Chapter 48
Crunch, crunch...
Gu Ran bit into the candied hawthorn stick in his mouth, making a series of crisp crunching sounds.
Hearing the sound, Ye Zhenzhen finally reacted. She turned her head in surprise and asked, "Why did you only buy one for yourself?"
She had just spent twenty bucks treating this guy to an astronomically priced candied hawthorn stick.
But now he took out his own money to buy one, and not only was it a cheap one-dollar stick, he only bought it for himself.
He was being stingy to the extreme, alright!
To her question, Gu Ran provided a very reasonable explanation.
"This is an ice sugar calabash. There's ice in it. Girls shouldn't eat ice when it's their time of the month."
Hearing this, the young girl nodded, feeling a slight warmth in her heart, but she immediately realized something was wrong.
"???"
"Who told you there's ice in candied hawthorn sticks?!"
Almost tricked by his logic, an annoyed Ye Zhenzhen stuck out her clean white shoe and lightly kicked his calf.
Gu Ran glanced at her, swallowed the hawthorn in his mouth, and said calmly.
"Isn't there? The old grandpa just said so. It's an ice sugar calabash. If there's no ice inside, how could it be called that?"
Ye Zhenzhen: "..."
"Is there a possibility, just a possibility, that 'ice' is just an adjective, meaning the sugar coating on it looks like ice?"
"Oh, I don't think that's possible."
Ye Zhenzhen: "..."
Her small fists clenched again, and her breathing grew a bit heavier.
She panted heavily, her chest swelling with anger.
This guy just wouldn't be satisfied until he made her break her composure out of anger, right?!
Turning his head and seeing her fuming, Gu Ran blinked and started laughing.
He reached into his backpack and, like magic, pulled out another stick, handing it to the girl.
"Here, for you. How could I not buy you one? I'm not a stingy person."
Gu Ran spoke with a tone of righteous indignation, but Ye Zhenzhen just felt irritated hearing it.
She snatched the candied hawthorn, tore off the wrapper, and took an angry bite, as if venting her frustration.
"If you're not stingy, why did you buy the one-dollar ones?"
After saying that, she gave a soft snort. Tasting the sweet and sour hawthorn, she unconsciously narrowed her eyes in delight.
"Didn't I tell you? Only a Sucker buys the ten-dollar ones. It's not that I can't afford the ten-dollar ones, but the one-dollar ones have a better cost-performance ratio!"
Ye Zhenzhen: "???"
Hearing this, she asked in utter confusion, "Then why did you buy the ten-dollar one a couple of days ago?"
"Ah, wasn't there a Sucker around then?"
Ye Zhenzhen: "..."
That was it. Today, only one of them was walking away alive!!!
...
...
After New Year's Day, time seemed to fly by.
Two weeks passed in a flash, and the exhausted high school seniors were about to go on winter break.
It was Friday once again.
At this point, there were only two days left until the Preliminary Eve, and just a week until the Spring Festival.
The first mock exams were scheduled for tomorrow and the day after. Today after school, they needed to move desks and chairs to completely simulate the college entrance examination environment and set up the exam rooms.
Gu Ran couldn't slack off this time either; his royal throne by the window also had to be moved.
After tidying up the classroom and moving the extra desks and chairs into the corridor, Hao Cuiyun finally announced the end of the school day.
Gu Ran had the USB drive Li Sinan had returned to him tucked in his pocket. After two weeks, the hardworking Teacher Li had finally completed checking for all the bugs.
Well, only the ones she was capable of finding.
It wasn't that Li Sinan didn't try hard, but she had long forgotten much of what she learned in college. Not to mention, she had only taken programming as an elective out of interest back then.
Since there were no exams for it, she naturally hadn't learned it by rote.
However, as a young teacher with a super strong sense of responsibility, since she had made a promise to her student, she wouldn't drop the ball easily.
She first spent a week reviewing the tutorials before she even started hunting for bugs.
Gu Ran couldn't help but chuckle at this touching work speed, but he still expressed his sincere gratitude.
Even though he had finished debugging it himself ages ago, cross-referencing it with Li Sinan's work wouldn't hurt.
It was like double-checking a test paper after finishing it; it was never wrong to be careful.
Shouldering his backpack, he arrived at the door of Ye Zhenzhen's classroom just in time to meet the girl walking out.
She naturally handed her backpack over to him, put her hands behind her back, and asked in a big sister tone, "How is your preparation for tomorrow's exam?"
