GRMFBS CH126

The old osmanthus tree ultimately couldn’t run away, mainly because he was too famous; making any move would land him in the news headlines. If he were to run away, “Nationally Protected Famous and Ancient Tree Mysteriously Disappears Overnight, Leaving Behind a Giant Tree Pit at the Scene” would immediately become a trending search.

And that poor old apricot demon, who was forced to have a head full of different varieties of apricot branches. Now that he had taken human form, at his advanced age, sporting a colorful, punk-style hairdo, one didn’t even need to mention how terrible he felt.

The Blue Bird was a naturally born divine bird; none of them plant demons could beat this great demon. If they really fought for the title of “King of Fruits” and ended up being targeted by the Blue Bird…

Everyone shivered.

In the plant demons’ small group chat, a group of great demons was making a ruckus.

Li Huodan: [It’s all Puyang Xia’s fault. If he hadn’t started it, we wouldn’t have been targeted by the Blue Bird.]

Puyang Xia: [What does it have to do with me? I was just selling grapes. You’re the one who jumped out and claimed to be the King of Fruits.]

Fluffy: [Alright, alright, stop arguing. The most important thing now is to fool the Blue Bird first.]

They were just a group of ordinary plant demons; none of them could beat the Blue Bird. What if she flew over, blocked their doors, and forced them to bear fruit? What would they do then?

Puyang Xia: [I think we need to find a way to set the nature of this matter first.]

Puyang Xia: [What we were arguing over was the title among ordinary fruits. It has nothing to do with the fruits we bear ourselves.]

Fluffy: [I think that works.]

Sugar Bun: [That’s a good idea.]

Playing the Pipa: [As long as we set the nature, even if the Blue Bird wants to eat them when the time comes, we can just give her ordinary fruits!]

Li Huodan: [The problem is how to set the nature.]

Puyang Xia: [What do you mean how? The grapes I sold from the very beginning were ordinary grapes.]

Puyang Xia: [@Li Huodan Could it be that you wanted to use the fruits you bore yourself to compete with me?]

Li Huodan suddenly realized. Puyang Xia was indeed cunning!

Puyang Xia: [Didn’t you promise to send someone lychees earlier? Hurry up and send the lychees in the group. As long as you say the lychees you’re sending are ordinary lychees, this matter will be settled.]

Li Huodan: …Puyang Xia was indeed insidious!

No one was speaking in the group right now. If he popped out, wouldn’t he stand out in front of the Blue Bird?

However, there was no other way. He was the only one who had mentioned sending lychees earlier, giving him an excuse now. The other demons in the group all agreed with this idea.

Li Huodan was forced to return to the main group, scroll up the chat history, and found the person who had bought Puyang Xia’s grapes.

A person with no taste!

Li Huodan: [@Melon Badger King Send me your address, I’ll send you two boxes of lychees to let you taste what truly delicious fruit is!]

Li Huodan: [Which one of Zijinhong, Bainuotang, or Yumixiang is worse than grapes?]

These were all famous lychee varieties, their flavors long tested by the market.

Blue Bird: [@Li Huodan Which variety of lychee do you like the most?]

The spirits of the several great fruit demons lifted. Didn’t this just steer the conversation back to ordinary fruits?

Li Huodan: [They’re all very delicious. Zijinhong is sweet and crisp, Bainuotang is fragrant and soft. Compared to them, Yumixiang’s taste is a bit on the sour side, but its aroma is invincible! It’s the best variety for juicing and making wine. As long as you can accept a sweet and sour taste, I recommend Yumixiang the most.]

Zhan Yan was very grateful for Li Huodan’s sentiment in gifting fruits, but…

Wasn’t Yumixiang famous for its wonderfully complex grape flavor? It was also because of this that lychee wine brewed from Yumixiang had a wine-like flavor, making it highly sought after.

Zhan Yan, possessing high emotional intelligence, didn’t say this out loud.

But the Blue Bird had no such scruples: [Yumixiang, huh? I think I’ve had it before. Isn’t that the grape-flavored lychee?]

The group fell into silence once again.

Li Huodan’s face turned green.

To be fair, Li Huodan recommending Yumixiang was truly out of impartiality.

