GRMFBS CH77

Taking advantage of her abundant inspiration, Zhan Suiru stayed up all night and finally completed most of Tianshi’s task.

The trouble with Tianshi’s task was that it required integrating spiritual-type abilities into objects—this was Zhan Suiru’s own way of putting it. In the apocalypse, supernatural powers were also divided into several major categories, with the spiritual type being one of them.

However, after crossing over into this world, Zhan Suiru discovered something very strange about it:

They possessed abilities similar to spiritual-type supernatural powers, such as a cultivator’s divine sense, but there were no spiritual-type supernatural powers.

Yet, no one in the supernatural world of this world raised any objections to this—perhaps some did, but it was a secret among the higher-ups that Zhan Suiru temporarily couldn’t know.

The spirit was the product of soul activity. Inanimate objects had no soul, could not produce spiritual energy, and could not utilize spiritual energy; at most, they could store it.

The trick of combining spirit with objects was the Magician’s specialty. Her props all possessed the trait of “activation,” and activation meant instability. But what Tianshi demanded was stability.

Zhan Suiru stretched lazily. “Xiao Ran, pour me a cup of coffee.”

The sky was already brightening, transitioning from grayish-purple to light blue. The fully enclosed studio blocked out all the morning light and bird calls, blurring the sense of time to the greatest extent. But this couldn’t interfere with the precise clock inside the puppet butler.

“It is now 5:30 in the morning.” The puppet butler gracefully began to brew hand-ground coffee. “Master, I must remind you that drinking coffee on an empty stomach can cause chronic gastritis, stomach ulcers, palpitations, hand tremors, and increase the burden on your heart; not eating for long periods will lead to electrolyte imbalance, insufficient blood supply to the brain, gallstones…”

He listed the symptoms one by one and began to froth the milk. “Staying up late will cause hair loss, neurasthenia, memory decline…”

By the time he finished reciting the string of illnesses, he had just completed a beautiful latte art on the coffee.

“And you have already missed three meals during their optimal tasting period.” The puppet butler served the sandwich and coffee to Zhan Suiru.

Uncharacteristically, Zhan Suiru listened to his lengthy complaints without retort. She tossed the rough semi-finished product on the table to the puppet butler.

“Take a look for me.”

The puppet butler carefully caught this preliminary result that Zhan Suiru had worked so long to achieve. “Master, I am merely a puppet; I do not know how to manufacture.”

He gently placed the rough semi-finished product back onto the table. “Please cherish your results. I do not wish to continue facing a Master who goes crazy because she cannot create it.”

Zhan Suiru took a sip of coffee and a bite of the sandwich, mumbling a vague “Mhm.”

“Xiao Ran, do you remember where you heard that speech about ‘gastritis and stomach ulcers’?” she asked.

The puppet butler froze at her question, standing in place in confusion.

“Those were the words I once said to you.” Zhan Suiru swallowed the food in her mouth, looked up at the puppet butler, her gaze seemingly tangible.

The gears inside the puppet butler’s pupils stalled for a few seconds before spinning again. He asked calmly but with confusion, “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing.” Zhan Suiru withdrew her gaze.

She didn’t have a manufacturing-type supernatural power; Yang Ran did.

She was originally of the spiritual type.

Yang Ran had tried countless times to create props with spiritual-type abilities so that she could rest, without needing to shoulder the safety of the entire base.

He hoped that this would make her better.

Unfortunately, in the end, neither of them succeeded.

She closed her eyes. The puppet butler silently massaged her head.

Zhan Suiru thought she would fall asleep, but she didn’t.

When the environment improved, people became pampered. In this life, she had developed a slight habit of being picky about her bed. But she didn’t really want to go home. Her parents were on a business trip, her eldest brother and Yan Yan were also absent. There was no one home; otherwise, she wouldn’t have dared to pull an all-nighter in the black market.

“You have a new WeChat message,” the puppet butler said.

Zhan Suiru opened her eyes: “Let me see.”

The message was from Zhan Yan: Zhan Yan: [I have an art salon invitation, do you want to go?]

