GRMFBS CH100

Gu Jiancheng received the new firework photos that Zhan Yan had re-sent.

The shapes were clear, the colors vibrant, and the bright fireworks contrasted sharply with the black background.

He tapped on a photo that captured two fireworks at the same time. A cyan firework and a golden firework nestled against each other, their streams of light intermingling.

After looking through the series of photos, at the very bottom was Zhan Yan’s latest reply:

“Sent the wrong one before!”

“This is my real skill level!”

Gu Jiancheng couldn’t help but let out a muffled laugh.

After laughing for a while and replying to the message, Gu Jiancheng lay back on his bed and looked at the ocean.

He was staying at an underwater hotel run by the Retiree Alliance. The Retiree Alliance had its own businesses and utilized their extraordinary advantages to develop many features that ordinary hotels couldn’t, such as the ocean above his head.

The ceiling of the room was a transparent dome, and above the dome, large fish swam by slowly. Gu Jiancheng was reminded of the “Big Heart.”

That day Zhan Yan went to the amusement park with him, they rode the Ferris wheel.

At the very top of the Ferris wheel, Zhan Yan had pointed out the “Big Heart” to him. When viewed from above, it looked like a fish, resting leisurely in a corner of the sky.

This was Gu Jiancheng’s first time experiencing the various novel businesses created by the Retiree Alliance. He hadn’t been interested before, but now, he felt that Yanyan would definitely like it. He wanted to bring Yanyan to stay here together after everything was over.

“Retiree Alliance.” He now somewhat understood the word “retiree.”

To retire meant to start looking forward to life.

But to retire as soon as possible, he still had many things to do.

Gu Jiancheng closed his eyes, and shadows spread out in his consciousness.

The usually calm Sea of Shadows rippled, the waves growing larger towards the center. Beneath the shadows, the one stirring up the waves was the Black Nest he had devoured earlier.

After so many days, it was finally about to be digested.

Gu Jiancheng walked across the surface of the sea towards the most turbulent area. Each step he took created ripples that collided with the waves stirred up by the Black Nest, suppressing them with every step.

By the time he reached the center of the turbulence, the sea surface had calmed.

Gu Jiancheng looked down at the shadow.

The Black Nest had become a part of the Sea of Shadows. Gu Jiancheng tapped his toe, and the shadow of the Black Nest floated to the surface.

After stripping away all the useless things, the Black Nest had left him with two things.

A piece of information: “Long time no see, my best test subject.”

Gu Jiancheng was disgusted.

The only one who dared to call him a “test subject” was that dead pervert, the Monster Doctor. He had always wanted to study Gu Jiancheng because he was the only player in Infinity who possessed the ability to devour monsters.

Calling the Deep Shadow a “test subject” was purely him flattering himself. Gu Jiancheng had never been reduced to a test subject.

The Monster Doctor had been very eager to study him. In the beginning, he pretended to be a good person and cooperated with him in dungeons. Gu Jiancheng had actually believed he was willing to save people.

Later, this guy revealed his true colors. When deception failed, he tried to use threats and temptations, and even once tried to use his ‘Heart Lure’ on him.

Gu Jiancheng expressionlessly crushed this piece of information.

The second thing was the reason he was willing to go through the trouble of devouring the Black Nest.

Every Black Nest had its own type of anomaly, which also meant that every Black Nest had its own rules. By obtaining the rules of a Black Nest, one could discover its weaknesses.

Of course, this information was basically useless in the past.

To get the rules of a Black Nest, one either had to study a large number of monsters produced by that Black Nest and deduce them, or one had to destroy the Black Nest.

The former could cost countless lives and the deduced rules might not even be accurate. As for the latter, if you’ve already destroyed it, why would you still need its rules? The rules of a Black Nest were not universal.

But this time was different.

The Monster Doctor was supposed to have perished in the Black Nest, but he did not die. Instead, he transformed into an anomaly.

The Monster Doctor’s shadow was behind all the nameless anomalies born in this world. After several encounters, Gu Jiancheng had a gut feeling that the Monster Doctor had formed a close connection with the Black Nest and had developed some new variations of it. His traces were also left in this captured Black Nest. This meant that the rules of this Black Nest contained some of the Monster Doctor’s rules—his weaknesses.

The Deep Shadow and the Magician were a step too slow in their chase this time and failed to catch the Monster Doctor. But they weren’t too slow, otherwise the Monster Doctor would never have left this Black Nest behind—he didn’t have time to dispose of it.

The shadow of the Black Nest floated on the Sea of Shadows, its rules clearly listed on it.

Long time no see?

Heh, I’ll kill you next time we meet!

Gu Jiancheng tilted his head back, saw the sky, and suddenly froze.

Gu Jiancheng rarely looked up in the Sea of Shadows, so he had not noticed that a star had appeared in the eternally dark sky of the Sea of Shadows at some unknown time.

Gu Jiancheng stood there for a long time, his neck craned back. The star shone brightly, illuminating the Sea of Shadows.

It seemed as if it would hang in the sky forever, never to be extinguished.

He subconsciously reached out, only to pull his hand back at the last moment.

Only then did Gu Jiancheng realize that he didn’t actually like the Sea of Shadows very much.

This was the source of his power, and also the source of his contamination. It was the root of his after-effects, a place he could neither escape nor abandon.

