“Do you have any idea how much time and effort I’ve poured into this plan?!”
Du Wanyi had transformed into a tavern speechmaking master, passionately holding forth from atop a rock. She was so fired up that she’d even stopped gnawing on the chicken wing in her hand to guard it from anyone who might try to steal it.
Ye Cheng was just about to speak, to explain himself a little, when she cut him off again.
“No. You don’t!”
Du Wanyi declared.
Ye Cheng: “...”
No, I do.
“You don’t know a thing! You don’t care about this at all. Just like you don’t care how painful it is for a hippo to take a dump. You selfish, self-centered man!”
Du Wanyi’s eyes flashed with insight, as if she could see right through him.
Ye Cheng: “...”
“Uh, well, ma’am, is it possible that I actually have thought about how painful it is for a hippo to poop?” Ye Cheng interrupted.
Du Wanyi: “???”
“What? You really have thought about how much it hurts a hippo to poop?” This time, Du Wanyi was the one left dumbfounded, her eyes wide with disbelief.
How could someone be this weird? Who goes around worrying about hippos for no reason?
Was there something wrong with this guy?
It was hard to say how Du Wanyi could bring herself to say that with a straight face. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. And if there had been anyone else normal around, they’d have been scared to tears by this conversation.
Their brains’ wrinkles would have been smoothed flat along with the rest of them. Were there even any humans left here?
Not only were the two people in front of us having some kind of immortal-level conversation, but even Da Huang wasn’t human, because Da Huang was born...
Ye Cheng nodded and answered with complete seriousness. “About 3,688 days ago, one afternoon, I went through a major turning point in my life. After that afternoon, I devoted myself to researching how painful it is for different animals to poop, and how smoothly things go. I found that hippos...”
Du Wanyi listened, stunned. Ye Cheng didn’t look like he was making this up to fool her, or just coming up with some excuse on the spot.
This had actually happened!
Was that even possible?
Why would anyone spend their time researching how much it hurts a hippo to poop?
And why did he remember the date so clearly? 3,688 days... That meant ten years ago?
You can remember something from ten years ago that clearly?
Driven by intense curiosity, Du Wanyi cut off Ye Cheng’s story. “So, Chengcheng, what exactly happened that afternoon 3,688 days ago? What could have caused such a huge change in your life?”
“Oh, I was constipated. The night before, I’d eaten too many biscuits and the leftover pork cracklings I’d saved for the others. I ended up in the bathroom struggling like I was giving birth, and in the end...”
Ye Cheng heard Du Wanyi’s question and gave her a very serious answer.
Du Wanyi: “...”
“You dare mess with me!” Du Wanyi ground her teeth, then launched into a two-hit combo without another word!
“Thud! Thud!”
Ye Cheng: panda eyes +1 +1...
Who says you can only have one black eye?
Ever heard of stacking effects?
The darker the circles under your eyes, the higher your protection level. At this rate, it wouldn’t be long before Ye Cheng could apply for a panda’s job at the zoo.
At the zoo, you got to lounge around like a lord every day. Whenever you felt like it, you could munch on some bamboo. If you got tired of that, you could even ask the two-legged creatures for some fresh bamboo shoots. No work, air conditioning in summer...
Anyone who gets it is already crying with envy!
And anyone who doesn’t should go back and read it again until they do.
“I was just teasing you, Madam. Why are you taking it so seriously...” Ye Cheng said, his two panda eyes looking innocently clear as he gazed at Du Wanyi, who was crouching in front of him.
Hehe... not hehe.
I don’t care about any of that. Prepare to meet Madam’s fangs!
After being punished, Ye Cheng was noticeably more well-behaved. He tried to change the subject, lest Madam remember what had just happened, get worked up again, and come over to beat him up once more. That would be a huge loss.
“By the way, Madam, what was that plan you said you’d been preparing for so long and putting so much effort into? Don’t tell me it’s something like destroying the world?”
Ye Cheng asked cautiously.
After all, the thoughts and actions of a little devil like her couldn’t be understood from any normal perspective—just as Ye Cheng couldn’t understand why Madam would ask whether he cared if a hippopotamus had a painful time taking a dump.
