GRMFBS CH25.1

Zhan Yan’s eyes widened.

Gu Jiancheng? He’s in Yunjin City?

Did he already figure out where I am?

Zhan Yan quickly calculated how many clues he had given him in total:

First, this job is seriously understaffed.

Second, this job ends early every day.

Then, there’s the fact that he needs to return to school and work overtime on weekends.

That’s only four clues in total!

Only the last two could actually help determine the location. Returning to school might give a general idea, and working overtime on weekends could be a hint, but it’s not an obvious one. Did Gu Jiancheng see some news about Yunjin City? Did he really confirm it based on that alone?

But since Gu Jiancheng had already figured it out, Zhan Yan wouldn’t bother misleading him or denying it.

Zhan Yan: “How did you guess?”

Gu Jiancheng: “Because you and I have a special understanding.”

Zhan Yan: “…Can you be serious?”

Gu Jiancheng looked at his phone and smiled.

“I’m being serious.”

“Based on the clues you gave, I narrowed it down to several cities. But among all of them, I chose Yunjin City.”

“Isn’t that proof of our connection?”

Zhan Yan stared at those words. He just relied on intuition to settle on Yunjin City…

Suddenly, Gu Jiancheng called.

Amid the scorching summer heat and the noisy background, his voice was as clear as a spring cascading down: “I’m at the train station now. Yan Yan, will you come pick me up?”

Zhan Yan was momentarily caught off guard by his undisguised anticipation. He coughed lightly.

“Don’t try to take shortcuts. Otherwise, you won’t get any more clues for the next couple of weeks.”

“Alright.”

Gu Jiancheng lifted his gaze toward the station exit. The skyline of Yunjin City was outlined against the dusk. He chuckled softly.

“I’ll find you.”

After hanging up, Zhan Yan rubbed his ears, picked up the ribs and cucumbers, and headed home.

After tidying up and putting the soup on the stove, he grabbed his phone and messaged his sister, taking the opportunity to claim some credit.

Meanwhile, Zhan Suiru was discussing Zhan Yan’s love life with Zhan Jinli.

Zhan Suiru: “It definitely wasn’t before high school. Otherwise, I would’ve known!”

Zhan Jinli: “Then it must have been during college.”

“Is he still dating now?”

Zhan Suiru: “I suspect they’ve already broken up.”

Zhan Jinli: “Why?”

Zhan Suiru: “Think about what he’s been doing during holidays.”

“What kind of young person in a relationship doesn’t go out on vacation and instead finds a temporary job?”

Zhan Jinli: “So, you think he was in a relationship before but has broken up now?”

Zhan Suiru: “Highly likely.”

“He must’ve been heartbroken when they broke up, and I didn’t even notice! [Heartbroken]”

Zhan Jinli: “I didn’t notice either…”

Zhan Suiru: “Wait a second, Yan Yan just messaged me.”

She switched to the chat window and saw Zhan Yan telling her about meeting Zhao Wen today.

Zhan Suiru: “Oh, I know that Shao Jinwen.”

“He’s just jealous that Zhao Wen is younger than him and holds a higher position. He always thinks that position should’ve been his. Plus, he looks down on her for being a woman.”

“Good job messing with him! Do it again if you get the chance!”

Zhan Yan: “Leave it to me!”

“By the way, Sis, that essential oil you gave me smells amazing.”

“Do you have more?”

Zhan Suiru: “Didn’t I give you enough?”

“That bottle should last you six months.”

Zhan Yan: “It’s enough.”

“I just want to give some to a friend, but I don’t want to split that bottle.”

“The one you gave me—I want to keep it for myself.”

Such sweet talk.

But since Zhan Suiru had just been discussing Zhan Yan’s love life, she was immediately on alert.

Zhan Suiru: “What friend?”

Zhan Yan: “A college classmate.”

“I made pork rib soup, using Dad’s recipe. Are you coming home tonight for some?”

