GRMFBS CH101

By the time Zhan Yan noticed the wildly piling red notification badges in the upper right corner, he had already single-handedly cleared eight pages of tasks and was forging ahead toward completing the ninth.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Zhan Yan decided to take a short break.

He casually swept the last new information term into his information plate. The energy bar in the items column instantly shot up to full with a biu, condensing into a brand-new little star.

[The thrilling moment has arrived! The item description feature has received a brand-new upgrade! A superior user experience awaits your trial! Item descriptions now feature a newly developed historical log function. Starting from now, you will be able to review the past states of items!

——This is a plate of egg-fried rice, but ten minutes ago, it was an egg left out for three days that failed to hatch a chick and rice that spent a night in the fridge.

Do you want it? Are you excited? Come experience it now!]

Zhan Yan’s spirits lifted sharply!

The historical log was finally here! Zhan Yan hurriedly lowered his head, picked up the small silver lock hanging on his chest, and clicked open the item description’s historical log.

[This is a silver lock brimmed with blessings. Ag content: 95.5%, Cu content: 2.7%…]

[This is a silver lock brimmed with blessings. Silver purity: 955.]

[This is a top-tier protective silver lock talisman brimmed with the power of lightning protection. Silver purity: 955.]

Top. Tier. Talisman!

One only had to glance at the forum’s point-exchange zone to grasp the sheer weight of those three words. Adding all the top-tier talismans together in the entire exchange zone yielded fewer than five varieties, and over twenty-six years, the total number redeemed had barely broken into double digits.

The divide between top-tier and high-tier was a massive watershed; without the corresponding level of cultivation, one could never craft a top-tier talisman.

A lightning-element, top-tier protective talisman—aside from Tianshi, could there possibly be a second candidate?!

Rather than settling back down, the heart Zhan Yan had been holding in suspense soared even higher.

He pulled up his mother’s gossip entries and Tianshi’s gossip entries, cross-referencing their timelines.

The unusual static electricity, the small silver lock being activated for a split second, his mother’s insistence that all three siblings wear their silver locks… and a timeline that matched up with flawless precision!

Zhan Yan swallowed hard several times in a row and dragged the two interfaces to overlap.

Golden firework special effects mirrored across his unblinking eyes as “Ji Yueming” and “Tianshi” merged into a single information term. Golden lightning danced across her name, suspended high at the apex of the information plate.

Even though he had mentally prepared himself in advance, once the dust finally settled, only a single sentence kept looping through his mind:

Tianshi, Tianshi, Tianshi! My mother is Tianshi!

Zhan Yan flopped backward, sprawling across the bed in a wide “X” shape.

Assuming Zhan Yan was playing, Xingxing let out a meow and leaped right onto Zhan Yan’s chest.

Zhan Yan: “…”

“You’re already a cat weighing over five pounds! Have some awareness of your own weight, will you?”

Lift it down! Laying on chests is strictly forbidden!

While being squished by a five-pound kitten was still bearable for now, Zhan Yan had looked it up—this little rascal could grow past ten pounds in the future. Zhan Yan had no desire to experience Mount Tai crushing down upon him, so he absolutely wasn’t going to let it develop the habit of lying on his chest starting now!

Rubbing his chest where the five-pound chunk of meat had just slammed into him, Zhan Yan gazed at the golden star floating inside the Gossip System.

His phone vibrated twice as an app pushed the latest news notification.

Zhan Yan tapped the notification absentmindedly. Overtime workers in the journalism industry covering the Spring Festival had already rushed out breaking news: Rare Lightning Phenomenon Shocks Suburbs, Clearly Visible From Ten Kilometers Away; Experts Claim It Was a Rare Natural Phenomenon.

Since everyone pulled all-nighters during the New Year, quite a few people had spotted that bolt of lightning from afar, and the comments section was currently buzzing:

“I was filming fireworks with my video camera when that massive thunderbolt suddenly crashed down. It nearly blinded me!”

“What kind of lightning is that? How could it be so absurdly thick! It looked like a giant water bucket.”

