Strike Back, Proud Goddess! - Chapter 20 - Showdown

They call him Ghost.A name whispered in fear across warzones, black markets, and underworld circles.To the world, he's a phantom—a faceless mercenary who leaves no trace but bodies in his wake.To his enemies, he’s a death sentence.To his brothers-in-arms in Graveyard, he’s family.But to himself... he's a haunted man searching for a past stolen in gunfire and smoke.After a flawless mission deep in the Eastern Province, Ghost returns to the hidden forest base he's called home for sixteen years. Yet the victory is short-lived. His foster father, the commander delivers an unexpected order:“That was your last mission.”Now, Ghost—real name Miles Sterling—must step out of the shadows of war and into a world he’s never known. Guided only by a scarred letter, a fading memory, and the voice of a woman he hasn’t seen since the day everything was taken from him.But war forged more than his body and name.Behind the mask, behind the scars, Miles has another secret.One he’s kept hidden even from his brothers in arms.He’s not just a weapon.He’s a ghost with a fortune—a hidden empire he built in silence, across borders and black markets, forged in strategy and blood.A man of many names, and many shadows.Beneath the bullets, tattoos, and silence lies a truth buried in ashes.And Ghost is about to dig it up—one letter, one enemy, one memory at a time.

Ha Si-heon is a brilliant but obsessive Wall Street financier who has built an immense fortune driven by a fear of financial insecurity. After enduring a tragic childhood, losing his mother, and navigating financial ruin with his father during South Korea’s 1997 financial crisis, Si-heon immigrates to the U.S. He fulfills his father’s wish by becoming a doctor but finds himself drawn to the lucrative world of Wall Street.At a top hedge fund, Si-heon leverages his medical expertise to dominate biotech investments, thanks to an unusual ability to predict successful FDA drug approvals. He amasses wealth quickly, yet struggles with a pathological fear of spending money. His relentless pursuit of profit takes a dark turn when he’s diagnosed with idiopathic multicentric Castleman’s disease (iMCD), a rare, life-threatening immune disorder with no cure. His condition worsens despite aggressive chemotherapy, as the lack of research funding for this “orphan disease” leaves him without options.Just as Si-heon faces death, he miraculously awakens to find himself transported 10 years back in time, to the beginning of his career on Wall Street. Realizing he has a second chance, Si-heon is determined to not only reclaim his wealth but also amass enough money to fund a cure for iMCD. The story explores themes of greed, ambition, mortality, and redemption, as Si-heon seeks not just to survive but to redefine the meaning of his life.

Cao Shaoyang was reborn as an ordinary high school senior with the same name and surname, with a net worth of nearly 100 million. He was a regular student with no special talents, except he was granted a “Godly Rich System” that randomly triggered rewards every time he spent money on women.The stepmom accompanying the studies, a saleswoman with a charming figure, the beautiful campus flowers, and her curvaceous and sexually attractive mother. There’s also a married woman on Douyin (TikTok) and a woman on Kuaishou (another Chinese short video app) showing off her figure!This is the story of a young man with an ordinary background who aspires to live a lavish life.While the married women are his true love, Cao Shaoyang occasionally doesn’t mind keeping a few young beauties around to relieve the pressures of life.

Transmigrated into a novel after her death, Su Jin has an engagement with Lu Xi, the legendary and unrivaled male protagonist, that was arranged between their families. After the revelation of her identity as the adopted daughter swapped at birth, she had no right to the engagement; that belonged to her sister, the female protagonist. In fear of interfering with the novel’s ending, she avoids him… But why is he ignoring the female protagonist and chasing her instead!

The Perfect Fiancé Code:

1. Support his fiancée

2. Unconditionally support his fiancée

3. Protect his fiancée unconditionally regardless of who or whom is present

Lu Xi felt that he should be able to accomplish this.

Su Jin: QAQ, please don’t do this…. I’m supposed to be the cannon fodder sultry ex-fiancée that you were going to dispose of!

Lu Xi: I have always been waiting for the moment that the 22-year-old Su Jin, you, would finally open her eyes.

- Description from Novelupdates