GRMFBS CH173

The big shot Deep Shadow, who was hanging on the forum and waiting all along without getting a reply from Approaching Science: …

First, Gu Jiancheng was stood up by Ghost King Lin Yuan for a day, and then left hanging by Approaching Science for a day. Approaching Science even spoke up for Ghost King Lin Yuan!

He was very angry.

The aggrieved big shot Deep Shadow went to his boyfriend for comfort, being exceptionally clingy during their phone call before sleep.

Zhan Yan: “Did work not go smoothly today?”

Gu Jiancheng: “It’s alright; work at the pig farm is just like this.”

Zhan Yan immediately felt heartache. He had found out beforehand that the working environment at a pig farm wasn’t very good, and it was also very tiring. He was just worried that Gu Jiancheng wouldn’t adapt there, and if his headaches started up again, it would be much harder to endure than being at school.

Zhan Yan spoke softly: “Are you sleeping well? Do you feel any discomfort or insomnia?”

Gu Jiancheng immediately took a mile after being given an inch: “Not really. Let’s sleep while staying on the phone tonight. I want to hear your breathing.”

Zhan Yan couldn’t help but touch the sports band on his wrist.

His heartbeat interface was still constantly shared with Gu Jiancheng.

The next morning, Zhan Yan was woken up by his biological clock. He rolled over, keeping his eyes closed, preparing to laze in bed a while longer. Yesterday’s experience had drained his mental energy a bit; he needed to recover.

As he rolled over, his hand hit a cool, hard surface, making a “smack” sound.

“Yan Yan? Are you awake?” Gu Jiancheng’s voice came from the other end of the phone.

Zhan Yan remembered; they slept while on the phone last night.

He yawned, groped for his phone, and said with an early-morning nasal voice: “Morning. You’re awake too?”

Gu Jiancheng: “Mm. Morning exercise together? I still remember the workout routine you taught me.”

Zhan Yan couldn’t help but think of the time he taught Gu Jiancheng privately later on.

Classmate Xiao Gu had great comprehension skills. Ever since Zhan Yan reminded him not to learn too fast, he immediately turned into a clumsy student who needed someone to hold him step-by-step to adjust his posture.

Zhan Yan had verified it: Classmate Xiao Gu had a very good figure.

Today was the weekend; they didn’t have to work.

After Zhan Yan finished breakfast, the other two still hadn’t gotten up. Bao Qingshan was up; if he lazed in bed every day without cultivating, his great-grandmother would beat him when he returned to Kusong Ravine.

After eating, Zhan Yan finally remembered the big shot Deep Shadow he had left hanging.

He opened the forum and saw that the big shot Deep Shadow’s chat interface was stuck on that “Heh”.

Uh oh. Needs coaxing.

Approaching Science: [Sorry, I ran into an emergency yesterday.]

Gu Jiancheng was currently using his shadow avatar to grind Lin Yuan. The big shot Deep Shadow, who had just been coaxed by his boyfriend, couldn’t be bothered to argue with Approaching Science; he snorted upon receiving the message and directly started deducting points to issue tasks.

Zhan Yan: Deep Shadow is this easy to coax today?

Whatever, let’s just do the tasks first. Zhan Yan actually took the abnormality Deep Shadow mentioned earlier quite seriously.

As a big shot who made it out of Infinite, Deep Shadow’s intuition definitely wouldn’t be baseless. Ever since they chatted that day, Zhan Yan felt vaguely uneasy. But before he had time to investigate thoroughly, he ran into Huang Ershisilang demanding canonization, followed by Kitty Wan Yan and his brother losing their covers.

He investigated deeply according to the clues Deep Shadow provided.

In this matter targeting his brother, Ghost King Lin Yuan, both the Monster Doctor and the Book of Secrets had exerted effort. The previous Cursed Scales were the Monster Doctor’s handiwork, while the Drunken Soul Incense discovered this time was researched by the Book of Secrets, who also utilized the Monster Doctor’s help.

