GRMFBS CH122

Professor Parrot and Granny Zhuo Shu started a small group chat to find like-minded researchers to discuss a new topic.

Zhan Yan did not forget his original intention.

Cha Wang: “@AAA Mentong Big Grapes 6.6 How do I place an order for grapes?”

Puyang Xia was suddenly filled with immense enthusiasm.

AAA Mentong Big Grapes 6.6: “@Cha Wang Just private message me your address and transfer the money. If you buy a lot, I’ll send you some extra. You can also go through the platform if you want.”

“[Link][Link][Link]”

Fruit King: “@Cha Wang You have such bad taste! I can tell you’ve never had truly delicious fruit!”

“Send me your address, I’ll send you some lychees to try. Once you eat them, you’ll know that lychee is the king of fruits!”

Jade Ridge Fluffy: “Nonsense! How can lychee be the king of fruits?”

This was a kiwi demon.

The plant demons in the group started fighting over who was the true king of fruits.

Zhan Yan quietly clicked the link to buy grapes.

The eight-hundred-year-old grape demon had really put in a lot of effort to save his vineyard. He had registered on various platforms and was even doing live-stream e-commerce!

In the live stream, a black-haired old man with a long beard and his hair tied up with a grape vine held up a bunch of grapes and gave a solemn thumbs-up to the camera: “Sweet!”

Zhan Yan had originally planned to order just two boxes, one for home and one for school—he was going back to school tomorrow. He wouldn’t get to eat the ones sent home, but the platform offered free shipping for two or more boxes to the same address. Thus, under the mysterious power of qualifying for free shipping, Zhan Yan bought two more boxes of grapes.

There was a refrigerator at home, so his parents, brother, and sister—four people in total—could definitely finish them. School was even less of a worry; he could just share them with his classmates. They were all a bunch of foodies. Duan Hong had complained in the dorm last time that he had a box of hawthorn pills that was about to expire. Just as he was about to throw it away, the guys from the next dorm saw it and ended up eating them all as a snack.

He’d see how the grapes tasted after they arrived, and if they were as delicious as Puyang Xia boasted. If they were indeed good, he could ask his mother’s company to invest. Having an alternate identity was great! With an alternate identity, he could pull demons in need towards his mother’s company and introduce people in need to his father’s acting company. When his identity was revealed one day, hey! Both sides would have received favors from each other, would they still have the nerve to fight?

After buying the grapes, the name of the cultivator conference group chat had already changed ten times. One moment it was “Kiwi is King!”, the next it was “No one dislikes lychees!”, and then it changed to “If you’re not selling, get lost! Don’t hog the ad space! Big Grapes 6.6!!!”.

It looked like the great demons would be fighting for a while longer. Zhan Yan closed the group for now and caught up on the matter with the Artisan.

Ning Xi had briefed Gu Zhixing in advance, and he got along quite well with the Artisan. By the time the Artisan left, she had already signed a long-term cooperation contract with the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau, including but not limited to custom research and development, information sharing about Infinity, and so on.

After signing the Chaofanly binding contract with the Artisan, Gu Zhixing sent the electronic version back to Ning Xi.

Ning Xi was quite satisfied after reviewing it and immediately went to find Ji Yueming.

He planned to hand over all future dealings with the Artisan to the Tianshi. On one hand, it was to find her some work that didn’t require physical fighting. On the other hand, it was to fully utilize the idol effect to squeeze out as much of the Artisan’s labor as possible.

He had tried every means to get in direct contact with the Artisan for this Chaofan contract. But although the Artisan had agreed to sign under the temptation of idol merchandise, the terms of the contract were set very loosely. If they purely went by the contract, it would be good if the Artisan completed one order for them a year.

On the other end, Zhan Suiru controlled the puppet to bring a stack of contracts back to her studio.

The puppet butler elegantly took the items from the puppet’s hands and habitually began to organize the documents.

“No need to tidy up, just put them in cabinet No. 2,” Zhan Suiru had just finished speaking when she saw the puppet butler’s eyes begin to light up as it stared at the contract.

