GRMFBS CH301

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Zhan Yan exited the Gossip System and closed his eyes.

After lying down for a while, he rolled over.

Ten minutes later, he rolled over again.

Zhan Yan opened his eyes.

He couldn’t sleep…

Feeling for his phone by the bed and taking a look, it was already 34 minutes past his usual bedtime.

As expected, overly stimulating events would impact one’s biological clock.

Forcing himself to sleep wouldn’t work, so Zhan Yan decided to log into the Dawn World to take a look. Although his sister wouldn’t drag him to practice his spiritual power tonight, he could practice by himself for a while.

Just as he logged into the Dawn World, a giant eye with a vertical pupil stopped right in front of Zhan Yan.

Zhan Yan was startled by it and stumbled backwards three steps in succession.

The giant eye was set into a massive dragon’s head. The giant dragon rolled its eyes and stared straight at Zhan Yan.

“Have you seen that sleep-disturbing dragon-headed demon?” the giant dragon asked Zhan Yan with a rumbling voice.

Zhan Yan: …Still looking? That’s too persistent!

Why don’t you change your name from “Sleepy Giant Dragon” to “Grudge-holding Giant Dragon”.

“No.” Zhan Yan shook his head, and the tail behind him swayed along with it.

The giant dragon snorted twice, blowing huge pillars of white steam from its nose.

“Alright, if you see him, remember to tell me, and I will reward you with ten… five gold coins.”

Discounting half right to his face, it serves him right that he can’t find him.

Zhan Yan nodded seriously: “Okay, I’ll definitely tell you when I find him.”

The giant dragon was satisfied, flapped its wings, and flew away.

Zhan Yan wagged his tail, preparing to practice his spiritual power.

In the Dawn World now, he wouldn’t dare say he could cover 108,000 miles with a somersault cloud, but slowly climbing clouds and flying around was still possible.

Zhan Yan floated up and “climbed” a cloud. Following the method his sister taught him, he fluffed the cloud up and lay down on it, comfortably stretching lazily.

Wherever he wanted to go, he summoned a breeze in that direction. The wind blew the cloud boat, drifting leisurely through the Dawn World.

The information terms for “Domain” were collected one by one, and it looked like another energy slot was about to be filled.

Zhan Yan rolled over on the cloud, lying on his stomach and looking down, his tail wagging unconsciously.

This is really comfortable; he could collect information terms just by lying down.

It was still daytime in the Dawn World. At this time, the sun was setting, almost at the same height as the clouds. The sunlight spread golden waves over the cloud layer. Basking in the sun, Zhan Yan started to feel drowsy.

He closed his eyes, and just as he felt himself dozing off, he suddenly heard Gu Jiancheng’s voice.

“Yan Yan?”

Hmm? Zhan Yan suddenly opened his eyes.

…

Gu Jiancheng fell asleep very quickly after saying goodnight.

So nice. Everything went smoothly. Tomorrow he could return to Yunjin City with Yan Yan.

Although the journey to meet the parents was long, he finally succeeded!

After turning off the lights, his shadow melted cheerfully and lazily into the darkness.

When the darkness lit up again, Gu Jiancheng realized he was dreaming.

The setting sun on the horizon dyed the clouds a bright gold. The clouds, sometimes unfurling and sometimes rolling up, were like a golden tide. Distant mountains were dark green, blue waves rippled, giant dragons flew high in the sky, and the spires of tall towers flashed with colorful light.

He felt it was a bit familiar, as if he had had a similar dream before. Some places were the same, but there were also many differences.

Gu Jiancheng couldn’t remember. He took a step forward on instinct, stepped into a shadow, and when he reappeared, he had entered another shadow. This was the shadow of a tree.

He walked around the tree for a long time but didn’t find what was attracting him.

After a while, he felt like going somewhere else, so he shuttled through another shadow. This time he appeared in the shadow of a rock. He didn’t find anything attractive in the rock either.

He chased one shadow after another. After walking through a few, he suddenly looked up.

What attracted him was not the shadow of the tree, nor the shadow of the rock, but the shadow of the clouds in the sky.

The shadows of the clouds were moving, covering other shadows from time to time.

