GRMFBS CH109

“Are you curious?” Zhan Yan asked.

“Curious!” Bao Qingshan nodded.

The two veterinary students were practically itching to find out.

“Think of a way to ask him?” Zhan Yan suggested.

“We’d probably get beaten up…” Bao Qingshan worried.

Zhan Yan: “Hehe, well. How’s your English?”

He had just checked the Gossip System slips. The centaur immigrated from Greece. While they spoke Greek over there, English was also very common, so this centaur should be able to speak English, right?

Bao Qingshan: “…Are you trying to stab me in the heart? I haven’t even passed the CET-6 yet!”

Now Zhan Yan was worried too. He majored in Spanish, and his English was extremely average. Even the best idea was useless if they couldn’t communicate.

A question suddenly popped into Zhan Yan’s mind, and he started poking the “Animal Communication” star in the Gossip System.

Hey, does communicating with a centaur fall under your scope of business?

The little star remained completely unresponsive.

Zhan Yan persistently kept poking it. A centaur is half animal! Besides, humans are a type of animal too. Why wouldn’t a centaur count as an animal? You can’t discriminate, right?!

“Animal Communication” didn’t budge an inch.

The Gossip System refreshed with a new slip:

[The Little Leopard Demon Ying Piao studied English painstakingly in order to communicate with the Druid Jules Grantham.]

Zhan Yan: Hmm?

He searched some more!

[The Little Leopard Demon Ying Piao brought the Druid Jules Grantham to the Cultivator Convention.]

So it’s introducing me to a translator!

But if he wasn’t wearing his secret identity, they wouldn’t recognize him. And if he put on his Approaching Science persona, they would probably just want to avoid him even more.

Furthermore, the little leopard demon and the druid had a complicated entanglement going on. Since the demon and human had agreed to come here together this time, they likely had their own plans and progress to make. Was it really appropriate for him to search the entire venue for them just to drag them over to be translators? Not really.

As Zhan Yan and Bao Qingshan strolled around pondering the issue, they noticed a slightly dark-skinned man profusely thanking Zhuo Shu, having seemingly been cured of some intractable disease.

Suddenly, a commotion broke out from outside.

A young man, deathly pale and thin, barged in, shouting as he strode quickly: “Han Shen! Han Shen! Where are you? Come out here right now!”

Hearing this voice, the slightly dark-skinned man in front of Zhuo Shu’s desk panicked. “Jiang Xin! Why did you leave the hospital?”

Jiang Xin rushed over. No one stopped him along the way; everyone just watched the spectacle with curiosity.

However, he looked to be in very poor health. Just from that short jog, his lips had turned a purplish hue, and he was panting heavily, clearly suffering from an illness.

Han Shen hurriedly ran over to support Jiang Xin. “Why did you run out of the hospital? Don’t you know you have a heart condition and can’t be running around?”

Jiang Xin’s eyes were red, brimming with tears. “I heard everything. You went and got a compatibility test for an organ transplant with me. Are you trying to make me kill you?! No! I will absolutely never use your heart!”

He glared at the people around them, caught between fear and fury: “All of you running this underground black clinic, let me tell you, this is all illegal! I’ve already called the police! I will never…”

Although the centaur Basil understood absolutely nothing, he curiously stepped out to watch the drama.

Spotting him, Jiang Xin’s voice pitched an octave higher: “…You guys are even doing illegal human experimentation?!!”

Basil’s hooves clattered against the floor. Seeing Jiang Xin glaring at him, he good-naturedly pointed at himself. “Me?”

Jiang Xin lost it completely. “Han Shen, how could you seek out a dark organization like this! Are you crazy? They’ve spliced a human and an animal together!!!”

Han Shen was frantic, hugging him tight to keep him from getting too agitated. “Listen to my explanation!”

“I won’t listen!” Jiang Xin struggled desperately. “I won’t listen! I know a normal medical institution would absolutely never agree to transplant your heart into me, but you can’t resort to a perverted organization like this either!!!”

He was far too agitated; failing to catch his breath, he fainted on the spot.

Fortunately, Granny Zhuo Shu was right next to them. With a few quick needle punctures, Jiang Xin’s lips lost their purple hue and his breathing returned to normal, though he remained unconscious.

Han Shen was thanking her, apologizing, and panicking all at once: “Why isn’t he waking up? Is there a problem?”

Zhuo Shu: “Oh, I saw he was too agitated, so I added two extra needles to let him sleep for a while.”

Bao Qingshan watched this play out, completely dumbfounded and having his horizons broadened.

“Hey, isn’t this exactly like those novels? A couple is deeply in love, one of them has a heart condition, and the other just happens to be a match. So, out of love, they hide the fact that they’re donating their heart? Maybe they leave a breakup letter or something to pretend they’re a scumbag, while the other party gets a successful transplant, refuses to believe the breakup letter, and waits bitterly for them forever after…”

Zhan Yan gave Bao Qingshan a very strange look. “Old Bao, just what kind of novels do you read in your free time?”

Bao Qingshan: Crap! My hobby of reading old-school melodramatic novels has been exposed!

However, the general situation wasn’t too far off. Han Shen did intend to transplant his own heart into Jiang Xin. However, their physical conditions weren’t naturally compatible. Han Shen had come to thank Zhuo Shu because she had helped adjust their conditions to make them a match.

The main reason for the current situation was that Han Shen hadn’t told Jiang Xin that he was actually a sea cucumber demon.

The sea cucumber: a species that, when encountering an enemy, expels its own internal organs to entangle the foe, using the opportunity to escape. The organs can regenerate, growing a complete new set within a few months.

