Chapter 270
4:30 AM, at the peak of North Mountain.
The mountain wind howled like a whistle, snaking up the bluestone steps and slicing straight down people's collars.
Relying on Gu Ran's hardcore assistance, which was basically him physically pushing her up like a cart, Ye Zhenzhen finally made it to the last step.
Resting her hands on her knees, she panted heavily. Her beige knit cardigan clung tightly to her body in the wind, outlining her breathtaking curves.
"Gu 'Dog' Ran... you, you're like an animal, don't you know what tired means?"
Ye Zhenzhen cursed intermittently. Under the moonlight, her beautiful face revealed a post-workout flush, and her usually aloof almond eyes were now filled with embarrassment and indignation.
Gu Ran, neither flushed nor out of breath, casually set the pink suitcase on the ground and nimbly pulled a simple pop-up tent out of his bag.
"Still have the energy to swear? Looks like I pushed you hard enough just now."
Ye Zhenzhen: "..."
He never has anything nice to say!
The girl turned her head away, ignoring him. Gu Ran seemed oblivious. Without even looking up, he deftly set up the tent frame. The sound of the tent pegs hammering into the dirt was exceptionally clear on the quiet mountain peak.
Having set up the tent in no time, Gu Ran clapped the dust off his hands, lifted the flap, and tilted his head at her. "Get in. The wind is strong out here, don't turn into an ice sculpture, or I'll have to carry you back down the mountain."
Ye Zhenzhen curled her lip, but her body was honest; rubbing her arms, she ducked inside.
The tent was small, and once they both sat inside, the air seemed to grow tense.
In the early hours of late autumn, the temperature at the peak was near freezing. That thin layer of nylon could block the wind, but it couldn't stop the chill from seeping straight into their bones.
Barely two minutes after sitting down, Ye Zhenzhen's shoulders began to shiver uncontrollably. She subconsciously hugged her arms, her fingertips freezing cold.
"Cold?"
Gu Ran turned his head to look at her.
"No way!" Ye Zhenzhen was internally regretting not wearing more, but on the surface, she still raised her proud little chin and acted tough.
Gu Ran didn't expose her lie. Instead, he reached down and unzipped his oversized black windbreaker.
"Come here."
"What?"
"Be my hand warmer."
Before she could react, Gu Ran stretched out his long arm and pulled her right over.
Ye Zhenzhen let out a gasp. Losing her balance, she crashed solidly into his warm, broad chest.
Immediately after, Gu Ran used the flaps of his windbreaker to wrap her securely in his embrace.
With her pretty face pressed tightly against his chest, through his thin shirt, Ye Zhenzhen could clearly hear his heartbeat.
"Silly Bear..."
Her eyes grew misty, and her nose was filled with the fresh, pleasant scent of mint coming from the boy.
"Shut up and stay still."
"(`(エ)´)ノ"
"Dog..."
Ye Zhenzhen muttered softly, then comfortably narrowed her eyes. She shifted into an even snugger position and casually placed her icy paws on Gu Ran's lower abdomen to furiously absorb his heat.
Sensing the submission of the person in his arms, Gu Ran looked down at her softly and gently rested his chin on the soft crown of her head.
Time slipped away in the tranquility.
"Gu Ran, are you really going to buy a house in the capital in the future?" Ye Zhenzhen spoke softly, her voice sounding especially gentle in the cramped space.
"Yes, and a big one at that. The kind with a yard, where we can plant the osmanthus you like."
Gu Ran looked at the gradually whitening horizon outside the tent, his tone calm. "When the time comes, we'll bring Aunt Ye and Lao Gu over too."
"Always bragging." Ye Zhenzhen curled her lip, but a smile hid in the depths of her eyes as she continued to gaze into the distance.
5:40 AM.
The sea of clouds churned in the distance. At the horizon, a golden edge suddenly tore through the sky.
"Silly Bear, look! The sunrise!"
Ye Zhenzhen excitedly pulled open the tent flap and bounded out like a little rabbit, pointing enthusiastically at the horizon.
