GRMFBS CH124

Gu Jiancheng’s voice was deep. Zhan Yan felt as if this sound was like a small ear-picking feather brush, reaching into his ear and spinning quickly, tickling his entire body until it went soft.

Zhan Yan’s expression remained calm, only the base of his ears were slightly red: “I didn’t hear clearly, say it twice more.”

Gu Jiancheng saw the small heart that had accelerated its beat a few times on his sports band, couldn’t help but bite the inside of his lower lip, and a smile crept up from the depths of his eyes: “Meow meow.”

Today’s goodnight kiss was delivered after meowing.

After hanging up the phone, Zhan Yan rubbed the soft and itchy base of his ears, and with “meow meow meow” looping in his mind, he opened the Gossip System.

He still remembered hearing tonight, while teaching the plaza dancing group Baduanjin, that his dad had already become the treasure of the senior cultural troupe.

Do the people in the cultural troupe all judge based on looks? Or did His Majesty the Demon King possess a constitution that was exceptionally loved by the elderly, just like him?

Thinking about it, it didn’t seem right!

Flipping backwards through the gossip threads, he eventually found it.

Their community’s cultural troupe was going to have a competition with the neighboring community’s cultural troupe. The other community had a retired vocal music teacher and a piano professor from a music conservatory.

Although the grandpas and grandmas of the cultural troupe had retired, their competitive spirit and desire to win hadn’t weakened in the slightest, and they were trying very hard to win against the neighboring community. However, although the members were very passionate, none were professionals, and their singing could only be described as not being out of tune.

At first, Zhan Yunkai remembered to keep a low profile, but after listening for a while, he couldn’t take it anymore—besides being a neat freak, His Majesty the Demon King also had a bit of OCD. Unable to bear listening to off-key singing, His Majesty the Demon King started helping the choir members correct their pitch.

The old man who had taught Zhan Yunkai the soup paste recipe got so anxious and angry over the competition that two blisters actually formed at the corners of his mouth, not health-preserving at all. Later, upon discovering that Zhan Yunkai was a professional, he asked him to teach, and so His Majesty the Chongming Demon King became the vocal music teacher for the senior choir, and even gained the title “Teacher Xiao Zhan”.

The choir was counting on Teacher Xiao Zhan to lead them to victory against the neighboring cultural troupe, and so the Chongming Demon King became the treasure of the senior cultural troupe.

Zhan Yan stared at the words “Teacher Xiao Zhan” and smiled foolishly.

Hahahaha, his dad could only be called “Xiao” here.

The next day, Zhan Yan returned to school carrying various canned sauces and four or five boxes of assorted cold meats that “Teacher Xiao Zhan” had prepared for him.

The beginning of the school year was always the busiest and most chaotic. The dorm’s eldest, Duan Hong, was afraid of the cold and had gone home for winter break without staying in the dorms. The dorm, having been empty for over a month, needed to be cleaned and aired out. All the dorm room doors were open, with brooms, mops, and water basins darting about randomly.

Zhan Yan took a rag and wiped the windowsill, wiping off a layer of dust, and put it in the water basin to wash, but his hand touched something warm. He turned his head to look at Gu Jiancheng, who was fetching water. Gu Jiancheng was squatting and mopping under the bed, felt his gaze, lifted his head, and subconsciously revealed a smile.

Looked silly.

Zhan Yan had just followed suit and curled the corners of his mouth when a loud voice suddenly carried into the dorm entrance: “Hey Old Duan, does your dorm have an extra mop? Borrow…”

The sports committee member’s voice trailed off. Duan Hong wasn’t in the dorm; only Zhan Yan and Gu Jiancheng were there.

Gu Jiancheng had his sleeves rolled up past his elbows, unhurriedly finished mopping the last corner, stood up, and handed the mop to the sports committee member.

“Th-thank you!” The sports committee member took the mop and flashed away swiftly.

Halfway through his escape, he encountered Bao Qingshan, who had just returned from taking out the trash, and the two almost bumped into each other.

“Sports Comm? Why are you walking so fast?” Bao Qingshan asked.

“N-nothing.”

It was just that seeing Gu Jiancheng squatting on the floor using a mop to reach under the bed for the first time—such a down-to-earth appearance didn’t quite match his long-standing impression of a big shot, and it was a bit shattering.