"I can only say it's practically guaranteed, all I'm missing is a kiss from you."
Gu Ran shrugged, smiling as he made a pun on the words for 'steady' and 'kiss'.
But the girl didn't understand what he meant by this joke. She blinked her eyes in confusion and asked, "Missing my steadying? Haven't I steadied you enough, tutoring you every night?"
"It's enough, more than enough."
Listening to the innocent girl's reply, Gu Ran nodded repeatedly, feeling a twinge of guilt.
"You scored over two hundred last time. Can you hit four hundred this time? I've been tutoring you for so long, and I feel like you've made a lot of progress."
Lightly kicking his calf, Ye Zhenzhen tucked up her hair and asked.
Four hundred?
Who was she looking down on!
Not to brag, but scoring four hundred and one wouldn't even be a problem for him!
"Ye Zhenzhen, do you believe I can score five hundred points?"
"Show some respect!"
Ye Zhenzhen reached out and smacked him, then curled her lips and said, "Stop bragging!"
"I'm serious!"
Seeing that the girl didn't believe him, Gu Ran replied very earnestly.
Hearing this, Ye Zhenzhen turned to stare at him for a few moments, then let out a soft laugh. Her beautiful eyes darted around before she narrowed them and said, "Alright, if you score five hundred, I'll give you a gift."
A gift?
Gu Ran frowned slightly, thought for a moment, and shook his head. "No need for a gift. Just promising me one request will do."
A request?
Ye Zhenzhen blinked her clear, cold eyes and stared at him suspiciously. "What request?"
"I haven't thought of it yet. We'll talk about it when I actually score five hundred."
Ye Zhenzhen pondered Gu Ran's answer for a moment and nodded in agreement.
After all, even if she agreed to one request, it would only count if he actually scored five hundred.
This guy had made a lot of progress recently. He was getting more and more of the basic points in Math and Comprehensive Science, and he could even solve some of the advanced questions.
However, to reach five hundred, there were still two major hurdles: Chinese and English.
If he didn't score over a hundred in both of these subjects, hitting five hundred was basically wishful thinking.
But then she suddenly realized she had never tutored this guy in Chinese or English, making her momentarily unsure of Gu Ran's true strength.
Although he had only scored around forty or fifty points last time, this guy obviously hadn't taken the test seriously.
Otherwise, if someone told her that this guy had absolutely zero foundation, started from scratch, and made such massive progress in just a few short weeks, she wouldn't believe it.
Especially remembering that Gu Ran also knew how to program and make games, she felt even less confident and quickly added, "I... I guess that's fine, but you can't make an excessive request..."
"An excessive request? Ye Zhenzhen, you're a good student, could you explain to me what exactly these excessive requests might include?"
Hearing her words, Gu Ran narrowed his eyes and began to laugh.
"J-just... very excessive things."
Her face grew increasingly red, who knows what she was imagining in her head.
"What kind of things?"
Gu Ran continued to play dumb and press the issue, his eyes full of teasing amusement.
Being asked over and over again finally made the flustered girl fly into a humiliated rage.
"Gu... Gu 'Dog' Ran, are you done yet!"
ap a wealthy young lady? Or else I'll be eliminated by the system? Ye Feng, who awakened the Kidnapper System, originally wanted to live a peaceful life but never imagined he would become a kidnapper of young women. However, after some time, he discovered that all the girls the system ordered him to kidnap were far from ordinary. "Big brother Ye Feng~ You've kidnapped my heart, and now you're not allowed to leave me ever again~" "Ye Feng~ You kidnapped me back then, now it's my turn to capture you♡" "Little Feng, you're mine! You can only be mine!" "Ye Feng, none of them deserve you. Only I love you the most♡" ... This is madness, they've all gone mad! Wait, what? Why are all the girls I kidnapped yanderes?!
and couldn't return to the real world. Finally, I gave up and decided to go with the flow, only to discover that writing a diary could make me stronger. Since no one could read it, Su Luo wrote freely, daring to pen anything and everything. Female Lead #1: "Not bad. This diary helped me steal all the protagonist's opportunities. I just want to get stronger." Female Lead #2: "I don’t care about reaching the peak of the cultivation world. Right now, I just want to enjoy the chaos." Female Lead #3: "What? Everyone around me is a spy? I’m the Joker Demon Lord?" ... It’s so strange. Why is the plot completely off track, yet the ending remains the same? Are you all just messing with me?!
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."
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.
