Transformed into a heartthrob's simp, every day is a battleground.

Chapter 357 Whatever makes you happy

Gao Ruiyun was so surprised that Yan Xun had woken up that she almost jumped up.

"...You're awake?" Gao Ruiyun asked.

"No," Yan Xun said, "I was talking in my sleep."

Gao Ruiyun pondered for a moment, realizing that Yan Xun was probably mocking him for asking a question he already knew the answer to. He said somewhat embarrassedly, "Was my movement too much?"

“It’s okay, you can poke it again.” Yan Xun said, taking Gao Ruiyun’s finger and poking it on her face. “Poke it a few more times and my dimples will appear.”

Gao Ruiyun finally realized that Yan Xun was angry.

He quickly got up and said to Yan Xun, "I'm just so happy..."

"So I wanted to confirm that you're really next to me."

He looked at Yan Xun and said, "I'm worried that I'm just dreaming."

"You're worried you're dreaming, why don't you just poke yourself?" Yan Xun asked. "It's quite novel for you to come and poke me."

Knowing he was in the wrong, Gao Ruiyun could only lower his head and remain silent.

Yan Xun released Gao Ruiyun's hand. "Never mind, I'll go lie down over there." He was referring to the bed in the room.

He felt that it was better to lie on the couch over there than to lie with this thousand-year-old corpse.

Gao Ruiyun panicked upon hearing this, grabbing Yan Xun's wrist, "No..."

"I promise I won't bother you anymore."

Yan Xun glanced at him and said, "Let go."

Gao Ruiyun certainly couldn't let go, but perhaps because he spoke too quickly and his body couldn't take it anymore... he started coughing violently again, his back bent.

His cough was so bad that Yan Xun was about to pour him a pot of hot tea to soothe him.

Unexpectedly, Yan Xun's attempt to leave further provoked Gao Ruiyun, who stubbornly grabbed Yan Xun's wrist, saying, "You can't leave."

"You're leaving."

"I'll die right here!"

"..." Yan Xun was puzzled. "I just went to pour you a cup of tea."

Gao Ruiyun looked somewhat surprised, probably because he was too surprised. He let go of Yan Xun and watched Yan Xun walk to the table, pour him a cup of hot tea, and hand it to him.

Gao Ruiyun took the hot tea and drank a sip.

"……Thanks."

He held the hot tea in his hand, head down, seemingly lost in thought.

After a long while, he finally looked up and said, "You don't want me to die, do you?"

"..." What does this have to do with anything?

A big question mark popped into Yan Xun's head.

He really couldn't understand Mr. Gao's thought process. Was this what they called a generation gap?

Master Gao ignored Yan Xun and continued speaking, "You see me coughing and feel sorry for me. Listen to me, if you leave, I will die too, so you can't bear to part with me..."

He looked up at Yan Xun. "Right?"

"Don't you want me to die?"

As he spoke, he became excited again, but this time he didn't cough. His cheeks turned red because of his own imagination—he didn't know what kind of nonsense he was conjuring up.

“Master Gao.” Yan Xun stood on the edge of the bed, looking down at Gao Ruiyun who was kneeling there. “This is the first time we’ve met today.”

He looked at Gao Ruiyun with a puzzled expression. "Do you think I have such deep feelings for you?"

Gao Ruiyun was speechless for a moment. He looked at Yan Xun's expression and said, "...Maybe you'll fall in love with me at first sight?"

Yan Xun thought for two seconds, "You fell asleep while sitting?"

Gao Ruiyun was puzzled.

"He's already talking in his sleep?"

Gao Ruiyun probably didn't expect Yan Xun to be so sharp-tongued. He looked at Yan Xun blankly and said, "Don't be angry."

“I’m not angry,” Yan Xun said. “I’m calmly analyzing the possibilities of this matter with you.”

"The conclusion is that the chances are extremely slim," Yan Xun said.

"So that means there's still a tiny bit of a possibility?" Gao Ruiyun said immediately.

Yan Xun: "..."

"Whatever makes you happy."

Gao Ruiyun felt a little embarrassed again. He knelt on the bed and looked at Yan Xun, "If you really don't want to stay with me..."

"I'll sleep there."

As he spoke, he stood up, preparing to make room for Yan Xun.

Yan Xun immediately pressed his shoulder, "What if you catch a cold sleeping there?"

His words were purely a statement, devoid of any emotion, yet Master Gao was deeply moved upon hearing them—he felt that Yan Xun held him in his heart.

He was moved to tears, saying, "I knew you cared about me and were worried about me."

"There's no way to communicate with the thousand-year-old corpse," Yan Xun thought.

