Chapter 3
As soon as the bell for the last morning class rang, the classroom instantly exploded with noise. Every single person in the room had a joyous smile beaming on their face.
Although the lunch break was short, for these exhausted high school seniors, it was like a lifesaver!
Ye Jinliang rubbed his dry eyes, strained from staring at a novel, and muttered to himself, "It's time to buy some eye drops. I exhausted myself from reading!"
He cheered himself on with absolute self-righteousness, not feeling guilty in the slightest.
Even though he was reading for leisure, it was still a book!
Don't dismiss a bean bun as not being real food—this is the power of words, and the power of words cannot be underestimated.
With that said, he closed the novel hidden inside his textbook, stood up, stretched lazily, and subconsciously glanced in Gu Ran's direction.
In the back row by the window, Gu Ran sat all alone, looking exceptionally solitary.
At first glance, he seemed to be detached from the rest of the world.
But that wasn't the point. The point was—this guy actually wasn't sleeping!
Ye Jinliang's eyelids twitched violently as he stared at Gu Ran in disbelief.
Oh no, oh no, this guy has definitely been possessed. He's actually doing practice questions?!
He rubbed his eyes again, looking as if he had just seen a ghost.
He hadn't seen wrong. Gu Ran was indeed doing practice questions, and he wasn't just putting on an act.
Ye Jinliang quickly walked to the back row, stared at Gu Ran in astonishment, and asked, "No way, Brother Gu. Blink if you've been kidnapped. This studious look isn't like you at all!"
Hearing this, Gu Ran looked up and joked, "Then what is like me? Smoking, drinking, eating fatty meat, sleeping in class, and reading novels? Does being pure scum of society sound more like me?"
Ye Jinliang: "......."
He couldn't help but feel that this guy was subtly taking a jab at him...
After his quip, Gu Ran started packing up his test papers and wearily massaged the bridge of his nose.
After a whole morning of self-testing, he had come to a profound realization of his current situation: he truly hadn't learned a single thing during his high school years!
He couldn't remember any of the Chinese literature passages required for memorization; he had completely forgotten all the math formulas and theorems; and he had absolutely no recollection of chemistry, physics, or biology.
With exactly two hundred days left until the college entrance examination, getting into a top-tier university was going to be incredibly difficult.
But he wasn't discouraged. English was a piece of cake for him. After all, he was a master with over ten years of programming experience; tackling English would be as easy as slicing melons and chopping vegetables.
As for Chinese, it mostly tested reading comprehension. With the life experience of a thirty-something-year-old answering the questions, it shouldn't be too hard... probably.......
All that was left was to pick up those science subjects again. That shouldn't... be too hard either, right?
The more he thought about it, the less confident he felt, but he still silently cheered himself on and mapped out a study plan for the future.
Scoring five hundred points on the exam is a matter of attitude; scoring six hundred points is a matter of IQ.
As long as I straighten out my attitude toward studying, I can definitely score five hundred!
I definitely will!!!
He stood up, stretched his limbs, and headed to the cafeteria with Ye Jinliang.
In his past memories, the two of them always went to a small restaurant outside the school for lunch and ordered a couple of dishes.
But now, Gu Ran wanted to try the cafeteria. The school cafeteria, which he never had the chance to visit in his previous life, should be full of the taste of youth, right?
......
.......
The cafeteria's menu could certainly be described as "abundant"!
Today's specials included stir-fried pork with pineapple, scrambled tomatoes with oranges, stewed green beans with pears, and apple radish soup... This was simply a wild, chaotic medley, with the main theme being absolute nonsense cooking!
Looking at the array of culinary nightmares before him, Gu Ran really couldn't fathom what kind of mental state the cafeteria ladies were in when they cooked these dishes.
"Young man, hurry up and order what you want. There's a line behind you!"
Gu Ran's prolonged staring at the various "cuisines" in a daze had drawn the dissatisfaction of the serving lady.
Hearing this, he smiled awkwardly. "Ah... well, I'm actually not that hungry right now. Let the students behind me order first."
With that, he quickly grabbed Ye Jinliang and fled the line.
It seemed there was a good reason he didn't eat at the cafeteria in his past life!
"I told you we shouldn't come to the cafeteria, but you insisted. Now do you believe me?"
Ye Jinliang kept nagging tirelessly beside him, and Gu Ran could only reply absentmindedly, "I believe you, I believe you..."
Suddenly, Ye Jinliang's voice grew excited. "Brother Gu! Brother Gu, look quickly!"
He yanked Gu Ran's arm hard.
The latter looked in the direction he was pointing and saw an elegant, fresh-faced girl appear before them.
Her long, straight, and silky black hair was loosely tied back with a hairband. The black-and-white school uniform she wore didn't look tacky at all; instead, it added a touch of everlasting youthful vitality.
She wore a pair of white skate shoes and white cotton ankle socks. In the eyes of a seasoned veteran like Gu Ran, this added a hint of subtle allure to her pure appearance.
