Chapter 252
Gu Ran walked over to the mahogany wine cabinet in the corner of the living room.
He opened the glass door and reached into the deepest part to take out a bottle of Moutai that Gu Xiangcheng had treasured for many years.
He expertly twisted off the cap, and the rich, savory aroma of the liquor instantly spread through the air.
"Come on, sit, sit down, don't just stand there."
Ye Shulian untied her apron and draped it over the back of a chair.
Perhaps affected by the conversation in the kitchen just now, Ye Zhenzhen was unusually quiet.
Seeing this, Gu Ran didn't say much either. The atmosphere at the dining table initially settled into a subtle silence.
The TV wasn't turned on, and only the crisp sounds of porcelain bowls and bamboo chopsticks occasionally clinking together could be heard.
Eventually, Gu Ran took the initiative to stand up and break the ice.
He first filled Gu Xiangcheng's small shot glass, then picked up the orange juice on the table and poured a glass for Ye Shulian.
When he walked over to Ye Zhenzhen's side, he deliberately slowed down his movements.
The young girl still hadn't recovered from the shame of being lectured by her mother in the kitchen.
With downcast eyes, she stared at the few grains of white rice in her bowl, picking at them in small bites.
She acted as if she didn't see the glance Gu Ran threw her way, not even daring to lift her head.
Ye Shulian took all of this in. To liven up the atmosphere and to carry out the "supervision" strategy she had set in the kitchen,
she said half-jokingly,
"Zhenzhen, you should learn more from Xiao Ran's steadiness at school. Don't be so frivolous all day long and always bully him."
As soon as these words came out, Ye Zhenzhen raised her head, her eyes full of questioning.
Gu Ran nodded repeatedly in agreement after sitting down: "Exactly, exactly. I suffer a lot of grievances at school."
As he spoke, he stretched out his leg under the table and extremely naturally brushed his knee against the side of the girl's leg.
"Nonsense! When have I ever bullied you!"
Shameless!
The girl, who originally wanted to remain reserved, broke her composure with a single sentence.
Her pure white cotton socks stepped directly onto the top of his foot, punishing him fiercely!
Gu Ran leaned against the back of his chair, looking completely calm and composed.
Seeing this, the girl ground her back teeth. As she tilted her head to look at him, a sweet smile hung on her face.
Under the table, the pure white cotton sock secretly applied more pressure.
"Hiss!"
Gu Ran gasped in a breath of cold air.
"What's wrong?"
Ye Shulian noticed the anomaly and asked.
He had just opened his mouth when the quick-lipped girl beat him to it.
"He's just hungry. His stomach hurts, he'll be fine after eating more food."
After speaking, she shot the boy a warning glare.
Gu Ran forcefully swallowed his cry of pain and forced a dry smile.
"Cough cough, it's an old problem I've had for years."
Ye Shulian: "......"
Gu Xiangcheng: "???"
After the minor interlude passed, Gu Xiangcheng picked up the wine glass in front of him and took a sip of the white liquor.
The spicy liquid rolled down his throat, allowing his nerves—which had gone numb from being shocked by his son in the living room earlier—to calm down slightly.
He deliberately kept a straight face, putting on the majesty of a veteran detective.
"Zhenzhen is a steady child, she doesn't make people worry. The main issue is Gu Ran."
Lao Gu tapped his chopsticks at his son.
"When doing things, you must be down-to-earth. Don't lose sight of how high the sky is and how deep the earth is just because you've made a little noise."
The boy put down his chopsticks, his attitude extremely sincere.
"Dad is right to lecture me, I will always keep it in mind."
Looking at his son's humble appearance, Gu Xiangcheng coughed lightly.
"That 'WeChat' thing of yours is going to be officially launched after the National Day holiday, right? Let me know when the time comes, I'll download it on my phone and inspect it for you."
Ye Shulian, who had just taken a sip of soup, raised her head with a face full of confusion.
"What WeChat? What kind of commotion has Xiao Ran stirred up at school?"
This was exactly the sentence Gu Xiangcheng had been waiting for.
He could no longer suppress the pride in his heart and put down his wine glass.
He began to explain in a humblebragging manner.
"It's no big deal. This kid made a software at school, said it's called WeChat. Not only did he get millions of users, but he also pulled in a five-million-dollar investment from foreign capital."
Gu Xiangcheng paused, his gaze sweeping over his wife and daughter, and continued speaking.
"Even that Penguin Group was pushed back by him."
After saying this, the old father raised his chin slightly.
Gu Ran sat quietly on the side, peeling boiled shrimp for his sister. The expressions of the father and son at this moment were identically calm.
The soup spoon in Ye Shulian's hand dropped back into the bowl with a clack, splashing a few drops of broth.
Five million dollars?
She quickly calculated the exchange rate in her head—over thirty million RMB!
She opened her mouth, looking at Gu Ran, unable to speak for a long time.
Although Ye Zhenzhen knew about the existence of WeChat, she completely didn't expect its scale to have grown massive enough to go head-to-head with top domestic internet giants.
The dumbfounded reactions of the mother and daughter greatly satisfied Gu Xiangcheng's vanity.
He picked up his wine glass, concealing his wildly upward-curving mouth, and happily took a sip.
Looking at the shocked mother and daughter and his flushed, radiant father,
Gu Ran wiped his hands and said seriously,
"Currently, it's just the first step of a long march, it doesn't count as any great achievement."
Immediately after, he changed the subject, his firm gaze sweeping over the whole family.
Finally, it lingered for a moment on Ye Zhenzhen's slightly red cheeks.
"Actually, I don't have any other motivation for working so desperately on these businesses."
As he spoke, he picked up the plumpest piece of sweet and sour pork ribs and placed it steadily into the aloof girl's bowl.
"My only wish is that in the future, I can legitimately and confidently take good care of the most important person by my side."
This pun-filled, veiled confession made Ye Zhenzhen's heartbeat suddenly skip a beat.
She stared fixedly at the piece of rib covered in bright red sauce in her bowl. The flush on her cheeks quickly spread to the roots of her ears, and even her fair neck took on a layer of pink.
Ye Shulian glanced at her blushing daughter, then looked at Gu Ran, whose eyes were full of tenderness.
The weight of those words, "legitimately," was too heavy.
She sighed in her heart.
These two children, in the end, could not be stopped.
Having figured it out, she put on a gentle smile and broke the brief silence.
"As expected of a child from Lao Gu's family, so promising. Zhenzhen, don't just eat rice, have some dishes!"
The young girl looked at the food in her bowl, raised her head, and met her mother's gentle gaze.
After being tested for so long, this was the first time since returning home that her mother had been so gentle with her.
For some reason,
she felt a little like crying...
From the corner of his eye, Gu Ran glanced at Ye Zhenzhen and secretly grasped the hand the girl had just put down under the table.
This time, she didn't shake him off, but squeezed back, applying a little pressure.
Gu Ran continued speaking.
"This is all because Dad and Aunt Ye hold the fort at home, providing us with a stable rear. Only then can we feel confident when we're out there hustling."
Ye Shulian and Gu Xiangcheng exchanged a glance across the dining table.
Then, with slightly red eyes, she picked up the orange juice in front of her and called out with a smile,
"Come, let's not talk about this. Let's have a toast as a family!"
Gu Xiangcheng immediately raised his wine glass, and seeing this, Ye Zhenzhen also hurriedly picked up her cup.
The four glasses clinked crisply together in the center of the dining table.
"From now on, every National Day, our family must spend it all together, neat and complete!"
......
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.
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
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
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."
