Chapter 66
December 30th of the lunar calendar, New Year's Eve.
Waking up early in the morning, Gu Ran rolled out of bed, walked to the window, and looked out at the scenery.
Through the glass, he saw that the entire residential complex was decorated with red lanterns lining the streets.
Couplets were already pasted at the entrance of the building, and the sound of firecrackers could be heard in the distance from time to time, seemingly bringing the whole city to life with noise.
The Spring Festival in the 2010s had such a strong festive atmosphere. People were already banging... I mean, setting off firecrackers early in the morning!
Walking back to his bed, he took off his pajamas and began to change his clothes.
Just as he had stripped down to his underwear, the balcony door was pushed open, and a young girl looking like a traditional New Year painting doll walked in.
"Ah!"
Seeing his state of undress, a loud soprano scream rang out.
Gu Ran gave her a helpless eye-roll and continued to put on his pants as if nobody was there.
Covering her eyes with her hands, Ye Zhenzhen said shyly and angrily, "You... you're shameless!"
Gu Ran: "???"
If he remembered correctly, this was his room, right?
Since when was it shameless to change clothes in his own room?!
"Do you want to open your eyes before you speak?"
Rolling his eyes at her speechlessly, Gu Ran finished dressing himself neatly.
"Then... are you dressed now?"
The girl asked shyly, not daring to take her hands off her eyes.
"Just open your eyes and see for yourself."
"I... I won't!"
Ye Zhenzhen's face was filled with a mix of embarrassment and annoyance, feeling like she was going to get a stye first thing in the morning on New Year's Eve.
Looking at the still-blindfolded girl, Gu Ran felt utterly helpless. He stepped forward and pulled her hands away.
Startled by his sudden movement, the girl let out a cry of alarm.
But seeing that Gu Ran was already fully dressed, she couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.
Remembering the old-man-style underwear she had just seen, her cheeks instantly flushed crimson. She subconsciously stuck out her small foot and gave him a light kick.
"Hoo... Hooligan!"
Gu Ran: "..."
How was he a hooligan?
He hadn't even called her a hooligan yet, but she was already pointing the finger at him!
However, he also knew better than to reason with girls, especially his inherently unreasonable older sister.
Looking her up and down a few times, Gu Ran chuckled. He tugged at the Nian monster hood on the back of the girl's clothes and said with a smile, "Ye Zhenzhen, you're dressed very stylishly today!"
Seeing him bring up her outfit, Ye Zhenzhen felt a bit embarrassed and unconsciously pursed her lips.
The girl was wearing a red hoodie with gold embroidery, featuring a cartoon Nian monster hood on the back. Her lower half was clad in straight, slender black jeans. She looked both festive and extremely beautiful.
But this wasn't her usual style. If she had a choice, she definitely would have chosen an elegant, light-colored outfit, making her look like a daffodil.
But she had no choice. Ye Shulian had bought this for her specifically so she would look festive for the New Year.
"Mind... mind your own business!"
Ye Zhenzhen pursed her lips and stuck out her little foot to kick him again, but the sharp-eyed Gu Ran immediately noticed something off.
Where were her usual, unchanging white cotton socks?
Why were they black!
"Stick your foot out and let me see?"
Ye Zhenzhen: "???"
What kind of request was that?
Was he a pervert?!
"No!"
Hearing his words, Ye Zhenzhen immediately shrank her small foot back into her little bear cotton slippers, refusing to expose it again.
Gu Ran, however, wouldn't let it go. He crouched down directly and stared at the girl's feet.
Ye Zhenzhen: "!!!"
It's the New Year, don't force me to beat you up!
"Shoo... shoo! What are you looking at, Gu 'Dog' Ran, you are getting more and more perverted!"
The girl hurriedly took a few steps back, avoiding his gaze.
"Nonsense, I'm very proper!"
Gu Ran coughed dryly. He also felt he was acting a bit perverted, but he hadn't thought it through just now and simply crouched down to look.
Thankfully, this girl wasn't wearing a skirt, otherwise he wouldn't have escaped a biting.
"Bah! Lying right on the New Year, have you no shame!"
The girl tilted her neck up slightly, revealing her fair little chin, and said somewhat haughtily.
Ignoring her remark, he asked in confusion, "Why did you come through the balcony door too?"
What did he mean by "too"?
Was his name written on this door?!
"Mind... mind your own business!"
The girl haughtily raised her chin again, subconsciously putting her hands behind her back, putting on the airs of an older sister.
"What did you come looking for me for? To give me New Year's greetings?"
Looking at the girl in front of him, he frowned and asked, immediately receiving a pretty eye-roll in return.
"In your dreams! If anyone is giving greetings, it's you to me. I'm your older sister!"
Hearing this, Gu Ran nodded perfunctorily, "Understood, understood, my older sister!"
Ye Zhenzhen: "???"
Why did this guy's tone feel so weird?
"Don't say weird things!"
The girl glared at him in embarrassment and annoyance, then continued, "Don't laugh at me. You have to dress like this today too. My mom already prepared it for you. I just came to bring you the clothes."
Gu Ran nodded lightly upon hearing this. Then, noticing the girl's completely empty hands, he couldn't help but ask in confusion, "So... where are the clothes?"
Ye Zhenzhen: "..."
Looking down at her own hands, her face instantly turned red, and she said rather awkwardly, "Um... well, I'll go back and get them for you right now."
Watching the girl about to flee out the door, Gu Ran quickly teased, "Were you in such a hurry to see me that you forgot to bring the clothes?"
"Bullshit!!!"
...
...
At seven in the morning, two people dressed like traditional New Year painting dolls were walking along the path by the river.
They had originally planned to go for a run, but with all the firecrackers going off this morning, the air was thick with the smell of gunpowder, so Gu Ran immediately dismissed the idea.
Running in this environment would be more intense than running in a smoking room!
Ye Zhenzhen walked with her hands behind her back. Looking at the boy wearing the exact same outfit as her, a ripple of emotion unconsciously welled up in her eyes.
However, neither of them spoke. They both enjoyed the tranquility of their morning stroll.
Although the roar of firecrackers continued to sound in the distance, they felt that this moment was peaceful and beautiful, and they wanted to keep walking quietly like this forever.
Before they knew it, the two had walked out of the residential complex. Neither uttered a word; instead, they continued to stroll down the street.
Even though they weren't talking to each other, they both deeply felt the other's companionship.
"Gu Ran, do you want to go look around?"
Seeing a pedestrian street not far away packed with the most popular New Year stalls, Ye Zhenzhen gently tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and asked softly.
Following her gaze, Gu Ran saw the bustling crowd on the street, exceptionally lively.
Every vendor's stall was filled with all sorts of New Year goods.
He even caught a whiff of a rich, milky aroma. Turning his head toward a stall at the corner of the street, he saw an old grandmother holding a spatula, skillfully making batch after batch of small honey cakes.
Noticing that the girl's attention was completely focused on this, he smiled and said, "Let's go, Big Sister."
Hearing this, Ye Zhenzhen couldn't help but roll her eyes at him and kicked him lightly.
Sister is just sister, why call me Big Sister!
She felt like whatever words came out of this guy's mouth, their flavor completely changed...
He would definitely have a lot in common with Pei Susu!
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...
't think I'm that capable, I'm just trying my best to stay alive. I've been kind all my life, never did anything bad, yet worldly suffering spared me not one bit. The human world is a nice place, but I won't come back in my next life. A kind young man, who wanted to just get by singing, but through repeated deceits and betrayals, has gone down an irredeemable path.
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.
