GRMFBS CH136

Zhan Yan switched keywords and searched in the Gossip System.

[During his journey in Fengshan, Teng Yuan dreamed at night of a man in purple with a blurred face, who requested him to stay for a day and a night under an old grape vine nearby tomorrow, to help him pass his tribulation to take human form.]

…

[Teng Yuan was young and curious, and the next day he indeed found a grape vine as large as a house nearby, with a clean, soft mat paved from fine grass underneath it. Teng Yuan felt the soft mat was very comfortable and decided to stay here for a day and a night.]

…

[Teng Yuan opened his bundle and ate dry rations.]

…

[Teng Yuan tried to speak with the old grape vine, but Puyang Xia, who hadn’t taken human form yet, had no vocal organs and couldn’t respond.]

…

[Teng Yuan opened his water pouch and drank.]

…

[Teng Yuan wanted to relieve himself, but couldn’t leave the area covered by the grape vine, and also because he suspected the grape vine had become a spirit, he was too embarrassed to relieve himself beneath it.]

…

[Teng Yuan fell asleep under the grape vine.]

…

[Teng Yuan was awakened by the sound of rain, and upon waking up, found the sky was dark and it was pouring rain. The rain was blocked by layers of grape vines and grape leaves, and didn’t fall on him.]

…

[Three bolts of lightning fell from the sky, striking the open ground near the old grape vine. After the lightning strikes, the rain passed and the sky cleared. Teng Yuan was extremely amazed.]

…

[Puyang Xia successfully passed the tribulation to take human form, transforming into a young man in purple and appeared to thank Teng Yuan for his help.]

…

[Teng Yuan fell in love with Puyang Xia at first sight without realizing it himself.]

Oh my…

Puyang Xia was still unaware of this, and was still complaining to Zhan Yan.

He had very earnestly wanted to repay the favor. He had previously heard passing bird demons talk about human storybooks, where humans received rewards after accidentally helping a demon: either a large sum of gold, silver, and wealth, or a fox demon or the like taking human form to marry them.

Before encountering his tribulation to take human form, Puyang Xia had put in a lot of effort to gather information about many treasures, but his benefactor didn’t want wealth and insisted on eating lychees.

Puyang Xia tried hard for over seventy years but couldn’t successfully repay the favor. He finally stood in front of Teng Yuan’s bed holding the most delicious grapes, thinking about how what Teng Yuan wanted to eat was lychees.

What use were grapes no matter how good they were? Grapes couldn’t turn into lychees.

Puyang Xia felt incredibly aggrieved.

Because of this grievance and unwillingness, he stubbornly continued researching for over four hundred years, leading to the birth of today’s “Not as Good as Lychees”.

But even after the birth of this “Not as Good as Lychees,” Puyang Xia’s knot in his heart still remained.

Puyang Xia: “Why did he absolutely have to eat lychees?”

Zhan Yan hesitated for a moment, then forwarded that record to Puyang Xia.

Whether Puyang Xia could understand those obscure words, he’d leave it to fate.

Puyang Xia clicked the link, and was stunned after seeing that teasing remark.

He suddenly remembered the last day he saw Teng Yuan.

Teng Yuan’s hair was completely white, and he smiled when he clearly saw Puyang Xia. He tasted the grape in his mouth, his eyes reflecting Puyang Xia’s appearance—still youthful and handsome.

The old grape who had taken human form for over four hundred years suddenly sighed.

No wonder.

Zhan Yan also felt sentimental after eating this gossip.

His dad was a Demon King, and his mom used lightning as her body; both big shots had long lifespans. If they didn’t fall out after their secret identities were exposed, they could go on together for a very long time.

But it wouldn’t work for him, his brother, and his sister. By then, his parents would be white-haired people sending off black-haired people… No, wait, by then his parents would still have black hair, while he, his brother, and his sister would all have white hair…

As Zhan Yan was feeling melancholic, Gu Jiancheng finished class and returned to the dorm. Seeing Zhan Yan’s expression, he gently and carefully asked him what was wrong.

Zhan Yan: “Ah? Nothing, I’m perfectly fine.”

Gu Jiancheng didn’t believe him.

Zhan Yan aggressively questioned Gu Jiancheng.

Gu Jiancheng stated that he heard other classmates say Classmate Zhan Yan was talking to cats because he was under too much stress.

Zhan Yan: ?

He flipped through the Gossip System. Oh, it was when he was chatting with the calico cat and got spotted by the sports committee member.

Many people talked to cats, but none were like Zhan Yan, who spoke sentence by sentence and waited for the cat to reply, with a tone exactly like talking to a person.