Too strange. Utterly baffling...
Du Wanyi immediately perked up. “My plan is one I have plotted for a full eighteen years! A plan so shocking it will make heaven and earth weep! A plan that nobody in the world could ever possibly guess! And that plan is...”
“Uh... Little Little Miss?” Ye Cheng blinked his panda eyes and ventured a guess.
Du Wanyi: “???”
Du Wanyi froze mid-sentence. A huge question mark seemed to pop up over her head as she stared at Ye Cheng in utter disbelief.
“When did you eavesdrop on my secret? Do you have mind-reading powers?!”
Ye Cheng: “...”
Um... was it possible that Madam was just always muttering about it whenever she had nothing better to do? And besides, her desire to screw over the eldest young lady was practically written all over her face.
Back at the hospital, she had been doing it right out in the open. Given that... did the Little Little Miss thing really need any guessing?
And she’d acted all mysterious about it, too...
Come on, Madam. You’re so lame.
What secret? It was just—
“Damn it! Why don’t I have that ability? Little Chengcheng, you dare peer into my thoughts? You have chosen death!” Du Wanyi roared as she charged at Ye Cheng, ready to silence him for good!
Ye Cheng: “???”
Holy crap, so you get mad when you can’t argue back? Madam, that’s way too unfair!
“Aah—!”
Ye Cheng’s miserable screams echoed through the cave. Outside, Da Huang had eaten himself into a blissful stupor.
Amazing. Absolutely amazing. This was the life a dog was meant to live.
As for the screams coming from inside the cave... none of his business.
Da Huang silently lowered his ears, switched to airplane mode, stretched, yawned, and comfortably settled down for a good nap.
Unless something unexpected happens, there’ll be something delicious waiting when I wake up again!
Another day of missing crispy noodles and spicy strips...
Ten minutes later.
“[Blessings from Tang Xiaobao +1 +1 +1...]”
“[Blessings from Tang Xiaobao +2 +2 +2...]”
“[Blessings from Tang Xiaobao +3 +3 +3...]”
For the entire ten minutes Ye Cheng had been hanging there, messages like these had been floating before his eyes, packed together thickly. Every single one was a blessing from his youngest son.
Su Su and Chen Youliang had sent some too, sure, but combined they hadn’t even sent half as many as the boy.
It was just like an experience bar, steadily climbing...
Ye Cheng was deeply moved. Who would’ve thought his deputy general manager would be so worried about him? Good lad. Once he became general manager, he’d make sure to promote him properly!
But first he had to find a way back. At this rate, getting home looked like it might be a little difficult...
“Madam, I’m telling you, this really is how it is! I can’t come back right now. I have my reasons! You have to believe me, believe me!!!”
Ye Cheng was starting to lose it.
Du Wanyi was holding her phone and looking through the information her people had sent over earlier. Just as she reached an important part, the screen went black. The battery was dead.
Du Wanyi: “???”
“Why did my phone die?!”
Ye Cheng: “...”
Madam, are you actually human? Are you sure you’re not some kind of mysterious creature wearing human skin?
The damn phone’s battery was dead!
The screen went black?
Why not try double-tapping it?
Ye Cheng really wanted to say that, but considering he might get beaten into a panda again—or end up planted in the ground like a ginseng fruit—he decided against it.
“Tap, tap, tap... Why won’t it light up?” Du Wanyi crouched there, fiddling with her phone and double-tapping it over and over.
Ye Cheng: “...”
Incredible!!!
In the end, Madam’s phone was put outside to charge in the sun. Though... Ye Cheng didn’t think her fruit phone was actually capable of solar charging.
Oh, right. One small detail: while Madam’s phone couldn’t be left outside to charge in the sun, Ye Cheng’s could—and it was already charging.
That was why Du Wanyi had pulled out her phone, fiddled with it for a bit, then tossed it outside to charge.
Ye Cheng had done the same thing. He’d watched so many brain-rotting short videos that even his upgraded, high-capacity battery had finally given out. Luckily, the solar panel under the back cover could save the day...