Inside the dorm, as soon as Gu Jiancheng turned his head, he saw Zhan Yan amused again.

His chunibyo could really bluff people for a long time.

Gu Jiancheng knew that his classmates were a bit intimidated by him; this was a residual effect of his less-than-pleasant mental state when he first arrived at school.

In the past, Gu Jiancheng had never cared about this bit of influence. When had Deep Shadow ever cared about how others viewed him? Apart from Zhan Yan, everyone else in the school was just cabbages and radishes to him.

However, at this very moment, Gu Jiancheng suddenly realized a problem: the opinions of these classmates would affect how Zhan Yan viewed him!

What kind of image should he have in Zhan Yan’s heart? Gu Jiancheng suddenly didn’t dare to think about it.

Zhan Yan didn’t notice his boyfriend, as his phone suddenly rang. The phone was in his pants pocket, but both of his hands were covered in water. Zhan Yan therefore signaled Gu Jiancheng with his eyes.

Gu Jiancheng pinched the edge to pull the phone out and helped Zhan Yan answer the call. The call was from the courier, telling him a package had arrived at the East Gate, it was a bit large, and asking him to pick it up as soon as possible.

Old Bao was very curious: “What did you buy?”

Bao Qingshan had a brainstorm and got an inspiration. A package arriving right at the start of the semester couldn’t be related to the supernatural world, could it?

Zhan Yan: “It’s the new grape variety I bought. I don’t know if they taste good or not, but I bought quite a few, so we can share them.”

The doors of every dorm room were wide open. After Zhan Yan finished speaking, many people suddenly popped out into the hallway.

“Oh, that’s too kind!”

“How can we let you fetch it by yourself?”

“I’ll go! I can go!”

The foodie classmates immediately expressed their enthusiastic willingness to help fetch the package. Zhan Yan couldn’t refuse, handed over the tracking number, and after more than half an hour, several classmates returned carrying two boxes of grapes.

Even without opening the boxes, one could smell a rich grape aroma, mixed with the refreshing sweetness of lychee.

Duan Hong found a pair of scissors to open the box: “This cardboard box is all wet, could the grapes inside be smashed to mush?”

With the aroma being so strong even through the cardboard box, it was highly likely that the scent was leaking out because the grapes were broken and oozing juice.

Upon opening the cardboard box, his words turned out to be prophetic.

The packaging inside the cardboard box was actually quite serious: the grapes were wrapped in thin paper towels, the outer layer was padded with a layer of bubble wrap, and the remaining space was completely stuffed with newspaper. But even so, quite a few grapes were still smashed open from falling. After sorting through them, about a third were bad fruits.

This bad fruit rate was a bit too high.

The others frowned as they looked: “How could so many be ruined?”

“Will the seller compensate?”

“It’ll be too big a loss if they don’t.”

“Let’s taste them first before saying anything,” Zhan Yan said.

They washed the good grapes and distributed them.

The grapes were extremely juicy, bursting with juice upon entering the mouth. The sweet grape fragrance mixed with the lychee aroma was very rich, the flesh was delicate without residue, and they were seedless, melting away with a gentle squeeze.

Everyone who ate the grapes was amazed once again.

“What grape variety is this? It’s really delicious!”

“It also has a hint of lychee flavor, I’ve never eaten this grape variety before.”

“Hey, what’s the name of these grapes?”

Zhan Yan checked the shopping platform, it was just called Mentong Big Grapes, with no other variety name given.

“Hey, why didn’t they give it a nice-sounding name? If it had a suitable name, it would be so much easier to promote, right?”

“Yeah, like Muscat or Jasmine, this one could be named Lychee Fragrance.”

Zhan Yan: Given the relationship between Puyang Xia and Li Huodan, if he knew his grapes were being called Lychee Fragrance, he’d be angered to death. But since your relationship is so bad, why did you have to cultivate your grapes to have a lychee flavor?

Could it be… could it be that this involved some sort of hidden secret like love that was hard to express, which bred resentment when unattainable?

Another classmate asked: “Hey, is it grape season right now?”

Grapes were a summer and autumn fruit. It was only March right now; no matter how you looked at it, there shouldn’t be grapes.