“I was just worried that if you caught a cold, your servants would beat me to death with sticks.”

"No way!" Gao Ruiyun immediately became excited. "They wouldn't dare."

As he spoke, he coughed again.

Yan Xun: "..."

He prayed that Master Gao wouldn't die on his wedding night, as he didn't want to hear any outrageous rumors.

Old Master Gao had probably gotten used to his frail body. After coughing for a while, he gradually calmed down. Seeing that Yan Xun was determined to sleep in a separate bed, he could only say helplessly, "Then you can sleep there."

"It's just that it's cold at night, so I asked them to add some more heaters."

"No," Yan Xun immediately stopped him. "I'm healthy, I'm not afraid of the cold."

"Ah...oh." Upon hearing this, Master Gao nodded absentmindedly.

"Then you should lie down," Yan Xun said.

Seeing that Yan Xun's mind was made up, Master Gao could only crawl back under the covers he had just pulled back. He then thought for a moment, "Isn't it a bit inappropriate for us to sleep in separate beds on our wedding night..."

"Then do you still expect us to have a son soon?" Yan Xun asked.

“…No.” Master Gao was embarrassed again, as if he were some innocent young man, rather than a feudal landlord who had taken a concubine.

"Then you should just lie there quietly," Yan Xun said.

"I still need to pay my respects to Madam tomorrow morning," Yan Xun said earnestly.

Upon hearing Yan Xun's words, Master Gao became somewhat displeased again, "You and Li Wu have a very good relationship?"

"Why are you so eager to pay your respects to him?"

"Isn't this the rule in your household, sir?" Yan Xun chuckled. "According to the rules, I should greet them one by one in turn."

Master Gao seemed to only then remember this rule in his household, and wanted to say something, but in the end he said nothing, only coughed, "Li Wu has been staying at home all these years."

“There is a Buddhist shrine in his courtyard, where he usually stays.”

"Be careful of Lou Yanchuan," Master Gao added. "His personality is unpredictable, and he might harbor some ill will towards you."

Gao Ruiyun fell silent after saying that. Yan Xun glanced at him and found that he had already curled up in bed and fallen asleep.

Seeing that Master Gao was asleep, Yan Xun went to the bed in the room.

He leaned back on the bed and opened the live stream again—

You really know how to train dogs! (thumbs up)

[I knew His Majesty wouldn't remain a limp quail forever, and sure enough...]

[It seems Master Gao has forgotten that he was the landlord in all of this (sadly)]

Is this a concubine I bought? I feel like I've brought in a tyrant for myself (question)

You wouldn't understand the fun a couple has in life!

Yan Xun: "..."

"Can't we talk about something more meaningful?"

……

The next day, when Yan Xun woke up, Master Gao was nowhere to be found.

He pushed open the door, and people immediately came to help him wash up and get dressed. Yan Xun waved his hand to indicate that it was not necessary. After washing up and changing his clothes, he walked towards Li Wu's courtyard.

Two maids, dressed in red and green respectively, were assigned to serve Yan Xun. They were in their early twenties, one lively and the other more composed.

Xiao Hong has a lively personality. "The yard was cleaned up yesterday."

"Today is mainly about meeting the other wives."

"The First Madam has a good personality and will definitely not make things difficult for you."

As they talked, they led Yan Xun to the courtyard where Li Wu was.

As soon as Yan Xun entered the courtyard, he saw Li Wu, who had changed into a new set of clothes. He seemed to have just come out of the Buddhist hall. When he saw Yan Xun, he simply nodded slightly as a greeting.

The maidservants beside Li Wu looked much older than Xiao Hong and Xiao Lü, and appeared more composed. They didn't seem very curious about Yan Xun himself.

After the group entered the house, the maids served tea, and Li Wu said, "You may all leave now."

His maid didn't ask any questions, she simply bowed and left.

Yan Xun nodded to Xiao Hong and Xiao Lü, signaling them to leave together.

Once only the two of them were left in the room, Li Wu finally had the chance to properly examine Yan Xun. "Nothing strange happened last night, right?"

Yan Xun didn't quite understand what Li Wu meant.

“We entered the instance together,” Li Wu said. “Yesterday was our first day in the instance…”

He seemed to be pondering how to ask Yan Xun about this.

Yan Xun suddenly understood what he meant, "You want to ask if anything happened on your wedding night?"

“That’s what I mean,” Li Wu said.

"You haven't encountered any roles?" Yan Xun asked, puzzled.

“I only have some basic information, such as that Gao Ruiyun and I are childhood sweethearts, and that I naturally became his first wife after growing up.” Li Wu said this with a somewhat speechless expression, “I can’t set up such detailed things.”