Just kidding. Even without the solar panel, Ye Cheng had other ways to get power. He’d modified the battery too; in a pinch, he could throw it like a hand grenade...
Obviously, Madam was a martial general and didn’t know about any of this. She’d seen her own Xiao Chengcheng do it, so she’d followed suit...
“What reasons?” Du Wanyi settled her phone, then came back to where she’d been and picked up the conversation again.
Ye Cheng: “...”
“Reasons I can’t tell you.”
“Thwack! Thwack!”
“Haha, I was just joking, Madam! Don’t get worked up. I can tell you, I can! I was just playing along. You know how they always build suspense like this in TV dramas, right? Hahaha...”
Ye Cheng took two solid punches and changed his tune in record time. Damn, his wife was way too strong. He just couldn’t get used to it.
After a moment’s hesitation, can you guess where his wife’s plasma-speed punch landed?
Ye Cheng: “…”
“Damn it, the thing I hate most in this life is people who keep everyone hanging. It’s never anything important, but they act like it’s life or death and take forever to spit it out. Then they make you wait until the next episode, and when it finally comes, they just keep dodging the question. If I ever catch one of them, I’m giving each of them a couple of hits!”
Du Wanyi ground her teeth. People who left others hanging really made her itch to smack them.
Ye Cheng nodded. “You’re absolutely right, honey. So I’ll be straight with you: I’m dying.”
“Mm, that’s more like it. Why all the hemming and hawing? I thought you were… Huh? Wait, Xiao Chengcheng, what did you just say?”
Du Wanyi nodded along to herself, then suddenly realized something wasn’t right halfway through. Dying… who was dying?
“Is what the post said true?” Du Wanyi asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Of course not! Damn it, whoever wrote that better hope I don’t catch them, or I’ll beat them into bear-shaped cookies!” Ye Cheng gritted his teeth. The news department’s reporters were his biggest enemies in this life.
Hearing that, Du Wanyi let out a breath of relief. What a scare. She knew it had to be someone spreading rumors. How could he possibly…
“The other stuff is fake, like jumping off a building, being lovesick, all that… But the part about me dying is true.”
Ye Cheng blinked and said it with an almost innocent look.
Du Wanyi: “???”
“You’re… not lying to me?” Du Wanyi made one last desperate attempt to hold on to hope.
“Why would I lie to you, honey? I really am about to kick the bucket. Otherwise, why would I come out here and put myself through all this? I’d rather just spend every day…”
“Ahhhhh—!” Du Wanyi let out a shrill scream.
world slacker. But a genius female disciple just had to get clingy, insisting that he take her as a disciple. Not only that, she was always making advances on him, thoroughly disrupting his peaceful slacker life...
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."
uld barely embark on the path to immortality. Just as he was on the verge of death, his golden finger awakened. No matter whether it was poison, drained blood and vital energy, diminished lifespan, or any other physical debuff caused by paying a price—once midnight passed, everything would be refreshed. From then on, whenever someone asked what kind of person Chu Ran was, the answer was simple: Forbidden arts that other cultivators dared not learn? Chu Ran would learn them. Prices that even demonic cultivators dared not pay? Chu Ran would pay them. Lifespan that even righteous cultivators dared not burn? Chu Ran would burn it. All the blood essence in his body? Take it. Want both his hands and feet? He would cut them off and send them to you. You say he’s finished? He wasn’t built to sit idle. You think he’s gone mad? No—he was simply waiting for midnight. From that day onward, Chu Ran would respect neither Heaven nor Earth, bow to neither gods nor ghosts. He had only one wish: For midnight to arrive a little sooner.
to panic—he has a system. As long as an investment target dies, he can claim a reward. And since he is immortal, the one thing he has plenty of is time. ... Countless years later. “Immortal Emperor of Longevity? I invested in him.” “Supreme Celestial Venerable? I invested in him.” “Undying Empress? I invested in her.” “...” “Heh. Once they’ve all died, even the Heavenly Dao will have to kneel and call me Dad.”