The bottom of the clouds also had shadows.

This time, Gu Jiancheng shuttled toward the shadow at the bottom of the cloud.

When he popped out of the cloud, he discovered that a person was already lying on it.

“Yan Yan?” Gu Jiancheng called out in surprise.

Zhan Yan lifted his head.

It was Yan Yan, normal size, without a dragon head, but he had an extra tail.

Gu Jiancheng couldn’t help but stare at that tail, his fingers twitching.

Zhan Yan stared at him in a daze. How did the “Deep Shadow” NPC get here? And why was he also calling him “Yan Yan”? Isn’t he just an NPC?

Oh right, the person who made this NPC was Wan Shitong. Gu Jiancheng’s fake identity was maintained by Wan Shitong. He knew that he and Xiao Gu were dating, so when he was making the “Deep Shadow” NPC, he made it extremely authentic… That should be the logic, right? Why did he still feel that something was off?

While Zhan Yan was thinking, his tail involuntarily swayed back and forth. The small arc swung from the base of the tail to the tip, and then swung back in the opposite direction.

Gu Jiancheng’s Adam’s apple bobbed. He walked over and crouched down.

Zhan Yan had just snapped out of his daze and turned his head, preparing to ask this NPC.

“You…”

The “Deep Shadow” NPC grabbed his tail with lightning speed.

Zhan Yan only felt his back stiffen. A tingly, numb sensation shot up from his tail, numbing his entire spine and spreading to his back.

“What are you doing?!” Zhan Yan quickly yanked his tail back, darting three meters away on the cloud. He hugged his tail and glared warily at the “Deep Shadow” NPC.

Why is this NPC getting touchy-feely?!

Gu Jiancheng blinked.

“Sorry…”

Zhan Yan let go of his tail and snorted. When he sculpted this tail, he just thought it was fun, not expecting it to be quite sensitive. The tail flicked twice behind him in annoyance.

Gu Jiancheng: “Can I touch it again?”

Zhan Yan: …

What is wrong with this NPC?!

“No!”

Zhan Yan logged off directly.

In the pitch-black room, Zhan Yan opened his eyes and frowned indignantly.

An NPC acting like a hooligan!

Now that the Dawn World has stabilized, and he and Xiao Gu have dropped their disguises with each other. Tomorrow, he would go complain to Xiao Gu and tell him that Wan Shitong made an NPC based on him!

Change it! It’s not allowed to use Xiao Gu’s image anymore!

At the same time, next door.

Gu Jiancheng suddenly woke up with a start.

He recalled the dream he just had.

Sure enough, this is what his normal aesthetics should be. What the heck was that 2.3-meter-tall burly man with a dragon’s head he dreamed of before?

That tail was still swaying back and forth in Gu Jiancheng’s consciousness. He pursed his lips in regret.

He only got to touch it once. A soft, fluffy tail… why did he suddenly wake up?

Sigh…

But he really didn’t know before that he had this kind of preference in his subconscious. He wondered if he’d have the chance to see it again in the future.

Letting his thoughts run wild, Gu Jiancheng fell asleep again.

Zhan Yan indignantly wrote a memo to prevent himself from forgetting to mention that NPC tomorrow.

It was already very late. After writing the memo, Zhan Yan fell asleep.

The information astrolabe of the Gossip System gathered and scattered. The “Domain” energy slot had collected a full bar in the Dawn World. A brand new, translucent little star popped out and scattered into a sea of stars in Zhan Yan’s dream.

The night sky was black and transparent, like a piece of clear black crystal. Speckles of light hung inside the black crystal.

A strange beast with four legs and a dragon’s head strolled through the sea of stars, occasionally stopping beside a star and poking it a few times with its claws.

The stars emitted tiny, fragmented light, as if talking to him.

Bai Ze didn’t say anything, and his presence among strange beasts was also very thin, but he didn’t feel lonely.

He had so, so many stars. Reading them was like getting to know them.

Bai Ze understood every star very well, although these stars didn’t know Bai Ze.

Later, the starry sky shook and fell.

The starry world dimmed bit by bit. The falling meteors were like gashes cut into the black crystal.

