Chapter 145
Riverside Gardens—
"Gu 'Dog' Ran! Get back to your room and stop getting in the way!"
Ye Zhenzhen's elegant eyebrows shot up. Holding a dripping wet mop, she slammed it heavily onto the floor, looking very much like a fierce warrior holding the pass alone.
She had changed into a light pink loungewear set. Her long hair was casually tied up in a bun, with a few loose strands falling by her neck, making her neck look even more slender and fair.
Who would have thought that the top student of the grade, usually as aloof and unapproachable as a snow lotus on Mount Tianshan at school, was currently standing barefoot on the floor, looking as beautiful as a little chef.
Gu Ran held up a freshly opened ice-cold cola, leaning against the doorframe with an innocent face. "Ye Zhenzhen, you have to have a conscience. I'm supervising... oh, wait, I mean I'm trying to help you share the housework. It's one thing if you don't appreciate it, but why resort to personal attacks?"
"Gu 'Dog' Ran, you're asking for it!"
Ye Zhenzhen raised an eyebrow, tossed the mop aside, and reached out to pinch the soft flesh at Gu Ran's waist.
"Hiss! Ow, ow, ow! Ye Zhenzhen, are you trying to murder your husband?!"
Gu Ran cried out while reaching to grab the girl's wrist.
But the clever girl had long perfected this combo. Predicting his prediction, she backhanded him, grabbed his ear directly, and pulled it up!
"Call me big sister! And... and go back to your own room! If you dare come out before dinner, I'll break your legs!"
Feeling the girl's ruthlessness, Gu Ran sucked in a breath of cold air, catching a glimpse of her slightly red ear tips from the corner of his eye.
Catching her off guard, he grabbed that mischievous little hand, gently rubbing his thumb over it, and leaned in with a cheeky grin.
"Ye Zhenzhen, why are you blushing? Are you saying no with your mouth but actually feeling ecstatic in your heart? Making me call you big sister, you're a bit of a pervert."
As Gu Ran spoke, he exaggeratedly rubbed the goosebumps on his arms, his expression practically begging for a beating.
Hearing these words, combined with Gu Ran's expression.
The thin-skinned girl's face turned beet red. "Pah! You... you're shameless! Who's ecstatic? I think you're just itching for a beating!"
With that, the girl raised her hand in embarrassment and anger, pretending to strike.
"Ah, I suddenly remembered I have a multi-million dollar project to negotiate. I'll go back to my room first."
Knowing when to stop, Gu Ran quickly slipped into the bedroom and locked the door behind him before the embarrassed and angry girl completely lost it.
With a click.
Outside the door, Ye Zhenzhen paused for a moment. Gently touching her burning red cheeks, she muttered softly at the door, "Sh... shameless guy."
Gu Ran leaned against the door, listening to the commotion outside. The image of the girl looking so embarrassed she wanted to die flashed in his mind. The corners of his mouth curled up, and he let out a soft chuckle.
This girl, still so easy to tease.
......
Returning to the computer, the summer cicadas chirping through the cracks in the window sounded a bit noisy.
Gu Ran put away his playful smile, his eyes becoming calm.
He didn't rush to write code. Instead, he opened the QQ account named "GRGameStudio".
This account currently only had one person added—Li Sinan.
At this moment, in a bachelor apartment in Qinglin County A.
Li Sinan sat dejectedly at her desk. The half-written self-criticism letter in front of her looked particularly glaring.
As a young English teacher at the best high school in the county, she should have had a bright future.
But just the day before yesterday, several parents jointly protested to the Education Bureau, reporting her for "indecent dressing," "seducing male students," and some even spread rumors that her private life was chaotic.
Those parents didn't care about the truth at all. They only saw their children's grades dropping, and the beautiful female teacher became the original sin.
"So ridiculous..."
Li Sinan tugged at the corners of her mouth in self-deprecation, her eyes turning sour.
She wanted to quit this terrible job, but in such a closed-off small county, in her parents' words, losing a tenured position was like losing half your life. The gossip alone could drown a person.
Just then, the QQ avatar in the lower right corner of the computer suddenly started bouncing.
[GRGameStudio]: Who I am isn't important. What's important is, are you interested in changing your environment and changing the world?
Li Sinan froze.
She remembered this account. It suddenly added her two nights ago with the note "Producer of Temple Run."
Temple Run. She had heard about how insanely popular this game had become recently on the overseas App Store.
It was currently the most popular mobile game in the world, bar none.
Why would a big shot of this level look for a small-town teacher like her?
Li Sinan hesitated for a moment and typed a line: [Who exactly are you? Why are you contacting me?]
Sitting in front of the computer, Gu Ran's mouth curled into a playful smile.
He didn't answer the question about his identity. Instead, he directly sent a file package.
It was the preliminary concept draft of "Fruit Ninja" and a piece of extremely hardcore underlying rendering code.
[GRGameStudio]: Who I am isn't important. What's important is that I read the paper you published in the school magazine about combining digital media art with English education. Your aesthetics are very on point, and your basic coding logic is also very solid.
[GRGameStudio]: We need a lead artist, and we also need a core operations person who can understand technical language.
Li Sinan clicked on the file.
Just from the first glance, her breathing became rapid.
It was an interaction logic she had never seen before!
Fingers swiping across the screen, fruits exploding, juice splashing... This extremely stress-relieving and creative gameplay was simply a genius concept!
What shocked her even more was that piece of code.
Concise, elegant, without any redundancy, like a perfect work of art.
[Li Sinan]: Did your company... really develop Temple Run? To be honest, I have indeed run into some trouble recently...
Like grasping at a lifeline, Li Sinan briefly recounted her experience.
