Chapter 57
Everyone enjoyed this meal immensely, especially Gu Xiangcheng and Ye Shulian, who couldn't stop smiling.
Lao Gu was not good at expressing his fatherly love with words, but he poured himself glass after glass of wine, drinking in very high spirits.
Ye Shulian was also extremely happy to hear about Gu Ran's academic progress.
Although he wasn't her biological son, she genuinely liked Gu Ran and hoped he would do well, which meant the family would do well too.
The only person who couldn't be called happy was probably Ye Zhenzhen.
Her calf had been trapped all evening and she couldn't pull it back at all, making her both embarrassed and angry. From time to time, she would reach out and poke Gu Ran in the lower back.
After dinner, Ye Shulian noticed her flushed face and couldn't help but step forward in confusion to feel her forehead.
"Why is your face so red? Are you sick?"
Ye Zhenzhen's eyes darted away evasively, and she stuttered, "N-no."
Saying this, she quickly dodged Ye Shulian's hand, craned her neck, and fanned herself with her hand. "Maybe... it's just too hot in this room."
"It's not hot, is it?"
Before Ye Shulian could reply, Gu Ran answered first, his tone rather strange.
Hearing this, Ye Zhenzhen raised her slender eyebrows and immediately glared at him.
But the next second, she suffered a critical hit of maternal love.
Ye Shulian swatted her, sounding quite dissatisfied. "Act like an older sister! Why are you so fierce to your younger brother?"
Ye Zhenzhen: "..."
She really couldn't stay in this house for another second!!
...
After clearing the dishes, Ye Zhenzhen returned to her room, sitting properly at her desk, ready to study.
But just as she got into the zone, she noticed a noise from the balcony and couldn't help but roll her beautiful eyes.
Without even turning her head, she knew it was that guy who loved taking the back door again.
"Oh, studying, huh? Looks like I came at a bad time."
Gu Ran walked up, saw the test papers on the desk, and said with a light smile.
Ye Zhenzhen put down her pen, twirled a strand of hair with her index finger, and smiled just as lightly. "No, you came at the perfect time."
Gu Ran: "???"
What was with this inexplicably terrifying sense of deja vu?
Before he had time to think much about it, the girl sitting at the desk pulled out two sets of test papers and placed them right in front of him.
"Here, finish these two tonight. Your grades have improved quickly, which is worth encouraging, but you need to guard against arrogance and rashness. Don't be careless. Keeping up with your studies is the true path."
Gu Ran: "..."
"Wait, it's a holiday today, and I still have to study?"
"Little New Year is still a New Year. Don't underestimate it."
He reached out, picked up the two papers, looked at them, then raised his eyebrows and asked in a tempting tone, "Ye Zhenzhen, do you want to play on the computer?"
Play on the computer?
The girl was somewhat tempted, but she turned her head to look at the test papers on the desk, finding it hard to choose for a moment.
Seeing this, Gu Ran quickly coaxed and persuaded her, "Go on, go on. It's a holiday today. We finally got half a day off. Let's take a break, have a little fun, and give our tired brains a vacation too."
Ye Zhenzhen hesitated, and Gu Ran continued to deliver critical hits.
"Don't you want to check on the vegetables you planted earlier?"
That single sentence successfully piqued Ye Zhenzhen's interest. She gently capped her pen and nodded, "Alright then, I'll play for a bit."
"Exactly, you should have done this earlier."
Gu Ran agreed wholeheartedly and immediately prepared to follow the girl as she left, but she suddenly showed a surprised expression.
"Why are you following me?"
Gu Ran: "???"
Wasn't he supposed to follow?
"I'm going to play on the computer for a while. You stay here and keep doing the test papers. I'll check them when I get back."
Gu Ran: "..."
Good heavens, you're even more of a slave driver than a sweatshop boss!
No! You're even worse!
"Is this really necessary..."
He twitched the corners of his mouth, trying to slip through the cracks and follow her back to his room.
As a result, at the balcony door, Ye Zhenzhen stopped him, kicked him lightly with her small foot, and scolded, "Hurry back and study. I'll check on it later."
After saying that, she ruthlessly closed the balcony door, swayed her body, and walked into Gu Ran's room.
The habit of taking the back door had also rubbed off on her, and she found that the back door was indeed very convenient.
Otherwise, detouring through the living room meant she would always be seen.
Even though she wasn't doing anything bad, she would still feel embarrassed.
Entering the boy's room, her eyebrows couldn't help but furrow again.
Was this guy... a pig?
He made it such a mess again...