“They’re from a greenhouse, right?”

Zhan Yan checked the Gossip System, they really weren’t from a greenhouse. Mentong County was too poor to build greenhouses. This batch of grapes had been forced out by Puyang Xia using his own demonic power.

Originally, upon seeing this piece of gossip, he should have felt that Senior Puyang had truly worked hard to save his improved grapes. But ever since discovering that these grapes tasted like lychee, Zhan Yan couldn’t bear to look at the situation directly.

You truly love lychees a lot, Old Master!

There was definitely gossip in this! He would look into it later!

But gossip aside, these grapes were truly delicious. It was just a pity that these grapes were far too intolerant to transportation; trying to rely on online merchants to open up channels would probably be very difficult.

Zhan Yan scrolled through the product reviews, finding that many people had already received their goods, and most of them were negative reviews because the bad fruit rate was simply too high.

What if they were processed into a transport-resistant form, like raisins?

Ah, ah, they had tried making raisins, but once this type of grape was made into raisins, it would lose its unique lychee fragrance. After becoming ordinary, the raisins from the small place of Mentong wouldn’t be able to compete against raisins from other large producing areas, making them equally hard to sell.

Actually, it wasn’t impossible to sell in this situation. Currently, 6.6 RMB a jin was a relatively cheap price. They could raise the price, improve the packaging by using air columns, foam, and soft paper, and send more to make up for the loss rate.

The quality of these grapes was definitely sufficient to make them a premium product. However, if they did that, they would first have to establish a reputation for these grapes. Furthermore, premium packaging would require additional cost expenses, and if they couldn’t be sold, the losses would only be greater.

As Zhan Yan kept scrolling, he suddenly discovered that the current price of these grapes meant they were being sold at a loss! Puyang Xia was subsidizing it out of his own pocket!

Good heavens, he loved it even more!

Just what kind of grudges and grievances existed between you two? Can’t you let me take a bite of this melon?

Zhan Yan was engrossed in eating gossip and thinking of a way out for the Mentong Big Grapes, not noticing that the surrounding environment had quieted down. He wiped his hands with the wet wipe Gu Jiancheng handed him, and was fed a peeled grape; the unique fruity aroma filled his mouth, sweet but not cloying, refreshing, sweet, and moist. It would truly be a pity if he couldn’t eat it in the future.

After Zhan Yan swallowed the grape in his mouth, another sweet, moist grape was pressed against his lips. He subconsciously opened his mouth to take it in, his lips brushing against a slightly hard fingernail, and he abruptly snapped back to reality.

Gu Jiancheng was peeling grapes and feeding them to him one by one. Everyone else in the dorm had been scared away.

Zhan Yan: …

I really didn’t mean to show off our affection!

Gu Jiancheng smiled gently at him: “Still want more?”

“No more.” Zhan Yan put away the remaining grapes, planning to eat them after finishing cleaning the dorm.

Raisins wouldn’t work, but grape juice should be fine, and wine should work too. If a grape juice or winery could be invested in Mentong County, this type of grape could be safely transported out.

Investing in building a factory was no small matter. He needed to go back on the Gossip System and search to figure out the causes and effects surrounding the big grapes to see if it was worth investing in, so he wouldn’t accidentally scam his mom.

He’d first search up the love-hate relationship between Puyang Xia and Li Huodan.

[Puyang Xia was extremely angry because he still hadn’t managed to improve a grape with a lychee flavor, so he went and picked a fight with the lychee demon Li Huodan.]

…

[Puyang Xia was extremely angry because he still hadn’t managed to improve a grape with a lychee flavor, so he secretly poured some unfermented fertilizer onto the roots of the lychee demon Li Huodan. Li Huodan was extremely angry and drove a flock of sheep to eat Puyang Xia’s tender grape leaves.]

…

[Puyang Xia was extremely angry because he still hadn’t managed to improve a grape with a lychee flavor, so he told the villagers near the lychee demon Li Huodan that the old lychee tree in the village would never bloom or bear fruit, and it would be better to chop it down. Li Huodan pulled up his roots and ran away, then taught the villagers near Puyang Xia’s main body how to prune and top the old grape vine.]

Zhan Yan: …Could this be the legendary hatred born from love?