The ghost scales and ghost blood of Lin Yuan that Infinite collected twenty-six years ago weren’t much, not enough to cultivate Drunken Soul Incense. So, the Monster Doctor used these ghost scales and ghost blood to cultivate some special anomalies, and the Book of Secrets used these special anomalies to cultivate the Drunken Soul Incense targeting Ghost King Lin Yuan.

Zhan Yan started flipping through the materials on the Book of Secrets. The Book of Secrets’ abilities were very troublesome; he was an “all-rounder” with abilities in all aspects. But someone noticed that one of the Book of Secrets’ abilities was identical to another previously missing ranked player. They suspected the Book of Secrets’ ability could duplicate others’ abilities.

Duplication could cause fatal harm to the duplicated party. The duplicated ability might have a limited number of uses or other restrictions; it was a consumable item.

The troublesome part was that no one knew how many abilities this guy had accumulated.

Could Infinite be trying to use the Book of Secrets to duplicate his brother’s Interdependent Fortune and Misfortune?

This was highly unlikely. The rules of the two worlds were different.

The Book of Secrets’ ability originated from Infinite. If Infinite had the ability to freely duplicate, it would have done so twenty-six years ago when it was at its strongest.

Zhan Yan searched up another piece of gossip.

To prevent the Drunken Soul Incense’s efficacy from being polluted by anomalies and to maintain its attraction to Ghost King Lin Yuan, the Book of Secrets spent a lot of effort and finally barely succeeded. However, the finished Drunken Soul Incense was extremely unstable, and its dispersing fragrance couldn’t be preserved—this was how the polluted Drunken Fish Grass came about.

The dispersing Drunken Soul Incense couldn’t affect a cultivator at the level of Ghost King Lin Yuan.

This was an abandoned plan.

Deep Shadow’s guess was correct. Infinite wouldn’t expend so many anomalies, not to mention a Black Nest, for an abandoned plan. Its purpose in stopping Deep Shadow and Ghost King Lin Yuan was to dangle them here and prevent them from interfering with its other plans.

Zhan Yan sent the newly investigated information to Deep Shadow.

I Just Saved the World!: [Expected it.]

Zhan Yan: Tsk tsk, what a casual and indifferent reply.

Approaching Science: [Boss, what do you plan to do?]

At this point, there was nothing left to investigate. The Black Nest and anomalies that Infinite created using Ghost King Lin Yuan’s ghost scales and ghost blood had already been cleaned up by them; their underground laboratory had also been overthrown, and the process targeting Ghost King Lin Yuan was clear.

I Just Saved the World!: [I can’t participate in matters on the network.]

I Just Saved the World!: [You keep an eye on things over there.]

I Just Saved the World!: [Have Lin Yuan keep an eye on the apocalyptic world. Infinite won’t let go of this opportunity for change.]

I Just Saved the World!: [As for over here…]

Gu Jiancheng held his phone with one hand and looked up at the wriggling anomalies opposite him. They looked like a pile of eye-covered slugs, erecting fleshy tentacles with eyes on the tips, emitting blinding light like searchlights.

They were very much in the Monster Doctor’s style of anomalies, and extremely “fresh”.

They hadn’t been born for long and had some abilities targeting “shadows” added to them. But the light radiating pollution from them simply couldn’t affect the Sea of Shadows. Rather than saying they were meant to target shadows, it was better to say they were meant to disgust Deep Shadow.

A provocation.

The Monster Doctor was right here. Infinite also understood the former top 1 player; when it realized the original plan could no longer bait them, it laid out the Monster Doctor as bait.

Gu Jiancheng was very happy to make it lose both.

I Just Saved the World!: [I’ll dig the Monster Doctor out from here and finish him off.]

Zhan Yan watched the big shot Deep Shadow perform a wave of cool operations from afar. Looking at the gossip threads, the big shot shouldn’t have any problems, so he went to ask Nie Yu about the situation on the network.

Nie Yu hadn’t replied yet, but the Artisan came looking for him.