The slightly obsessive-compulsive girl helplessly rolled up her sleeves, tied up her hair, and began to tidy up the room for her younger brother.
Seeing the clothes she had neatly folded for him last time now casually piled up in the closet, she couldn't help but touch her forehead and sigh softly.
After a thorough cleaning, the hardworking and capable older sister finally managed to tidy up for her lazy younger brother.
Sitting cheerfully at the desk, she opened QQ and at the same time pulled out a piece of paper, preparing to add Pei Susu as a friend, only to find that her newly created account already had one friend.
GR?
Looking at this nickname, she frowned slightly and guessed based on the letters.
Gu Ran?
Seeing a nickname completely different from the Clear Breeze and Bright Moon style she had chosen for herself, she crinkled her nose and couldn't help but ponder.
After a brief moment of thought, she went and changed her own nickname.
YZZ!
Seeing this nickname, she suddenly found it much more pleasing to the eye. She turned her head, glanced at Gu Ran's nickname, and scrunched her nose.
What kind of status did he have to use the same style of nickname as her?!
Reaching out her small hand to hold the mouse and typing on the keyboard, she changed the remark name for Gu Ran.
Stinky Brother!
Seeing the new remark name she had come up with, Ye Zhenzhen's brow relaxed, and her mood couldn't help but become much more cheerful.
After sending a friend request to Pei Susu, she opened her Qzone and entered the Farm.
She saw a series of message notifications in the log.
"Stinky Brother!" came to your farm and picked two red dates...
"Stinky Brother!" came to your farm and picked three cabbages...
Ye Zhenzhen: "???"
What right did he have to come and harvest them?
She had worked so hard to plant them. This was theft!
Ye Zhenzhen furrowed her pretty brows and set her sights on Gu Ran's farm.
Since he stole her vegetables, she would steal them back!
But when she entered Stinky Brother's farm, the corner of her mouth couldn't help but twitch.
This guy was not only lazy in the real world but also lazy in the game. He didn't even plant a single vegetable!
...
While the girl was playing on the computer, Gu Ran was hugging the little bear that had been left in this room to absorb the scent, sitting at the desk doing test papers with a look of utter despair.
Suddenly, he sneezed several times in a row. He rubbed his nose, secretly feeling suspicious.
Was someone talking bad about him behind his back?!
Which bastard was it? Did they dare to come out and confront him face to face!
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.
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."
rowess are unmatched, commanding a million-strong army! Yet, the Emperor wants to depose him for the sake of a false prince? Hold on, are you throwing me into some female-oriented romance plot? How can I tolerate this? With a grand wave of his hand—the Nine Clan Extraction Technique! Slander the Emperor? Very well, all of you shall die! ... The False Prince: "Although I am not the biological son, Father and Mother love me more. The throne should be mine!" The Female Lead: "Qin Xiao, you are the Emperor, and I am a commoner. If you wish to marry me, you must abdicate. Otherwise, you will never have me!" The Empress: "After we divorce, you must give me half the empire!" The Transmigrator Consort: "You worthless Emperor, why should I kneel to you? All men are equal—I advise you to be kind!" The Great General: "The enemy general is my childhood sweetheart. For her sake, I willingly abandon the frontier defenses!" The Retired Emperor: "Although Yu'er was adopted, I prefer him. Qin Xiao, you should abdicate and let him become Emperor!" ... Very well! So this is how you want to play? Facing this twisted world of female-oriented tropes, Qin Xiao grins and raises his hand to unleash—the Nine Clan Extraction Technique! I am the Emperor. Why would I bother reasoning with you? Seal the gates! Leave none alive!
he colors of other people’s emotions. Light red meant anxiety. Gray meant exhaustion. Orange meant excitement. Yellow... meant repression. At the same time, he could gain unlimited control over one of those colors. Pale cyan: relaxation. Using this ability, he started offering “two-yuan hugs,” spending an afternoon exchanging emotional-color experiences with others. Then came his final female customer of the day— a girl whose emotional color was pure black... —— A week later, Xu Chuan had become skilled at using pale cyan—Relaxation—treating it like a bottle of menthol balm whenever he needed it. That was when he discovered he had unlocked another unlimited emotional color: Purple, the color of fear. So these emotional colors refresh every week? Fine, I take it back—I’ll never call you useless again... —— Much later, after Xu Chuan had accumulated countless emotional abilities, one night, he suddenly found himself inside someone else’s dream. There, he could use the emotional colors he possessed to paint. And in her dream, he painted her a shower of pink shooting stars, spreading across the depths of the night sky...
