Chapter 89
Li Sinan looked up slightly. Seeing Gu Ran standing in front of her, her somewhat dim eyes brightened a bit, and a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.
"It's Gu Ran. Good morning."
Her voice sounded a bit weak. Lately, she had been mentally and physically exhausted by all sorts of complaint letters.
"Ms. Li... you don't look very happy?"
Gu Ran frowned slightly, unable to help but ask when he saw Li Sinan looking so listless.
"I'm alright."
Hearing this, Li Sinan managed a forced smile. She then looked at Ye Zhenzhen not far away and smiled again, "Good morning to you too, Zhenzhen."
Regardless of what the aloof girl thought in her heart, as a well-behaved student, she naturally wouldn't dare act arrogant when a teacher took the initiative to greet her.
She quickly nodded obediently. After exchanging greetings, Li Sinan didn't say anything more and walked straight toward the teaching building, having lost her usual liveliness.
Staring at her back, Ye Zhenzhen frowned and softly asked the boy beside her, "Did something happen... to Ms. Li?"
Gu Ran nodded gently but didn't speak. Instead, he looked at the young teacher's back, quietly lost in thought.
Perhaps... she was feeling very sorrowful right now.
Full of hope, she had turned down the opportunity to stay and develop in a big city, choosing instead to return to her hometown to teach and educate. Yet, she ended up being attacked over her style of dress. It was truly lamentable.
She was just a twenty-four or twenty-five-year-old girl, at an age where she loved beauty. Even if she dressed beautifully, it shouldn't be considered her fault.
It was a classic case of victim-blaming.
He shook his head, his desire to recruit her to work for him growing even stronger.
She was a graduate of a prestigious university. Although she majored in education, she was at least very familiar with computers, which was quite rare in this small county town.
"What are you looking at? Let's go!"
Seeing that he didn't answer her question and was just staring blankly at the teacher, Ye Zhenzhen gave him an annoyed glare and kicked him in the calf.
"Oh, right."
With things on his mind, Gu Ran nodded blankly and immediately stepped forward to walk.
But after taking a few steps, he noticed the girl was still standing in the same spot. He couldn't help but look back in confusion.
"Pervert!"
Spitting out the word lightly, the aloof girl walked straight toward the teaching building, leaving the bewildered boy standing there.
Gu Ran: "???"
What did he do to be called a pervert?!
Where is his lawyer? Where is his lawyer!!!
...
...
As time passed, the start of the new semester gradually got on track, and the high school seniors resumed their day-and-night studying routine.
The weather gradually warmed up, the snow on the roads slowly melted, and their winter clothes were shed one by one.
After another month of systematic studying, time arrived at the end of April, bringing the days of the college entrance examination another step closer.
However, the atmosphere in the classroom had split into two extremes.
Some people became increasingly nervous, while others relaxed.
The latter were either top students who had already studied almost everything and didn't need to study much more, just needing to maintain their good condition.
Or they were the poor students who had completely given up on any cure and started enjoying life ahead of time.
April 30th, the second mock exam.
The approach of the second mock exam completely heralded the arrival of the college entrance examination, enveloping the entire school in a tense and anxious atmosphere.
According to the First High School's schedule, the most indicative exams were the first and second mock exams. The third mock exam, scheduled around May 20th, would have significantly reduced difficulty, purely meant to boost the students' confidence.
Therefore, this second mock exam was the last chance to test their own results.
Gu Ran had long prepared his mindset. Under the aloof girl's tutoring, he was full of confidence in his abilities.
The morning sun shone on him. Carrying the girl's schoolbag, he leisurely followed behind her.
Because Lao Gu was on duty, there was no private car today, so the two of them had to walk to school.
But with the warm breeze blowing against his face, watching the surrounding branches slowly sprouting, and feeling the vibrant breath of life, Gu Ran actually grew to like this leisureliness.
"Hurry up!"
The girl walking in front turned her head to call him for the umpteenth time. Seeing his lazy appearance, he looked like an old man taking an early morning stroll; the only thing missing was swapping the schoolbag in his hand for a birdcage.
"It's obviously you who's walking too fast..."
The gentle spring breeze blew, scattering the girl's black hair and the bangs on the boy's forehead.
The figures of the two walked slower and slower. Gu Ran's old-man speed successfully dragged down the girl's pace...
...
Arriving at the examination room, Gu Ran's assigned seat this time was much further forward than during the first mock exam.
For example, his surroundings were filled with examinees seizing the time to cram at the last minute, reviewing ancient poetry.
In this upper-middle examination room, everyone's level was about the same—their grades were worse than the best but better than the worst. Every time there was an exam, this group of people was the most anxious.
Stuck in the middle, Gu Ran felt like an out-of-place pig.
Unlike the people reviewing around him, he took the initiative to pick a window seat, sat down, and quietly narrowed his eyes to look out the window, admiring the sprouting willow branches.
