CHAPTER 476: 476 CHAPTER SHE, IS THE XINGYUAN GREAT EMPEROR_1

"Director Xu."

Liu Nanwei greeted sweetly as well.

Xu Lai looked at the two of them and said helplessly, "Are you bullying Dr. Zhou again?"

Liu Nanwei said with a smile, "Not at all. I just chatted with him about his senior sister, and Zhou Feng blushed."

"Is that what you call chatting?" Zhou Feng glared. "You asked me if my senior sister has a good figure, if her breasts are big... How would I know!"

"Hmm, so you haven’t made your move yet," Liu Nanwei said with regret. "You two went abroad for a vacation over the New Year, stayed in the same room for a full seven days, and you actually managed to resist?"

Zhou Feng: "..."

Damn, I’ve let it slip!

Xu Lai chuckled.

Zhou Feng’s senior sister ran a financial company overseas. She had wavy, curly hair, dressed fashionably, and was a very pretty woman who had visited the school’s medical office before.

Zhou Feng’s senior sister was quite fortunate and would have great opportunities in the future. Xu Lai had even suggested that Zhou Feng make an effort to turn his senior sister into his wife.

Who would have thought Zhou Feng would be so unimpressive!

Liu Nanwei said earnestly, "Dr. Zhou, I suggest you go to the hospital for a check-up when you have time. If you have some hidden ailment, you must get it treated right away. You absolutely can’t delay."

Zhou Feng wanted to hit someone. If Liu Nanwei weren’t pregnant, he would definitely teach this woman what cruelty meant.

Of course, it would only be a verbal quarrel; he would never actually hit a woman. But even so, he kept rolling his eyes. "You should focus on your pregnancy and stop worrying about me."

"Hehe, my daughter is adorable, thanks for your concern," Liu Nanwei said happily.

Xu Lai was stunned. "...You don’t know it’s a son?"

Liu Nanwei’s smile stiffened. "Director Xu, don’t scare me. I really don’t want a son."

"Hahahaha!" Zhou Feng laughed at her misfortune. "Dr. Liu, favoring girls over boys isn’t right. Whether it’s a boy or a girl, they’re both your treasure."

"Get lost!" Liu Nanwei glared with her beautiful eyes, then reached out to take her own pulse. She said weakly, "Why do I still feel like it’s a girl..."

Xu Lai smiled. "Don’t worry. Your next pregnancy will be twin daughters."

"Ah?" Liu Nanwei’s face turned bitter. "I’m only having this one. I’m definitely not having a second child."

Xu Lai sighed slightly. Indeed, you can’t trust a woman’s words. The Pillar of Fate clearly says she’ll have more, yet here she is, telling me she won’t?

He stood up and went to the school’s registration office to sign up Ruan Lan.

Strictly speaking, signing up on someone else’s behalf wasn’t allowed. But for Xu Lai... being a popular figure at the school now, the teacher at the registration office happily agreed. He even kept probing to see if his own son could come work odd jobs at the school’s medical office.

Xu Lai laughed and said, "The medical office isn’t short-staffed. Teacher Zhang, why don’t you ask Dr. Li Shouzhong if he needs anyone?"

"Ah, yes, of course!" The teacher’s old face bloomed like a chrysanthemum. He was extremely excited. Getting into Elder Li’s team would be great, too!

While Xu Lai was handling the registration, his sister-in-law, who was sleeping soundly back in Haitang Court, had a dream.

In her dream, she was still playing Go. But she wasn’t playing against a board, but with an old man who had the aura of an immortal. He had white hair and a white beard, leaned on a walking stick, and sighed endlessly.

"This old one has roamed the Immortal Domain for two hundred thousand years. I never thought I would lose to you."

"Of course," the Ruan Lan in the dream said, quite smugly. "Even my brother-in-law, Xu Lai, can’t beat me. I can beat you with one hand tied behind my back!"

"...Playing Go doesn’t require two hands."

"Don’t change the subject! I saw you secretly move a piece! How can you be so shameless? You want to take back your move?!"

