Chapter 39: He Wants to Give You a Huge Surprise

Looking at the game interface, Xu Yunzhou saw Song Jiaru seriously adjusting an expensive professional speaker, preparing her voice to practice singing.

Her focused side profile was unbelievably beautiful under the soft light.

He curled the corners of his mouth in satisfaction and exited the game.

At 8:00 PM, it was time to go to Liu Jian's appointment.

He stood up and stretched lazily, the joints all over his body emitting a pleasant, slight crisp sound.

An indescribable sense of power and flexibility filled his whole body. This was probably... an invisible benefit of taking top-tier body shaping classes along with Song Jiaru?

But a trace of subtle incongruity quietly lingered in his heart.

Over a month had clearly passed in the game time, but in reality, his computer clock showed that only a few hours had passed.

Although he heavily used the [Fast Forward] function, this difference in the flow of time still seemed too disparate.

Even more bizarrely, he genuinely and clearly "felt" the passing of that long period of time—the ironclad evidence was that when Song Jiaru was chewing on those heavenly-scripture-like "Harmony" and "Musical Form Analysis" and conducting boring, scalp-numbing sight-singing and ear training in the game, he actually subconsciously followed along to study and understand.

It seemed a complete, basic music theory knowledge system had really been stuffed into his brain!

He had a vague perception of this point when nurturing Lin Ruoxuan last time, but back then he thought it was an illusion caused by alcohol.

But this time it was particularly obvious, so clear it couldn't be ignored.

Moreover... physiological needs don't lie.

During the period of "immersively" playing the game, he ordered takeout seven or eight times because he felt real hunger!

Now his stomach was starting to feel a bit empty again, reminding him of the energy consumption.

"Probably because of high concentration of attention, the brain was in an overclocked receiving state, causing the subjective sense of time to be stretched, while physical energy consumption doubled and doubled again."

Xu Yunzhou ultimately found a relatively scientific explanation for himself.

...

At 9:00 PM, a whiskey bar by the riverside known for its quiet style and emphasis on guest privacy.

Soft jazz flowed in the air, and the lighting was ambiguous.

Su Qianran was sitting inside with her bestie Han Fei.

The mojito garnished with mint leaves in front of her was almost untouched.

Her meticulously retouched face no longer showed pure grievance, but rather an intertwining of anxiety, unwillingness, and a trace of increasingly unhideable panic.

"Feifei, tell me... Zhao Lili was fired on the spot, the whole company went bankrupt just like that... Could these things really all be related to Xu Yunzhou?"

Su Qianran's voice was extremely low, carrying a tremble of disbelief,

"And Chairman Song from my company! Director Zhang said it himself, Xu Yunzhou is her honored guest! He... what high branch did he exactly climb onto? How is this possible?"

Han Fei also had a solemn face, taking a sip of the cocktail in her hand:

"Yeah, it's too abnormal. Ranran, think carefully again, does Xu Yunzhou... have some particularly deep background that we don't know about? For example, coming out from some hidden great family to experience life?"

"What background could he have?"

Su Qianran irritably poked the ice cubes in her cup with a straw,

"I know everyone in his family, the one doing the best is just a section chief in a clean-water government office. His previous job, the salary was decent, but far from the point of being earth-shattering... Unless..."

(TL: "Clean-water government office" refers to a government department with little power or extra income/bribes.)

Her phone was still logged into Xu Yunzhou's banking app. She saw the balance change notification of that four hundred and twenty thousand resignation compensation that popped up in the afternoon.

It was just that large transfers required a verification code so she couldn't touch it, otherwise this money would have long been transferred by her to fill her shopping cart.

"Unless he won the jackpot? Or stepped in some massive dog shit luck and made a windfall we don't know about?"

Following her train of thought, Han Fei lowered her voice, her eyes flickering,

"These past few years, many people playing with computers and blockchain got rich overnight, making big money silently. Do you think Xu Yunzhou... also secretly stepped on some trend early on and accumulated terrifying capital?"

Biting her full lower lip, a trace of greed and calculation flashed through Su Qianran's eyes:

"If that's really the case... then no matter what, he has to give me a large half of this money! I gave my best five years of youth to him, accompanying him from renting a house with nothing to now. He can't just turn his face and refuse to recognize people once he's developed! This is too unfair to me! He must compensate me!"

Right at this moment, her gaze inadvertently glanced toward the door, her breathing abruptly stalling—Xu Yunzhou walked in.

He had changed his clothes, having a few more points of uninhibited design sense than the outfit during the day, even slightly carrying a trace of just-right flashiness. But worn on his tall and straight body, there was no sense of incongruity at all.

What made her even more strange was that the previous Xu Yunzhou, who was slightly hunched and had rounded shoulders due to long-term desk work, was gone.

At this moment, his shoulders and back were straight, and the aura of his whole body seemed to have been thoroughly washed, elevating several levels!

It was simply like changing into a different person!

Han Fei saw him too. She nudged Su Qianran with her elbow, her tone carrying the teasing of watching a good show:

"Yo, Ranran, look quickly! Your Xu Yunzhou is here for an 'accidental encounter,' right? I knew it, how could he really let you go? Is he here to check up on you or to seek reconciliation?"

Su Qianran fell silent for a moment, calculating rapidly in her heart.

Based on her understanding of Xu Yunzhou's simp behavior over the past few years, a cold war from the other party would absolutely not exceed three days, and every time it was him who bowed his head first! And now... the time limit is almost up!

As expected!

The expression on her face instantly turned from overcast to partly cloudy. She even put on airs and snorted through her nose:

"Hmph! Following me here? Such a low-level method! Dream on! I won't easily forgive him, he made me so embarrassed and lose all face at the company during the day!"

Han Fei immediately chimed in, switching to hype-woman mode:

"He's just deliberately making you angry, playing hard to get, wanting to attract your attention. Otherwise how could there be such a coincidence? But you're right, this time you must make him learn a good lesson and kneel down to admit his mistake, you can't easily let it go!"

However, the next scene made the two women freeze.

After Xu Yunzhou entered the door, he walked straight to an empty booth slightly far from them, sat down, and started looking at his phone on his own.

Han Fei burst out laughing, thinking she had seen through it:

"Ranran, he's playing psychological warfare with you! Putting on an act, waiting for you to go over proactively! He's putting on quite the airs!"

Su Qianran's teeth itched with anger. Her sense of superiority and the tsundere pride of refusing to bow her head made her hold on forcefully:

"Hmph! Actually still pretending to be aloof in front of me! I won't spoil this stinky habit of his! Let's see who can outlast who! Wait until he can't hold it in!"

Not long after, the bar door was pushed open again. The one who came in was Liu Jian, whom they both knew—Xu Yunzhou's college classmate, whose family did cross-border trade, a standard rich second-generation from Jiangnan Province.

Liu Jian also saw Su Qianran. He walked over with a smile, sized up the booth, and greeted familiarly:

"Yo, Sister-in-law, what a coincidence? Has Yunzhou not arrived yet?"

He clearly didn't know yet that the two had completely torn faces and broken up.

Su Qianran frowned, her tone carrying a trace of undetectable interrogation:

"What are you looking for him for?"

An "I understand" mysterious smile, carrying a bit of envy, jealousy, and hate, appeared on Liu Jian's face:

"What? He hasn't told you yet? Haha, I understand, he definitely wants to give you a huge surprise! Holding back his ultimate move!"