After hearing it, the sports committee member thought Zhan Yan was under too much stress, causing him to be a bit mentally abnormal, treating the cat as a person and chatting with it. The sports committee member possessed a lot of classmate love—of course, it could also be because of Zhan Yan’s half-suitcase of delicious food—and worriedly discussed Zhan Yan’s condition with other classmates, discussing whether they should invite Zhan Yan out to sing karaoke or go on a nearby trip to relieve his stress.

Zhan Yan: …He appreciated the kind intentions.

He found an excuse: “I’m just trying to repair my relationship with small animals.”

This excuse was quite convincing, because that calico cat could squat beside Zhan Yan.

Zhan Yan successfully used this excuse to dispel his classmates’ desire to drag him out to play.

Gu Jiancheng felt relieved for the time being. Last time, he had used the Diagnostic Pen again after Zhan Yan fell asleep at night. The Diagnostic Pen indicated that Zhan Yan’s body was incredibly healthy, without even a single pimple. If he were under high stress, his body would have more or less shown some reaction.

But he couldn’t rule out that Zhan Yan might have suddenly developed a lot of stress in the few days between the last diagnosis and now. Hmm, he’d do another diagnosis tonight.

Gu Jiancheng, who was unable to accompany his boyfriend, was somewhat unhappy.

It was all the fault of Professor Miao from the elective class! The killer who breaks up little couples!

After learning that Zhan Yan’s constitution showed a trend of returning, some were happy while others were worried.

Senior Guo Jiang from the Animal Husbandry major was the first to send congratulations.

Guo Jiang: “You have no idea how apprehensive we were before.”

“Early on we had you, then later your animal-attracting constitution disappeared. Then we had a little white cat who would help find lab animals if we gave it offerings, and then the little white cat disappeared to who knows where too.”

“Now that you’re back, our sense of security is back too!”

Zhan Yan expressed that this was a bit exaggerated, and his constitution hadn’t come back either, it just showed signs of improvement.

Guo Jiang: “Not exaggerated, not exaggerated.”

“A duck my classmate was raising previously got lost and wasn’t found. You didn’t hear it, but he cried so heart-wrenchingly.”

“Having signs of improvement is a good thing! If you practice more, maybe it’ll come back!”

“Besides cats, practice more with other animals too. It’s best if you get close with every kind of animal!”

“Oh right, they’re raising a few new geese at the lake west of the school. Don’t use them for practice yet.”

“Those geese are incredibly fierce, they pinch painfully hard.”

“An old man tried to steal goose eggs previously, and was chased and beaten by the geese, beaten all the way into the hospital.”

Zhan Yan was slightly shocked. He knew geese bites hurt, but could they beat someone into the hospital?

Guo Jiang explained: “That old man tripped and fell while running away, which was why he went to the hospital.”

“He even wanted to come to the school to demand compensation.”

“Our school didn’t pay it.”

“Everyone is just treating it as a joke.”

The people at their school were thoroughly annoyed by this group of people who liked coming to take advantage of them. They clearly knew the fields in the school were experimental fields and the animals were being raised for research, but they acted as if they couldn’t see the fist-sized words on the signs, stealing whenever they had the chance.

They wanted to take advantage of those ten or eight bucks, completely wasting other people’s years of hard work and high investments.

During morning exercise the next day, even that group of old professors learning Yijinjing from Zhan Yan knew about it.

The professor from the Agricultural University was very regretful.

Another professor consoled him: “Even if this ‘can repel beasts while standing still’ one is gone, don’t we still have that ‘can subdue pigs with one hand’ one?”

Several professors affectionately asked Zhan Yan and Gu Jiancheng if they had plans for postgraduate studies. Both of these students had good grades, and they were very handy!

Before the two could answer, Professor Miao, who broke up little couples during class, walked past with a dull gaze.

“Hey! Old Miao, the sun is rising from the west today, why did you get up so early?”

Professor Miao wasn’t on the same path as this group of morning exercise health-preservation enthusiasts. Having two clingy cats at home, Professor Miao always believed in sleeping until he naturally woke up.

However, something went wrong with Wangwang recently. It started scratching at the door every day at four in the morning, not stopping until it woke him up.

Once he was awake, it stopped scratching. If he went back into his room to sleep, it would continue scratching.

After confirming it wasn’t because “the cat food bowl is empty,” “the cat water dispenser is empty,” or “the litter box needs scooping,” Professor Miao truly couldn’t figure out what was going on.

Unable to sleep for several consecutive days, the profound cat slave chose to try altering his own sleep schedule.

