GRMFBS CH309

Zhan Jinli: “.”

It wasn’t like he wanted to come back either. The other three all had previously scheduled matters and couldn’t clear their time tonight, which was why they had him try.

Zhan Suiru: “Younger brother is on guard now; we have to switch methods.”

Candle Dragon had also been pulled into the group chat, watching the other four discuss how to bait Bai Ze.

After tossing ideas back and forth with zero results, they turned to ask if she had any thoughts.

Candle Dragon: Leave me out of this, I only want to eat melons.

Zhan Yunkai: “Isn’t Luowang on great terms with Approaching Science?”

“Can’t you pry a little information out of him?”

Candle Dragon: “Huh?”

Eating melons face-to-face really came at a cost.

And so, just as Zhan Yan was about to enter the Dawn World, he unexpectedly received a message from Luowang.

Opening it up, he saw Luowang inviting him to chew on some gossip.

Oh, right, Luowang had fallen asleep last time before finishing that melon. He had mentioned it to Dad, and Dad said it was fine. He checked Luowang’s melon entry, and it merely showed the same status as before.

Approaching Science: [You’re awake?]

Administrator Luowang: [Awake, wide awake.]

[Let me tell you about that unfinished melon from last time.]

[Among those instigators, wasn’t there a human pretending to be a demon? The one claiming he worked in human society only to have his wages withheld by his boss.]

[He had previously run to the police reporting that he got scammed out of fifty thousand yuan in an online relationship. An investigation later revealed that he was the one withholding someone else’s pay, so the other party posed as a woman to date him online—and when the tally was settled, he actually still owed them over twenty thousand in unpaid wages.]

Yuck! Absolute trash! Fortunately, he was already behind bars now.

Luowang shared several more melons with him.

Approaching Science: [Hahahaha]

[Why are all of these romance-related?]

Zhan Yan hadn’t thought much of it, but Luowang felt guilty first, wrapping things up haphazardly before scurrying back to the private group chat.

Candle Dragon: “Told you I wouldn’t be able to pry anything out.”

Zhan Yunkai: “Do you call that prying? You were just indulging your melon addiction.”

Candle Dragon: “I’ve never done this sort of thing before.”

“Approaching Science and Luowang are only familiar when it comes to gossiping; neither knows the other’s real situation.”

“It’s not like I could just ask him if he’s dating, right?”

It was tough for her too, alright?

Zhan Yunkai expressed that Candle Dragon’s melon-eating capability was severely lacking. Eating melons was clearly high-level technical work requiring sharp observational skills, formidable analytical prowess, the ability to excavate hidden truths from the slightest clues, and ideally, an empathetic touch to conduct soul-probing conversations.

Candle Dragon basically retorted: Cut it out, stop showing off just because you picked up such an amazing son out of nowhere.

Candle Dragon was a shut-in who used to love coiling around Mount Zhong in all kinds of postures. Nowadays people rolled prayer beads between their fingers, but she rolled an entire mountain.

It pained her just to think about it—that massive Mount Zhong she had carefully polished until it was smooth, glossy, and solid had vanished, shattered to pieces during the fight against Infinite, ying-ying-ying.

The mountain-rolling Candle Dragon rarely stepped outside, yet Bai Ze had often loved dropping by to look for her.

There weren’t many who could chew on melons alongside Bai Ze; aside from Di Ting, Candle Dragon counted as one. Blessed with the innate gift of time, she could occasionally catch glimpses of the future, and understood all too well that this world’s timeline was fundamentally a loop. Similar yet distinct events repeated themselves, and even the direst matters would eventually scatter into smoke within the wheel of time.

The towering heap of earth-shattering secrets Bai Ze possessed could be shared with Candle Dragon without restraint.

Her taste for eating melons had been cultivated entirely by Bai Ze, and she had always remained a passive recipient.

Zhan Yunkai: “Can’t count on you at all.”

The others continued discussing, their fretting unresolved.

Candle Dragon: “Even if he were willing to talk, it wouldn’t be easy to answer, right?”

“He doesn’t even know what’s going on himself, so how could he explain it?”

“Besides, we can only confirm that this connection was forged within those thirteen years; which specific year it happened isn’t certain either.”

Zhan Yunkai: “Meaning the connection might have existed for well over a year, right?”

Candle Dragon: Doesn’t dare speak…

She quietly engaged her divine ability, silently flipping through the traces left behind by elapsed time.

A sudden flash of inspiration struck Zhan Suiru: “Our goal is to ensure their bond deepens and never snaps. Even if we don’t know what kind of connection it is, as long as we deepen it in that direction, wouldn’t that work?”

In what direction?

Candle Dragon: “Love, of course.”

“The only thing that can bind the destinies of two strangers together is emotion. Driven by sentiment, living beings will perform all manner of anomalous deeds for someone previously unrelated to them—be it love or hate. The more turbulent the emotion, the more entangled their fates become.”

“If you feel uneasy, why not consolidate it with a ritual?”

Why had Candle Dragon suddenly gotten so passionate?

Zhan Yunkai: “What ritual?”

Candle Dragon: “Marriage, obviously.”

…We asked you to help brainstorm ideas, not to ship couples!

Zhan Jinli: “I feel like a traitor snuck into this group.”

Candle Dragon: “When I keep quiet you insist I contribute, and when I offer an idea you shoot it down.”

“Hmph, don’t come looking for me ever again.”

Actually… getting married wasn’t completely out of the question either, right? Safety first.

