A few days later.
Jiangcheng University, Boys' Dormitory Room 517.
The atmosphere today was a bit bizarre, even creepy.
Normally at this time, the dorm would be filled with Xue Tao's roars from playing video games.
But today, it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
Wang Haoran was huddled on his bed, holding his review materials, but his eyes kept darting to the opposite side.
Chu Mingzhe also had a constipated expression on his face, sitting on his chair, hesitating to speak.
Both of their gazes were focused on the figure on the balcony.
Xue Tao.
This unlucky guy, who was in the hospital getting his balls fixed just a few days ago, was now sitting upright on a small folding stool on the balcony. Holding a thick College English CET-4 Vocabulary book in his hands and with his back to the dorm room, he looked like an old monk deep in meditation.
Abandon... abandon...
Although his pronunciation carried a heavy local Jiangcheng accent, his seriousness was absolutely genuine.
He had maintained this posture and memorized vocabulary for a full half hour!
And before that, he had actually sat at his desk, studying Advanced Mathematics with complete focus for two hours.
Was this still the same Xue Tao who would grab his phone to scroll TikTok after five minutes of reading, go to the bathroom after ten minutes, and complain of hunger after half an hour?
It was as if his ADHD had been completely cured.
Lao Wang, do you think...
Chu Mingzhe lowered his voice, leaned close to Wang Haoran, and pointed at the balcony with a solemn expression, Do you think Brother Tao got possessed by something evil while he was in the hospital?
Wang Haoran nodded: Very likely. Is there a medical term for this? Like, after a certain part of a person's body suffers severe trauma, it causes a reorganization of the brain's neural circuits, leading to a drastic change in personality?
I've never heard of crushed balls turning someone into a top student... Chu Mingzhe gasped, This is too ridiculous. Before, making him study for half an hour was like killing him, but now he can study for two hours without moving an inch? If word gets out, the Jiangcheng University Medical School will come and slice him up for research.
It wouldn't go that far. With his midterm grades, there's no need for research.
Holy crap, Haoran, your words are so damn hurtful...
Just as the two were whispering, Xue Tao on the balcony suddenly closed his book.
He slowly turned around, his face bearing a calm indifference of having seen through the mortal world, his eyes as clear as if he had just returned from a soul-cleansing trip to Tibet.
That's about enough.
Xue Tao looked at his watch, his tone as calm as a placid lake, Let's go, let's eat at the cafeteria. After eating and coming back, I still need to do two sets of past exam papers given by a senior. Do you guys want them? I can share them with you.
Uh... no need.
Yeah, yeah, I haven't even finished reading the PPTs the teacher gave us.
...
Inside the cafeteria, voices were boiling over.
The pressure of finals week permeated every corner, and everyone was eating a bit faster than usual.
Xue Tao only ordered a simple meal of two meats and one vegetable, eating slowly and chewing carefully, quite in the style of health preservation.
Brother Tao, are you okay?
Chu Mingzhe really couldn't hold back anymore and asked tentatively, Can your body handle studying like this? After all, you just got discharged from the hospital...
Xue Tao put down his chopsticks, his face, which hadn't completely lost its swelling, filled with vicissitudes, During this hospital stay, I figured out a lot of things.
Figured out what? Wang Haoran asked curiously.
Women will only affect the speed of my success.
Xue Tao looked out the window with a profound gaze, I used to think that having money, driving luxury cars, and picking up girls was all there was to college life. But now I understand that those are all superficial. Especially after what happened with Liu Yuanyuan and Huang Ran, I have attained enlightenment.
So-called love is just a plate of loose sand. It doesn't even need the wind to blow; you take two steps, and it scatters.
I want to put my mind on my career, on my studies.
Xue Tao had a serious look on his face, speaking as if it were the absolute truth.
Chu Mingzhe asked: What about Huang Ran? Hasn't she looked for you recently?
Ignored her.
Xue Tao sneered, a genuine sneer without a trace of nostalgia, I've already muted her messages. Everything can wait until after the exams. The current me only has Advanced Math and English in my heart; there is no room for other women.
Holy crap...
Chu Mingzhe listened, dumbfounded.
Even a guy like Xue Tao had started to work hard. If he failed his final exams, or scored lower than Xue Tao, how could he show his face in the dorm in the future?
No way, I absolutely cannot lose to Brother Tao!
Chu Mingzhe suddenly became full of fighting spirit: Let's hurry back after eating, I want to do practice questions too! I don't believe it, I can get a perfect GPA in Advanced Math too!
A perfect GPA... Buddy, the points you lost in the midterm have already eliminated that possibility...
