GRMFBS CH4

Zhan Yan couldn’t see the hungry ghost, but he could tell it was near him through the gossip system. Whether it was psychological or not, he felt the air around him growing cold and sticky, like a layer of damp mist had formed.

As an ordinary person, he had no way to deal with the hungry ghost. Since the ghost was disrupting the surrounding magnetic field, he couldn’t use his phone to contact anyone either.

So… it was up to him.

Zhan Yan quickly turned to the person next to him and asked, “Do you put salt or sugar in your scrambled eggs with tomatoes?”

“Huh?” The passenger next to him looked confused for a moment but still answered kindly, “Sugar.”

“I think salt is better,” Zhan Yan said. “Although I’ve never had it with sugar.”

[Wenhai District Hungry Ghost hears your words and is filled with intense anger. It must make you try scrambled eggs with tomatoes with sugar, and you will admit that sweet scrambled eggs with tomatoes are the most delicious!]

[Wenhai District Hungry Ghost, hating the salty side, now thinks you’re not so delicious anymore.]

Zhan Yan’s eyes lit up.

Burn, sweet food lover’s belief!

“Soy milk too, salty soy milk is the best.”

“The sweet one is too greasy; you can’t eat too much of it.”

“Salty meat dumplings are smooth and delicate.”

…

In the gossip system, the hungry ghost was raging at his salty food declaration, but at least its sanity had returned. The garbled text in the ghost’s messages had turned into emoji faces now: 🙂

As Zhan Yan continued his salty food declarations, he typed quickly on his phone.

He had locked the ghost’s hatred onto himself. Once the bus reached the stop, he would get off and run to the news agency. When the signal on the bus was restored, he could call. He could ask the person next to him to help him call the agency president.

Just before the bus was about to reach the stop, Zhan Yan finished typing and was about to show the passenger next to him when the gossip system suddenly refreshed again:

[Wenhai District Hungry (。·﹃·。) Ghost suddenly smells an extremely delicious cake fragrance and decides to abandon you, the hopeless salty food lover, and go taste the delicious cake made by the sweet food lover.]

Cake?

Zhan Yan’s face changed dramatically. His brother’s Sweet Cake Shop was nearby!

He didn’t have time to talk to the passenger anymore. Zhan Yan jumped up, ran off the bus, and quickly dialed his brother Zhan Jinli’s number.

“Hello, the number you dialed is out of service…”

Why was the signal still bad? Could it be that his brother’s shop had no signal?

Answer the phone! Come on, pick up!

Zhan Yan was frantic. The bus stop was very close to the cake shop, and it was too late to call Zhen Hua now. He had to get Zhan Jinli to escape the shop first.

Zhan Yan knew a shortcut to the back kitchen of the cake shop. Running this way would be faster. Holding the redialed phone, he ran wildly, his chest tight, his mouth tasting salty. He had never been so scared.

Answer the phone! Get the signal back!

Suddenly, everything in front of him went dark, like falling into a vast, deep universe. In the endless darkness, stars flickered, like supernova explosions or rays of light bursting forth—white, green, blue, purple—colors spinning and colliding, eventually converging under two golden stars.

Zhan Yan stumbled, feeling a rush of information flash before his eyes.

Passing through the layers of information, he saw a half-open glass window. He had already reached the back kitchen of the cake shop.

[Wenhai District Hungry Ghost enters Sweet Cake Shop…]

Without thinking, Zhan Yan climbed through the window.

The gossip system quickly refreshed in front of him:

[…Tasted the experimental cake freshly made by Zhan Jinli.]

[Wenhai District Hungry Ghost starts vomiting.]

[The anomaly was vomited out by the Wenhai District Hungry Ghost.]

[Before fainting, the Wenhai District Hungry Ghost left a final message: “Too… sweet…”]

Zhan Yan: …?

Zhan Jinli, hearing the noise from the kitchen, rushed over, only to see his younger brother leaning against the wall, almost collapsing.

His usually silent older brother hesitated, then awkwardly asked, “Did you… have low blood sugar?”

“Do you want a piece of cake?”

Zhan Yan: …!

“No, no, no!”

His brother’s cake was sweet enough to suffocate a ghost! What kind of sweetener did he use?!

Zhan Yan had run so fast that now, all the physical reactions he had ignored in his fear of his brother being in danger came rushing back.

Zhan Jinli silently poured half a cup of warm water for him and hesitated before preparing to pour in some honey.

“One spoonful is enough!” Zhan Yan, gasping for breath, struggled to speak and stopped Zhan Jinli from filling the cup with honey, “A small spoon!”

[You have received a cup of honey water with normal sweetness.]

Zhan Yan drank the honey water and rolled his eyes at the gossip system.

His thoughtful brother brought him a chair.

Zhan Yan collapsed into the chair, breathing heavily, and clicked into the hungry ghost’s information feed in the gossip system. The last entry remained on the final message, “…Too… sweet,” and the anomaly that had been vomited out was gone.

The hungry ghost seemed to pose no immediate threat, but the real danger wasn’t the ghost itself, but the garbled anomaly. Before encountering that anomaly, the hungry ghost had merely been a sweet food-loving gourmet who liked to wander around tasting leftovers.

But Zhan Yan couldn’t search for that anomaly because it was just a string of garbled text. “Anomaly” couldn’t be used as a search keyword. Just like “Tianshi” and “Chongming Demon King” could be used as keywords, but “human” and “demon” couldn’t, and “Jianping District” and “Wenhai District” could be used, but “region” and “earth” couldn’t. Keywords needed to be more specific, not general terms.