After waking up early, Professor Miao sat on the soft sofa at home and wanted to lie down and continue sleeping, so he chose to go out for a stroll. This stroll brought him to the sports field.

Upon learning of his tragic encounter, the other professors all laughed happily.

Professor Miao looked at his colleagues with a pair of sleepy, dead-fish eyes.

After the colleagues finished laughing, they didn’t condemn the noisy cat, but instead advised Professor Miao one after another: “It’s quite good that you’re changing your sleep schedule along the way.”

“Your cat wants you to sleep early and wake up early.”

“What are you guys practicing?” Professor Miao, who didn’t like exercising, asked.

He recognized Zhan Yan and Gu Jiancheng, and was extremely curious about what this group of teachers was doing surrounding two students.

“We’re learning fitness exercises, this one is called Yijinjing”. The other professors enthusiastically pulled him to exercise together, “Come, join our morning exercise.”

Professor Miao declined: “I’m not learning this. If I’m going to practice, I’ll practice Wuqinxi. That one was passed down by Hua Tuo.”

Zhan Yan smiled modestly: “I know Wuqinxi too.”

Professor Miao choked slightly and changed his words: “I’m too old to practice vigorously, it’s better to practice something gentler, like Tai Chi or something.”

Zhan Yan: “I’ve learned Tai Chi too.”

Professor Miao: …

Was this the karma for not letting Zhan Yan audit his class?

After morning exercise, Zhan Yan received a message from Qi Ye.

Regarding the “cat toy” they chatted about previously, Qi Ye had finished writing the program. But the problem now was that the hardware couldn’t keep up.

Cats move very quickly, so this toy needed a machine that could capture the cat’s movements, and then rapidly change the projection content before the cat completed its movement, so it could keep up with the cat’s speed.

This placed very high demands on the equipment.

Zhan Yan decided to throw this problem to his sister.

Zhan Suiru was working overtime in her studio making the Ghost King Lin Yuan puppet when her involuting-king butler suddenly spoke up: “You have a new message notification.”

Zhan Suiru subconsciously shivered: “Who? Is it another job invitation?”

She didn’t know what was going on recently, but she kept receiving new job invitations. Even if she rejected them, more new jobs would appear, and some job invitations that she couldn’t refuse always popped up. Her workload for this past half a month almost rivaled what she used to do in half a year!

Zhan Suiru was about to get PTSD from “new messages”.

Puppet butler: “It’s a message from your younger brother.”

Zhan Suiru breathed a sigh of relief: “Let me see.”

Her younger brother and Qi Ye had made a cat toy for her, but they were currently lacking in hardware measures.

No problem, she could handle the hardware!

Zhan Suiru thought this was a good idea. Didn’t Wan Yan want to catch fish? They could just project a school of fish.

Send money to younger brother!

Zhan Suiru went to buy the program from Qi Ye, but Qi Ye said there was no need to buy it; a not-too-difficult program was just a gift to the boss, and if she had free time, she could just stream with him.

Zhan Suiru decided to raise Qi Ye’s salary and continue improving employee benefits.

The puppet butler stood beside the Ghost King Lin Yuan puppet and asked: “Then are you still going to keep this piece of work?”

Zhan Suiru: “Keep it, package it together and send it to Ghost King Tie Lao… or we can integrate the toy into it too!”

She had put a lot of effort into making it!

She had made this puppet based on the image of Ghost King Lin Yuan that Ghost King Tie Lao reproduced using spells; not only could it be looked at, it could also move. But because Ghost King Tie Lao didn’t know much about Ghost King Lin Yuan either, she couldn’t perfect this puppet’s behavioral patterns.

Zhan Suiru simply imported all the relevant content about Ghost King Lin Yuan from the forum into it, not noticing that this included “Aotian”-style Return of the Ghost King fantasy fanfiction written by five little ghosts.

The forum content combined with Ghost King Tie Lao’s description of Ghost King Lin Yuan automatically generated a virtual personality.

Right now, this “Lin Yuan” puppet looked down at the cat toy design sketch Zhan Suiru drew with immense disdain: “This Seat does not raise cats, why should I wear this thing?”

Zhan Suiru recorded a video of the “Lin Yuan” puppet and sent it to Ghost King Tie Lao.

The “Lin Yuan” puppet looked at Zhan Suiru out of the corner of his eye: “This Seat does not like being recorded on film.”

Zhan Suiru ignored this puppet that for some reason had a bit of “Long Aotian” disease, and kept filming.

Ghost King Tie Lao said it was a very accurate recreation, and then raised a fatal question:

If it dislikes cats with such accurate recreation, when it’s given to Wan Yan later, won’t Wan Yan return it for a refund?