Chapter 194
Boys' dormitory, Room 404.
Gu Ran was in a great mood. Humming a little tune, he walked back to the dorm with a brisk step.
Although it was a bit of a pity that he couldn't take things a step further and have some real action in the car just now.
But that was still enough to make him feel physically and mentally refreshed on this hot, sultry night.
Inside the dorm, Zhang Qi and Li Ming were huddled together like thieves, watching some obscure adult movie.
Deepest in the room, Qin Zhaoyang was facing the mirror, squeezing his pimples.
The dorm door was pushed open.
Two gazes swept over, carrying completely different meanings.
One was a guilty, evasive glance.
The other was filled with sinister jealousy and disdain.
He flipped open his screen, turned on his laptop, and his fingertips glided lightly across the trackpad.
"Ding."
An unread email sat in his inbox, its subject line concise and clear.
[MicroChat v1.0 Closed Beta Package (iOS Version) - Packaged].
Gu Ran raised an eyebrow.
This was the first shot fired by GR Technology in the mobile internet war.
He dug out a data cable from his drawer and connected his black iPhone 4 to the computer.
In this era where the App Store review mechanism was still imperfect and enterprise signature distribution had not yet become popular.
The only way to install an unpublished app was through this most primitive method of sideloading.
Then, he sent a message to Ye Zhenzhen.
[Silly Bear: Are you asleep? Take out your phone, connect it to your computer, and receive the file I'm sending you.]
Girls' dormitory, Room 302.
The young girl was hiding under her covers. The heat trapped inside the blanket flushed her face a rosy pink.
Seeing the text message, she bit her lower lip, her mind filled with the shameful scenes from the car just now.
The girl replied with a touch of tsundere pride.
[Dr. Ye: What do you want? I... I'm going to sleep.]
[Silly Bear: Be good and listen to me. I'll take you to play something fun, a private game that only the two of us can play.]
Ye Zhenzhen: "???"
What kind of scandalous words were these?!
She... she was a good girl, how could she not withstand such temptation?!!!
The girl's pretty face heated up disappointingly once again.
A few minutes later, a certain someone named Ye finally got out of bed carefully, her body acting honestly despite her words of refusal, and turned on her computer.
As the progress bar finished, a green icon simultaneously appeared on both of their phone home screens.
It was an extremely minimalist speech bubble design.
In this year of 2011, which was flooded with skeuomorphic designs where developers wanted to carve flowers into their icons.
The flat green bubble seemed a bit out of place.
Yet it exuded an indescribable sense of premium quality.
Below the icon, there were only two words: MicroChat.
Gu Ran looked at this icon, a trace of emotion flashing in his eyes as if a lifetime had passed.
In his previous life, this green penguin-killer wouldn't arrive belatedly until several months later.
But in this life, it was born ahead of schedule in a boys' dorm room at Qinghua University.
"Yo, what is our great Consultant Gu busy with?"
A sarcastic voice broke Gu Ran's train of thought.
Qin Zhaoyang had come over at some point, holding a tea mug in his hand.
His eyes swept back and forth across the computer screen, a mocking smile on his lips.
"Not sleeping in the middle of the night, messing around with this sketchy software on your computer. I say, Gu Ran..."
He deliberately dragged out his tone, the mockery on his face growing even stronger.
"You didn't download some virus-ridden porn app, did you? Don't end up turning your phone that costs thousands into a brick, that would be hilarious."
Qin Zhaoyang raised his voice loudly, afraid that the others wouldn't hear.
In his eyes, Gu Ran's act of pretending to be profound was just showing off, and he did it every single day!
But Gu Ran didn't even look up. His fingers tapped rapidly on the keyboard, entering a string of closed beta invitation codes.
"If you're that bored, you can go count the acne pits on your face."
"You!"
Qin Zhaoyang choked, his face stiffening.
Just as he was about to lash out, he saw Zhang Qi and Li Ming gathering around curiously.
"Brother Gu, what... high-tech stuff are you researching here?"