In fact, if Zhan Yan hadn’t added tags to the hungry ghost while treating it like a food recommendation, he wouldn’t have been able to search for it after the garbled text was inserted.

And the garbled text couldn’t be searched for or tagged.

Having such a thing wandering nearby was truly terrifying. Zhan Yan’s sense of crisis skyrocketed.

His whole family was ordinary, and only he had a system, which was a completely powerless gossip system. He needed to get more involved in that extraordinary world; only then could he protect his family!

Zhan Yan had almost recovered from the aftereffects of his intense running and looked up to see his extremely socially anxious older brother watching him with concern.

Zhan Yan gave him a reassuring smile and quickly typed on his phone, showing it to his older brother: “I’m fine.”

“I just suddenly had a weird urge to test my physical limits.”

His usually quiet older brother slowly nodded and typed on his phone: “I’ll take you home.”

Zhan Yan didn’t refuse. He watched his brother, Zhan Jinli, close the oven, put away the ingredients, clean the kitchen, and turn off the lights. The warm, bright cake shop gradually became cooler and darker, with only the sweet fragrance of the cakes gently enveloping the place.

Zhan Yan had run too fast earlier, and now his legs were still weak, even a little painful. Zhan Jinli silently slowed his pace, and the two walked as if they were taking a stroll.

They reached a staircase, and Zhan Yan lifted his foot to step up, his face contorting slightly.

His legs were shaking.

Zhan Jinli silently moved in front of him and squatted down with his back to him.

Zhan Yan whispered, “…No need, Ge, I can walk by myself.”

Zhan Jinli didn’t stand up. He turned his head and pinched Zhan Yan’s calf.

Zhan Yan yelped in pain. He had pulled a muscle while running!

There was no way around it. Zhan Yan climbed onto Zhan Jinli’s back, obediently letting his older brother carry him.

Zhan Jinli’s back was broad and sturdy, and his body temperature was slightly cool. The familiar warmth triggered Zhan Yan’s memories.

When he was young, his brother had carried him before.

At that time, he had just been adopted and was very scared of this silent, aloof older brother. One day, when their parents and sister weren’t home, only he and Zhan Jinli were at home, each staying in their own room, not disturbing each other.

Later, Zhan Yan couldn’t remember the exact details. He only knew he had hidden in the wardrobe for some reason, feeling hot and uncomfortable. Zhan Jinli must have somehow discovered him, pulled him out of the wardrobe, and carried him to the nearby hospital.

When he had a fever, he had felt awful, but his brother’s cool body temperature had comforted him. His thin back had been slightly bony, and his spine had felt hard.

After that, Zhan Yan was no longer afraid of this quiet older brother.

But now, being carried like this at his age was really embarrassing!

Zhan Yan buried his head in his brother’s back, but it was misinterpreted as discomfort from the carrying, so Zhan Jinli adjusted him higher.

Zhan Yan: …!

Ahhh, he had to get back into shape after the physical training he hadn’t done since the college entrance exam!

Once home, Zhan Jinli gently placed his brother on the sofa and worriedly patted his head.

“I’m not running a fever,” Zhan Yan gritted his teeth, the pulled muscle hurting.

Zhan Jinli nodded.

His younger brother was just an ordinary person, but he was born with a strong sensitivity to anomalies and Yin energy. Once, when he was younger, he had rushed into some ghostly energy and had a fever.

After that, Zhan Jinli secretly made a pendant with the Ghost King seal for him, and when he got a phone, he turned it into a phone charm.

When Zhan Yan had barged into his cake shop earlier, there had been two ghosts there. His subordinate little ghost wasn’t much of a threat, as it controlled its ghostly energy very well. But that strange hungry ghost was different.

Zhan Jinli had checked his brother’s condition and confirmed he wasn’t affected by any ghostly energy. He then pulled out a bottle of medicinal oil to treat him.

After returning to his room, Zhan Jinli took out a small tin candy box from his pocket. Inside was the hungry ghost that had intruded into his cake shop.

This was the hungry ghost his subordinate had told him about—the one trying to claim territory.

It was indeed strange. After the hungry ghost ate a bite of his specially made cake, it vomited. The strange anomaly that came out of it ran too fast, and all Zhan Jinli saw was a blur of pixels, but he couldn’t catch it. There weren’t many anomalies that could escape from his hands, and this made Zhan Jinli feel a sense of danger.

Yunjin City was under the protection of the Chongming Demon King, and Zhan Jinli had always felt secure in his salty ways. But now, it seemed that for the safety of his family, he couldn’t continue as he had before. He might have to recruit his old subordinates…

But the first thing he needed to do was investigate the strange anomaly from this hungry ghost.

…

After his brother went back to his room, Zhan Yan opened the gossip system.

It seemed something had changed in the system when he was running to the cake shop in a panic, but he had been too rushed to check at the time.

The gossip system was the only extraordinary ability he had, and if he wanted to protect his family, it was essential to start from here.

When he reopened the gossip system, the most noticeable change was the panel. Next to the search bar, there was a “special attention” section, likely used to display information that he had specifically marked as important. The benefit was that he wouldn’t have to search for it each time—it would show up automatically.

Since he hadn’t added any other terms to special attention, this section only contained his own gossip.

…

[You have received a cup of honey water with normal sweetness.]

…

[Congratulations! You ran a 12-minute 23-second time in the 3642.13-meter window obstacle race.]

Heh, the first feature after the upgrade is to learn to mock me, huh?