The Blue Bird was a fruit enthusiast who had eaten all kinds of fruit. No texture would be surprising to her; instead, a peculiar flavor like Yumixiang’s should be able to attract her attention.

Li Huodan: [That’s a complex fruit aroma! It only has a tiny bit of grape flavor.]

Li Huodan: [Besides grape, it also has a peach flavor! And a berry flavor!]

Li Huodan: [It’s just a complex flavor that incidentally includes a tiny bit of grape.]

Li Huodan: [It’s a complex lychee fragrance!]

Wow, this state of a broken defense! Could it be that Li Huodan also had some sort of feelings for Puyang Xia?

Before he had time to search, Duan Hong returned with staple foods and side dishes bought from the cafeteria.

Various cold meats were laid out on Zhan Yan’s desk, thick with sauce color, interspersed with dark red dried chili peppers and milky white sesame seeds. The spicy aroma was pungent, making people salivate madly just from the smell.

“Come, come, pull your chairs over.”

Several people gathered around to sit. They had just started eating when their dorm door was suddenly pushed open.

“I came to bring you guys some strawberries… What are you eating that smells so good?”

Duan Hong: Oh no! The dorm door wasn’t locked.

The sports committee member came to deliver strawberries he brought from home to thank Zhan Yan for sharing his grapes with everyone, unexpectedly stumbling upon the scene of their dorm secretly sharing delicious food.

Since he stumbled upon it, they had to share some.

The sports committee member took a bite of the cold beef, his eyes widening: “You guys were secretly eating something this good?! Where did you buy it?!”

“My dad made it,” Zhan Yan said.

The sports committee member: “From now on, your dad is…”

Before he could finish, the dorm door was opened again: “Come, come, these are large cherries I brought from home. What are you eating? Let me have a bite?”

Bao Qingshan locked the door immediately after letting the person in.

“Why lock the door? Not letting me leave?” the classmate who delivered cherries joked.

After taking a bite: “You definitely need to lock the door.”

A few minutes later, there was another knock on the dorm door.

The classmate who came to deliver small biscuits lifted the door curtain, looking inside through the glass window on the door: “Why lock the door in broad daylight? What are you guys doing? Gathering for a mysterious ritual?”

…

Cold meat was a newly learned recipe for Zhan Yunkai. He didn’t know if the flavor could remain at its best if stored for a longer period after cooling. He first packed several boxes into Zhan Yan’s luggage and asked for his feedback after eating, so Zhan Yunkai could decide whether he could directly prepare it for his wife or if it still needed improvement.

That night, Zhan Yunkai called Zhan Yan, asking if he had eaten the cold meat he brought over, which flavor was the best, and how it differed from what he ate before.

As soon as the call connected, he heard a multi-layered, emotionally charged “Dad!”

Zhan Yunkai: ? Why were there several voices overlapping?

Zhan Yan: “Dad, these are all my classmates. They tasted the cold meat you made and strongly wish to be my little brothers.”

Zhan Yunkai knew Zhan Yan would share the food he brought to school with his dorm mates, but had it finally been exposed to his entire class this time?

The several classmates who called him Dad only felt a chilly coldness on their bodies.

Gu Jiancheng was faintly glaring at this group of idiots from behind.

I haven’t even been able to call him Dad yet!

Zhan Yunkai received a string of positive reviews and happily hung up the phone.

“Hiss, why does it feel a bit cold?” The sports committee member, who was the first to call out Dad, rubbed his arms.

“Are you not wearing enough? I feel a bit cold too.” The group of foodies didn’t notice Gu Jiancheng’s faint glare and continued to declare their foodie manifestos, “Please, let our Dad open a restaurant! I will definitely patronize it every day.”

“It’s such a waste of talent not to open a restaurant with such good skills!”

“This isn’t heavy luggage, this is our Dad’s heavy love!”

Duan Hong and Bao Qingshan also faintly glared at this group of idiots.

Wu wu wu, they had emptied out half the stash in Zhan Yan’s suitcase!

This group of idiots even pointed fingers at them: “You guys, eating so well behind our backs!”

“Spit it out! What other dishes made by our Dad have you eaten before?”

