Chapter 236
Leaving Quanjude, the four of them headed straight for Universal Studios.
Right at the entrance, Ye Jinliang's legs already felt like lead.
The scene before them was an absolute sea of people.
Meandering lines packed every attraction so tightly that not even a drop of water could slip through, with only the massive Decepticon statue tirelessly blasting its mechanical sound effects.
Screams rose and fell in waves, making their scalps tingle.
"Holy mother of..."
Ye Jinliang clung to a lamppost and refused to let go. The aftermath of climbing the Great Wall that morning was hitting him in full force, leaving his thigh muscles aching and completely disobedient.
He pointed weakly at a bright red electronic sign nearby.
"Decepticon Rollercoaster, wait time... 120 minutes?"
"Two hours? By the time it's my turn, you might as well send me straight to the crematorium."
Pei Susu frowned as well. She checked her phone, looking miserable.
"This is ridiculous. It's already 2 PM. After lining up for two rides, it'll be dark. Did we come here just to stand around as punishment?"
Despite her tough talk, she was just a girl. After conquering the "Hero's Slope" on the Great Wall that morning, the soles of her feet felt like they were stepping on hot coals—swollen and painful.
"How about... we bail?"
Ye Jinliang looked at the group tentatively, his eyes screaming, "I just want to lie down and do nothing."
"Wouldn't it be nice to just go back to the hotel and play cards?"
"Pathetic."
Gu Ran shot him a glance and leisurely pulled four lanyards from the side pocket of his backpack.
Black and gold, exuding a premium feel.
Printed boldly on them were the words: "Universal Express Unlimited."
"Put it on."
Gu Ran casually tossed one to Ye Jinliang.
"What's this? A get-out-of-jail-free card?"
Ye Jinliang scrambled to catch it.
"A lazy person's savior, or... a pay-to-win player's cheat code."
Gu Ran's lips curled into an "I'm going to carry you guys" smirk.
"Unlimited Express Pass. No queuing. Ride as many times as you want, VIP lanes all the way."
A few nearby tourists, sweating profusely and staring blankly from waiting in line, turned their heads at his words.
Pei Susu's eyes instantly lit up. She snatched a lanyard, threw it around her neck, and gave Gu Ran a thumbs-up.
"Boss Gu is so generous! I knew it, traveling with a capitalist means we'll never suffer. We are destined for luxury!"
"Let's go."
Gu Ran took Ye Zhenzhen's hand and walked straight toward the exclusive lane marked "Express."
Suddenly, Ye Jinliang's back didn't ache, and his legs didn't hurt anymore.
He swaggered in the front, basking in the envious stares from both sides, looking even more punchable than when he had reached the top of Hero's Slope.
"This feeling of cutting the line..."
Ye Jinliang took a deep breath, looking absolutely intoxicated.
"It's so sweet! It's good to be rich!"
Ye Zhenzhen looked at Gu Ran's profile and muttered softly.
"Are you the reincarnation of Doraemon? How do you have everything in your pockets?"
Gu Ran squeezed her palm and chuckled softly.
"This is called using cheats, babe."
Five minutes later.
The four of them were seated in the ride vehicle for "Transformers: The Ride-3D."
3D glasses on, the safety lap bar clicked into place.
With a deep command from Optimus Prime, the vehicle surged into the darkness.
Over the next few minutes, weightlessness, spinning, explosions, and water sprays delivered a full-sensory bombardment.
"Ahhhh! Megatron is going crazy!!"
Pei Susu screamed in excitement, completely immersed in the battle between the Autobots and Decepticons, looking as if she wanted to rush up and hand Optimus Prime a wrench.
Ye Zhenzhen gripped the handrails tightly too. Though scared, she was mostly thrilled by the novelty of it.
The young woman's eyes were wide open, afraid of missing a single frame.
The two grown men, on the other hand...
Ye Jinliang was deathly pale, his eyes squeezed shut as he activated a "fusion of East and West" prayer mode.
"Namo Amitabha... Hallelujah... Taishang Laojun, hear my plea..."
Gu Ran had his eyes open, but his expression was stiff.
Every time the vehicle jolted violently, his Adam's apple bobbed uncontrollably.
This thing...
Completely defies ergonomics!
Who designed this?!
Coming out of the ride, Ye Jinliang was staggering wildly in an S-shaped path.
"I can't... I think I'm going to throw up..."
He clung to a trash can, looking like he was about to hurl his guts out.
"This isn't risking your life, this is ending your life!"
Gu Ran handed him a bottle of water and unscrewed his own to take a sip.
He forcefully suppressed the churning in his stomach, putting on a calm and collected facade.
