Chapter 273
The next morning.
Sunlight poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the living room, casting a warm glow over the dining table.
Gu Xiangcheng rarely had a day off from standby duty. Today, the family of four had all changed into loose loungewear, sitting leisurely at the dining table eating breakfast.
Gu Ran pushed two unopened boxes of the latest smartphones directly in front of Gu Xiangcheng and Ye Shulian.
"Dad, Aunt Ye, here are new phones for you."
"You child, it's not like our phones don't work. Why waste money on this?"
Deep down, Ye Shulian was still frugal and thrifty. Yesterday, when she bought a qipao and let Gu Ran pay for it, she already felt uneasy about it.
Now, seeing him bring out two more smartphones, she repeatedly waved her hands and refused to take them no matter what.
Gu Xiangcheng glanced at them without saying a word, but his body language honestly showed he stood on the same front as his wife.
The old couple both felt they were getting old and couldn't figure out these flashy electronic gadgets, nor did they want to chase after the trends of young people.
Ye Zhenzhen chimed in softly from the side, "Mom, Uncle Gu, the phones really didn't cost that much."
"Brother Gu Ran mainly wants you to try the software his company made."
Hearing this, Gu Xiangcheng put down the newspaper in his hands and raised an eyebrow. "MicroChat?"
"Yes," Gu Ran nodded and continued, "It's the instant messaging app I mentioned to you before. It's very simple to use and quite convenient."
Saying that, he picked up one of the phones, swiped his long fingers across the screen, and tapped on the green MicroChat icon.
"Here, take a look, this is MicroChat. Besides sending messages, it will soon launch voice and video call features."
"Especially the video calls—when Sister Zhenzhen and I go back to Qinglin for school, our family can chat face-to-face anytime."
Ye Zhenzhen sat opposite Gu Ran, holding a glass of hot milk with both hands and taking small sips. She obediently offered an assist at the right moment: "Yeah, everyone at our school is using this now. It's super convenient for communicating."
Gu Xiangcheng and Ye Shulian exchanged a glance, clearly somewhat swayed.
After hesitating for half a second, they both put down their bowls and chopsticks.
Ye Shulian solemnly wiped her hands, and Lao Gu also pulled out his reading glasses from his pocket and rested them on the bridge of his nose.
The two lowered their heads, awkwardly poking at the screen with their fingertips. Under the guidance of the siblings, they completed the account registration step by step.
"Tap here, scan it." The siblings each brought up their own QR codes.
Accompanied by a crisp "beep," the four of them successfully added each other as friends.
Gu Ran skillfully created a group chat and immediately changed the group name to "A Family That Loves Each Other."
"There, from now on, if anything comes up at home, just shout in the group."
Ye Shulian was full of curiosity about this novel software.
Her finger slowly swiped across the screen, and following the red dot prompt at the bottom, she tapped into the "Moments" on the "Discover" page.
Beside her, Gu Xiangcheng, out of years of professional habit, directly tapped on Gu Ran's profile picture and followed the trail right into his Moments.
The next second, a photo popped up simultaneously on both of their screens.
In the picture, on a bluestone pavement, two shadows were pressed closely together, fingers intertwined, overflowing with romantic ambiguity.
The caption below read: "The river breeze, the night market, and you."
The time displayed: Last night.
The laughter and chatter in the living room discussing the app's features came to an abrupt halt.
Meanwhile, Gu Ran and Ye Zhenzhen remained completely oblivious to the strange shift in the atmosphere.
Ye Zhenzhen was tilting her head back to drink her milk, and a smear of white milk accidentally stained the corner of her plump lips.
Gu Ran turned his head, looking at her charmingly naive appearance, and a wicked smile curved on his lips.
He raised his hand, pointed to the corner of his own mouth, and raised an eyebrow, hinting frantically.
The usually aloof girl froze slightly.
Following Gu Ran's gesture, she reached out and touched the corner of her mouth.
Seeing the white liquid on her fingertip, she blinked blankly.
It took her a full two seconds to react before she suddenly remembered last night...
Her pretty face instantly flushed red. She subconsciously shook her hand, not forgetting to ruthlessly kick the mischievous person under the table.
Feeling the stomp from her pure white cotton socks, Gu Ran didn't dodge; instead, he smiled even more joyously.
The siblings had a hidden undercurrent going on beneath the table, completely forgetting about the Moments post from last night.
At the other corner of the dining table, the atmosphere was entirely different.
Ye Shulian stared fixedly at the shadow photo on the screen.
No one knows a daughter better than her mother.
Just from that slender silhouette, she could recognize her own daughter even if she turned to ash.
Her heart couldn't help but bloom with joy.