Zhan Suiru: “Yes!”

Zhan Jinli also confirmed.

Both of them received the news about the pork rib soup and then quickly resumed their previous discussion.

Zhan Suiru: “Yan Yan just mentioned wanting to give his friend some essential oil.”

“Do you think there’s something going on?”

Zhan Jinli: “Didn’t you just say he probably broke up?”

Zhan Suiru: “What if it’s a new romance?”

“Think about it carefully—it makes sense!”

“I never noticed any signs of heartbreak. Maybe that’s not my fault. Maybe he just started a new relationship!”

The two siblings arrived home at just the right time, meeting at the front door. They exchanged a glance, perfectly in sync.

Then, as soon as they entered, each was handed a cucumber.

The rich aroma of pork rib soup filled the house. Zhan Yan grinned and said, “Dad said, no ribs until you finish your cucumber.”

The siblings sat on the sofa, crunching away on their cucumbers.

Zhan Suiru tucked her legs up onto the sofa and asked, “Yan Yan, who’s that friend of yours? Why haven’t I met them before?”

“He’s my college classmate. You haven’t met him because he doesn’t live around here,” Zhan Yan replied.

Zhan Suiru continued probing, “Oh? You two must be pretty close, then? Is it a guy or a girl?”

“He’s my roommate. A really good guy,” Zhan Yan said.

Zhan Suiru was half relieved, but not completely reassured.

“Why not invite him over sometime?”

“That’d be a hassle—he’d have to take a flight.” Zhan Yan half-joked, then pushed the bowls of soup and rice in front of them. “Come on, try my cooking.”

The tempting aroma filled their noses. The two of them hurriedly finished off their cucumbers and, without a word, each grabbed a piece of rib with their chopsticks.

Zhan Yan successfully used the soup to stuff his brother and sister’s mouths, cutting off the conversation.

He didn’t think his relationship with Gu Jiancheng was at the stage where bringing him home to meet the family was necessary—after all, they hadn’t been together that long. Although Zhan Yan really enjoyed being with him now, he was also clear-headed. They didn’t know each other that deeply yet, and there was no guarantee they’d last. No need to involve the family.

Besides… Gu Jiancheng gave him a sense of danger. Like a deep, unfathomable pool—calm on the surface, but who knew what lay beneath, hidden in the currents and rocky depths?

Zhan Yan admitted he found the thrill of it a bit enjoyable, but that wasn’t something he wanted to introduce to his family.

Zhan Suiru ate happily, alternating between spoonfuls of soup and bites of rice. “Yan Yan! You’re already at about eighty percent of Dad’s skill level!”

Zhan Yan replied, “I still need to work on heat control, but that’s just the rice cooker handling it. I’ll send you the recipe. You could make something nearly as good at your studio if you get a rice cooker too. As for you, bro… just forget it.”

Zhan Jinli was hopeless.

Any recipe that required adding sugar? Doomed.

Better not waste the ribs—just let him stick to eating cake.

After finishing his meal, Zhan Yan excused himself and headed upstairs to get back to work.

Downstairs, the siblings doing the dishes suddenly realized—

Wait a minute. They still hadn’t gotten any answers about their little brother’s “friend” or whether he was dating someone!

Zhan Suiru and Zhan Jinli exchanged glances. She couldn’t help but kick him under the table.

Where was their teamwork now?

At the door, they had exchanged a knowing look—but it turned out all he did was “look”?

Zhan Jinli gave her an innocent look. Zhan Yan hadn’t checked his phone while eating, so he didn’t know what they had been scheming about.

With a sigh, Zhan Jinli got up to do the dishes.

Meanwhile, upstairs, Zhan Yan didn’t immediately start working. Instead, he opened the Chaofan Forum and sent a private message to Administrator Ling Yu, reporting the ghost that was stealing electric scooters to pay off debts.