The girl's fair, delicate face wore a serious expression, as if eating was a matter that required strict attention.
The moment he saw her, Gu Ran inexplicably thought of his dad. The identical expression on her face made him feel like the two of them would get along swimmingly.
Thinking of this, he shook his head, turned around, and pulled Ye Jinliang toward the cafeteria entrance.
This guy was acting like he had never seen a woman before, making a scene in broad daylight. Even if Ye Jinliang didn't care about his own face, Gu Ran still had his dignity to uphold!
"No, Brother Gu, that's the school beauty! Ye Zhenzhen, the number one student in our grade. You're just going to walk away?!"
Ye Jinliang, who was being forcibly dragged out of the cafeteria, was still reluctant to leave. After all, chances to bump into the school beauty were rare!
She spent most of her time studying at her desk. It would be a pity to miss this chance!
"What else? If we don't leave, are you planning to go up and confess your love?"
"Uh..."
Gu Ran's rhetorical question instantly choked him, leaving him speechless.
The two walked along the street outside the school, grabbed a quick bite, and prepared to head back.
But Ye Jinliang voiced a different opinion. "Back to school?!"
"Why go back to school in the middle of the day? Come on, let's go to the internet cafe and play some shooters! I bought a six-month rental of the Barrett sniper rifle yesterday and I haven't had enough of it yet!"
That single sentence brought back a flood of memories for Gu Ran.
In 2010, before the overpowered premium weapons were released, the popularity of CrossFire was unprecedented. Walk into any internet cafe, and half the people there would be playing the shooter!
People firing assault rifles, firing pistols... The marketing slogan "The gunfight dream of 300 million mice" was no joke.
It wasn't like in later years, where overpowered weapons were everywhere and hackers were as common as stray dogs!
Some even famously claimed: "The Northern Server is a grand stage; if you don't have hacks, stay away."
It was the same for other games. Major game developers competed to rake in cash, releasing a dizzying array of games with endless pay-to-win models. The original flavor was long gone.
Wait!
It's 2010 now. The iPhone 4 has just been released, the world is just entering the era of smartphones, and mobile gaming is only in its infancy.
This...
In an instant, Gu Ran froze in his tracks. A flurry of game titles flashed through his mind: Temple Run, Defend the Radish, Everyday Parkour, Rhythm Master, Hearthstone, Anipop, Honor of Kings, Onmyoji, Battle of Balls...
As a veteran coding master from the future, he had analyzed countless mobile games and possessed a comprehensive, inside-out understanding of those household classics.
After all, the corporate culture of his previous company was simply: "Rip off the best games and serve them to the players!"
Cloning a mobile game was just another day at the office for him.
In this era, the mobile gaming market was still a complete blank slate, providing an unimaginably vast stage for him to flex his skills.
As the saying goes, even a pig can fly if it stands in the wind of opportunity!
Then... could he soar even higher?
d intelligence to keep the plot moving, and sometimes even the protagonists are forced into absurdly dumb decisions. Why does the A-list celebrity heroine in urban romance novels ditch the top-tier movie star and become a lovestruck fool for a pockmarked male lead? Why do the leads in historical tragedy novels keep dancing between love and death, only for the blind healer to end up suffering the most? And Gu Wei never expected that after finally landing a villain role to stir up trouble, she’d pick the wrong gender! No choice now—she’ll just have to crush the protagonists as a girl!
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.
e, Immortal Body, Transmigration, System, Progression Fantasy, Academy Setting, Third-Person Perspective. Alternate Title: Transmigrating into a High Martial World and Reading Live Comments. Bad news: I transmigrated. This is a terrifying high-martial world, and my original, pathetically weak body fell into a coma and never woke up. Good news: I got a Popularity Points system upon arrival. I can see live comments and even create an unkillable alternate identity. Starting out, the alternate identity has all stats at 1. The system tells me that to grow stronger, I must participate in the plot, gain popularity points to allocate stats and grow stronger, and ultimately awaken my original body. And so, carrying my original body on my back, I officially entered Huaqing Academy, where the story's protagonist resides. From that moment on, Chen Guan kicked the original plot to pieces. Live Comments: [Doesn't anyone find this mysterious coffin guy creepy? He can summon indescribable grey misty hands.] [Is this guy a hero or a villain? What kind of onion became a spirit?] [By the way, does anyone know who's in the coffin? Shouldn't the debt for saving his life be repaid by now?] [According to unofficial histories, the person in the coffin was Chen Guan's first love. Their love was once passionate and earth-shattering, but they were separated by life and death due to worldly circumstances. What a star-crossed pair.] ... Years later, the world knew of a demon god born from a coffin, shrouded in grey mist, impossible to gaze upon directly. His foremost divine emissary often wielded a scythe, reaping lives like the god of death. As war approached, facing former friends and a boundless sea of enemies, Chen Guan merely raised his scythe. "Would you like to dance as well?"