Zhan Suiru: …Oh no!

“Please rest assured, I will arrange your work schedule and remind you in a timely manner!” the puppet butler said with a serious expression.

Zhan Suiru: …

What work schedule? The contract she signed with the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau was a cooperation contract, not a quantitative one. There was no fixed workload, okay?!

However, the puppet butler had already begun trying to extract her maximum value: “Additionally, you have 32 pending orders…”

“Reject them! Reject them all!”

Puppet Butler: “Among them are several priority clients you have marked.”

Zhan Suiru took a deep breath: “Let me see.”

The very first one was an invitation from Approaching Science. This newly emerged information-type account had provided her with information on the “apocalypse fragment.” She had felt at the time that Approaching Science was very capable and might be useful in the future, so maintaining a good relationship was a good idea, which was why she marked it as a priority.

Originally, she had planned to take the job in the next two days, but then the contract with the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau suddenly came up. Besides the contract, Ning Xi had just seized the opportunity to place a large order with her. With Xiao Ran urging her on the side, she didn’t want to find more trouble for herself and get caught in a rat race.

Speaking of which, what did Approaching Science want from her? If it wasn’t too much trouble, she could do it in her spare time.

She opened the private message and the invitation. Approaching Science asked if she could make a tool that could be used to find the Candela Dragon’s afterimage.

Candela Dragon’s afterimage. Zhan Suiru’s lips straightened at these four words. Forget it, she’d better explain to Approaching Science first.

Artisan: “I can’t make this.”

Zhan Yan saw the message immediately.

Oh, the Artisan can’t make it? Hmm, that makes sense. Both the Wan Yao Alliance and the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau were looking for the Candela Dragon’s afterimage. If the Artisan could make it, she probably would have sold it to them long ago.

But he decided to ask again.

Approaching Science: “Is there some kind of problem?”

The Artisan could make so many weird and wonderful things, her hardware was definitely up to par. There must be another reason she couldn’t make something for the Candela Dragon’s afterimage. Maybe he could solve it.

Artisan: “I have not been to the Candela Dragon’s afterimage.”

…That’s very reasonable.

A person cannot create something that points to a thing they have never seen. But Zhan Yan wanted to commission this from the Artisan precisely because he had also never been to the Candela Dragon’s afterimage.

Zhan Yan regretfully prepared to cancel the order.

But as he was typing, he suddenly discovered a new problem:

The Artisan said she had not “been to” the Candela Dragon’s afterimage. She knew that the Candela Dragon’s afterimage was a place one could enter.

Before learning from Bao Qingshan that the Candela Dragon’s afterimage was similar to a game dungeon, the only information Zhan Yan had from the hidden section of the forum was that the Candela Dragon’s afterimage was a trace of a past rift in time. He had no idea what form this trace took.

Old Mr. Weng Yan, who also knew of the Candela Dragon’s existence, could only give vague answers when Zhan Yan asked him.

People who had not been to the Candela Dragon’s afterimage only had a conceptual understanding of it. The fact that the Artisan used the phrase “been to” meant her understanding of the Candela Dragon’s afterimage was much deeper than his own. He had to gather information right away!

He immediately changed the commission invitation to an information invitation!

Zhan Suiru was at a loss for whether to laugh or cry at Approaching Science’s series of actions.

Fine, an information task it is. She had a pretty good impression of Approaching Science after seeing how he had refuted those Tianshi haters on the forum a while back.

However, the Candela Dragon’s afterimage… she really didn’t know much about it. What she knew was the reason for its formation—a time loop.

The Candela Dragon’s afterimage was a trace of a temporal rift. Zhan Suiru had never been to the Candela Dragon’s afterimage, but she had experienced countless temporal rifts and loops.

Her world was a dungeon world within Infinity. Batches upon batches of players entered the dungeon, and round after round of time restarted. Her world had no future, forever trapped in a looping fragment of the apocalypse.

Time is like a qin string, with beads strung upon it. Light beads vibrate along with the string’s vibrations, while heavy beads find it difficult to attune to the same frequency as the string.