Every feather of the divine bird with brilliant plumage was burning as it smashed viciously from high in the sky to the ground. The violent thunder re-condensed into a human form at the last moment, falling dimly towards an unknown destination.

Bai Ze was also falling.

Amidst the sky full of meteors, he tore apart his own divine power, and should have had his soul scattered along with the collapsing power. But at the moment when the omniscient “future” collapsed and the “past” was still there, he saw a black star streaking from beyond the heavens, crashing into his fate without hesitation.

As he fell along with the meteors, he looked up and saw a burning core inside that dead, silent star.

Amidst the falling of the stars, that single star that refused to die was rushing toward him.

The “future” had changed.

…

Ning Xi, who had reviewed the situation, slowly let out a breath. A hint of a smile touched his tired eyes.

He opened his hand and looked at his palm lines, as if reading an astrolabe.

So many people pitied him for his Great Dayan Numbers, which could once divine four hundred million changes in a single hexagram. But after surviving it, Ning Xi had new thoughts.

As a grand diviner capable of predicting the future, he could roughly see a part of the world that Bai Ze saw.

Being able to see the future only proved that the future was fixed.

Living beings are like fish in a river network. No matter how the fish struggles, it only moves from one channel to another. It can never leave the river and swim into a channel that doesn’t exist.

Infinite crashed into this world, and also shattered its destined fate.

The future was no longer safe, but the future belonged to them.

His Great Dayan Numbers was ruined, but his cultivation might not be. With the integration of the Dawn World, loopholes appeared in the conceptual coverage of spirit and network, and he hadn’t fallen ill for a while.

This current future was very good.

After Ji Yueming finished arranging the affairs on hand, she saw Ning Xi was still online: “Aren’t you going to rest?”

Old Zhan, Jinli, and Suiru had all gone back. She temporarily remained in this small base, half to protect and half to oversee things.

Ning Xi made a rare joke: “Today’s events were too shocking, I can’t sleep for now. Don’t you think our world acts like a matchmaker?”

Ji Yueming paused for a moment, lowered her head to distribute the sorted tasks, a hint of a smile at the corner of her lips: “Then it has a very good eye.”

Twenty-seven years ago, Ji Yueming, who had seized a sliver of vitality, crashed onto the edge of the battlefield.

Her newly condensed body was not very easy to use; every movement felt like getting electrocuted.

She almost wanted to just lie there, but she saw a person buried in the ruins, with only half of his body exposed.

An ordinary person swept up in the battlefield? Ji Yueming propped up her swaying body and went over to save him.

This was a man covered in blood and wounds. His appearance couldn’t be made out, completely obscured by hideous gashes and blood. There were only a pair of eyes, bright and black, as if they were crying.

She dug him out of the rubble and found he was shielding two children underneath him—a human child and a young demon—but neither was breathing.

Zhan Yunkai was crushed by the ruins, unable to move. He saw an incredibly battered woman desperately moving away pieces of rubble one by one with trembling hands.

Ji Yueming fell in love with those eyes filled with pain and pity.

Zhan Yunkai fell in love with that human who refused to give up.

Later, they supported each other to the rear medical station. After separating, they wanted to find each other again, but the clues had long been lost in the chaos.

A few years later, when the situation stabilized, they returned to that place during that year’s Lantern Festival.

This place had already turned into a lantern street. Amidst the crowd, they suddenly looked back.

So you actually look this good.

On the day they almost fought, Zhan Yunkai and Ji Yueming corroborated the past events with each other.

At that time, they both thought the other was an ordinary person. The memories of their first meeting had already dissipated along with the Torch Dragon Loop. But they both remembered. That stunning first glance wasn’t on the lively, firework-lit lantern street, but in the ruins engulfed in the flames of war.

Although there were the world’s arrangements and guidance, everything was their own choice.

The Chongming Bird and the Celestial Master chose to love each other; Deep Shadow and Bai Ze chose to walk together.

In the guest room, Zhan Yan curled up into a ball in his sleep. His brows were peaceful as he curled on his side, his arms and legs wrapping around the quilt as if hugging something round and plump.

In the starry sky of his dream, he was tightly hugging a pitch-black star.

None of those stars knew him.

But this one was a star that belonged to him.