Through the few simple lines of text on the screen, Gu Ran could feel her helplessness and despair.
[GRGameStudio]: That was just a practice piece. My goal isn't just to make a game, but to define the future lifestyle of the mobile internet.
Gu Ran activated his "top-tier bluffing" mode.
From the explosion of the mobile internet, to smartphones eating into the PC market, and then to the future hundred-billion-dollar blue ocean of the mobile game market.
He dismantled the famous business cases from his past life and turned them into highly provocative text.
To Li Sinan, the person on the other side of the screen seemed like a prophet standing in the clouds, looking down at the torrent of the times.
This dimensional-strike level of vision gave her goosebumps.
[GRGameStudio]: Ms. Li, rather than wasting time writing a self-criticism for those idiots, why don't you follow me and see what the world will look like in ten years.
[GRGameStudio]: Punching Rovio, kicking the Penguin Empire. It sounds difficult, but actually, all we need is a fulcrum.
On the other end of the screen, Li Sinan froze entirely in her chair.
Looking at the humiliating letter of apology at hand, and then at the blood-pumping words on the screen.
The scales in her heart instantly tipped.
On one side was a swamp of decay, oppression, and prejudice.
On the other side was a sea of stars and the ambition to change the world.
[Li Sinan]: But... I'm just an English teacher in a small county town. I'm afraid I won't be up to the job. Plus, I haven't resigned yet, and going to a big city is too far.
[GRGameStudio]: Are you worried about leaving your hometown?
Gu Ran paused for a moment, then typed faster.
[GRGameStudio]: What if I told you the company is right at your doorstep?
s the Eldest Princess, renowned for her cold and aloof detachment, became the most docile of lambs, obeying his every command without question. But when the final move was played on the chessboard, as Gu Chenghan seized everything and ascended on the verge of apotheosis, that very Princess suddenly embraced him from behind, her tone carrying a dependence never heard before: "Wait... you haven't yet... commanded me to love you forever." Gu Chenghan froze abruptly. She... hadn't been hypnotized?! ... [The Eldest Princess's Diary] [When my soul was extracted, becoming the sole spectator outside my own shell] [At first, there was overwhelming fury, until I saw] [How he used my sword to effortlessly shatter my inescapable doom] [How he wielded my authority to eradicate fatal conspiracies I had never even detected] [Like a deity, he rescued me from the deep mire I was trapped in] [If not for those annoying vixens, he and I would be a match made in heaven] [I think I am ill, gravely ill] [My deity should belong to me alone] ... "Hypnosis? Oh, it succeeded, my dear Master." "Only this time, it's my turn to hypnotize you."
end. Thus one must continue to cultivate, and become a saint or great emperor, in order to prolong one's life. Chen Xia, however, completely reversed this. Since his transmigration, he has gained immortality, and also a system that awards him with attribute points for every year he lives. Thus between the myriad worlds, the legend of an unparalleled senior appeared. "A gentleman takes revenge; it is never too late even after ten thousand years." "When you were at your peak I yielded, now in your old age I shall trample on you." - Chen Xia
ive and Ruthless] Before his transmigration, Ye Xuan was playing a game called "Severing Emotions to Attain the Dao." The game's core wasn't about leveling up by fighting monsters, but about conquering various "bad women" with wicked personalities and cold, fickle natures. There was only one method to conquer them: stay unwaveringly by their side, then die at a critical moment, driving them to madness after losing the protagonist. The higher their level of regret, the higher the player's score. To dominate the server, Ye Xuan conquered all the bad women. In the early stages, he showered them with boundless tenderness, only to choose to sacrifice himself for them later, making them weep bitterly and drown in regret. Among them were: Xia Lengyue, the unfaithful immortal wife who chased after powerful men and discarded her husband like trash. Ye Qingcheng, the Demonic Venerable of the Joyous Union Sect, who appeared pure and innocent but was, in reality, promiscuous. Wu Lingxiao, the Empress of the Great Xia Dynasty, who lusted after men and loved maintaining a harem. Bai Qiangu of the Endless Demonic Sect: a bloodthirsty mass murderer. However, when the protagonist transmigrated into the game world, he made a horrifying discovery. Eight hundred years had already passed. The bad women he had conquered had now each become deities and revered ancestors. Faced with the endless stream of toxic women coming for him, Ye Xuan could only rely on his god-tier acting skills to carve a path of survival through this world of treacherous women.
nd fell into a coma while saving his younger sister from an out-of-control car. He became a vegetable. No one knew that his consciousness had crossed into a world of cultivation. Over the course of sixty years, he began as the lowest kind of mine slave, struggling to survive amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood. By sheer chance, he eventually obtained the complete memories of a fallen Immortal King. Alchemy, medicine, formations, feng shui, physiognomy, artifact forging… Every great inheritance of the cultivation world was now his. But when he opened his eyes again, he discovered that ten full years had passed in the modern world. To pay for his treatment, his father had sold the family’s shop and house, leaving himself covered in lasting injuries and illness. His mother had cared for him day and night, and more than half of her hair had already turned white. His younger sister, who had been only fifteen back then, was now twenty-five. To help repay the family’s debts, she had been forced to lower her head and put on a smiling face in places of glittering lights and endless revelry. Only then did Chen Xuan understand that what he had lost was not merely ten years. He had lost the life his entire family was meant to have. The good news was that he had brought back the memories of an Immortal King’s entire lifetime. The bad news was that his soul had returned alone—his cultivation had not come with him. Spiritual energy was scarce, resources were depleted, and the modern world still had firearms, surveillance, capital, and laws. If he wanted to protect his family, break free from everyone’s control, and become truly invincible beneath the heavens, he would have to start all over again.
