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.”
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!