The time loop had gone wrong for them.

The time loop in this world was watched over by the Candela Dragon. She carefully skipped over the time of those powerful beings, so they would not be affected by the time loop.

And the rift created between the time that failed to loop for these beings and the time that had already looped for the world became a temporal afterimage.

Zhan Suiru was a temporal afterimage of the apocalypse.

She was a psychic ability user, the protector of the last safe base in the apocalypse. The traces of restart after restart were left in her spirit, and through restart after restart, she was polished and refined, until one day she broke through the frequency of time’s tuning.

She discovered that the world was a giant playground.

Zhan Suiru’s brow furrowed unconsciously.

Two cool fingers pressed against the space between her eyebrows. The puppet butler stood behind her and began to give her a head massage.

Zhan Suiru was ungrateful: “Not rushing me to work anymore?”

Puppet Butler: “Given your current state, I believe you require a rest of 16 minutes and 39 seconds before starting work again.”

Zhan Suiru: “…Did I really mess you up during repairs?”

Can a rest time be precise down to 39 seconds? What would happen if she rested for 40 seconds? The universe isn’t going to explode!

Puppet Butler: “Precision and efficiency are essential qualities of an excellent butler.”

Zhan Suiru: “You weren’t like this before! You used to worry that I was working too much and that staying up late would harm my health!”

The gears in the puppet butler’s pupils jammed again.

His storage system told him that just over a month ago, he had indeed expressed his disapproval of her busy work schedule because she stayed up late, didn’t eat, and drank coffee on an empty stomach.

But after jamming for a couple of seconds, the puppet butler straightened itself out:

“I am still concerned about your physical health and do not approve of you staying up late and drinking coffee on an empty stomach. I believe you should scientifically and rationally arrange your rest time and work time. For instance, right now, you should still rest for 13 minutes and 32 seconds…”

Zhan Suiru: “…Stop!”

I can’t take it, I can’t take it anymore!

Zhan Suiru began to reject other task invitations.

Puppet Butler: “You have a new Chaofan Forum task invitation message.”

Zhan Suiru: …

She opened it to have a look.

Call Me Wu Yingjun: “Is the Artisan there?”

“I want to commission a batch of research instruments from you.”

“Oh, you absolutely can’t imagine what a wonderful new research topic we have!”

The parrot demon Wu Ying, an old acquaintance of Zhan Suiru’s. She had been ordering various research instruments from her for many years and was very generous.

During the period when Zhan Suiru’s position in the black market was not yet stable, she had accepted Wu Ying’s help to break free from the suppression of brokers, and Wu Ying had never asked for anything in return.

Artisan: “Do you need it urgently?”

Call Me Wu Yingjun: “Of course!”

“I can’t wait!”

Zhan Suiru sighed.

Artisan: “Send over the order.”

Debts of gratitude are truly the hardest to repay.

Call Me Wu Yingjun: “[File][File][File]”

“That’s all for now.”

“I might add more later as the research progresses.”

“Love you~ [flying kiss]”

The puppet butler diligently added the new task to the schedule: “You have a new Chaofan Forum task invitation message.”

Zhan Suiru: …Who is it this time? Reject… can’t reject.

Tie Lao Ghost King: “Do you have a cat toy that can attract a cat’s attention and, if necessary, trap it?”

“Wan Yan heard about the black market from the forum. He said he looked everywhere last time he was out, but he hasn’t checked the black market yet. He’s convinced Lin Yuan must be hiding in the black market. He wants to come check it out after he gets out this time.”

“Can you commission a server that can run in the underworld? One that would allow programmer ghosts to design a system specifically for underworld work.”

“I’m too busy right now, I don’t have time to keep an eye on Wan Yan.”

Wan Yan was truly a great weapon of destruction. He threw his weird curses around everywhere, which could easily expose people’s identities. He absolutely cannot be allowed to come to the black market!

Zhan Suiru accepted both orders.

Ah! Why is there suddenly so much work?

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