Chapter 188
Boys' dormitory area, Building 4, Room 404.
Gu Ran pushed his suitcase and strode inside.
He wore a well-tailored white shirt, crisp black trousers, and a pair of shiny leather shoes.
He didn't look like a freshman coming to register, but rather like a young executive coming to inspect the work.
As soon as he entered, his calm and unhurried aura stunned the two people already in the room.
A tall, thin boy who was making his bed, and a chubby boy sitting on a chair playing Fruit Ninja, reflexively sprang up upon seeing Gu Ran's outfit. Their standing posture was incredibly standard.
"H-Hello, Professor!"
The chubby boy hid his phone behind his back, not even daring to breathe loudly. Clearly, he hadn't yet shaken off his high school stress responses.
The tall, thin boy also hurriedly rubbed his hands together and put on a smiling face: "Professor, we are just tidying up our room, we'll be done in a second!"
Gu Ran was taken aback for a moment, then laughed.
"Don't be nervous, I'm not a teacher."
He pushed his suitcase next to an empty bed and waved his hand with a smile. "My name is Gu Ran, a freshman in the Economics and Management Department. I'm in this dorm, taking this bunk."
"Huh?"
The chubby boy and the tall, thin boy looked at each other, both seeing the shock in the other's eyes.
With this aura and this outfit, if you said you were a school official in disguise, we would believe it. But you're a freshman?
"You scared me to death, man. You're dressing way too maturely for your age..."
The chubby boy breathed a sigh of relief, plopped back down on his chair, and familiarly extended his hand. "My name is Li Ming. Everyone calls me Fatty. I'm a homebody who loves playing video games."
The tall, thin boy also smiled and leaned in: "I'm Zhang Qi, a local. If you want to know any school gossip in the future, just come to me. I'm the man determined to become the Qingda Know-It-All."
Gu Ran smiled and shook hands with both of them. He casually pulled out an unopened pack of Soft Chunghwa cigarettes from his pocket, handed one to each of them, and threw a large bag of snacks onto the desk.
"I'm new here, please take care of me from now on."
Li Ming and Zhang Qi took the cigarettes. As soon as they saw the brand, their eyes widened.
Wow, Soft Chunghwa, rare stuff!
This guy is alright!
"You're too polite! We're all brothers from now on!" Zhang Qi was a smart guy. He immediately pulled out a lighter to light Gu Ran's cigarette, his attitude even more attentive than when he thought Gu Ran was a "teacher."
Gu Ran waved his hand to indicate he had quit, pulled over a chair and sat down, casually chatting with the two while unpacking.
Relying on his past life's experience of navigating the business world, it only took a few sentences for him to completely dazzle these two naive freshmen, faintly establishing himself as the backbone of the dorm room.
Just as the three of them were chatting enthusiastically, the dorm room door was kicked open with a bang.
"F*ck! So damn unlucky!"
A boy wearing a floral shirt and sunglasses walked in, cursing loudly.
He was carrying bags of all sizes, and upon entering, he threw a limited-edition LV travel bag onto a bed.
Li Ming and Zhang Qi were startled and turned to look.
They saw the boy take off his sunglasses, revealing a reasonably handsome face that currently looked completely exasperated.
It was none other than Qin Zhaoyang, the guy who had been driving a BMW 3 Series at the school gates earlier.
Qin Zhaoyang didn't even look straight at the three people in the room. Wiping his sweat, he slammed a pack of Marlboros onto the table and kept complaining non-stop like a chatterbox.
"Damn it, the security guards at this crappy school are such snobs! I drive a BMW and they still checked my ID and made me open my trunk, treating me like a criminal!"
The more Qin Zhaoyang spoke, the angrier he got, and he kicked the leg of a chair.
"The most infuriating thing was the Audi in front of me! So what if it has a crappy license plate with 'five 6s'? He didn't even have to register, and the security guard even saluted him! I bet the owner is just some stupid rich kid relying on his daddy. That security guard is probably his relative!"
Hearing there was gossip, Zhang Qi immediately leaned in. "Bro, what's the situation? A license plate with five 6s? That awesome?"