Even Zhan Yan felt moved watching this. How many lives could be saved with this! Sadly, it was impossible; human and demon internal organs could never be a natural match. Han Shen was able to swap with Jiang Xin firstly because he had paid a massive price to invite Granny Zhuo Shu to alter both the human’s and the demon’s physical constitutions, and secondly because the two of them had formed a pact. It was only through the power of this supernatural contract that Han Shen’s demon heart could beat within Jiang Xin’s chest cavity.

What a deeply touching romance! It was just a pity the police would be arriving shortly.

Jiang Xin had been terrified that Han Shen was trading a life for a life. His earlier threat about “calling the police” wasn’t a bluff; he had actually done it.

To deal with the impending arrival of the police, the scene plunged into chaos.

After settling Jiang Xin down safely, Han Shen helped out while bowing and apologizing to everyone around.

Eating the gossip, Zhan Yan sighed to himself: So this just goes to show how inadvisable it is to date while wearing a secret identity!

Once the police arrived, they needed to see the filing documents and various permits for their event.

“They’re all here, they’re all here! We hold this event every year, our permits are perfectly in order!” The person in charge declared as he pulled open a drawer. It was empty.

Person in charge: “…”

Crap! During the chaos just now, who knows where someone stuffed them!

How am I supposed to find them now?

After searching frantically for ages without finding them, the police officers’ gazes grew increasingly suspicious, and the person in charge broke out into a cold sweat.

An old Daoist priest leaned in and whispered, “How about we do a divination calculation?”

The sharp-eared police officers immediately looked over. “Is this a religious event, or are you promoting feudal superstition?”

At that exact moment, a loud clattering sound came from nearby.

Everyone turned to look, only to see Zhan Yan pulling down a projector screen, from which several documents fluttered out—the event filing papers.

The person in charge was overjoyed. “Yes, yes, yes! These are our event filing papers!”

Police: “…”

After checking them, the documents were indeed genuine.

“Where is the safety liability agreement?”

With the Gossip System open, Zhan Yan found the safety liability agreement underneath the lecture podium. He also found the safety inspection department’s quality report wedged between some yellow talisman paper, and the safety supervisor’s ID card rolled up and stuffed into a floral wreath brought by some unknown ghost cultivator… Just who hid all this stuff?

In the midst of the chaos, who knows which senior expert had pulled this stunt. Using a ladder, Zhan Yan retrieved the venue rental agreement from the ceiling.

The police officers stared in shock as he pulled items out of every conceivable nook and cranny. “Is your event… a treasure hunt escape room?”

Turning their heads, they spotted the “Specializing in Intractable Diseases” cloth banner that hadn’t been put away yet, their eyes brimming with suspicion.

Zhan Yan: I can tell, this group genuinely has no idea what should be hidden and what shouldn’t.

“We’re playing cosplay!” Bao Qingshan dragged over two bizarrely dressed demons. “These are all props! It’s all 2D ACG culture!”

The police officers shifted their gaze to the several elderly folks with snow-white hair. “Elderly people are into 2D culture too?”

“Well, now that we’re retired, we need to have some hobbies, don’t we? Connecting with the youth keeps our mindset forever ahead of the curve!”

The police checked all the various documents and found no issues. They swept the scene again but found no suspicious black-market operating rooms or medical equipment. They did, however, turn up quite a few bizarre items, such as the banner that looked straight out of a street charlatan’s setup, a compass embedded with an abacus (who knows whose disciple owned that, and whether their founder would strike them with lightning for it), a string of garlic (supposedly brought by a vampire to prove the debate topic that they truly aren’t afraid of garlic), and a string of firecrackers.

The police confiscated the firecrackers; setting them off was banned in the city, not to mention it violated fire safety regulations.

After giving them the critical advice of “Keep your important documents properly stored, don’t just throw them anywhere!”, the police officers left the venue, taking with them a very peculiar impression of 2D ACG culture.

Han Shen gave Zhan Yan an incredibly grateful bow, while the person in charge warmly shook Zhan Yan’s hand and invited him to join the Cultivator Convention group chat. The convention’s start was basically announced through this group chat every year.

If Zhan Yan hadn’t helped find that pile of documents that had been hidden who-knows-where during the chaos, they would have been in major trouble today.

If everyone ended up being invited down to the station by the police halfway through the Cultivator Convention, what kind of joke would that be?

Zhan Yan: “You’re welcome, you’re welcome. Um, could you do me a favor?”

He was asking Han Shen. Zhan Yan had just found out through the Gossip System slips that Han Shen’s love for Jiang Xin was genuine. For the sake of his illness, Han Shen had even poured over various foreign cutting-edge medical papers and sent emails asking for advice—all of which was in English.

Zhan Yan wanted to ask him to help translate for the centaur.

With Han Shen’s help, the centaur Basil Gallagher successfully understood that Granny Zhuo Shu’s “Specializing in Intractable Diseases” couldn’t solve his problem; what he needed to find was a specialized shapeshifting method.

A couple of days ago, Zhan Yan had already met a senior expert well-versed in this area through Old Man Weng Yan and planned to introduce Basil to them.

Before making the introduction, he and Bao Qingshan asked Basil with deadpan seriousness: “Have you ever gotten an X-ray?”

“Do you understand your own anatomical structure?”

“Shapeshifting requires altering your own structure, so you must have a thorough understanding of your own body.”

“Do you know exactly where all your internal organs are located?”

“Have you ever had a more comprehensive physical examination? Like a CT scan, for instance?”

As Han Shen translated, he began to question his life choices.

Huh? You need an X-ray to shapeshift? And ideally a CT scan too? How come I didn’t know that?

Crap! Don’t tell me there are actually two perverts hiding here who want to perform human… no, demon… no, whatever, centaur body experiments?!