed something unusual about the Sang Family members.Mr. Sang had become an intangible cultural heritage master in woodworking industry.Mrs. Sang had won the championship in the latest Chef Showdown.Wasn’t Sang Ning’s younger brother this year’s provincial science champion?When asked about the secret to their turnaround, the Sang Family all looked simultaneously at the radiant bride on stage, their hearts filled with mixed emotions...Perhaps the only thing standing between failure and success is having a crazy genius like Sang Ning.[1v1 exclusive romance + quirky characters + brainless, overpowered story]