These two kids, being so romantic in the middle of the night!
The corners of her mouth were just about to turn up when she suddenly caught a glimpse of Gu Xiangcheng beside her, his brows tightly furrowed, and her heart suddenly skipped a beat.
Oh no!
If this stubborn old man saw this photo, he might just flip the table on the spot!
I absolutely cannot let him find out!
With a swipe of her thumb, Ye Shulian quickly and nimbly exited the MicroChat interface.
She forcefully pressed her rising smile down into a straight line, pretended nothing had happened, picked up the soy milk in front of her, and took a big gulp.
At the same time.
Gu Xiangcheng stared at the intertwined fingers on the screen, his eyelids twitching wildly.
This wretched kid!
Not careful at all!
Posting something like this without blocking others from seeing it!
The corner of his mouth twitched uncontrollably as he cursed Gu Ran out in his mind.
The next second, his eyes shifted slightly, sweeping a glance at his wife from the corner of his eye.
Shulian was very sensitive. If she saw this photo, she would definitely feel that her daughter had suffered a huge loss.
This newly formed family would inevitably have conflicts!
This matter must rot in his stomach!
Gu Xiangcheng's index finger decisively pressed the lock screen button.
The screen instantly went black.
He tactically cleared his throat, casually shook open the morning paper by the table with a rustle, and tightly blocked his old face.
The old couple sat in their seats, appearing calm on the surface, as if neither had noticed the Moments post.
But in their hearts, they reached a surprisingly unanimous consensus: They must accept these phones, and from now on, they had to keep a close eye on Moments every day to ensure these two kids didn't get exposed!
Breakfast ended in an eerie silence. Four people, eight hundred hidden motives.
Just as Gu Ran put down his chopsticks, Ye Shulian stood up immediately.
She grabbed Ye Zhenzhen's wrist, trying hard to maintain a natural expression on her face:
"Zhenzhen, come to the bedroom for a moment. Help Mom check if the zipper on the qipao I bought yesterday is stuck."
"Ah? Oh, okay."
Ye Zhenzhen stumbled as she was pulled, following into the master bedroom with a bewildered look on her face.
"Bang!"
The door closed.
Ye Shulian let go, walked quickly to the door, and pressed her ear against the panel to listen to the sounds outside.
Then, she turned around, lowered her voice, and pointed at Ye Zhenzhen's phone, her tone laced with anxiety.
"Don't just stand there! Hurry up and send a message to Xiao Ran, tell him to block his dad from seeing his Moments!"
Ye Zhenzhen's eyes widened: "Ah?"
"What do you mean 'ah'!"
Looking at her silly daughter in front of her, Ye Shulian slapped her thigh in anxiety.
They say pregnancy makes a woman dumb for three years, why is she already...
Wait, no!
This wretched girl... No, no, I must be scaring myself!
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.
grated, and just when he finally managed to get into an elite academy, he discovered that he actually had a system, and the way to earn rewards was extremely ridiculous. So for the sake of rewards, he had no choice but to start acting ridiculous as well. Su Cheng: "It's nothing but system quests after all." But later, what confused Su Cheng was that while he was already quite ridiculous, he never expected those serious characters to gradually become ridiculous too. And the way they looked at him became increasingly strange... (This synopsis doesn't do it justice, please read the full story)
ive and Ruthless] Before his transmigration, Ye Xuan was playing a game called "Severing Emotions to Attain the Dao." The game's core wasn't about leveling up by fighting monsters, but about conquering various "bad women" with wicked personalities and cold, fickle natures. There was only one method to conquer them: stay unwaveringly by their side, then die at a critical moment, driving them to madness after losing the protagonist. The higher their level of regret, the higher the player's score. To dominate the server, Ye Xuan conquered all the bad women. In the early stages, he showered them with boundless tenderness, only to choose to sacrifice himself for them later, making them weep bitterly and drown in regret. Among them were: Xia Lengyue, the unfaithful immortal wife who chased after powerful men and discarded her husband like trash. Ye Qingcheng, the Demonic Venerable of the Joyous Union Sect, who appeared pure and innocent but was, in reality, promiscuous. Wu Lingxiao, the Empress of the Great Xia Dynasty, who lusted after men and loved maintaining a harem. Bai Qiangu of the Endless Demonic Sect: a bloodthirsty mass murderer. However, when the protagonist transmigrated into the game world, he made a horrifying discovery. Eight hundred years had already passed. The bad women he had conquered had now each become deities and revered ancestors. Faced with the endless stream of toxic women coming for him, Ye Xuan could only rely on his god-tier acting skills to carve a path of survival through this world of treacherous women.
