19: The Demise of the Simp Army

At the entrance of the Gu Family Manor, the pink Rolls-Royce Phantom, trailing exhaust fumes and Gu Fan's mockery, had just vanished down the road.

The air still held the strange scent of Lin Mengyao's expensive perfume mixed with the dust stirred up by her earlier tumble.

Gu Fan, still holding the magazine titled "How to Master the Art of Lying Flat," was about to turn around and return to his room to continue enjoying his simple, unadorned, and tedious life as a rich second-generation heir.

"Vroom, vroom, vroom—!!"

A series of deafening engine roars suddenly erupted from the distance.

Immediately after, seven or eight heavily modified, levitating supercars plastered with anime 'itasha' decals and skull patterns swerved recklessly to a stop in front of the Gu Family's main gate.

The screeching of brakes was ear-piercing, tires leaving black skid marks on the ground, perfectly overlaying the tire tracks Lin Mengyao had just left behind.

The car doors opened.

A group of young people dressed in bizarre outfits and sporting rainbow-colored hair stepped out.

Leading them was a burly young man wearing a tight tank top that revealed two arms tattooed with... ribbonfish? Oh no, they were Dragon patterns.

His hair was slicked back into a shiny pompadour, the hair gel applied thickly.

Senior Simp.

The famously notorious Eldest Young Master of the Zhao Family in Tianqiong City, also Lin Mengyao's number one "Flower Protector" and "Top Patron."

Rumor had it that in his pursuit of Lin Mengyao, he once stood in a snowstorm at minus twenty degrees Celsius all night just to deliver a steaming hot roasted sweet potato to her. She refused it because it was too hot to handle, so he tearfully ate it himself and posted about it on social media, moved by his own devotion for three whole days.

"Gu Fan! You useless trash, get out here!"

Senior Simp roared the moment he stepped out of the car.

His voice boomed with vigor, clearly a sign of someone who regularly indulged in supplements.

His lackeys behind him also started yelling, brandishing baseball bats, steel pipes, and some even wielded nunchaku—a rare sight these days—swinging them around with loud shouts, nearly hitting their own teammates in the back of the head.

Gu Fan stopped, turned around, and walked up the steps at the entrance, looking down at this group of characters who seemed to have just been released from a comic convention or a mental institution.

"Well, if it isn't Young Master Zhao?"

Gu Fan smiled. "What's the matter? Did you catch the scent the moment Lin Mengyao left? Your noses are sharper than police dogs. It's a waste of talent not putting you to work as drug-sniffing dogs."

"Enough nonsense!"

Senior Simp angrily pointed at Gu Fan's nose and cursed, "I heard everything from Mengyao! You reckless fool, how dare you humiliate her! You made her... you made her..."

At this point, Senior Simp's mind flashed with the scene Lin Mengyao had tearfully described in her video call (of course, a beautified and exaggerated version). His heart ached terribly.

His goddess!

The goddess whose hand he hadn't even held was publicly shamed by this trash!

"You dared to ruin her dress! That was her favorite dress!"

Senior Simp was filled with grief and indignation. "Do you know what that dress represents? It was her dignity! Her dream! You destroyed her dream!"

Gu Fan couldn't help but laugh.

"Young Master Zhao, that's some solid logic."

"By your reasoning, if her dress was poorly made and ripped, it's my fault? If you're constipated tomorrow and can't take a dump, will you blame the Earth's gravity for not being strong enough?"

"Also, don't make those few scraps of cloth sound so lofty. Dignity? Looks more like a belly band to me."

"Shut up! I won't allow you to insult my goddess!"

Senior Simp completely snapped.

His muscles bulged, and he unleashed the Aura of a Martial Artist at the Peak of the Ming Jin stage.

While it was nothing compared to true powerhouses, in the eyes of ordinary people, this was already a superhuman existence.

"Gu Fan, today I'll show you why flowers are so red!"

"I'm going to break all your limbs, stuff you into a sewer, and make you spend the rest of your life looking up at Mengyao's noble stature!"

Senior Simp struck a pose he thought looked incredibly cool.