After all, his presence in Yunjin City wasn’t a secret to the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau. When he first reported the garbled code anomaly, he had mentioned finding it in Yunjin City.

The Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau.

Currently, Approaching Science was a high-priority target for Ling Yu. Private messages even had notification sounds enabled.

Nie Yu was in the middle of drafting a Mental State Observation Report when she heard the notification. Thinking something urgent had happened again, she clicked on the message—

“…Can you stop using me as a crime hotline?”

Ling Yu, who was nearby, asked, “What’s up?”

“It’s Approaching Science again. He seems to be in good spirits—still has time to care about stolen electric scooters.” While efficiently delegating tasks, Nie Yu grumbled, “He sent me intel about a ghost thief. A small case like this should just be reported directly. Isn’t there a tip-off number on the forum? Why send it to me?”

Ling Yu thought for a moment. “Maybe he thinks the forum administrator is supposed to handle these kinds of minor issues?”

Nie Yu: …Ouch.

Admins were constantly getting @-mentioned left and right. No authority, no respect.

But in reality, she was an incredibly skilled, extremely busy genius! Managing the forum was just one of her many side tasks because she helped build it and had the right abilities for the job. Except for major incidents like forum breaches, she usually didn’t bother with the day-to-day.

The next day, Zhan Yan saw the follow-up to this case on his gossip feed.

The police had already arrested the thief, Wang Guan, and brought him in for questioning. Wang Guan acted arrogantly at the station.

“Let me go! Do you even know who I am?”

The officer asked, “And who exactly are you?”

Wang Guan declared, “Who I am isn’t important! What matters is who I work for!”

The officer asked, “And who do you work for?”

Wang Guan proudly announced, “I work for a god!”

He sounded absolutely convinced.

Because the ghost, Hou Liyun, had told him so.

Hou Liyun had said this money was his destiny, that it belonged to him in this life. So taking it wasn’t stealing—it was just reclaiming what was rightfully his. And he was guaranteed never to be caught.

Wang Guan believed him. At first, he was cautious when stealing electric scooters. But after a few successful attempts, he realized he didn’t even need to avoid security cameras—nothing happened to him anyway. So, he became even bolder.

However, the police didn’t care about any of that. After completing the report, they threw Wang Guan straight into the detention center.

Wang Guan was still shouting, “You’re defying fate! The gods will punish you! Let me go now while you still have a chance to redeem yourselves!”

His so-called “god” not only failed to help his debtor repay the debt and ended up in custody but also got himself sent to the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau. True brothers—sharing hardships together.

For the next few days, Zhan Yan and his siblings practically lived off Aunt Bai’s pastries and various pork rib soups. When they finished the shiitake mushroom soup, they moved on to winter melon; when winter melon was gone, they had corn; and when corn ran out, they switched to yam.

Zhan Yan managed to finish his work just before the buzz around Ling Yuteng’s octopus scandal died down. He sent the final part of his report to the club president, Zhen Hua, then stood up and stretched.

After heading downstairs to make some lotus root pork rib soup, Zhan Yan pulled out his phone to check on the latest gossip about Ling Yuteng. Judging by the trending topics, he could afford to delay his report another two days if he wanted to.

The scandal’s sustained heat was thanks to the impressive efforts of Ling Yuteng’s multiple romantic partners.

One of them, a fading movie star, decided to ditch their usual composed persona and milk the situation for sympathy, successfully reviving their career with an aggrieved lover image.

Meanwhile, the wronged director conveniently had an upcoming drama centered around a complicated love affair, and this controversy boosted its publicity overnight.

Ling Yuteng’s major sponsor, corporate mogul Lu Jiandong, wasted no time in cutting him off completely—tearing up all his contracts and blacklisting him in the industry. But, in a true display of business acumen, Lu Jiandong immediately signed the former movie star and struck a new investment deal with the wronged director.

In short, they all lost a relationship but gained a career boost—courtesy of Ling Yuteng.

