Chapter 277
Meanwhile, in the girls' dormitory.
Ye Zhenzhen opened her small pink suitcase and distributed the snacks she brought back to the roommates gathered around her.
Zhao Xiaoxiao nibbled on a dessert while leaning in to examine the young woman as if looking at a rare animal.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk, Zhenzhen, did you eat some kind of magical elixir on your trip home?"
At the same time, Chen Jing pinched the girl's smooth, tender cheeks and teased with a grin.
"This skin, fair with a rosy flush, just like a peach. And these eyes, so full of spring romance!"
"Fess up, you've definitely been thoroughly nourished by love, haven't you?"
"Yeah, yeah! Tell us quickly, is this the doing of your handsome and rich 'younger brother'?"
Ye Zhenzhen blushed bright red, looking exactly like a cooked shrimp.
She playfully reached out to tickle them in retaliation.
"What nonsense are you talking about! You can't expect ivory from a dog's mouth! That's just from eating my family's home-cooked meals!"
"Ohoho, still acting tough, your face is red all the way to the base of your neck!"
Two fists are no match for four hands, and the young woman was quickly defeated.
She collapsed onto the bed, begging for mercy.
"Hahahaha, stop... it tickles! Hahaha..."
Amidst the roughhousing, her phone slipped out of her pocket due to their movements.
The previously silent phone suddenly lit up.
She instinctively looked over; it was a WeChat message from Gu Ran.
[Silly Bear: After dinner tonight, I'll take you to the company to hang out.]
Amidst the "oohs" and "aahs" of the other two, she got up with a flushed face.
Looking at the words on the screen, the corners of her mouth curled up uncontrollably.
Traces of sweetness overflowed from her usually cool and aloof eyes.
Her fingers tapped briskly on the keyboard, replying with a single word.
[Okay.]
Seeing her staring at her phone and giggling like a fool, the two onlookers exchanged winks and teased her again.
"Oh my, look at that cheap smile. I won't need to eat sugar for the next week!"
"Plant a younger brother in the spring, harvest a husband in the autumn, right!"
Embarrassed and annoyed, Ye Zhenzhen grabbed a throw pillow and hurled it at them.
"Go eat your snacks!"
Inside the girls' dormitory, the friends continued to playfully bicker.
Their cheerful laughter drifted through the window, blending into the gentle breeze of the university campus.
...
Evening in Qinglin City carried the chill of early autumn.
The two of them went to a private kitchen restaurant they frequently visited near the school for dinner.
Gu Ran picked up a piece of steamed sea bass, meticulously removed the bones from the edges, and placed it in Ye Zhenzhen's bowl.
"Here, eat more fish, it's good for your brain. I had to go to great lengths to pick this clean, so be grateful, young lady."
Ye Zhenzhen rolled her eyes at him.
How many bones does sea bass even have?
But she quickly caught the main point.
"You're the one who needs brain food!"
She bared her teeth in retort, but her hands were honest as she stuffed all the fish into her mouth.
Her cheeks bulged, looking like a food-guarding hamster.
As she chewed, her gaze unconsciously drifted to Gu Ran's phone on the table.
Ever since they sat down, the screen had been lighting up constantly like a disco strobe.
It was full of missed calls and message notifications, vibrating and buzzing against the tabletop.
She finally couldn't help it and slightly furrowed her pretty brows.
"Your phone is about to explode. Why don't you answer it? What if something major happened?"
Gu Ran noticed her subtle movements, unhurriedly pulled a tissue, and wiped his hands.
"Are you full? If you are, I'll take you for a tour around the company."
"Don't change the subject. Did something really happen?"
She asked softly, unable to hide the worry in her clear, cool eyes.
Gu Ran reached out his large hand and unceremoniously ruffled the tuft of hair fluttering on top of her head.
Under her murderous glare, he chuckled.
"It's really nothing major. Didn't I say I was taking you out to have fun? Let's go!"
As they spoke, the two had already paid the bill and gotten into the car.
Seeing that the young man's eyes truly lacked the anxiousness she had worried about, Ye Zhenzhen finally breathed a slight sigh of relief.
She then pouted her pink lips and reached up to pat down her messed-up hair.
"Don't touch my hair next time! What if I stop growing taller because of it!"
Gu Ran, who was looking down to buckle his seatbelt, paused. He raised his eyelids.
His gaze swept up and down the person in front of him.
His eyes finally landed on a certain spot, and his tone was quite serious.
"Logically speaking, a change in environment does promote growth, not to mention you don't really need to grow any taller."
"Setting height aside, you... seem to only be growing in age, not in flesh."
Seeing the conversation take a weird turn, she frowned.
Why did that sound so strange?
Ye Zhenzhen froze for a second, following his gaze to look down at herself.
"Boom," her cheeks flushed completely red.
"Gu 'Dog' Ran! You pervert! I'm going to bite you to death!"
Burning with shame and anger, she swung her small fists, delivering a frantic barrage of punches to Gu Ran's shoulder.
"Hey, hey, hey! I'm driving! Pay attention to traffic safety!"
The car started up accompanied by the young man's hearty, carefree laughter, their playful banter scattering into the early autumn air.
...
Half an hour later, the black Audi parked steadily outside the GR company headquarters.
The moment they pushed open the glass doors, Ye Zhenzhen was stunned in place by the sight before her.
The somewhat shabby startup "ragtag crew" she remembered had now unexpectedly expanded into a modern office space occupying an entire floor of the commercial building!
Hundreds of workstations were filled with employees staring intently at their screens, frantically typing on their keyboards.
The massive whiteboards on the walls were covered with intricate data curves.
The entire space was filled with the urgent ringing of telephones and the clatter of keyboards.
Everyone was operating frantically in a highly tense, wartime-like state.
"Hello, boss!"
"Boss!"
As they walked through, employees constantly stood up to greet him, their eyes revealing tension and anticipation.
The young woman followed closely behind Gu Ran.
Looking at the "stinky younger brother" ahead of her, who was usually flippant and full of nonsense, her heart inexplicably skipped a beat seeing the authority he displayed in this moment.
"President Gu!"
Li Sinan walked briskly toward them, clutching a thick stack of data reports.
This formerly stylish and beautiful English teacher now had bloodshot eyes from staying up late, and she reported the situation with a solemn expression.
"Penguin WeChat V2.0 launched ahead of schedule this afternoon! They threw in one billion in cash subsidies straight away to attract new users!"
"Even more fatally, Penguin has mobilized their entire traffic matrix. Currently, all mainstream domestic app stores have completely removed the installation package for our WeChat!"
The young man didn't pause his steps in the slightest. He turned his head and said to Li Sinan.
"Teacher Li, get ready. We're holding a meeting in five minutes."
. As long as he maintains the villain image and follows the plot to the grand finale, he can obtain generous rewards and return to the real world. So Gu Chen'an entered the role and began to act as a scumbag villain, but who would have expected that the female leads could hear his inner thoughts. Miss Su from the Su family was shocked: "I originally thought Gu Chen'an was a scumbag, but I didn't expect he turned out to be a gentleman! What? You said I have to call off the engagement? I definitely won't, I'll piss you off!" Bai Yuan Tian was dumbfounded: "Young Master Gu is usually unreasonable and a complete brat, but he actually calls me little sweetie in his heart? What, Young Master Gu even said he likes me?" As the female leads' images collapsed more and more, the plot also collapsed with it. Gu Chen'an looked at all this chaos. "Ladies, don't aggro me, if you keep this up the male lead really will stab me, I still need to survive to the grand finale!"
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!
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.
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
