Chapter 148
On the other end of the phone, Pei Susu's tone was ominous, sounding like a pyramid scheme master.
"Intellectual upperclassmen, hot underclassmen, and those scheming girls looking for a long-term meal ticket... Ye Zhenzhen, a stubborn tsundere like you is basically serving yourself up on a silver platter in college!"
"When the time comes, they'll be calling him 'Brother Gu Ran' left and right, throwing in some green tea manipulative tactics, and you won't even have a place to cry!"
This bucket of cold water chilled the girl, who had just been bubbling with pink romantic fantasies, right to the bone.
An image instantly formed in her mind.
On a college campus, Gu Ran is walking down the street in a white shirt, surrounded by a flock of chirping, flirtatious girls.
"Underclassman, my water pipe burst, could you come help me clear it~"
"Brother Gu Ran, could you help me fix my computer~"
"Underclassman, are you free tonight? My cat can do backflips, do you want to come over and see~"
And she herself could only stand in the distance, clutching a scalpel, watching helplessly as he was seduced away by others...
"No way!"
Ye Zhenzhen suddenly sat up straight, her eyes clearing up with resolve.
Gu Ran was her pig... wait, no, he was her cabbage, why should she let some other pig root around and ruin him?
"Scared now, aren't you?"
Pei Susu heard her nervousness and snorted smugly.
"So, take advantage of this month or so before school starts and lock down your official status! Stop wasting time with all that vague, wishy-washy flirting and just attack head-on! Hear me?"
After hanging up, Ye Zhenzhen gripped her Little Smart phone and sat blankly on her bed for a long time, lost in thought.
Meanwhile, in the living room, Gu Ran looked at the girl's tightly shut bedroom door, left with no choice but to sigh while holding a plate of braised pork that looked like lumps of coal.
...
The sky outside the window gradually darkened, and the lights in the room were off.
A sense of crisis grew wildly like weeds in the girl's heart.
Although Pei Susu's words were exaggerated, they weren't entirely unreasonable.
In her eyes, Gu Ran truly was outstanding, so much so that sometimes she felt she wasn't good enough for him.
A long time passed.
The girl took a deep breath, jumped off the bed, and opened her wardrobe.
For the next half hour, she put on a solo fashion show.
"This one is too childish..."
"This one is too revealing, no way..."
"Would this one look like I'm trying too hard?"
Finally, she chose a simple white T-shirt paired with light blue jeans, showing off a pair of long, straight, beautiful legs.
However, she also hid a little trick up her sleeve.
By lifting the hem of her pants slightly, one could catch a faint glimpse of smooth black silk at her slender ankles.
This was what she had just sneaked from Ye Shulian's wardrobe.
The girl remembered Gu Ran mentioning it once; this style of wearing them was called something like "silk under pants"?
She reached out a small hand and stealthily touched it.
She had to admit, the texture felt really nice. That bastard... would probably like it, right.
Next, following Pei Susu's teachings, she let her hair down and used a curling iron to give it a slight wave. It looked casual and lazy, but in reality, it was completely calculated.
After checking herself in the mirror over and over to confirm that this "pinnacle of pure and alluring" look hadn't gone off the rails, she gathered her courage, gently opened the door, and tip-toed quietly out of the house.
...
In the room next door.
Gu Ran was sitting in front of his computer, the penguin icon in the bottom right corner of the screen flashing frantically.
It was Ye Jinliang, whom he had left forgotten in the corner for a long time.
Ever since the day they checked their scores, he had been busy "eloping" to Wuzhen with Ye Zhenzhen, completely tossing him to the back of his mind.
A rare trace of something called "conscience" welled up in Gu Ran's heart, but as he clicked on the avatar, that sliver of conscience vanished into thin air.
[Golden Spear Never Falls]: Gu Ran! You're a f*cking dog!!! ***
[Golden Spear Never Falls]: How come I'm hearing that you applied to Qinglin University???
[Golden Spear Never Falls]: Bro, didn't we agree to go to the capital to check out the girls?
[Golden Spear Never Falls]: You little sh*t! Answer me!!!
[Golden Spear Never Falls]: *****************************
Twitching the corner of his mouth and automatically filtering out the highly mother-insulting words, Gu Ran sighed and clattered out a line of text on his keyboard.
[Did Pei Susu apply to the capital?]
The reply from the other side came quickly.
[Golden Spear Never Falls]: How did you know?
[I f*cking guessed it. You thick-eyebrowed, big-eyed guy, I felt something was off ever since that time we went ice skating.]
[Do you like her? Do you need me to play matchmaker for you?]
[The pot calling the kettle black, do you dare say you applying to the capital isn't because of Pei Susu?!]
The other side went silent for a few seconds. Just as he was about to stubbornly type out a denial, Gu Ran went in for the kill.
[If you f*cking try to deny it, I'll call her right now!]
Seeing this, Ye Jinliang caved very quickly.
[Golden Spear Never Falls]: Don't! Don't call, I'm at your mercy!
Acting tough, huh?
Gu Ran curled his lip, just about to continue mocking him, when he heard a strange noise behind him.
"Click."
The door was pushed open, and he turned his head to look.
With just one glance, his eyes froze.
Why did it feel like this girl was a bit different from this morning?
It looked like she was wearing lipstick...
"Gu 'Dog' Ran, what are you doing?"
The girl had her hands behind her back, her body leaning slightly forward, and her eyes darting around. Just thinking about what she was about to do brought an unnatural blush to her cheeks.