As Zhan Yan scrolled through the latest updates, he suddenly noticed that his father was trending again.

What happened this time?

Clicking into the topic, he saw it was related to those big-name gossip accounts that had previously spread rumors about Zhan Yunkai.

Not long after they fabricated those accusations against Zhan Yunkai, Xia Yuexian had taken legal action against them. However, lawsuits take time, and it was unclear when there would be a final ruling.

But today, for some unknown reason, all those influential bloggers suddenly began publicly apologizing. They sounded extremely sincere, even detailing how they had been paid off and confessing to their shady motivations in great detail.

The most explosive revelations came from the first two major fan accounts that had defended Ling Yuteng—Ling Teng Yu Nei and Ling Ling Ling Ling Ling. They admitted that the role at the center of the initial controversy hadn’t been stolen by Zhan Yunkai. Instead, it was Ling Yuteng himself who had gone to the set, demanded extra screen time for his character through a personal writer, and, after failing to negotiate with the production team, had refused to act. Zhan Yunkai had only been brought in as an emergency replacement by the studio.

Had things stopped there, it wouldn’t have caused much of a stir—after all, a minor dispute over a role paled in comparison to Ling Yuteng’s massive cheating scandal.

Some people even doubted the confession, suspecting that these fan accounts were just trying to distance themselves from Ling Yuteng now that his downfall was inevitable, or that they wanted to avoid legal trouble by making things up.

But then, they dropped proof.

Ling Teng Yu Nei and Ling Ling Ling Ling Ling had infiltrated the set in the first place to get closer to Ling Yuteng. During his time there, they had secretly recorded footage of him negotiating for extra scenes and later refusing to act. Originally, they had planned to sell these clips to fan groups as exclusive content, but instead, they ended up capturing solid evidence of his misconduct.

These superfans had been playing both sides all along—at first, they intended to sell the footage to Ling Yuteng’s team. However, after he completely offended his sponsor, Lu Jiandong, the businessman was eager to ruin him and had no interest in buying out the evidence. So, the two fans were stuck with it.

Zhan Yan found the whole thing highly entertaining and immediately forwarded it to his sister.

The siblings gleefully enjoyed the drama together.

Then Zhan Yan mused, “Still, it’s a bit strange.”

“How come they all suddenly decided to confess at the same time?”

“And they were so harsh on themselves?”

Usually, public apologies were carefully worded to downplay wrongdoing, sometimes even making passive-aggressive excuses.

Zhan Suiru: Well, that’s because your dear sister just received a custom curse from a sorcerer—one that makes liars suffer unbearable pain and even works through the internet~

Lounging on the sofa with her legs crossed, she hummed a tune and messaged Zhan Yan: “Who knows? Maybe Dad’s boss pulled some strings.”

With video evidence backing up the claims, the story went viral, bringing Zhan Yunkai into the spotlight.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. Initially, the “Ling Yuteng role-stealing” drama had only been popular within his fandom. The reason it had trended in the first place was due to fans artificially boosting it, but the general public hadn’t cared much.

However, the octopus scandal had propelled Ling Yuteng into the national conversation. With so much attention on him, every detail of his past became scrutinized—including the stolen role controversy, which now dragged Zhan Yunkai into the limelight.

The key factor?

If Zhan Yunkai had been just another ordinary actor caught in a fandom feud, most people would have just sympathized briefly and moved on.

But the thing was—he was ridiculously good-looking.

Under screenshots of his acting clips, netizens were going wild:

—“Someone point me in the right direction—where’s this treasure of a man’s Weibo?”

—“I want a full background check within ten minutes!”

—“Actually, he’s not just a ‘treasure man’ anymore. Sad to say, but he’s a ‘treasure uncle.’ Here you go—@ZhanYunkai.”

—“Wait, is this an impersonation account? I checked earlier, and wasn’t he just a food blogger?”