"Fierce Tiger Climbs the Mountain!"

He roared, his foot stomping hard on the ground as his whole body, accompanied by a howling fist wind, lunged straight for Gu Fan's face.

He put his full force into this punch.

He truly intended to kill.

The malice born from his desire to impress his goddess and protect his pitiful simp pride was intensely concentrated.

[Ding!]

The System notification chimed, sounding just in time.

[Blind, master-protecting malice detected from the 'Senior Simp'.]

[Nature of malice: Extremely brain-dead, violent assault, IQ deficit.]

[Malice Rank: A.]

[Retribution triggered! Multiplier: Fifty-five times.]

[Random effect generating... Detecting target's extreme desire for intimate contact with an object.]

[Congratulations on selecting: The Prank of the Physics Engine (Harmonious Coexistence of Man and Nature Edition).]

[Effect description: Since you love 'climbing the mountain' so much, you can climb to your heart's content. A historic kiss is included, though the recipient might be a bit hard.]

Gu Fan stood in place, not moving a muscle.

He merely blew lightly on the dust covering the magazine.

Just as Senior Simp's fist was less than half a meter from Gu Fan...

An accident occurred.

Senior Simp's limited-edition basketball shoes, worth eighteen thousand, suddenly stepped on an extremely inconspicuous object.

It was a piece of... banana peel that one of the bodyguards had accidentally dropped in panic when Lin Mengyao left earlier.

Normally, with a Martial Artist's reflexes, stepping on a banana peel wouldn't cause a loss of balance.

But don't forget, this was a Karma weapon.

This banana peel seemed endowed with some superconductor-like property of zero friction.

"Sliiiide—"

A slippery sound.

Senior Simp's body instantly lost its balance.

Because his forward momentum was too fast and his force too fierce, this slip caused his body to stretch out into a straight line mid-air.

But he didn't fall down.

Under the System's control, his body maintained that punching posture as he slid right past Gu Fan...

"Huh?"

Senior Simp only saw a blur before his eyes.

The face of his enemy, which had been right in front of him, suddenly vanished.

In its place was the pair of majestic, thousand-pound White Marble Stone Lions guarding the entrance of the Gu Family Manor.

Especially the one on the left.

It was a male lion, carved with lifelike realism, particularly its tail area, which was full and rounded.

Senior Simp was moving too fast to brake.

"No—!!"

His eyes were filled with terror.

"Thud!!"

A dull impact sound.

But the point of impact wasn't his head, but... his *butt*.

Senior Simp, in an utterly humiliating pose with his arms spread wide as if to embrace a lover, slammed into and hugged the stone lion's rear end.

And his mouth landed with pinpoint accuracy... on that indescribable spot beneath the stone lion's tail.

What was worse...

Due to the immense impact, his braces (newly worn for teeth correction) got caught in the rough texture of the stone lion.

They were locked in place.

"Mmph! Mmph!!"

Senior Simp let out muffled screams, his limbs flailing wildly in the air like a giant rat stuck on a glue trap.

He desperately tried to pull his head free, but his mouth was firmly wedged in that position.

The surroundings fell silent.

The lackeys who had been waving their steel pipes all froze mid-action.

They stared dumbfounded at their boss.

The posture was too devout.

Too self-oblivious.

As if it weren't a stone lion, but his long-cherished Lin Mengyao.

"Click."

Gu Fan had somehow pulled out his phone, found the perfect angle, and even turned on the flash.

"Marvelous."

Gu Fan clicked his tongue in admiration as he looked at the photo. "Young Master Zhao, I know your love runs deep, but isn't this a bit too hardcore?"

"Is this the legendary... origin of the Sphinx?"

"Even though this stone lion is male, you shouldn't be this desperate. It's broad daylight; you need to consider social decency."

Hearing Gu Fan's mockery, Senior Simp felt his blood rush to his head, his face turning crimson. He wriggled his body frantically, throat making "heh heh" sounds, clearly wanting to curse but unable to get the words out.

"What are you all standing around for! Save the boss!"

One lackey finally snapped out of it and shouted.