“That’s definitely not normal lightning. Normal lightning strikes have jagged bends, not like this one falling in a dead straight line.”

“Which fellow Daoist is undergoing tribulation here?”

The same old ridiculous netizens, the same old memes, but seeing them now evoked an entirely different feeling.

How many times in a lifetime could someone get hit by such a massive jackpot?

The ultimate boss I stan is my mom.

With one hand, Zhan Yan held down Xingxing, who was still trying to pounce on him, while his other hand reached up to touch the small silver lock at his chest.

Earlier, he had wanted to get a Lightning Talisman for everyone in the family, only to find that his mom had equipped the whole household with them long ago!

Wuwuwu, Mom is the best!

Back on the forum, his mom had even offered to gift him a Lightning Talisman. Ah, was this what they called mother-son telepathy?

Ah, wait, no! He still needed to save up points for another Lightning Talisman to equip Gu Jiancheng with one. Let him calculate the points…

Zhan Yan finally noticed the little red notification dot indicating new messages in the forum’s top right corner. What was the new hubbub about?

Oh, right, the people on the forum were going crazy @-ing him to spill the tea.

He naturally knew the inside story, but he wasn’t going to spill a thing! He had to wait and see what his mom had planned so he could back her up!

Let him search and see… Those Infinite fragments had been destroyed, and the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau was in an absolute uproar. The upper echelons were locked in fierce arguments, burning the midnight oil on overtime, while his mom was still able to return home to celebrate the New Year. Tianshi truly lived up to her reputation!

Come, let him check who was jumping up and down calling for sanctions against Tianshi. He wouldn’t rest until he dug up every last bit of their dirty laundry!

Zhan Yan rolled up his sleeves and got straight to work. Over the course of the night, he thoroughly dug up every single higher-up in the bureau who bore malice toward Tianshi and compiled it all into a spreadsheet.

His mom was home for the New Year now, but she would still have to head back to the bureau later to handle the fallout. This intel would definitely come in handy!

However, Ji Yueming rarely logged onto the forum, and with how busy she had been recently, sending it directly to her meant there was no telling when she would actually see it.

Zhan Yan pondered for a moment and first searched for information on “Administrator Lingyu.” Great, the account was back in Nie Yu’s hands now.

Nie Yu was a little fan of Tianshi, so contacting her was very safe!

Zhan Yan began pinging her.

Approaching Science: [Are you online?]

[I have important news!]

Nie Yu had been bored out of her mind recently, but tonight, the moment the Captain blew up the Infinite Research Institute, she knew there would be no clocking out for her.

Yet Nie Yu was working overtime with pure joy! The Captain was so cool it blew her away!

Because Approaching Science was on her special-alert list, Nie Yu still squeezed out a moment amidst her frantic busyness to click open his direct message.

Important news? Approaching Science was someone who never shot his mouth off without a target.

Administrator Lingyu: [What is it?]

Approaching Science: [You can contact Tianshi, right?]

[Have Tianshi log onto the forum.]

[I’ll send the information to her.]

Nie Ling beside her wasn’t happy about this at all. How long have you even known our Captain? And here you are playing at “little secrets” right in front of me?

Administrator Lingyu: [Alright, I’ll pass the message along right away.]

[Ever since I entered the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau, I’ve been on Tianshi’s team.]

[Of course I have a way to contact her immediately.]

Zhan Yan: ?

Why did he feel like Lingyu’s tone was a bit strange?

Whatever, as long as the dossier could be delivered into his mom’s hands, that was all that mattered.

Having forwarded the file, Zhan Yan finally found the time to check on the forum members who were frantically tagging him in the chit-chat section.

Glancing over it briefly, the forum was currently rife with all sorts of wild theories, and photos and video clips of that lightning bolt taken from every possible angle were flying everywhere.

Zhan Yan clicked open one of them.

The video resolution was remarkably high, clearly shot with professional camera equipment. It began with blossoms of fireworks bursting across the sky, crisp and steady. Roughly twenty seconds in, the entire frame suddenly turned stark white—so blindingly bright it stung the eyes. The footage gradually dimmed after that, revealing a straight pillar of lightning dropping directly from the sky on the right side of the screen. Only several seconds later did the deafening roar of thunder finally register in the camera’s audio.