Zhan Suiru clicked open the photo of the invitation. It was a rather high-end art salon in the circle, and getting a ticket wasn’t easy.

Propping up her tired face, she started to smile.

The morning sun rose, and people were waking up. The family group chat started getting lively.

Dad was asking what they wanted to eat; he’d cook it when he got home in a couple of days.

Mom asked if they had enough pocket money; if not, she would transfer more.

Their socially anxious eldest brother was showing off the fondant cakes he made over the past two days, which were visibly becoming more and more exquisite.

Yan Yan was showing off his biceps, with his school’s playground in the background.

Zhan Suiru’s fingers moved over the keyboard: Zhan Suiru: [Zhao Wen said Aunt Bai made a bunch of pastries again, and Zhao Wen told me to go pick them up when I have time. I’ll mail you guys some.]

Zhan Yan’s art salon invitation came from Luan San, Luan Jin—Elder Luan saw him send over that pile of pastries and thought the two of them were on the same wavelength, so he instructed him, “You young people should stay in touch more.”

Luan Jin had no choice but to accept this task, not very willingly—what kind of resonance could a kid studying veterinary medicine have with him? He played with art! Art!

But after chatting a few times, Luan Jin found that Zhan Yan was actually a very good listener!

Thus, he began to talk about his muse—the Lionfish Demon.

Wuwuwu, why was this “stand-in” so similar to his white moonlight! Even in inspiring his creativity, they were so alike!

While Luan Jin couldn’t help transferring his affections, he also felt guilty towards his white moonlight—now he also felt guilty towards Yu Xia QAQ.

If it were really paying someone to play a stand-in, that would be fine, just a clean transaction of money and goods.

But he had been too embarrassed to say it at the time, and the two had been interacting as friends.

Yu Xia treated him as a friend, yet he treated her as a stand-in. He really was a piece of trash!

Zhan Yan just watched Luan Jin pour his heart out to him day after day like this. It was his first time being so passively force-fed gossip! He couldn’t even refuse it!

But he couldn’t just tell Luan Jin that his white moonlight and the stand-in were the exact same person. If he did, Luan Jin would think he was crazy.

Zhan Yan tactfully suggested that he might choose to tell Yu Xia the truth.

Luan Jin refused, absolutely terrified to do so.

Then there was no helping it; you just keep suffering, my friend.

Zhan Yan mailed the art salon invitation to his sister, and in return received the pastries his sister had packed and sent over.

Wuwuwu, thank you Aunt Bai!

After he shared the snacks in the dorm, everyone in the dorm started thanking Aunt Bai together.

Zhan Yan scrolled through gossip strips while eating snacks. He made it a habit to periodically search his family and friends’ names along with “anomaly” as keywords, just in case they were targeted by anomalies.

The Gossip System’s special attention list still hadn’t increased its slots; even Gu Jiancheng hadn’t managed to squeeze onto it yet. He could only rely on manual searches.

Most of the time, he couldn’t find anything. The Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau’s work was still very successful; most ordinary people rarely got involved with anomalies.

But as a result, today he found a hit:

[Qin Jinwei believes Zhao Wen has found clues to his crimes. Extremely worried, he decided to strike first and spent 2 million to hire a killer to assassinate Zhao Wen. His killing intent has attracted the A-Rank anomaly “Killing Game.”]

Zhan Yan: [!!!]

There was a dangerous anomaly; he had to contact the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau first! But the person behind the “Domain” account was temporarily unreliable.

Zhan Yan finally remembered that the chaofan forum had a reporting hotline. Under the cover of the Gossip System, he made an anonymous tip-off call.

Besides the anomaly, there was also the matter of the killer; he had to remind Wenwen-jie. Using the Gossip System, Zhan Yan dialed Yunjin City’s police hotline and anonymously reported Qin Jinwei hiring a hitman.

He took the opportunity to search for info on Qin Jinwei. This man was a quite wealthy businessman who started out doing contracting work, and later started subcontracting to earn the price difference. He used quite a few illegal methods, and Zhao Wen was investigating him.

