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?
lan, the Luo family, tracked him down - along with the babies in their arms. Mo Xuan stared pensively at the paternity test results from over a dozen top institutions, both domestic and international, showing a 99.99% match between himself and the two baby girls. At 23, Mo Xuan, a doctoral student, had become the father of two three-year-old children. The kicker? The mothers weren't even the same person! He gradually realized he was being lured step by step into an elaborate trap designed by these two yandere sisters. "Be good, little Xuan. Sister's life belongs to you entirely." "Brother, if you try to run away, I'll have no choice but to tie you up." Mo Xuan: "Do whatever you want, ladies. I give up."
transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”
young master of the Shen family—a figure of immense power and wealth beyond measure—and awakened the "Destined Ultimate Villain System"! His starting scenario? Running into his icy fiancée who shows up with a mountain-descending divine doctor to break off their engagement. The divine doctor arrogantly taunts: "What does your Shen family have besides a bit of stinking money? You're not even worthy of tying Qingxue's shoelaces!" Shen Fei just smiled. He completely defied the usual script: "Fine, I agree to break off the engagement. Also, notify the finance department to withdraw all investments from the Su family." Minutes later, with its capital chain severed, the Su Group teetered on the brink of bankruptcy! The once aloof and proud ice queen CEO was thrown into utter panic. That very night, she went to Shen Fei's villa, casting aside all dignity to beg and plead desperately... From then on, in this world teeming with Sons of Destiny, Shen Fei embarked on a path of extreme dimensional suppression! A mountain-descending divine doctor? Peerless medical skills? Shen Fei: "Reporting you for practicing medicine without a license! I'll gladly take your ancient medicinal cauldron and twin sister assassins." The Crooked-Smiling Dragon King? Commanding a hundred thousand soldiers with a single order? Shen Fei: "Illegal assembly and suspected treason! Let a fleet of attack helicopters sanitize the area and teach you what the state apparatus really means!" A reborn tycoon? Knows all the golden opportunities of the next decade? Shen Fei: "A trillion in capital to reverse and pump the stock market, making you blow your margin and jump on the very first day of your rebirth!" What Chosen Ones? What bearers of Heavenly Fortune? In Shen Fei's eyes, they're all just chives (i.e., suckers/marks) waiting to be harvested! Shen Fei: "Sorry, but as the Destined Ultimate Villain, I don't play by the rules of honor. I only play the game of dimensional suppression."
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.