"Exactly!" Seeing someone humoring him, Qin Zhaoyang grew even more animated. "The car windows were tinted as black as coal, he didn't even dare to show his face. If I find out who that is, I swear I'll..."
At this moment, Gu Ran was facing away from the door, organizing his wardrobe.
Hearing this highly specific rant, his hands paused for a moment.
He slowly turned around, still holding a coat hanger, a refreshing, spring-breeze-like smile on his face.
"You swear you'll what?" His tone was flat, as if asking about the weather today.
Qin Zhaoyang found the voice familiar. He looked up and froze.
"It's you?!"
The next second, his eyes widened and he pointed at Gu Ran. "Why are you here? You got assigned to this dorm too? Also, put down that hanger. This is a school, are you going to hit someone?"
Seeing this, Gu Ran shrugged and continued to slowly and methodically hang up his clothes.
"What a f*cking small world." Seeing him back down, Qin Zhaoyang sneered. He looked him up and down, his eyes full of disdain. "Stop acting so deep."
Gu Ran dusted off his hands, walked over to the desk, picked up his water cup, and took a sip.
"That Audi you mentioned, it really didn't register."
Qin Zhaoyang was stunned and subconsciously asked, "How do you know? Did you see it too?"
Li Ming and Zhang Qi beside them also looked at Gu Ran curiously.
Gu Ran smiled, reached out with his slender fingers, and pulled the keys out of his pocket.
"Because I was the one who drove that car in."
His tone was sincere, even carrying a hint of apology. "The security guard didn't stop me. Maybe he just thought I was too handsome."
The sneer on Qin Zhaoyang's face instantly froze, his expression twisting as if he had swallowed a live fly.
His mouth was open wide enough to fit an egg, and a gurgling sound came from his throat, but he couldn't spit out a single word.
I f*cking begged my dad just to buy a 3 Series, and you, a brute, are driving an A6?
Bro, come on, don't do this to me!
The phone in Li Ming's hand dropped onto the desk with a clatter. It was unknown if the screen shattered, but his worldview certainly did.
Zhang Qi's eyes almost popped out of his head. His gaze darted back and forth between Gu Ran and Qin Zhaoyang, his mind frantically spamming: Holy sh*t! Huge gossip! This is some real f*cking gossip!
Gu Ran ignored the petrified Qin Zhaoyang and raised his hand to look at the Longines watch on his wrist.
"It's time to eat."
He turned to look at the dazed Li Ming and Zhang Qi, smiling as he extended an invitation: "Let's go check out the cafeteria. I heard the stir-fry on the second floor is pretty good. My treat."
"Huh? Oh! Okay! Sounds good!"
The two woke up as if from a dream. They immediately sprang up from their chairs and flanked him on his way out like two loyal sidekicks.
When passing by Qin Zhaoyang, Gu Ran didn't break his stride, not even giving him a glance from the corner of his eye.
That kind of dismissal was more like a resounding slap in the face than any verbal retort, leaving Qin Zhaoyang's face flushed bright red.
It wasn't until the backs of the three disappeared at the end of the hallway that Qin Zhaoyang was left standing alone in Room 404, his face turning pale and then green.
He looked at the empty doorway, then at the unopened pack of Marlboros on the desk, suddenly feeling like a clown.
This is just f*cking... a clean sweep!
On the very first day of school, his reputation was already swept into the dirt...
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.
s + Rent Collection Wealth】 At the start, he inherited a rundown house in the urban village from his grandfather. The house had no tenants, but the moment he was diagnosed with a terminal illness, a self-proclaimed empress from the Tianxuan Continent arrived as his first tenant. Ye Chuan soon discovered that with every new tenant moving in, not only did he receive massive daily payments, but he also obtained unique items related to their backgrounds. 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Tiger Strength Pill—dramatically enhances physical power!】 【Acquired Bai Qianshuang’s related item: Deer Blood Pill—significantly boosts vitality!】 …… From that day on, all sorts of bizarre tenants began appearing in the house: the empress from Tianxuan Continent, an apocalyptic sorceress from the Magic Realm, a mysterious scientific girl who fell through a spacetime rift… Every single day, he received strange, powerful items and endless money. Then one day, he suddenly realized—he had become invincible. Enough, enough! Stop giving me more!
transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”
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."