Because this big shot didn’t want to be supervised, he hid fiercely from the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau, and his contact with Zhan Yan couldn’t be considered frequent. Ever since Zhan Yan helped forward the task invitation from the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau last time, the Artisan had gone invisible again; the two hadn’t contacted each other for almost a week now.

But at this critical juncture, when the apocalyptic world was approaching and Infinite was secretly plotting who-knows-what, as someone from the apocalyptic world, the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau couldn’t just leave him alone.

Why did the Artisan come looking for him this time?

Zhan Yan clicked open the private message.

The Artisan was asking him if anyone possessed an ability related to “concepts”.

Concepts? This thing was way too abstract. What did an ability related to “concepts” even mean? What did the Artisan want this for?

But he couldn’t search it up in the gossip threads, nor could he search up anything regarding an ability related to “concepts”.

Approaching Science: [Can you provide some more detailed information?]

Approaching Science: [What does “concept” mean? Having wishes come true?]

Artisan: […Forget it.]

Approaching Science: [???]

Approaching Science: [Don’t just forget it!]

Approaching Science: [Explain a bit!]

But the Artisan had already gone offline.

Zhan Suiru logged off the chaofan forum and let out a slow breath. She felt she was being too hasty.

Resurrection was a troublesome matter; it was perfectly normal to not have any progress.

Resurrection was hard. But why was the recovery of Xiao Ran’s consciousness also so slow?

Zhan Suiru had already felt her spiritual energy again. Although she couldn’t project her spirit outside her body in the real world due to the effect of concept replacement, as a spiritual-type who had endured countless reincarnations, she possessed some special techniques.

She attempted to sense Xiao Ran’s will inside the puppet butler without projecting her spiritual energy outside her body.

It was extremely weak.

Perhaps it was because her sensing was restricted…

The puppet butler brought her a cup of milk tea: “Would you like to play games with your brother for a while?”

Zhan Suiru had just taken a sip of milk tea and almost spat it out laughing: “That’s not how a brother is used.”

The puppet butler asked in confusion but humbly: “Then how should a brother be used?”

Zhan Suiru: “No, a brother isn’t meant to be used—why does this sound so weird?”

Puppet butler: “Are you saying your brother is useless?”

Zhan Suiru: “It’s not that he’s useless either—sigh, my brother is my family.”

She swiveled her chair around and pulled the puppet butler’s arm, making him crouch in front of her so they were at eye level: “Family is meant to be loved. Xiao Ran, just like us, you are not my tool.”

The puppet butler took in the image before him. He felt Zhan Suiru’s eyes were very different from usual, but he didn’t know what the difference was. He compared the current image with the images stored in his past memory. Was it the degree of pupillary contraction? Was it the difference in lighting? Was it the change in the eyelid muscles?

But it seemed none of those were right. It was related to them, but more than just them.

He suddenly realized he hadn’t answered yet.

“I am your butler,” he said.

Zhan Suiru: “Right, a butler isn’t meant to be used either, and you are more than just my butler.”

The gears in the puppet butler’s pupils turned as he arranged the logic in Zhan Suiru’s words neatly, arriving at an equation: “Are you saying that you love me?”

Zhan Suiru: “Cough! Ahem!”

Puppet butler: “But I am a puppet. I lack the corresponding functions, I cannot…”

Zhan Suiru: “I’m going to find my brother to play games!”

She let go of Xiao Ran crouching in front of her, slid her swivel chair over to the gaming console, and logged onto her big-shot gaming account “Eighty With a Big Hammer”.

Today was the weekend, Yan Yan should be resting. His account wasn’t online, but it didn’t matter; this game’s invitations had an SMS notification.

Zhan Suiru clicked the invite button.

Gu Jiancheng had just finished smashing a batch of anomalies when he received the SMS notification.

His main body at the pig farm clicked open the SMS. A game invitation? Oh, the game Yan Yan downloaded for him last time; this account was also Yan Yan’s.

So this person was the one who had been carrying Yan Yan to rank up in games previously?

He wanted to see exactly how good this person’s skills were!