The Phantom's Gambit - Chapter 48: Crossroads

Roan transmigrated as an FBI investigator.Several years later, a journalist interviewed the world-renowned detective Roan Greenwood and asked,“What made you persist in solving cases for so many years?”Roan tilted his head and glanced at the sports car beside him, the villa behind him, and the beautiful woman inside the villa. He smiled slightly and said,“Well, the bonus after solving the case.”“What?”

Nicholas Marjan—known as Niels—was once an Asian football-obsessed loner in the modern world. A master of FIFA Career Mode, addicted to tactical YouTube breakdowns, and endlessly chasing transfer window drama, he lived the beautiful game from behind a screen.Until the day he died.Reborn in the late 2000s in a small European country, Niels wakes up in the body of a once-promising young footballer whose career was tragically cut short by a brutal ACL injury. With no chance to play again, and haunted by the weight of lost potential, the only path forward is through coaching.Now an assistant at a struggling lower-league club, Niels carries two things no one else has:-Knowledge of football’s future-A mysterious cheat-like instinct for scouting raw, hidden talentAs he begins to make waves with his unique coaching style, Niels catches the attention of the football world. Offers from top-tier teams in the top five European leagues come rolling in. With a growing reputation, Niels sets out to transform not just one team's fate—but to leave his mark on the biggest stages in world football.

Every villain is scripted to die. Kael Voss was the hero who always won—until death flipped the board.He wakes in the body of the first boss he ever killed: a shadow lord doomed to fall in chapter one, forgotten fodder for the chosen one.No more playing nice.With perfect game knowledge and the forbidden Shadow Sovereign System, Kael turns the script inside out. The “hero” who slaughtered him? Now prey. The gods who wrote his fate? Blind to the rewrite.He schemes from the dark, grows stronger in silence, and carves his own ending.The light thinks it’s destined to win.Kael knows better.One shadow against the entire story.This time, the villain finishes what he started.(Drop a power stone if you want the villain to win big!)

Lu Qingyan was once the perfect daughter—an obedient, soft-spoken high school girl known for her academic excellence and fragile health. But the one person she loved the most was her older brother—hentle, dazzling, and far too burdened for his age, he was her everything.. No one noticed his silent suffering… until it was too late. The day he took his own life, she shattered.Months later, while saving a child from an oncoming car, Lu Qingyan dies and awakens inside a familiar story: the school novel “A Thorn in the Crown”, one she read during her lowest days.But she’s no longer just a reader.She’s now Lu Qingyan, the infamous younger sister of Lu Mingxuan—the novel’s violent and cold-hearted villain feared across campus. A notorious delinquent, and ironically, the sworn enemy of her favorite character: Wang Jingyuan, the story’s tragic antagonist turned misunderstood villain.In the novel, Lu Qingyan is little more than cannon fodder—a delusional girl who idolizes her brother, gets caught in the crossfire between Lu Mingxuan and Wang Jingyuan, and ends up being dead.Determined to change the plot, she initially plans to curry favor with Wang Jingyuan—to save him from his doomed fate.But everything shifts the moment she lays eyes on Lu Mingxuan.He has her brother’s face.The same weary eyes.The same lonely back.The same silent cry for help no one else hears.And in that moment, Lu Qingyan’s plan shatters.This isn’t just a story anymore.So Lu Qingyan vowed to protect him this time, even if it means dragging her brother out of gang fights, squaring off against entitled rich kids, or defying the other villain himself—Wang Jingyuan, the school’s cold and brilliant golden boy... and Lu Mingxuan's sworn rival.In the original novel, Wang Jingyuan was one of the big villains—the cunning and miserable friend of the male lead. Now, he’s front and center... and watching her a little too closely....Lu Mingxuan always disliked his bootlicking sister, but one day he discovered that she had stopped following him around.Later, he unexpectedly found his sworn enemy, Wang Jingyuan, trapping his sister against the wall and between his arms. With an ambiguous and languid expression, he coaxed in a soft tone, “Just give up on that useless brother of yours. What Lu Mingxuan can give you, I can too.”Lu Qingyan: ???Wang Jingyuan, you dog!!That’s my sister!! Stop daydreaming!!