"Weak is weak, don't make excuses."
"You're not weak? Then why are your legs shaking?"
Ye Jinliang exposed him mercilessly.
Gu Ran glanced down at his slightly trembling calves without batting an eye.
"This is muscle memory. It's excitement. You're still young, so it's normal you don't understand."
Before the two men could recover, an unsatisfied Pei Susu had already cast her gaze toward the deepest part of the park.
Twisted steel tracks spiraled straight into the clouds.
The Decepticon Rollercoaster.
Every few dozen seconds, a car full of people would roar past overhead, leaving behind blood-curdling screams.
"Umm... Since we're already here!"
Pei Susu waved her arms excitedly.
"We have to do this one! If we don't ride it, we might as well not have come!"
Gu Ran savored that classic and familiar phrase—"since we're already here"—and immediately felt his scalp go numb.
Hearing this, Ye Jinliang's knees went weak, and he almost dropped to the floor on the spot.
"Sister... dear sister... spare this old servant."
"I have elders above and children below... Oh wait, I don't have children yet, I don't even have a girlfriend! I don't want to die young! I haven't even carried on the Ye family line yet!"
Gu Ran looked at the nearly vertical drop of the track, his brain working in overdrive.
He did a quick mental calculation of the G-force and centrifugal force.
This thing could kill someone.
"Well..."
Gu Ran cleared his throat, trying to reason with them.
"We just ate. Strenuous exercise can easily cause stomach ptosis. Plus, from a medical standpoint, this kind of G-force isn't good for cerebral blood vessels and can easily cause a transient ischemic attack..."
Before he could finish, he was silenced by Ye Zhenzhen's half-smiling gaze.
The girl tilted her head, a sly gleam flashing in her eyes.
"Don't tell me you're... scared?"
"Scared?"
Gu Ran raised an eyebrow, staying stubborn to the bitter end.
"The word 'scared' doesn't exist in my dictionary. Only 'self-preservation'."
"Then let's go!"
Ye Zhenzhen and Pei Susu exchanged a glance. With perfect tacit understanding, they each grabbed one of the guys and dragged them toward the queue without another word.
"Help! I'm not going!!!"
Ye Jinliang abandoned all sense of dignity, letting out screams like a pig being slaughtered.
Gu Ran, meanwhile, had a look of utter despair. Letting Ye Zhenzhen drag him along, he silently calculated in his head.
If he pretended to faint right now, could he escape this ordeal?
Waiting online for an answer, it's urgent.
young master of the Shen family—a figure of immense power and wealth beyond measure—and awakened the "Destined Ultimate Villain System"! His starting scenario? Running into his icy fiancée who shows up with a mountain-descending divine doctor to break off their engagement. The divine doctor arrogantly taunts: "What does your Shen family have besides a bit of stinking money? You're not even worthy of tying Qingxue's shoelaces!" Shen Fei just smiled. He completely defied the usual script: "Fine, I agree to break off the engagement. Also, notify the finance department to withdraw all investments from the Su family." Minutes later, with its capital chain severed, the Su Group teetered on the brink of bankruptcy! The once aloof and proud ice queen CEO was thrown into utter panic. That very night, she went to Shen Fei's villa, casting aside all dignity to beg and plead desperately... From then on, in this world teeming with Sons of Destiny, Shen Fei embarked on a path of extreme dimensional suppression! A mountain-descending divine doctor? Peerless medical skills? Shen Fei: "Reporting you for practicing medicine without a license! I'll gladly take your ancient medicinal cauldron and twin sister assassins." The Crooked-Smiling Dragon King? Commanding a hundred thousand soldiers with a single order? Shen Fei: "Illegal assembly and suspected treason! Let a fleet of attack helicopters sanitize the area and teach you what the state apparatus really means!" A reborn tycoon? Knows all the golden opportunities of the next decade? Shen Fei: "A trillion in capital to reverse and pump the stock market, making you blow your margin and jump on the very first day of your rebirth!" What Chosen Ones? What bearers of Heavenly Fortune? In Shen Fei's eyes, they're all just chives (i.e., suckers/marks) waiting to be harvested! Shen Fei: "Sorry, but as the Destined Ultimate Villain, I don't play by the rules of honor. I only play the game of dimensional suppression."
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.”
't think I'm that capable, I'm just trying my best to stay alive. I've been kind all my life, never did anything bad, yet worldly suffering spared me not one bit. The human world is a nice place, but I won't come back in my next life. A kind young man, who wanted to just get by singing, but through repeated deceits and betrayals, has gone down an irredeemable path.
] [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!"
