Chapter 274
Ye Shulian suppressed the terrifying doubts in her heart: "That photo of you holding hands last night! Your Uncle Gu is very old-fashioned and conservative in his thinking."
"If he saw you two pulling and tugging at each other outside in the middle of the night, would there be any peace left in this house!"
Ye Zhenzhen's mind buzzed.
Last night's Moments!
She had completely forgotten about it just now!
Cold sweat instantly soaked her back. The young girl frantically took out her phone, her fingers trembling as she opened WeChat.
In the living room.
Gu Xiangcheng put down his newspaper and glanced at the tightly closed door of the master bedroom.
He stood up, jerked his chin at Gu Ran, and said in a serious tone, "Come to the balcony with me."
Gu Ran didn't know what was going on, but followed Lao Gu to the balcony.
As soon as the sliding door to the balcony was shut tight.
Gu Xiangcheng's originally calm old face immediately hardened.
He lowered his voice, pointed at Gu Ran's nose, and scolded, "What's wrong with you, kid? No matter what I tell you, you just don't take it to heart! What are you doing posting that kind of photo?"
Gu Ran was taken aback by his words. "What photo?"
"Stop playing dumb!"
Gu Xiangcheng glared, suppressing his voice as he roared, "Hurry up and delete that Moments post from last night!"
Gu Ran finally realized that Lao Gu was talking about the shadow photo.
"Dad, listen to me..."
"Listen my ass!"
Gu Xiangcheng directly interrupted him, "Even with my reading glasses on, I can tell who's in the photo!"
"If your Aunt Ye sees it and thinks you're forcing yourself on Zhenzhen and taking advantage of her, let's see how you clean up that mess! Hurry up, don't dawdle!"
Seeing Lao Gu flushed with agitation, Gu Ran found it rather amusing.
However, he didn't dawdle. He quickly took out his phone and swiftly set the post to "Only visible to myself."
"It's done," Gu Ran said, waving his phone.
Gu Xiangcheng leaned over for a look, and only let out a long sigh of relief after confirming it was really gone.
He patted Gu Ran on the shoulder and warned him earnestly, "Be more steady in how you do things from now on! Don't leave a trail!"
"Understood!" Gu Ran stood at attention and gave a mock salute.
Seeing his unserious demeanor, Gu Xiangcheng laughed and scolded, "Get out of here."
A few minutes later.
The master bedroom door and the balcony sliding door opened almost simultaneously.
Gu Ran and Ye Zhenzhen returned to the living room one after the other.
Their gazes collided in mid-air.
Ye Zhenzhen's eyes still held lingering traces of panic, while Gu Ran's face was full of helplessness and amusement.
They turned to look at the sofa.
Gu Xiangcheng was holding a teacup, his eyes fixed on the morning news on the TV screen. His expression was serious, but his tense shoulders had clearly relaxed.
After coming out of the bedroom, Ye Shulian sat at the other end of the sofa. Holding a rag in her hand, she wiped back and forth across the already spotless coffee table, a relieved smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.
Gu Ran walked behind the sofa and inconspicuously squeezed the girl's fingers.
Ye Zhenzhen pinched the back of his hand in return, but the corners of her mouth curled up uncontrollably.
"Ahem."
Gu Xiangcheng cleared his throat, put down his teacup, and broke the silence. "Ran, the holidays are almost over. Your school is about to start classes soon, right?"
Gu Ran withdrew his hand and walked over to sit on the single sofa to the side.
"Yeah, I have to head back to Qinglin by the day after tomorrow at the latest."
His gaze swept over Ye Shulian, who was wiping the coffee table, and then looked at Gu Xiangcheng.
"Everything is ready for WeChat's nationwide launch. Going back this time, there's a tough battle to fight."
Gu Xiangcheng straightened his posture. "That Penguin Company or whatever is going to wage war with you again?"
"That's for sure. After all, the business world is like a battlefield, though they haven't made a move yet."
Gu Ran leaned back in his chair, pouring tea for his sister as he spoke. "But they definitely won't just sit back and watch WeChat grow big."
"Once WeChat starts its comprehensive rollout, Penguin's blockade and counterattacks will definitely follow one after another."
Ye Shulian didn't understand all this, but she could grasp the danger involved.
She immediately stopped what she was doing, showing concern. "Ran, are you confident about this? That's a huge company."
"Don't worry, Aunt Ye."
Gu Ran smiled, his tone steady but revealing absolute confidence. "Since I dared to draw my sword, I never planned on losing."
He turned his head to look at Ye Zhenzhen. The young girl was gazing at him with sparkling eyes, her gaze full of trust.
"Going back this time, not only will I win, but I'll also completely tear through Penguin's social networking blockade."
Gu Ran gently tapped his fingers on the armrest of the sofa. "WeChat will become the new rule-maker."
Gu Xiangcheng looked at his sharp and brilliant son, feeling somewhat gratified, but he also sighed and picked up the newspaper again.
If it were about navigating the bureaucracy, he could still offer his son some strategies.
Even if Gu Ran were doing some small business, he could offer guidance.
But when it came to this kind of commercial warfare involving tens or hundreds of millions, he really didn't dare to point fingers or interfere rashly.
"Go all out and do it. No matter what happens, Dad has your back."
Sunlight bathed the living room.
Gu Ran stood up, stretched, and grinned at Gu Xiangcheng. "Alright, just wait for your son's good news."
After saying that, he looked again at the well-behaved girl sitting on the sofa.
"Well then, since we still have one day of vacation left, Sister Zhenzhen and I will go buy some local specialties to bring back to our roommates."
Ye Zhenzhen nodded as if granted amnesty, following him quickly to the entryway to change shoes.
The two pushed the door open and went downstairs.
As soon as they walked out of the apartment building door, the girl grabbed her younger brother's ear.
"Gu 'Dog' Ran! You almost got me killed!"
Knowing what she was talking about, Gu Ran took the opportunity to wrap his arm around her waist, pulling her into his embrace.
"Isn't everything fine? Besides, I think our parents coordinated perfectly."
"They probably figured it out a long time ago, they're just playing dumb."
Our... our parents?
Ye Zhenzhen froze for a moment, her cheeks turning slightly red, and her head suddenly spun dizzily, making her completely deaf to whatever he said next.
"Then... then can we be open about it from now on?"
Gu Ran looked down at the girl's expectant yet shy eyes and chuckled softly.
"Don't you think sneaking around and hiding it is more thrilling?"
Thrilling?
The girl lowered her head, biting her plump lips as she carefully recalled the illicit feeling of potentially being caught at any moment.
It really was... quite lethal.
Along the way, the girl's mind grew increasingly muddled.
As for where she was led by her foolish younger brother, or what they bought, she had no idea.
All she knew was that whatever Gu Ran handed over, she obediently took into her mouth... or into her hands...
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
world slacker. But a genius female disciple just had to get clingy, insisting that he take her as a disciple. Not only that, she was always making advances on him, thoroughly disrupting his peaceful slacker life...
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.