"..."

In the dream, Ruan Lan and the old man battled it out over the Go board again. They played three games, and Ruan Lan won every single one by a narrow margin. This made the anxious, white-haired old man look at her with pitiful eyes, as if begging, "Can’t you at least let me win one game?"

"I, Ruan Lan, am the invincible Go Saint!" Ruan Lan didn’t realize this was a dream and said excitedly, "Again, again!"

The white-haired old man waved his hand. "No more, no more. Let me tell you a story instead."

"Not interested."

"..."

The old man was taken aback. He pinched a black stone and said helplessly, "Fine. How about we play while you listen?"

Ruan Lan reluctantly agreed.

"When I was born, a celestial phenomenon lasted for a full year. Before I could even speak, I was sent to cultivate under an Immortal Venerable and was praised by countless great figures of the Immortal Domain, who all said I had a ’promising future’!"

The old man continued on his own, "And I did not disappoint. In twenty thousand years, I reached the peak of the Quasi-Emperor stage but... I could not advance a single step further."

"This was because on the day after I was born, someone in the starry sky had already become an Emperor—and an Empress at that. My master told me to seal myself and wait for the next epoch to challenge the Emperor Realm!"

The old man placed a stone on the board, his expression a little forlorn. "I agreed, but later, I regretted it."

"Why?" Ruan Lan felt an inexplicable sorrow. She didn’t know why she had asked.

"Before sealing myself, I wanted to fight a true Emperor to understand where the gap lay. I found the Empress, but I couldn’t bring myself to strike."

The old man’s gaze grew distant, as if he could see that radiant figure. "Because her smile... it was truly beautiful. So beautiful that I forgot my purpose and just stared at her foolishly. My heart began to pound uncontrollably, as if it would leap from my chest."

Ruan Lan analyzed for her Go partner, "That’s called being smitten. Not bad, you old codger."

The white-haired old man felt a hint of helplessness. He’d been devastatingly handsome when he was younger, hadn’t he?

He placed another stone and continued, "So I gave up on the idea of sealing myself in my Dao Endowment to sleep. I was afraid I would never see her again. Her lifespan... was less than thirty thousand years, while I still had one hundred eighty thousand."

Ruan Lan wasn’t shocked by the terrifying lifespan. Instead, she grew even more sentimental and said, "You were born ere I was born; when I was born, you were already old."

"Yes, that’s it. You were born ere I was born; when I was born, you were already old." The old man nodded with a smile, but his cloudy eyes were moist as he repeated each word.

"I refused to accept fate!" The old man’s voice suddenly calmed. "I refused to believe that only one person in the starry sky could become an Emperor. I would shatter the shackles and use my Emperor Realm Dao Fruit to carve out a second life for her!"

"I succeeded."

"Twenty thousand years later, I became an Emperor. But I also failed. I couldn’t give my Emperor Realm Dao Fruit to her. Instead... she gave hers to me."

The old man said, utterly bereft, "I... I don’t want to live alone for a million years. Without her... what is the point of the Emperor Realm, let alone becoming an Immortal?"

"I crippled my own Emperor Realm cultivation and, with what little lifespan I had left, I founded the Star Origin Sect."

"Because she... she was Great Emperor Xingyuan. She entered the Dao through starlight and especially loved to gaze at the starry sky in a daze."

At this, the white-haired old man broke down, sobbing like a three-year-old who had lost his candy. "I can’t find her... I’ve lost her..."

Ruan Lan’s nose stung with tears. "It’s okay. I’ll play Go with you. Let’s not think about these sad things."

"I actually dislike Go more than anything. It was she who loved it. I forced myself to learn, but I was never any good at it."

The old man tossed a stone into the air. It fell slowly, and just as it landed on the board with a crisp clack, the white-haired old man’s figure began to turn illusory and fade away.

Ruan Lan reached out, trying to grab him, but she caught nothing but air. All she heard was that ancient voice whispering by her ear:

"The game is over. You are not her."