Chapter 68
Slowly lowering her head, staring at the red paper in front of her, a faint light flickered in her cold eyes.
Gu Ran stood beside the young girl, his eyes full of curiosity.
Ye Zhenzhen carefully observed the dimensions of the red paper, unlike a certain someone who was purely brewing a mood.
She silently calculated the proportion and spacing of each character in her heart, so that the couplets would be written elegantly and beautifully, rather than in messy cursive.
"Are you brewing a mood too?"
The young girl's composure wasn't quite there yet. Hearing Gu Ran's cheeky voice, she almost broke her concentration.
Giving him a bashful eye-roll, Ye Zhenzhen gently exhaled, then lowered her head, her brush dancing over the red paper like flying catkins.
Her pale, slender wrist was flexible and steady, every stroke an elegant glide, leaving ink on the red paper, drawing one graceful Chinese character after another.
Gu Ran's mind, however, wasn't on this. He silently gazed at the young girl's soft hands holding the brush, his thoughts unconsciously wandering.
These fair, pinkish little hands hold the brush so smoothly. I wonder if they'd be just as silky smooth holding a joystick.
At this thought, Gu Ran nodded slightly, pondering about buying her some hand cream to start maintaining them early.
Otherwise, what if she couldn't smoothly handle a joystick in the future?
As the saying goes, a brother can give you a hand, but a sister can hold you...
No matter what kind of sister, at least she'd be an understanding older sister.
"What are you thinking about now? Your smile is so..."
Having finished two pieces of calligraphy, Ye Zhenzhen straightened up, turning to see the smile on his face, unconsciously showing a look of disgust.
"Ahem, I'm just thinking about what delicious food we're having tonight."
Hearing this, Gu Ran quickly reined in his thoughts, pretending to be serious as he covered his mouth and coughed lightly.
Ye Zhenzhen didn't believe a single punctuation mark of that, but she was already used to him being like this.
She patted the characters she had just written and handed them over, saying, "Here, big sister just finished writing these. They're all blessings for you. Go paste them at the head of your bed."
"Yes, yes, yes."
Gu Ran nodded repeatedly, coaxing the girl into writing a few more before going to the door to paste them up.
...
Half an hour later, inside and outside the house, there was noticeably a different atmosphere.
Looking at the black characters on the red background of the spring couplets, he nodded in satisfaction, but the girl beside him felt a bit shy.
She gently kicked him with her foot and said bashfully, "Why... why did you paste all the ones I wrote?"
"Because you write beautifully."
Gu Ran shrugged, his nonchalant tone making the girl grit her teeth in frustration.
Uncle Gu had already bought spring couplets, but this guy pasted all the ones she wrote instead. This... this was so embarrassing...
The shy girl could already foresee Gu Xiangcheng's astonished expression when he saw the couplets; it would truly be mortifying!
"It's fine, it's fine. Come on, let's go out and buy some things."
Seeing the girl's red cheeks, Gu Ran naturally understood her maidenly shyness, but it obviously wasn't a big deal.
How great was it to use handwritten spring couplets? The commemorative value was maxed out. Wasn't it much better than those cookie-cutter machine-printed fonts?
It was just that Old Gu hadn't realized it yet.
He could guarantee that if Old Gu saw this year's spring couplets, the family would never need to buy another pair in the future, because someone would contract out the whole job.
Now that Old Gu was getting older, he had started learning from the old political commissar, practicing calligraphy in his office whenever he had free time. He had studied this art quite deeply; he could even write the character for Fortune in countless different ways!
If he caught hold of a platform to show off, Gu Xiangcheng would definitely display his skills to the fullest.
...
...
As the night grew darker, the sky outside remained colorful, illuminated by fireworks bursting endlessly in the air.
Gu Ran sat in the living room, drinking tea with Gu Xiangcheng, occasionally turning his head to look out the window, silently calculating how low the visibility would be when they went out tomorrow morning.
Not having a firework ban was simply awesome!
"It's fine, no rush. After we eat, we'll call her and her mother, and our family of four can go down and set some off too."
Seeing him constantly looking out the window, Gu Xiangcheng thought he was getting anxious, still treating him like a kid, and couldn't help but console him.
Hearing this, Gu Ran nodded gently without arguing, continuing to enjoy the firework show that would last all night.
This kind of display, one family setting off a few here, another setting off a few there, certainly wasn't as spectacular as the organized firework shows in the city square in terms of viewing experience.
But right now, it had a touch of worldly warmth that those grand shows lacked. It was the lights of thousands of homes; beneath every bursting firework was a thriving family.
Having finished helping out in the kitchen, Ye Zhenzhen walked out with her hands behind her back. She saw Gu Ran leaning against the sofa, staring out the window like an old master.
His lazy, twilight-years demeanor was even more pronounced than Gu Xiangcheng beside him.
Her pretty brows furrowed, and she instinctively wanted to kick his calf, but noticing Gu Xiangcheng sitting nearby drinking tea and watching TV, she stopped herself.
"Come, Zhenzhen, come watch TV."
Just as she glared at a certain someone, she heard Gu Xiangcheng call out to her, and the young girl quickly nodded obediently.
"Okay, Uncle."
Reaching out her small hands, she somewhat nervously held the tea Gu Xiangcheng poured for her, occasionally glancing at Gu Ran, preparing to copy the way he drank.
Because she had never even seen Gu Xiangcheng's method of drinking Kung Fu tea or his tea set before.
Especially seeing Gu Xiangcheng's whole process of washing the tea, pouring the tea, and tasting the tea, it was dazzling, and she couldn't remember the steps at all.
Afraid of making a fool of herself by messing up, she held the teacup tightly with both hands, taking tiny sips, only daring to slightly moisten her lips, terrified that she wouldn't know how to ask for a refill if she finished it.
As for asking Gu Xiangcheng to pour her more tea, she didn't quite dare.
Ever since she found out Gu Xiangcheng was a deputy bureau chief, she always felt a vague sense of unease.
Especially when facing Old Gu alone, she was terrified of doing something wrong and lowering his opinion of her.
But Gu Xiangcheng clearly didn't know what the young girl beside him was thinking. On the contrary, the more he looked at Ye Zhenzhen, the more he liked her.
He pulled her into chatting about everything under the sun, while the reserved girl smiled nervously, feeling physically and mentally exhausted.
She couldn't figure out how that guy Gu Ran managed to get along so well with her mother, looking even closer to her than she was!
Finally, Ye Zhenzhen, who had been keeping an eye on the boy, saw him drink his tea.
The young girl rubbed her hands together, her eyes wide open, ready to seriously learn exactly how to elegantly drink this kind of Kung Fu tea that could be downed in one gulp.
She couldn't understand Old Gu's routine, so she could only copy Gu Ran's.
She didn't believe that Gu Ran, at his young age, could drink it more smoothly than Uncle Gu.
Her beautiful eyes fixed on Gu Ran, only to see him pick up his small cup with one hand, reach past the tea tray with the other, and directly grab the teapot.
He downed the water in his cup in one gulp, immediately poured another cup, and drank cup after cup until his thirst was quenched. Then, he put down the teapot and refilled it with water.
Ye Zhenzhen: "???"
Wasn't this just guzzling it down like a cow?!
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.”
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.
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."
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!
