GRMFBS CH150

Zhan Yan did not bring much luggage; he was only staying home for a few days this time, so a small backpack was all he needed.

Upon learning that he was going back to handle company-related matters, Bao Qingshan passionately attempted to clasp hands with him, but quickly switched to clapping his shoulder under Gu Jiancheng’s glaring daggers: “Should you strike it rich, forget not your friends. If you inherit the company in the future, I can serve as an advisor.”

He could use his “Power of ‘I Reckon'” to help the company resolve decision-making dilemmas!

Zhan Yan mercilessly shattered his beautiful fantasy: “Dream on. I have an older brother and an older sister ahead of me.”

Bao Qingshan’s mind, thoroughly corroded by vintage melodramatic novels, instantly conjured a hundred-thousand-word epic of wealthy family feud.

Zhan Yan thought to himself: stop dreaming. If it weren’t for the fact that his mother was actually a Tianshi and the company was merely a front, they would indeed be agonizing over who should inherit the family estate by now.

His brother had such severe social anxiety that he couldn’t speak to people, his sister was fiercely obsessed with her niche sculptures, and Zhan Yan had zero interest in corporate affairs—his life goal was to dump the company onto the two older siblings while he lived as a laid-back salted fish collecting dividends.

He figured that although his brother couldn’t talk to people face-to-face, communicating via phone was completely fine, so he could handle internal matters like that. His sister needed no introduction: if she could build a vast network of connections with such a niche aesthetic, handling external communications would be a breeze!

When internal affairs stall, turn to brother; when external affairs stall, turn to sister. Then he could just lie flat—how splendid!

While waiting at the train station, an angler sat down beside Zhan Yan.

The angler dragged a large suitcase, carried a folding fishing rod on his back, and kept turning left and right, looking very eager to find someone to chat with.

Zhan Yan caught his eye, and the angler immediately struck up a conversation with great enthusiasm: “Are you heading to Yunjin City too?”

Zhan Yan: “Yeah, my family lives there. You too?”

Angler: “Yes, exactly! I live over in the Wenhai District.”

Zhan Yan: “Did you travel out here to go fishing?”

The angler was thrilled to have found someone who could carry a conversation!

“Spot on! I came to Beiling City to fish. Have you ever heard of Guimeng Lake? It’s a relatively niche lake. A friend told me there were huge fish here, so I came.

“Here, let me show you the fish I caught!”

The angler opened his phone’s photo gallery to show Zhan Yan his catches. In every photograph, the man beamed with a bright, sunny smile, comparing the fish’s size with his arm or his height; the largest one was nearly half as tall as him.

Zhan Yan generously expressed his marvel.

The angler grew even happier and began to chatter incessantly: “This one was caught in Hehua City. It’s a hardhead fish—not a grass carp, though it looks like one. Don’t look down on its size, it packs immense strength.”

Zhan Yan: “It doesn’t look small to me at all.”

The angler was floating on air, introducing his catches to Zhan Yan photo by photo.

He swiped to another picture: the fish in this photo was only the size of a palm and seemed to have a pair of large fins. Before Zhan Yan could get a clear look, the angler swiped past it.

“This fish was too small, nothing much to look at. Hehe, let me show you the other fish.”

The two chatted all the way until boarding, only to discover they were serendipitously seated next to each other. The angler was delighted, and the two exchanged names to continue chatting.

Zhan Yan: “You’re really amazing. How did you catch so many big fish?”

Yu Luo raised an eyebrow smugly: “I have a proprietary fish bait formula. There isn’t a single fish that doesn’t love the bait I blend!”

Yu Luo’s hobby wasn’t limited to fishing; he also loved traveling to bodies of water all over the world to fish, making him quite the seasoned traveler. Zhan Yan learned about many fascinating spots from him and jotted them down to visit in the future.

Yu Luo: “Don’t wait for the future! Our Yunjin City has a great spot inside Mount Qixia. There’s a lake where you can go wild fishing; I’ll share the location with you.”

The two added each other as friends. Yu Luo’s status bio read: “I want the whole world to know that this big fish was caught by me!”