"Consoling a lonely old man."
Gu Ran pointed at the screen.
"See, I'm giving him psychological counseling right now."
"What's up?"
Gu Ran raised an eyebrow, his gaze sweeping over her legs without leaving a trace, but then his eyes fixed on the girl's ankles and below.
With just one glance, he spotted the blind spot!
Is this f*cking holy light?!
No wonder it's so blinding.
Testing a cadre with this?
What cadre could withstand this kind of test?
Being stared at by him like this, Ye Zhenzhen felt as if her legs were on fire and almost broke character to run away.
But remembering Pei Susu's warning, she forcefully held her ground.
"Cough... um..."
She bit her lip, took out two freshly bought movie tickets, and waved them in front of Gu Ran's eyes.
"Um... that damn girl Pei Susu insisted on giving me two movie tickets."
The girl's voice was a bit tight, her speaking speed extremely fast, as if she were reciting a scalding hot script.
"She said she bought too many before, and they'll expire and go to waste if we don't go. You know me, I hate wasting things the most, and... and I haven't watched a movie in a long time either."
Gu Ran raised his eyebrows, his gaze falling on the ticket stubs in her hand.
"Pei Susu gave them to you?"
"Yes! It was her!"
Ye Zhenzhen nodded heavily, her eyes as determined as if she were taking an oath to join the Party.
"She originally wanted to go watch it with that guy... the sports committee member, but it turns out he has to go to training camp, so she just tossed them to me."
Lying at home happily reading a novel, Pei Susu suddenly sneezed. She rubbed her nose and cursed.
"Which bastard is talking smack about me behind my back again?"
Hearing this, Gu Ran leaned back in his chair, looking at the unnaturally flushed girl in front of him with a half-smile.
These movie tickets were brand new, probably still warm.
Pei Susu went to the movie theater right now to print the tickets just to give them to her?
Not bad, Ye Zhenzhen, you can even lie through your teeth now.
However, he didn't intend to expose her, deciding instead to just play along with her words.
"So, you're here to invite me to a movie?"
"Who... who invited you!"
Ye Zhenzhen reacted like a cat whose tail had just been stepped on, too flustered to even look him in the eye.
"I... I just thought it would be too boring to go alone! Plus, it would be a pity to waste two tickets! I am only reluctantly taking you along based on the principle of conserving resources! Are you going or not? If not, I'll tear them up!"
After rambling through her long-winded explanation, the girl made a show of trying to tear the tickets, but her movements were so drawn out it was like watching a slow-motion replay.
"I'm going! Of course I'll go!"
Gu Ran immediately stood up, playing along as he stopped the girl's hands. "How could we waste them? Diligence and thrift are traditional Chinese virtues!"
As he spoke, his gaze swept over the girl's petite feet once again.
The movie theater would be pitch black. Secretly helping her warm her feet shouldn't be crossing the line, right...
Meanwhile, just as the two of them were packing up and getting ready to head out, messages from Ye Jinliang were popping up frantically on Gu Ran's computer desktop.
[Golden Spear Never Falls]: Stop messing around, I admit I was wrong, okay? Whatever you do, absolutely do not call Pei Susu!
[Golden Spear Never Falls]: Brother Gu, be the bigger person and forgive my petty mistakes. Just let me go like a fart in the wind.
[Golden Spear Never Falls]: Gu Ran! Fucking answer me! Don't tell me you actually went to call her!!!
[Golden Spear Never Falls]: Papa Gu, your eldest son was wrong, please don't call her!!!
.......
......
] [Lone Wolf, No Male Gaze] [Protagonist is pursued early on; extreme protagonist-stans, stay away!] The "Carnival Paradise" descends and slowly devours the real world in the form of a game. By chance, Zhu Yan awakens the talent [Roleplay], becoming one of the first beta players. He thought he could develop safely, but after clearing the first instance, he is branded by humanity as the chief culprit behind the game's spread—a traitorous villain. A villain? Who would ever... become one! He'll be the villain! From then on, Zhu Yan is not only a player but also a lackey for the Carnival Paradise. Between the straight path and the crooked path, he chooses the con. With his left hand, he dons the villain's mantle, staging scenes within instances, infuriating players who decry him as a despicable traitor, all while the game happily promotes him. With his right hand, he joins the non-human organization "Fangcun Mountain," which opposes the Carnival Paradise, transforming into a mysterious player who slaughters game bosses, earning cheers of "Long live the expert!" from fellow players. Gradually, Zhu Yan rises to become an S-rank human player in Fangcun Mountain's archives, while also being the Carnival Paradise's certified top game Boss. But when the final war erupts and both major factions place their hopes in him— Players tag his various aliases: "Experts, this offensive depends on you." The Carnival Paradise's supreme Boss throws an arm around his neck: "Bro, you're the iron, I'm the steel; you can't let me down again!"
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
lity and could only live as an ordinary mortal. He only wished to live a peaceful life. Yet he didn't know— The dog he adopted, because it ate his food, became a legendary demon king. The kitchen knife he casually forged became a peerless divine weapon, causing numerous experts to fight desperately for it. The young disciple he took in became an immortal lord that led an era, due to cultivating the techniques Ye Feng taught him. Even the skeletons he looked down on the most were ominous demon kings that suppressed countless worlds. Many years later, looking at the void shattered with a punch, Ye Feng murmured to himself: It turns out the peerless kings were myself all along...
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