This news was quickly delivered into Zhao Wen’s hands. She had a fiery temper when handling cases. Upon hearing that someone wanted to assassinate her, her arched eyebrows stood on end, and she slammed a palm onto the desk with a bang: “Wants to kill me? That proves my investigation is correct! I’ll sit right here and keep investigating! Let’s see who dares to come!”

An anonymous tip wasn’t evidence that could be presented in court. As the police station swung into action, Zhan Yan was also keeping an eye on the situation over at the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau—this was what he was mainly afraid of!

With Sister Wenwen at the police station, she really wasn’t afraid of a killer coming to cause her trouble. But that anomaly was terrifying! It wasn’t something ordinary people could deal with!

“Killing Game,” just hearing this name conveyed how dangerous it was, let alone it being an A-Rank! There weren’t even many A-Rank anomalies in the “Anomalies” section of Zhan Yan’s information disk!

The Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau seemed to have unique methods. They quickly confirmed he wasn’t making a false police report and dispatched an elite squad to handle it.

Zhan Yan was still investigating this anomaly.

Anomalies would be attracted by evil desires; this was their best food. Different anomalies had different preferences for evil desires. The “Killing Game” preferred the killing intent humans had toward their own kind.

Its method of operation was to bind to a host, stimulate the host’s killing intent, brutality, cruelty, and other dispositions, and grow by absorbing the fear and pain of the victims while providing a certain amount of energy feedback to the host. Once the host was fattened up, it would then eat the host.

Zhan Yan suddenly noticed a point: “Killing Game” was attracted by Qin Jinwei’s killing intent and bound to him. But Qin Jinwei chose to pay to hire a killer—he was a rather wealthy businessman and didn’t intend to do it himself.

But the “Killing Game” could only absorb the fear and pain of victims killed by the host’s own hands.

[Killer Guang Weifan accepted Qin Jinwei’s 2 million assassination commission. “Killing Game” unbound from Qin Jinwei and bound to killer Guang Weifan, dropping from an A-Rank anomaly to a B-Rank anomaly.]

For the “Killing Game”, this misstep wasn’t a total loss. It had dropped from A-Rank, and once it absorbed enough energy in the future, it could rank back up. A professional killer executing murders personally would definitely be much more frequent than a businessman; it wouldn’t be long before it made up the loss.

The gossip strips for the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau’s action squad on the other end showed that their efficiency was unusually high. They had already found Qin Jinwei, but struck out; the “Killing Game” had already unbound itself.

The squad leader was Black Wolf, a top-ranking big shot in the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau, the exceptionally good-at-fighting type. Experienced and seasoned, he immediately followed the clues to go find Guang Weifan.

[Killer Guang Weifan subcontracted the assassination mission to killer Xing Guangqing for 1 million, hiring Xing Guangqing to kill the target Zhao Wen.]

[“Killing Game” unbound from Guang Weifan and bound to killer Xing Guangqing, dropping from a B-Rank anomaly to a C-Rank anomaly.]

[Killer Xing Guangqing believed his own safety was more important, subcontracting the assassination mission to killer Hua Shixin for 300,000, hiring Hua Shixin to kill the target Zhao Wen.]

[“Killing Game” unbound from Xing Guangqing and bound to killer Hua Shixin, dropping from a C-Rank anomaly to a D-Rank anomaly.]

[Killer Hua Shixin felt the location was too far and didn’t want to do the deed, subcontracting the assassination mission to killer Ba Duohai for 100,000, hiring Ba Duohai to kill the target Zhao Wen.]

[“Killing Game” unbound from Hua Shixin and bound to killer Ba Duohai, dropping from a D-Rank anomaly to an E-Rank anomaly.]

[Killer Ba Duohai believed 100,000 was too little and not worth him killing a person, so he called and contacted Zhao Wen, wanting Zhao Wen to cooperate with him to split the money.]

Zhan Yan was quite nervous at first, but now all he had left was speechlessness.

He could only express pure amazement!

Subcontracting communication in the information age was truly fast. Black Wolf from the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau had taken his team and helplessly struck out four times in a row!