Beneath the video, forum users were losing their minds:

2L:
Ahhh, this is undeniably the handiwork of Tianshi! What level of lightning art is this?! Kneeling in worship before the boss!!!

3L:
Teach me, boss, teach me!!

Wuwuwu, I’ve practiced my Palm Lightning for a whole year, and my master said it’s great—it can be used to charge a phone.

8L:
Can someone do a combat power analysis on the Tianshi?

The scale of this disturbance broke the record of every single move Tianshi has ever made in the past, didn’t it?

11L:
Can we stop hyping it up already? The Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau hasn’t even issued a response yet, so it’s not even confirmed to be Tianshi.

Even the highest records of Tianshi taking action in the past were never this absurdly strong, right?

13L:
If not Tianshi, then who else could it be? Don’t tell me you want to claim this was a natural phenomenon?

18L:
I’m a combat power fan of Tianshi and have always gathered relevant data; there has genuinely never been a record of this intensity before. But then, there’s never been an anomaly that required this level of output before either. So what I’m more concerned with right now is: what on earth actually happened? What kind of situation would require the Tianshi to unleash such an overpowering lightning technique?

@Administrator Lingyu

Begging the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau for an explanation.

24L:
I’m more interested in knowing just how fierce the energy intensity of this single lightning strike was. So is there seriously nobody doing a combat power breakdown?

I feel like this combat capability isn’t just ranked number one within the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau anymore, is it?

25L:
Upstairs, stop inciting flame wars. Aren’t there already enough threads bickering over combat tiers?

Who took the video anyway? With the shooting location and angle, we should roughly be able to triangulate where Tianshi dropped the lightning, right?

37L “Just Charge In”:
Currently on my way to the lightning strike site. Wait for my update, everyone.

40L:
Awaiting your news, bro!

85L:
A whole round of fighting has already wrapped up, has our friend at 37L still not returned?

188L:
Three rounds of arguments have wrapped up already. After arguing over combat power we argued over faction alignment, and after faction alignment we argued over fanbases. Before we finish arguing through the fourth round, can we actually expect an update from 37L?

192L:

No idea, but I know the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau must be drowning in work right now. Normally, if a flame war reached this point, Lingyu would have stepped in to purge the thread ages ago.

211L “Just Charge In”:

Friends, I’m almost there. Giving everyone a quick update first.

I feel like something isn’t right here; there seems to be a cordon up ahead.

213L:
@Just Charge In, be careful out there, don’t go getting yourself trapped!

222L “Just Charge In”:

[Video]

Streaming a quick clip for everyone.

Looks like a blockade by the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau.

242L “Just Charge In”:

Crap, I might have been spotted.

After that, “Just Charge In” never posted again, prompting a flurry of wild speculation throughout the thread.

Zhan Yan opened the Gossip System to run a search. The guy had wandered straight into a restricted zone and was taken away for questioning by the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau. Once they cleared him of suspicion, he would be released.

The thread calling for him to spill the tea had also racked up pages very quickly, though the atmosphere there was far more peaceful, lacking the vitriol of the flame wars:

3L:

What do you mean “Suspected Tianshi”? With lightning that ferocious, who else could it possibly be besides Tianshi?

OP:

Isn’t this just to be rigorous? Who knows, maybe it really was a rare natural phenomenon? [doge]

5L:

OP, you’re going to be the death of me. What in the world is a “rare natural astronomical phenomenon”? Do you work for True Science News or something?

7L:

Don’t derail, don’t derail. Is nobody going to talk about the fact that Tianshi and the Chongming Demon King coincided at the exact same point in time? One of the two ultimate bosses belongs to the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau, and the other belongs to the Wan Yao Alliance. Haven’t those two organizations always been locked in a hostile feud? Could the two bosses have been throwing hands with each other?

Zhan Yan sat bolt upright.

That’s right!

His dad and his mom belonged to two major rival factions!!

Wait, Dad! Mom!

How on earth did you two end up dating?!!!