Looking at his two roommates who were instantly fired up, Wang Haoran silently took a sip of seaweed and egg drop soup, thinking this to himself.
The joys and sorrows of humanity are not connected.
Wang Haoran had actually finished reading his review materials a long time ago.
For him, things like final exams were actually quite simple; the course difficulty at Jiangcheng University was just so-so.
There were still a few days before the first exam, and his roommates were frantically reviewing. If he played games or watched anime in the dorm, he would inevitably seem out of place and not low-key enough.
Wang Haoran had always been particular about blending into the crowd, being completely inconspicuous, and mainly acting like a salted fish.
Well, you guys head back first after eating.
Wang Haoran wiped his mouth, I'm going to take a stroll around the entrepreneurship park.
What are you going to the entrepreneurship park for? Chu Mingzhe was taken aback.
To go find Brother Bai and ask some questions.
...
Bangbang Technology.
The company was preparing for a major version update, and both planners and programmers were working overtime.
When Wang Haoran pushed the door open and walked in, a strong smell of coffee and the sound of keyboard typing rushed at his face.
My silly son is here?
Su Bai, sitting on the sofa in the lounge area with his legs crossed, was playing on a Switch when he saw Wang Haoran.
Compared to the extremely busy employees around him, Su Bai, the big boss, seemed exceptionally negligent of his duties.
Of course, Su Bai had always been like this, and everyone was already used to it.
Why aren't you reviewing in the dorm? Aren't Old Xue and Old Chu grinding like crazy? Su Bai put down his console and tossed him a can of cola.
Regarding these two eccentric guys suddenly entering a crazy review mode, Su Bai had already seen people gossiping about it in the class group chat.
After all, the two were star players in the class and even the Computer Science department. Being stars, their every move was bound to be watched by someone!
I finished reviewing, Wang Haoran answered honestly.
Not bad, as expected of you.
Su Bai smiled, then pointed to a glass office next to them, It's good that you came, I have something to tell you.
What is it?
Didn't we talk about setting up a mobile game studio for you before? Su Bai said casually, These past few days I had Boss Du help look for some candidates. Originally, I thought about letting you recruit people yourself to get some practice. But then I thought about it, recruiting from scratch is too much effort, and it's easy to get scammed.
So, I just had Boss Du directly poach a ready-made team for you.
Originally, Wang Haoran wanted to set up a studio focused on game boosting and similar services. To be honest, it was quite a unique hobby, but then again, as a hardcore anime gamer, Wang Haoran's interests had always been rather bizarre.
Students with talents similar to his, whether from Jiang University or other prestigious schools, usually aspired to join major tech giants, earn high salaries, and eventually start their own businesses to achieve financial freedom.
Wang Haoran, on the other hand, felt that running a small business was comfortable enough. He simply didn't have such lofty pursuits.
The staff hadn't arrived yet, but the profiles of the new recruits were already available, and Su Bai handed them over for Wang Haoran to review.
"However," Su Bai mentioned, "Lao Du told me that this studio's original core business was actually providing gaming companions."
"Ah..."
"If you're interested in the gaming companion sector, you could actually make it a primary focus. After all, the market for it is quite large, and later on, you could even transition it into a maid cafe..."
"No, no, no, let's forget about the maid cafe."
Wang Haoran hastily rejected Su Bai's sudden wild tangent.
Maid cafes sounded like a very otaku-friendly concept, but in reality, they were far from ideal. As a veteran otaku himself, Wang Haoran was naturally well-versed in maid culture.
Recently, since he had been hanging out with Brother Bai and had some extra cash on hand, he had actually gone to try them out a couple of times.
There were, in fact, a few similar establishments in Jiangcheng.
Ah, how should he put it... they completely lacked that authentic vibe. He just felt that they weren't suitable places for a die-hard nerd to actually relax.
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?!
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!
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.
u Chenyuan transmigrated into a female-oriented novel about a real and fake heiress, becoming the CEO elder brother of both. Unfortunately, the entire Lu family—including himself, the CEO—were mere cannon fodder in the story. Determined to save himself, Lu Chenyuan took action. The spoiled, attention-seeking fake heiress? Thrown into the harsh realities of the working class to learn humility. The love-struck real heiress? Pushed toward academic excellence, so lofty goals would blind her to trivial romances. As for the betrayed, vengeful arranged marriage wife… the plot hadn’t even begun yet. There was still time—if he couldn’t handle her, he could at least avoid her. "CEO Lu, are you avoiding me?" Mo Qingli fixed her gaze on Lu Chenyuan. For the first time, the shrewd and calculating Lu Chenyuan felt a flicker of unease.