"Kill this brat! Avenge the boss!"

These rich second-generation heirs were used to acting arrogantly. Though shocked by the scene, they didn't grasp the severity of the situation.

"Charge!"

A group of them, brandishing their weapons, howled as they rushed toward Gu Fan.

A dozen people formed a menacing encirclement.

Gu Fan put away his phone and sighed.

"Truly, refusing the road to heaven and failing to guard the door to your pants."

[Ding! Group assault malice detected.]

[Retribution triggered! Multiplier: Forty times.]

[Random effect generating... Detecting all targets are wearing branded trousers.]

[Congratulations on selecting: Truth is Naked (Collective Belt Strike Edition).]

Just as the lackeys had charged halfway, about three meters from Gu Fan...

Suddenly.

"Snap! Snap! Snap! Snap!"

A series of sounds like firecrackers exploding erupted densely from around their waists.

Whether it was Hermès leather belts, Gucci canvas belts, or the elastic bands of sweatpants.

At this moment, they all seemed to have received a divine command: Dismiss!

Everyone's belts snapped simultaneously.

Without any warning.

"Whoosh—"

Under the combined effects of gravity and their running momentum.

The trousers of over a dozen people slid down to their ankles in unison.

Not just the outer pants.

Retribution effects always came with a buy-one-get-one-free deal.

Even the inner layer wasn't spared, either falling down with them or being pulled along.

"Thump! Thump!"

The charging crowd, tripped by their fallen pants, tumbled to the ground one after another.

The scene was unsightly.

A colorful array of patterned boxers, SpongeBob prints, and even leopard prints were exposed under the sun.

A few who had opted for maximum coolness by wearing nothing underneath were now in direct, intimate contact with the earth, burying their faces in the dirt, too ashamed to look up.

"Ah! My pants!"

"Pervert! Who pulled my pants down!"

"I'm not pure anymore!"

A group of grown men lay on the ground, covering their crucial parts and wailing like ghosts and wolves. The scene was even more chaotic than a bathhouse after losing the locker keys.

Gu Fan covered his eyes, peeking through his fingers.

"Ugh, I'm going to get a stye."

"Everyone, this is on you. You don't need to be this frank when visiting my house, do you?"

"I know I'm charming, but I'm not into guys, really."

Gu Fan took two steps back with a look of disgust. "And that brother in the red underwear, is it your zodiac year? Good luck and prosperity to you."

The lackeys were now mortified and furious, wishing they could die.

They tried to stand up, but their pants were tangled around their ankles, causing them to fall the moment they tried.

In the end, they could only wriggle like caterpillars, holding up their pants, scrambling and crawling back toward their cars.

"Let's go! Get out of here!"

"This place is haunted! Definitely haunted!"

They even forgot about their boss, still stuck to the stone lion.

The ship of friendship capsized completely the moment the pants dropped.

The engine roars sounded again.

But this time, it was a frantic escape.

Several sports cars even rear-ended each other because the drivers, with their pants not properly pulled up, stepped on the wrong pedals, sending bumpers flying everywhere.

In less than a minute...

The entrance was quiet again.

Only Senior Simp remained.

He still maintained that passionate pose of kissing the stone lion's rear, watching helplessly as his lackeys abandoned him.

Tears of humiliation streamed down his face.

Regret filled his heart.

Not regret for picking a fight.

But regret for not checking the almanac before leaving home.

Gu Fan walked up behind him and kindly straightened his disheveled hair.

"Brother Zhao, take your time with the kiss, no rush."

"This stone lion has been standing here for decades, never been favored like this before."

"You could say you've... sacrificed yourself for love."

After saying this, Gu Fan sent the photo he had just taken to Lin Mengyao's WeChat account (even though she had probably already blocked him, he didn't care).

Caption: 【Looks like your backup tire has shifted his affections. The new object is quite sturdy.】

Having done all this, Gu Fan hummed a tune, hands clasped behind his back, and strolled leisurely through the gate like an old man returning from his morning exercise.

"This life of the wealthy elite is truly... simple and unadorned."