Using Wicked Maps to navigate, Yu Luo shared the location with Zhan Yan, griping as he shared: “Don’t follow the route it suggests! I’ll mark a path for you. Last time I used it, it navigated me to a riverbank and told me to swim across.

“Let me tell you, that lake isn’t just great for wild fishing, it’s also perfect for birdwatching. There are many wild birds around the lake, absolutely gorgeous.”

Zhan Yan checked his gossip threads. Mount Qixia was his father’s territory, inhabited by many bird demons and designated as a nature reserve on the human side. The lake Yu Luo mentioned sat right on the edge of the nature reserve; as long as it wasn’t during the closed fishing season, fishing was allowed.

Under the protection of the Chongming Demon King, the bird demons of Mount Qixia lived very comfortably, often wandering over to the lake out of sheer boredom to watch the humans.

[Yu Luo was slapped across the face by the tail of a large carp he had hooked, and the large carp successfully escaped. The watching cormorant demon cackled with laughter, catching a large bighead carp right in front of Yu Luo.]

In addition to sharing the location, Yu Luo enthusiastically took a box of fish bait out of his backpack to give to Zhan Yan: “Take it back and try it, you’ll see. My fish bait is super overpowered! If you can’t use it right away, just freeze it first. In another week, our region enters the closed fishing season, so no more fishing.”

As the two chatted, rain began falling outside, growing heavier and heavier before long.

The high-speed train began to decelerate, and the onboard announcement stated that due to sudden torrential downpours, the train would slow down and could not arrive at the next station on time.

The passengers began muttering.

“Why is there sudden torrential rain? The weather forecast didn’t mention this before departure.”

“Let me look—wow, this rain is really heavy.”

Within a few minutes, the rain outside hammered the windows like falling beads, blending into a torrential cascade.

The passengers either complained or marveled, but luckily the cellular signal remained unaffected. Everyone pulled out their phones to notify friends and family of the delay.

Zhan Yan sent a message in the family group chat as well.

The train traveled slower and slower until it came to a complete halt. The noise in the carriage abruptly grew louder. Train attendants moved back and forth to soothe the passengers, explaining the situation to those shouting, “Why did we stop?”

This sudden torrential storm had severely impaired visibility and train operations. For safety reasons, the train had made a temporary halt to wait out the rain before continuing.

Zhan Yan looked out the window; the torrential downpour had blurred everything into a solid sheet of white, leaving nothing visible.

Neither Beiling City nor Yunjin City were areas prone to sudden heavy downpours, and it was still spring—hardly the season for major torrential storms.

Once pacified, the passengers discussed the rare torrential downpour while waiting for the rain to cease.

Nobody expected the storm to drag on.

After Zhan Yan spent nearly four hours scrolling through gossip threads, the train still had not started up. The downpour showed no sign of letting up.

The passengers were no longer as composed as at the start, and the clamor grew increasingly frantic.

“…When will the rain…”

“…Is there… a rescue…”

“…Too late…”

Children began crying and throwing tantrums, lines for the restroom grew longer, and some passengers’ phones had run out of battery. Many began to feel hungry, but this short-distance train did not stock bento meals, offering only instant noodles, biscuits, and similar snacks.

“Little brother, are you hungry? I still have a few small buns here.” Yu Luo warmly shared his food.

Zhan Yan was indeed feeling somewhat hungry. He had only eaten breakfast before leaving school, and carrying no snacks in his bag, had assumed the short trip would get him home quickly.

He thanked Yu Luo for the small bun, chewing on it while searching the gossip threads for keywords related to this rain. He sensed that this storm was abnormal.

[The Luoyu awakened in the box. Finding itself trapped, it grew extremely agitated, triggering a massive gathering of water vapor over the southern suburbs of Beiling City.]

The Luoyu: body of a fish, wings of a bird, voice like a mandarin duck; its sighting heralds a great flood upon the town.

It was an innate strange beast possessing the divine ability to summon great deluges.

Zhan Yan switched his search to “Luoyu” as the core keyword.

[The Luoyu was lured by the aroma of Yu Luo’s secret fish bait, swallowing it and collapsing into an intoxicated stupor.]

[Yu Luo discovered that he had caught a fish with wings, feeling immense astonishment and believing he had discovered a new species.]