“We entered the instance together, so I can only say…” Li Wu looked at Yan Xun, “The instance started on the very day you entered, which is why this part of the story happened.”

Yan Xun: "..."

What's this? Is he just unlucky?

Yan Xun thought this to himself, but still answered Li Wu's question first, "Nothing serious happened."

“At least what you were worried about didn’t happen,” Yan Xun said. “This game’s dungeons won’t have that kind of storyline.”

"But Mr. Gao revealed a piece of information to me."

"what?"

“Every 30 years, the Gao family holds a banquet to specially entertain the esteemed person they worship.”

"If that esteemed person hadn't attended that banquet, it would have brought misfortune upon the Gao family. The same applies to dissatisfaction with the banquet."

"If that lord attends the banquet and is satisfied, the Gao family will be blessed for 30 years."

Yan Xun looked at Li Wu and said, "Gao Ruiyun said that the next banquet will be in half a month."

"He said we would all participate, and he estimated that some plot points would be triggered that day."

Yan Xun remembered Gao Ruiyun saying that he had experienced the last banquet when he was five years old. Unfortunately, that important person did not come that time, and from then on, disaster befell the Gao family and its collateral branches.

He told Li Wu about this detail and asked if she, as his childhood friend, knew about it.

Li Wu shook his head, "I probably wasn't even born when he was five years old."

"At least when I met Gao Ruiyun, his health was already very poor."

"The Gao family has been looking for someone to help him ward off bad luck. At first, it was that child bride, but after she died, they calculated her birth date and time and finally found me." Li Wu was referring to the plot design in the dungeon.

"He was so sick that he couldn't even sit up to walk, but after someone came to marry him to bring him good luck, his health improved."

"After that, my family sent me abroad to study..."

"No, his health is already like that? And he still goes abroad to study?" Yan Xun couldn't help but ask, "Isn't he afraid of dying far from home?"

“He didn’t seem to stay for very long, maybe a year at most, before coming back with his classmates,” Li Wu said.

Yan Xun knew that this classmate was Sun Zhao.

He then casually mentioned that Master Gao had said they could go and pay their respects to that esteemed person.

“He said that official is in the ancestral hall,” Yan Xun said. “Do you know where the ancestral hall is?”

Although Li Wu had just arrived in the instance, his identity was set to have been in the manor for many years, so he didn't know, but his maid did.

Two maids were summoned. After Li Wu expressed his intentions, the maids exchanged a glance and then offered to lead the two of them to the right place.

The group left Li Wu's house and followed the winding path. When they saw a well in the distance, the maids suddenly stopped.

The leading maid gestured to Li Wu that they needed to take another route.

Li Wu and Yan Xun exchanged a glance but said nothing, simply instructing the maid to lead the way.

But as they rounded another winding corridor, a well appeared as if blocking their way in the direction they wanted to go.

The well happened to be in the corridor, blocking the end of it—and now both Yan Xun and Li Wu realized something was wrong.

Although Yan Xun had never lived in such a large mansion, he knew that no one would dig a well in such a corridor.

Moreover, this well is exactly the same as the one they just avoided.

The older maids were horrified when they saw the well.

Seeing this, Xiao Lü and Xiao Hong hurriedly helped Yan Xun back, while the two maids led Li Wu away quickly. After the group passed through several courtyards and kept a safe distance from the well, the four maids finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"Huh? You guys?"

Yan Xun turned his head and saw Sun Zhao sunbathing by the artificial hill.

Sun Zhao glanced at Li Wu, then looked at Yan Xun, "Yan Xun doesn't need you to accompany him when he pays his respects, does he?"

"I'm not going to eat him."

The maids bowed and greeted Sun Zhao repeatedly. Sun Zhao glanced at the maids' expressions, then looked at Li Wu and Yan Xun, "Could it be that something just happened?"

"It just so happens that Gu Jia and I live in the same courtyard."

"What a coincidence."

Sun Zhao gestured for them to follow him back to his courtyard.

Once everyone had gathered in Sun Zhao's room, he looked at the maid with a grim expression and asked, "So what exactly happened? Why are you all in such a panic?"

The two older maids exchanged a glance. There were also maids beside Sun Zhao and Gu Jia in the room. Finally, one of them sighed.

"It wouldn't be good for the master to know about this."

“I guarantee that no one will tell anyone what happened here today,” Sun Zhao said, glancing at the others in the room.

The four maids nodded repeatedly.

Seeing this, the older maid spoke up, "This story begins when the lady first entered the household."