A red sun burst forth, and tens of thousands of golden rays instantly pierced the darkness, coating the entire North Mountain in a dazzling brilliance.
The sea of clouds was dyed a tangerine red, so magnificent it took one's breath away.
Ye Zhenzhen's beautiful eyes widened, her red lips parting slightly as she was awestruck by this uncanny workmanship of nature.
Just then, Gu Ran followed her out, pulling out his phone and switching to the front camera.
"Sister, look at the camera."
Ye Zhenzhen instinctively turned her face.
"Click!"
At the moment the shutter sounded, Gu Ran didn't look at the lens. Instead, he suddenly turned his head and planted a precise, affectionate kiss on the girl's cheek, which was flushed red by the morning glow.
Ye Zhenzhen's mind went blank.
Astonishment, shyness, and sweetness all melted into a gaze full of panic and tender affection.
The image froze in this exact moment.
Boundless golden light and a churning sea of clouds, a boy's affectionate stolen kiss and a girl's eyes full of shyness.
"Oh my, look over there, that couple is so romantic!"
"Wow, that photo is going to turn out amazing!"
The scattered tourists waiting for the sunrise around them let out good-natured cheers.
A few female college students who had come together were stomping their feet in excitement, looking at Gu Ran with the envy reserved for "someone else's boyfriend."
Jolted awake by the chatter, Ye Zhenzhen was so embarrassed she wished the ground would swallow her up.
She buried her head into Gu Ran's chest, her small fists pounding against it. "It's all your fault! This is so embarrassing!"
Gu Ran laughed out loud. Taking advantage of the moment, he tightened his arms around her, hugging her as if he were holding his entire world under everyone's watchful eyes.
"What are you afraid of? I'm kissing my wife, they're just jealous."
"Who is your wife... I'm your older sister!"
"Alright, then when we get home, please punish me to your heart's content, sister!"
"???"
Utterly defeated and speechless, Ye Zhenzhen shot him a charmingly exasperated eye roll and simply hid in his arms, playing dead.
The sun fully rose, its warmth dispelling the chill.
Gu Ran continued to act like a brute, pushing the blushing girl all the way down the mountain.
8:00 AM.
The Audi parked steadily downstairs at Riverside Gardens.
"I'm falling apart from exhaustion..."
As soon as they entered the house, Ye Zhenzhen kicked off her shoes. Lacking even the energy to return to her room, she collapsed directly onto the sofa.
A pair of slender calves clad in black stockings lay across the edge of the sofa, exuding a lazy allure in the sunlight.
Gu Ran walked over and looked down at her from above.
"Going to sleep for a bit?"
"Mhm..." Ye Zhenzhen replied groggily, her eyelids already fighting to stay open.
Gu Ran smiled helplessly and shook his head. He bent down and scooped her up into a princess carry to take her back to her room.
"Going to sleep, Silly Bear~"
Ye Zhenzhen looked at him, a sweet curve appearing at the corners of her mouth, before instantly falling fast asleep into dreamland.
"Sweet dreams..."
Gu Ran leaned over and planted a gentle kiss on her forehead.
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 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."
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...
he colors of other people’s emotions. Light red meant anxiety. Gray meant exhaustion. Orange meant excitement. Yellow... meant repression. At the same time, he could gain unlimited control over one of those colors. Pale cyan: relaxation. Using this ability, he started offering “two-yuan hugs,” spending an afternoon exchanging emotional-color experiences with others. Then came his final female customer of the day— a girl whose emotional color was pure black... —— A week later, Xu Chuan had become skilled at using pale cyan—Relaxation—treating it like a bottle of menthol balm whenever he needed it. That was when he discovered he had unlocked another unlimited emotional color: Purple, the color of fear. So these emotional colors refresh every week? Fine, I take it back—I’ll never call you useless again... —— Much later, after Xu Chuan had accumulated countless emotional abilities, one night, he suddenly found himself inside someone else’s dream. There, he could use the emotional colors he possessed to paint. And in her dream, he painted her a shower of pink shooting stars, spreading across the depths of the night sky...
