Chapter 38
"Why are you so late? What were you doing?"
Ye Zhenzhen, who had been waiting at the classroom door for a long time, asked instinctively as she watched Gu Ran hurrying over.
Gu Ran, holding an empty backpack, immediately replied, "I just ran into Ms. Li and talked to her for a bit."
As he spoke, he consciously took the girl's backpack and slung it over his own shoulders quite naturally.
Ms. Li?
After handing over her backpack, Ye Zhenzhen frowned slightly. The image of a figure wearing a tight little suit and black pantyhose popped into her mind.
Was it the newly tenured English teacher, Li Sinan?
The one who greeted him the other day with a super sweet voice?
First High School only recruited a few new teachers every year, and they formed a sharp contrast with the older teachers. So even though she didn't care about these things, she had still heard the name.
Rumor has it she's the prettiest in the English department?
She blinked her eyes, turned her head to look at Gu Ran, and said softly, "Student Gu, you have to study hard today too~"
Gu Ran: "???"
Suddenly hearing the girl beside him pinching her voice to imitate what Li Sinan had said to him that day, he felt a numbness spread through his body, uncontrollably breaking out in goosebumps.
"What are you doing?"
Looking at her strangely, Gu Ran frowned slightly, not understanding what she was playing at.
Being stared at by his strange gaze, Ye Zhenzhen instantly felt embarrassed, not even knowing why she was acting so weirdly sarcastic herself.
Raising her hand to elegantly tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, she tilted her head slightly, avoiding Gu Ran's gaze.
A trace of unnaturalness flashed through her cold eyes. She paused, then returned to normal, saying calmly, "I was just confirming if it was that Ms. Li."
Gu Ran: "..."
"Well, your imitation was very lifelike..."
Ye Zhenzhen unnaturally touched her hair again, a faint blush appearing on her cheeks. "It was... alright, I guess."
Gu Ran was about to say something else when the phone in his pocket rang. Taking it out, he saw it was a message from Lao Gu telling him to take Ye Zhenzhen out for lunch, as they had gone back home to pay respects to their ancestors.
Paying respects to ancestors on New Year's Day?
More like you dragging your new wife back to your hometown to show off!
Turning his head, he saw Ye Zhenzhen staring at the phone in his hand. He raised an eyebrow, waved it in front of her, and said, "This is a mobile phone. You can use it to call people and send text messages."
Ye Zhenzhen: "..."
Although she only had a cheap Xiaolingtong phone, she wasn't so ignorant as to not know what this was!
So, what was he explaining?
Did he think she didn't even recognize a mobile phone?!
Out of habit, she lifted her foot and lightly kicked him, then rolled her beautiful eyes, giving him a disdainful look.
"Get lost, so unserious! Also, why did you bring a phone to school? Isn't it forbidden to bring phones on campus?"
"Uh..."
Gu Ran blinked. This was the first time he had ever heard of such a rule.
But he had violated plenty of school rules; did he care about this one?
Hadn't she heard the saying? Envy not the mandarin ducks nor the immortals, envy only Brother Ran's every day!
To him, holidays didn't matter. If he wanted, the teachers could be on maternity leave every day!
...
The two of them grabbed a casual bite outside and then walked home.
Upon returning home, Gu Ran took off his shoes and subconsciously followed the girl back to her bedroom.
Turning her head and seeing the tail behind her, Ye Zhenzhen helplessly rubbed her forehead. "Why are you here again?"
"Uh... If I said my feet just naturally walked this way, would you believe me?"
Ye Zhenzhen: "..."
A girl's bedroom, and your feet just naturally walked this way?
Listen to that, is that something a human would say?
She was utterly helpless against this guy whose skin was as thick as a city wall.
In front of him, the aloof girl's reserve would always uncontrollably break down, because you never knew what unexpected thing he would do next.
"Hurry back, I need to change my clothes!"
Her cold eyes glared at him as she reached out her foot again and lightly kicked his calf.
After a few days of tutoring, this action had become a basic interaction between the two.
If she didn't kick him a couple of times a day, she felt uncomfortable all over.
Gu Ran felt the same; if he wasn't touched by those pure white cotton socks a couple of times, his whole day felt dull.
"Oh, oh."
Nodding obediently, Gu Ran walked straight towards the balcony, only to be yanked back by the embarrassed and annoyed girl.
"Use the main door!"
Watching Gu Ran walk out through the bedroom's main door, she finally sat on the bed, feeling a bit mentally exhausted.
What exactly was wrong with this guy, always loving to take the back door?
If he got used to doing this, people who didn't know better would think there was something shameful going on between them!
Glaring at the door again in embarrassment, she quickly got up, walked to the balcony, and took down the cartoon undergarments hanging there.
She nervously glanced at the adjacent balcony door. After not seeing Gu Ran's figure, she guiltily clutched the undergarments, tiptoed back inside, folded them, and hid them in her wardrobe.
Only after doing all this did she breathe a sigh of relief.
She had already been mortified when her solid-colored underwear hanging on the balcony was seen before, but seeing Gu Ran's old-man boxers hanging next to them had somewhat neutralized it.
But if her cartoon character underwear were seen now, she would literally die of embarrassment!
After changing into casual loungewear, she first tidied up the room a bit and then sat down at her desk.
However, she didn't start doing exercises. Instead, she was a bit curious about why the guy next door hadn't come over yet.
According to past routines, this guy would always show up right on the dot after exactly ten minutes. Had he changed his personality today?
After waiting a little longer and finding that Gu Ran still hadn't come over, she couldn't help but push the door open and walk to the door of the next room.
Listening closely, she faintly heard the clattering sound of a keyboard being typed on.
She immediately frowned slightly and unconsciously crossed her arms.
Was this guy... playing games?
Was he not studying anymore?!
She reached out and knocked on the door. It opened shortly after, revealing Gu Ran's smiling face.
"What's wrong?"
Ye Zhenzhen crossed her arms, trying her best to make her cold and elegant face look stern.
This guy had obviously been studying quite hard recently and had made a lot of progress. Why did he get lazy as soon as the holidays started?
No, she had to pull him back on track. He needed to study hard so he could stand out in the future.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm..."
Gu Ran blinked. For some reason, he suddenly felt like a husband coming home late, being interrogated by his little wife about where he had been.
"Playing games?"
Ye Zhenzhen frowned slightly and then began to chatter endlessly about the benefits of studying and the harms of being addicted to games.
Her nagging demeanor looked exactly like a little old lady.
Like Sun Wukong hearing the tightening-crown spell, Gu Ran quickly surrendered. He grabbed the girl's arm and tried to pull her into the room.
Suddenly interrupted mid-spell, Ye Zhenzhen grabbed the doorframe with one hand and asked somewhat resistantly, "Wh... what are you doing?"
"I'm letting you see with your own eyes whether I'm playing games or not!" Gu Ran said righteously.
"I... I'm not going."
Ye Zhenzhen shook her head repeatedly, her face written all over with refusal.
Right now, it was just the two of them at home. What was he pulling her into his room for?!
She was his older sister!
Even though it was by a step-parent marriage...
Moreover, going into a boy's room alone, why did it feel so shameful?
Right now, she just couldn't wrap her head around it: how did this guy Gu Ran manage to stroll into her room as naturally as if he were walking into his own house?
"Let's go, just so you stop falsely accusing me."
As soon as the words left his mouth, he pulled the girl into the room without giving her a chance to protest, slamming the door shut behind them with a loud bang.
Ye Zhenzhen: !!!
Is this guy trying to murder his older sister???
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.
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."
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.”