One could only say that the power of good food is infinite; a group of foodies stubbornly acknowledged their dad while enduring the cold aura of the big shot Deep Shadow.

Bao Qingshan was very dissatisfied: “Shoo, shoo! You guys are addicted to mooching. Mooching food and drinks is one thing, but you’re even mooching a dad. Is this something you can casually mooch?”

Gu Jiancheng was very satisfied with Old Bao’s performance.

Bao Qingshan: If they all acknowledged him as Dad, then following the seniority hierarchy, he’d gain a whole bunch of uncles!

The food-mooching classmates left a pile of snacks and fruits behind and left. Although they still coveted the stash in Zhan Yan’s suitcase, they were too embarrassed to eat it all in one go, right?

Duan Hong looked at the snacks on the table, feeling a deep heartache: “I feel like we took a loss!”

Dad Zhan’s skills couldn’t even be matched by a three-star Michelin restaurant!

Zhan Yan was currently writing feedback on the cold meat for his dad.

His group of classmates had never eaten food prepared by someone at his dad’s skill level before. They couldn’t pick out any flaws, they just thought it was delicious.

Just halfway through writing, someone sat down beside him.

Gu Jiancheng pressed against his ear: “When will I be able to call him Dad?”

Zhan Yan was distressed.

In the past, regarding meeting the parents, he only worried about not having told his family yet. But the situation was completely different now!

His dad, the Chongming Demon King, and his mom, Tianshi. And they belonged to two opposing organizations.

The Wan Yao Alliance and the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau had no fewer than a hundred major and minor conflicts every year. If his secret identity was exposed, what a huge uproar it would cause!

Their family’s current situation was really not suitable for meeting the parents.

“We’ll talk about it later?” Zhan Yan said distressedly.

Gu Jiancheng: Un! Hap! Py!

The unhappy big shot Deep Shadow decided to find some anomalies at night to vent his anger on.

His boyfriend was easily brushed off, and Zhan Yan couldn’t help but soften his heart again.

Gu Jiancheng obviously wasn’t someone who was easy to fool; he easily relented because he saw that Zhan Yan was truly in a difficult position.

To resolve this issue as early as possible, Zhan Yan decided to step up his efforts and continue working hard!

He needed to thread the needle to pull the relationship between the Wan Yao Alliance and the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau tighter, and he also had to quickly grind out a new little star for information concealment.

First, continue eating Puyang Xia’s gossip to find out why exactly he wanted to research lychee-flavored grapes. If there were no issues, he would recommend Mentong County’s big grapes to his mom’s company.

The matter originated 466 years ago.

[The grape demon Puyang Xia successfully passed his tribulation to take human form with the help of Teng Yuan’s merit and protection.]

Zhan Yan knew about the concept of taking human form tribulation. Except for half-demons, all demon cultivators had to pass a tribulation to take human form, and it was particularly difficult for plant demons to do so.

Puyang Xia had been an enlightened spirit for over eight hundred years, but he only took human form over four hundred years ago.

Demon cultivators faced many tribulations when taking human form. For those whose tribulations weren’t too severe, they could seek refuge with people who possessed merit, thus avoiding the tribulation.

The name Teng Yuan sounded a bit familiar to Zhan Yan, but he couldn’t recall where he had heard it at the moment. But there was no rush; he would leave this aside to search later.

[After successfully passing the tribulation to take human form, Puyang Xia transformed into a young man in purple clothes. He was extremely grateful to Teng Yuan, expressing his desire to repay the favor, and asked Teng Yuan what his wish was. Teng Yuan looked at Puyang Xia, who had transformed into a young man, very disappointed, and said, “What’s this, I thought it would be a beauty.”]

Zhan Yan: …Pfft.

[Puyang Xia had no intention of changing his gender just to repay a favor. He stated that he couldn’t fulfill this wish and asked Teng Yuan to choose another one. Teng Yuan said, “I want to eat lychees.” Puyang Xia said, “I’m a grape demon, I can’t bear lychees. How about I bear some grapes for you instead?” Teng Yuan said, “No, I just want to eat lychees. Grapes aren’t as delicious as lychees.”]