Yet right now wasn’t necessarily the right time. For Infinite in its weakened state, while the “Omniscience” ability was magnificent, it could hardly resolve its current predicament and might not be its primary target. Now that the restrictions on “spiritual energy” and the “mental-network” had dissolved, constraints on Infinite were virtually nonexistent. Zhan Suiru, who had left a spiritual imprint on it, was far more likely to be its target.

Bai Ze’s self-concealment prevented Infinite from identifying his persona as “Zhan Yan,” but Monster Doctor’s maneuvers had already narrowed the scope for Infinite.

If they made an unusual move right now, it might draw Infinite’s gaze and allow it to pinpoint Zhan Yan’s identity.

Candle Dragon couldn’t help interrupting: “Wait, why do you assume Infinite’s primary target wouldn’t be him?”

“Omniscience lacks offensive force in this world solely because there are no matching rules for it.”

In truth, it was a terrifying ability.

…

After sharing her melons, Candle Dragon slipped away. Zhan Yan logged into the Dawn World, resuming his “covert rendezvous” with Gu Jiancheng.

The young couple’s late-night meetings had always been plenty busy. Basically, every night involved listening to Gu Jiancheng recount details about Infinite, supplying information tags to level up his ability.

Ever since everyone dropped their secret identities, the archives of both the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau and the Wan Yao Alliance had been opened to him, and his brother had brought over a stack of ancient volumes from Ghost King Tie Lao as well. Zhan Yan had been gorging on EXP packs to his heart’s content lately, and combined with the Infinite lore Xiao Gu filled in, his energy bar was surging to maximum at blistering speed.

Among the six information tabs, the “Abilities” tab—which previously got wiped clean every time it neared an upgrade—was surprisingly the first to fill up completely.

Upon reaching five stars, the “Information Concealment” function vanished, replaced by “Information Interception,” which completely superseded the prior ability without any restrictions.

The information correlation in the “Organizations” tab had reached four stars, not far off from the fifth.

The “Objects” tab was still a little short of five stars, though Zhan Yan could faintly sense its maxed-out capability—by then, he should be able to deploy spiritual energy in reality!

Zhan Yan looked forward to this immensely.

Once he had that power, he would never be a combat scrub again.

Gu Jiancheng drifted alongside him over the Dawn World’s ocean, both riding atop a colossal sea turtle.

When Gu Jiancheng first spotted it, he had wanted to forcefully capture it as a mount, but Zhan Yan patted the giant turtle’s head, chatted with it, and it readily agreed to take them for a cruise.

Drifting across the waters, Gu Jiancheng explained the artifacts within Infinite.

“How much do you still need for your Objects tab?” Gu Jiancheng asked.

Zhan Yan calculated: “Not much, maybe twenty-odd purple information tags, or two golden ones, and it’ll probably be full.”

Golden ones, huh…

“The most crucial artifact in Infinite is probably the Supreme Balance,” Gu Jiancheng said.

Zhan Yan murmured an “mm,” leaning sideways against Gu Jiancheng’s shoulder.

He had seen that thing in a dream.

Xiao Gu had entered the judgment court precisely because of it. He decided to hate that contraption for three whole minutes!

Gu Jiancheng: “I suspect that thing doesn’t belong to Infinite.”

Zhan Yan: “Huh?”

The Gossip System showed nothing. Items unrelated to this world were hard to collect information tags for, requiring deeper intelligence before registering.

“Infinite is an exceedingly cowardly world.” Gu Jiancheng’s gaze turned deep and distant.

Once, he had feared Infinite deeply; even later, when driven by hatred, indignation, and disgust to face Infinite head-on, he still thought Infinite was powerful.

Until later.

Gu Jiancheng quietly pulled Zhan Yan close.

Only then did he realize how frail Infinite truly was.

Only the cowardly chose to control others through fear.

“It wouldn’t create an artifact that placed itself on the gambling table.” Gu Jiancheng’s voice remained calm, brushing past that excruciating past in a few brief words. “The rule of the Supreme Balance is ‘absolute equality between both pans.’ This rule can contest the will of Infinite, and by leveraging it, I successfully extracted the location of Infinite’s core.”

“My guess is that Infinite stole the Supreme Balance from some other world. Reluctant to part with its rules, it merged it into an instance dungeon, hoping to slowly digest it through time.”

A new golden entry manifested in the “Objects” tab, quietly filling the energy bar to the brim.

Yet Zhan Yan had no attention left to spare for it.

Gu Jiancheng was turning his head toward him, the dark depths of his eyes surging like vast tides—were they reflecting the boundless sea?

Zhan Yan stared at him in a daze.

The giant turtle had swum away at some point; Gu Jiancheng’s shadow cradled them as the Dawn World transitioned from dusk into night.

Countless stars glittered across the vault of heaven, and gentle rolling waves washed up tiny luminescent organisms.

Those helpless feelings from his dreams, the constantly plummeting meteors, the steadily darkening sky—all of it seemed to fade far away.

“Love makes people brave. Those who treat love as a weakness and flee from it are all cowards.”

Ah… the line Gu Jiancheng had promised to recite for him.

Zhan Yan had nearly forgotten all about it.

Gu Jiancheng knew Zhan Yan had felt tense lately, even though he acted as if everything were normal. Yet whenever he had spare energy, he was constantly feeding in new information tags. Any advancement demanded expenditure: training the body drained stamina, and forging the will drained spirit. Leveling up so rapidly in such a short span, how could he possibly be completely unaffected?

Morning exercises, playing with Xingxing, cooking, square dancing—he did those because he genuinely needed the rest.

Gu Jiancheng gazed intently at Zhan Yan, those once-gloomy eyes now resembling a vast, clear night sky: “How could the brave ever lose to cowards?”

He leaned down.

They kissed beneath the gleaming starlight.

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