It was too dark here.

But now, there was a star here.

…

Zhan Yan wasn’t very sleepy after sending the firework photos to Gu Jiancheng. There were still firecrackers going off outside, so he decided to browse the Gossip System before sleeping.

First, he checked the information panel to see which one was close to leveling up. He would then focus on digging up related gossip to collect another little star as soon as possible.

Huh? When did an information word get added to his “Abilities” column?

This information word was called “Aegis Spell,” a golden information word, accompanied by a short annotation:

[Bestow auspiciousness, bless illnesses to depart with haste, pray for stability and peace, an eternal and unceasing protection.]

Zhan Yan was baffled. He had no memory of collecting this golden word.

He decided to search for it in the search bar.

Just as he switched to the search bar, before he could search, Zhan Yan noticed a piece of gossip related to himself:

[You have noticed the flaw in “Item Description.”]

Zhan Yan was suddenly reminded of the time he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him when he looked at the item description of the small silver locket.

This piece of gossip must be talking about that, right?

Zhan Yan picked up the small silver locket and opened its item description.

No matter how he looked at it, it was the same as before.

He wasn’t sure if his eyes had deceived him, but he still had the system backup!

Zhan Yan opened the system backup and rewound the scene to when he was hugging his mom.

Some of the item description words were overlapping, and the description of the small silver locket was partially obscured:

[This is a silver locket full of Thunder… silver locket, silver content…]

He hadn’t been mistaken. The word “Thunder” was indeed there.

But looking at the item description of the small silver locket now, it had returned to its normal state.

The system said the flaw of “Item Description”…

Zhan Yan poked the little star for “Item Description”: “Hey, you can’t detect the hidden essence of things at all, can you?”

The little star flickered, and the item description of the silver locket began to stubbornly refresh.

[This is a silver locket full of blessings, with an Ag content of 95.5%, and a Cu content of 2.7%…]

…Then his guess was probably correct.

So, the small silver locket his mom gave him had a secret, a secret that “Item Description” usually couldn’t display. But when special circumstances occurred, the state of the small silver locket changed, and “Item Description” could read it.

The time the locket’s state changed was when he was zapped by the static electricity from his mom. The electric current felt like it had shot to his chest. A static electric current couldn’t be called “Thunder”…

Zhan Yan swallowed hard.

He had some unusual speculations…

First, he opened his mom’s gossip feed…

Zhan Yan took a glance:

[Zhan Yunkai turns on the stereo, opens the curtains, and invites Ji Yueming to ballroom dance with him amidst the fireworks in the night.]

Zhan Yan: …His tense mood suddenly calmed down a lot.

Thinking about it, there was actually no need to be very nervous. What could happen? His dad was the Chongming Demon King; he had already hit the jackpot once. One shouldn’t be too greedy or think too wishfully.

There were many other plausible explanations for the secret of the small silver locket, right?

Fireworks were blooming outside the window. Dance music was playing in the living room downstairs. His older brother was agonizingly dealing with the cake shop’s mini-program. His older sister was putting on a face mask, preparing for a good night’s beauty sleep.

A fondant cake flower bloomed in the cleared living room. Zhan Yunkai, who had just finished an emergency ballroom dancing training session, had his arm around Ji Yueming’s waist, teaching her the dance steps.

Everything was normal, everything was peaceful.

This was just another ordinary day.

Zhan Yan took a few deep breaths, then started furiously poking the little star for “Item Description”:

“Just show me the content you read before!”

The little star representing “Item Description” was poked around the panel by him.

[You tried in vain to force the development of a record restoration function for “Item Description.”]

Zhan Yan: …

I’m going to insist! Can’t I?

The system’s information integration function only worked when there were sufficient clues. He had to figure this out tonight!

He started trying to drag the “Item Description” little star and the “System Backup” little star on the panel together.

As soon as he let go, the two little stars bounced apart again with a biu.

Great! Not letting me develop it, are you?

“Item Description” was an ability from the “Things” category, and “System Backup” was an ability from the “Anomalies” category.

It had been a while since these two categories last leveled up, and their energy bars had accumulated quite a bit.

He would go to the forum right now and grind for gossip to level up!

Zhan Yan rolled up his sleeves, logged into the Extraordinary Forum, opened the mission board, and started crazily grinding missions. He would do any mission that involved things and anomalies he hadn’t collected before!

The forum was bustling at the moment, all because of the earth-shattering thunder from earlier and the Chongming Demon King’s cry that had spread far and wide, intimidating evil spirits.

The front page of the water-cooler section was constantly refreshing with related posts. Threads asking about the situation were piling up high, and the accounts of several major figures were constantly being @-ed.

However, none of the major figures appeared or explained anything, and the forum members who used their connections didn’t have any definite news either. Unable to contact the directly involved parties, the forum members turned to the various well-informed major figures on the forum. Maybe they would know something?

{You guys, go look at the mission board! @ApproachingScience is crazily grinding missions! @ApproachingScience, great one, come out and spill the tea!}

OP:

@ApproachingScience hasn’t taken many missions for quite some time, right?

@ApproachingScience, may I ask if your sudden mission grinding is related to tonight’s situation?

Do you have any inside information on the commotion tonight that seems to involve both the Heavenly Master and the Chongming Demon King?

Please spill the tea!!