Zhang Qi craned his neck.
Gu Ran tapped his thumb lightly on the screen.
"Something newly developed by the company."
This breezy attitude made the two of them feel a sense of awe without fully understanding why.
Before they could react.
Accompanied by a crisp and pleasant startup sound effect, that green bubble rapidly expanded, occupying the entire screen.
Immediately after, an extremely minimalist login interface emerged.
There were no cluttered ads, no flashy QQ Shows, and none of those messy news pop-ups.
The entire interface was outrageously clean, with only four function tabs at the bottom.
MicroChat, Contacts, Discover, Me.
"Holy shit..."
Li Ming pushed up the glasses on the bridge of his nose, unable to hold back his exclamation.
"Brother Gu, this interface... looks so comfortable! It's much cleaner than mobile QQ, it feels especially... trendy!"
"Yeah, it just looks different."
Zhang Qi echoed.
"This UI design is incredible, it's an absolute perfect match for the iPhone's style!"
Hearing his roommates' excessive flattery, Qin Zhaoyang grew even more sour.
He glanced at the interface and said sourly.
"Tch, what are you bragging about? What's the use of a good-looking interface? Isn't it just a chatting tool?"
Though his mouth said so, his body honestly leaned over quietly.
"Can it do any tricks? Who doesn't use QQ nowadays? Will anyone even use this thing of yours?"
Gu Ran ignored the buzzing in his ears. Seeing Qin Zhaoyang's actions, he only found it amusing.
He picked up his phone and quickly sent a text message to Ye Zhenzhen.
[Tap on 'Discover' at the bottom, and select the third function, 'Shake'. Remember to turn up your phone's volume.]
In the girls' dorm.
Ye Zhenzhen looked at that strange function icon on the screen.
The silhouette of a hand holding a phone.
Shake?
What did this mean?
Although her heart was full of doubts, out of her trust in Gu Ran.
She still pressed the volume button to the maximum, and then took a deep breath.
Boys' dorm 404.
Gu Ran stood up, holding his phone, the corners of his mouth curving up slightly.
Qin Zhaoyang seeing Gu Ran not speaking, thought he had hit a sore spot and became even more smug.
"Hit the nail on the head, didn't I? This kind of knockoff software is only good for fooling idiots. You really think making an App makes you Steve Jobs? The way I see it..."
Before he could finish his sentence.
Gu Ran's wrist gave a sharp flick.
The movement was clean and crisp, carrying an inexplicable sense of ritual.
"Click-clack—"
An extremely realistic, crisp sound effect, similar to a rifle bolt being cocked, abruptly exploded in the quiet dorm room.
The sound was highly penetrating, full of a mechanical feel, carrying a satisfying crispness that made adrenaline surge.
Zhang Qi, who was drinking water, was startled. His hand shook, and water spilled all over his crotch.
Even Qin Zhaoyang, who was just preparing to continue his mockery, was stunned for a moment by this magical sound.
The words that had reached his lips got abruptly stuck in his throat.
What was that sound?
Before anyone could react.
Two seconds later.
"Bzzzt—"
The phone in Gu Ran's hand vibrated violently.
The originally split screen image quickly merged back together, and a fresh and refined profile picture popped up.
It was the profile picture Ye Zhenzhen had just changed to, a photo of her back that he had taken for her when they were in Wuzhen.
Right below the avatar, a line of small text was clearly displayed:
[Ye Zhenzhen]
[1,800 meters away]
...
lities. One day, Qi Yuan was buying groceries when he unfortunately came face-to-face with a monster. Just when he thought he was going to die on the spot, he suddenly heard the monster's thoughts... "This aura, he's definitely not an ordinary master!" "So terrifying, so terrifying." "A fight with my back against the wall, I can't take it anymore." Qi Yuan: Ah, no one told me that my awakened ability isn't telepathy, but rather the stronger my enemies imagine me to be, the stronger I truly become. PS: Zhou Hai in the first chapter is not the protagonist.
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."
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.
] [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!"