[Yu Luo packed the Luoyu into a sealed water tank to take it away, preparing to make a huge fortune with the Luoyu.]

Zhan Yan recalled the photo Yu Luo had swiped past so hurriedly. Using the system’s backup feature to reopen it, he scrutinized the image: good grief, those weren’t two large fins at all, they were a pair of large wings! He really had hooked a Luoyu!

What kind of proprietary fish bait formula was this?!

Zhan Yan closed his eyes and contacted the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau through the Gossip System.

Half an hour later, the train doors opened and two figures clad in raincoats boarded. After flashing their credentials, they escorted a thoroughly bewildered and terrified Yu Luo away along with his large suitcase.

To protect his secret identities, Zhan Yan could at most offer him a reassuring glance.

After another half hour, the rain ceased, and the train started up again.

The carriage buzzed with hushed discussions. Before long, rumors spread that the police had boarded to apprehend a fugitive. Someone even sidled up to Zhan Yan to pry into what Yu Luo had said to him, asking whether that massive suitcase might have contained a corpse.

Zhan Yan: “…If it were a corpse, it wouldn’t have cleared security screening.”

Gossip onlooker: “Hey, did he give you that bun?”

Seeing the onlooker eyeing the small bun as if it were poison, Zhan Yan took another slow bite: “It’s fine. If there were a problem, I would have dropped dead hours ago.”

The bun was innocent, and Yu Luo wouldn’t be harmed either; he was currently sitting in the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau receiving a briefing. The Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau had a mature, well-established protocol for ordinary civilians who inadvertently encountered the supernatural. Once the protocol was completed, they would arrange a car to drive him home, likely getting him there even before the rest of this train’s passengers.

The onlooker regarded him like an utter fool.

Such a fine young man—how could he be so dim-witted?

A single small bun was nowhere near enough to fill a young man’s stomach, so Zhan Yan was starving by the time he reached home.

The moment he opened the door, Xingxing was the first to dart out. Having not seen him for over a month, the little kitten had grown a size bigger, tilting its head up and meowing with long, drawn-out tails: “Meow—meow—”

“Where did you go?”

“Why were you gone so long?”

“Why didn’t you take me?”

“I thought you didn’t want me anymore.”

“I looked for you for ages!”

Guilt washed over Zhan Yan at the kitten’s cries, and he scooped Xingxing up as he walked inside.

“Sis, is there any food at home? The train was delayed for hours, I’m starving.”

Zhan Suiru fed her little brother some sweet little biscuits baked by Xiao Ran.

“Which shop did you buy these from? They’re delicious!” Zhan Yan ripped open the ribbon and devoured them ravenously.

“A friend made them,” Zhan Suiru replied. “Eat slowly, there are still dishes Dad cooked.”

Zhan Jinli went to reheat the food for his brother, completely unbothered that his sister hadn’t brought him biscuits last time—with his sweet-tooth monster palate, Zhan Suiru couldn’t find anything to his taste anyway.

Their younger brother’s train had been delayed for hours, so both big shots had been keeping tabs on the situation. Zhan Jinli and Zhan Suiru had already learned about the foodie Luoyu through their respective channels, both feeling somewhat sorry for their little brother.

What kind of fish bait was delicious enough to snare a strange beast?

Zhan Yan saw the recipe in his gossip threads.

A bait formula capable of tempting a strange beast was something the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau naturally wouldn’t overlook. They had interrogated the recipe out of Yu Luo, and Zhan Yan was able to view his dictated formula through the gossip entries.

Most of the ingredients were standard fare commonly used in fish bait, with only one being somewhat peculiar: he had used leftover distiller’s grains from his homemade liquor.

The starter yeast for the brew was also homemade using water pepper, a plant also known as yeast grass or fish-stupefying grass; its functions were all right in the name.

Zhan Yan retrieved the bait Yu Luo had gifted him and took a sniff; it indeed carried a faint scent of liquor.

Zhan Jinli, just stepping out of the kitchen, snapped his gaze toward him.

Zhan Yan looked up and caught his brother’s stare, hesitating for a few seconds.

Could his brother possibly want to eat this?

Had he shifted from a sweet-tooth monster into having pica?