Under his observation, he found that only the willow trees by the roadside sprouted the earliest.
Having spent a long time with the aloof girl, he had gradually learned that indifferent expression.
Just sitting there quietly, he attracted the evaluating gazes of little girls.
But before they could look for long, the invigilator for the first subject arrived at the examination room carrying the test papers.
Seeing the person who arrived, Gu Ran's eyes lit up, and a smile unconsciously formed at the corners of his mouth.
Li Sinan had completely put away her mature style of dress, changing into simple jeans and a white jacket. However, with her beauty and good figure, she could outshine anyone else by a mile no matter what she wore.
She didn't see Gu Ran. After walking up to the podium, she meticulously urged everyone to go out, and then had them re-enter to assign seat numbers.
Fully simulating the college entrance examination process, she held a metal detector in her hand and checked them one by one.
When it was Gu Ran's turn, she was visibly startled, and her tense, pretty face broke into an involuntary smile.
Quietly puffing out her small mouth, she whispered, "Good luck~"
Seeing this, Gu Ran also smiled and nodded. Without communicating much more, he went to his seat and sat down.
Taking advantage of the time while the test papers were being distributed, he carefully observed Li Sinan and found that the girl who used to love smiling had, at some unknown point, put away her gentle smile.
The exquisite makeup on her face had also disappeared, replaced by a bare face.
It was evident that in the month or so since the new year, she had truly been through a lot.
Perhaps the school had blocked the news to avoid a negative impact, so no rumors about parents' complaints had spread.
But he knew this was not the end.
Even though Li Sinan had changed her style of dress now, the blame would still be pinned on her, and the time for that would be right after the college entrance examination.
Thinking of this, he felt somewhat sorrowful, but he didn't know how to change it.
So... when the time comes, he should just bring her over to be his secretary. She could wear whatever she wanted!
Balenciaga and Valentino would be arranged first. After all, he was just a vulgar man. What was wrong with looking at a secretary's legs?
He was getting sidetracked, cough cough cough...
He was a true gentleman!!
Once the exam paper was in his hands, he shook his head, cleared his cluttered thoughts, and immersed himself in answering the questions.
The classroom was so quiet that time itself seemed to have stopped. Only the faint sounds of breathing and the rustling of turning pages intertwined in the air.
Li Sinan sat silently at the podium, stubbornly keeping a stern expression on her small face, naively thinking that doing so would prevent any further complaints.
When another invigilator arrived, she stepped down from the podium and began to patrol the aisles from time to time.
However... the number of times she paused behind Gu Ran was noticeably much higher...
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
. As long as he maintains the villain image and follows the plot to the grand finale, he can obtain generous rewards and return to the real world. So Gu Chen'an entered the role and began to act as a scumbag villain, but who would have expected that the female leads could hear his inner thoughts. Miss Su from the Su family was shocked: "I originally thought Gu Chen'an was a scumbag, but I didn't expect he turned out to be a gentleman! What? You said I have to call off the engagement? I definitely won't, I'll piss you off!" Bai Yuan Tian was dumbfounded: "Young Master Gu is usually unreasonable and a complete brat, but he actually calls me little sweetie in his heart? What, Young Master Gu even said he likes me?" As the female leads' images collapsed more and more, the plot also collapsed with it. Gu Chen'an looked at all this chaos. "Ladies, don't aggro me, if you keep this up the male lead really will stab me, I still need to survive to the grand finale!"
] [Lone Wolf, No Male Gaze] [Protagonist is pursued early on; extreme protagonist-stans, stay away!] The "Carnival Paradise" descends and slowly devours the real world in the form of a game. By chance, Zhu Yan awakens the talent [Roleplay], becoming one of the first beta players. He thought he could develop safely, but after clearing the first instance, he is branded by humanity as the chief culprit behind the game's spread—a traitorous villain. A villain? Who would ever... become one! He'll be the villain! From then on, Zhu Yan is not only a player but also a lackey for the Carnival Paradise. Between the straight path and the crooked path, he chooses the con. With his left hand, he dons the villain's mantle, staging scenes within instances, infuriating players who decry him as a despicable traitor, all while the game happily promotes him. With his right hand, he joins the non-human organization "Fangcun Mountain," which opposes the Carnival Paradise, transforming into a mysterious player who slaughters game bosses, earning cheers of "Long live the expert!" from fellow players. Gradually, Zhu Yan rises to become an S-rank human player in Fangcun Mountain's archives, while also being the Carnival Paradise's certified top game Boss. But when the final war erupts and both major factions place their hopes in him— Players tag his various aliases: "Experts, this offensive depends on you." The Carnival Paradise's supreme Boss throws an arm around his neck: "Bro, you're the iron, I'm the steel; you can't let me down again!"
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
