GRMFBS CH141

Zhan Yan watched helplessly through the gossip-eating system as Ning Xi’s train of thought went completely off the rails.

He was puffed up with anger like a river puffer!

But getting angry was useless. If he dared to hint any more clearly and Ning Xi figured out his intention, it would surely lead to a whole new pile of trouble.

Zhan Yan closed the forum. He worried through class, and as he worried, he suddenly felt something was off.

Gu Jiancheng was so quiet today.

Zhan Yan turned his head to look at his boyfriend.

Sunlight cast a shadow on Gu Jiancheng’s profile, softening the strong lines of his jaw. His dark eyes were fixed on the projection screen, his eyelashes casting a small shadow on his lower eyelids. A notebook lay open on the desk, but Gu Jiancheng’s right hand was busy doing fancy pen spinning tricks. The pen seemed glued to his hand, twirling dazzlingly between his fingers without ever falling.

Zhan Yan initially just wanted to see what he was doing, but he found himself captivated.

Good heavens, how are his hands even real! I want to learn that!

After being stared at with a burning gaze by Zhan Yan for a long time, Gu Jiancheng finally snapped out of it. His right hand stopped moving, and the pen, which had been flipping to its apex, suddenly lost its guiding force and jumped out of his palm. Gu Jiancheng flipped his right hand, and the falling end of the pen landed between his fingers. It was caught by two slender fingers, given a flick, and spun around again, landing perfectly in the webbing between his thumb and index finger in a normal pen-holding posture.

Gu Jiancheng followed the gaze and turned to Zhan Yan. Seeing him looking at his right hand, he finally remembered what he had just been doing.

“When did you learn that trick?” Zhan Yan whispered.

“I was a cringey middle schooler and thought spinning a pen like this was cool, so I practiced it specially,” Gu Jiancheng also whispered back.

Zhan Yan felt like he was currently in his own cringey phase.

“What were you thinking about just now?”

Gu Jiancheng had been thinking that the Retiree Alliance’s retirement was probably for life. They were so useless now!

After sensing the Gravity Tide from the approaching post-apocalyptic world last night, Gu Jiancheng had hurriedly left the school to investigate the situation. The one currently on campus was a shadow clone he had created. He went to the Retiree Alliance to confirm which world was approaching.

Normally, a repulsive force exists between the barriers of different worlds, preventing them from colliding. Only when the distance between two worlds breaks a certain threshold does the repulsive force turn into an attractive one, creating a Gravity Tide. Therefore, without external force, it’s normally impossible for two worlds to break the gravitational boundary on their own.

This world hadn’t actively captured other worlds, nor had it encountered a second Infinity crisis. There was no external force, yet the consequence of two worlds breaking the gravitational boundary had occurred. This reminded Gu Jiancheng of an experience he had long ago in Infinity.

A repulsive force exists between world barriers, but what if one of the worlds has no barrier?

The repulsive force wouldn’t be generated. The world without a barrier would drift randomly, gradually getting closer, and eventually break the gravitational boundary. Gu Jiancheng had encountered this situation before. If a world lost its barrier, even if it wasn’t dead yet, it wouldn’t be far from complete demise.

Twenty-six years ago, Infinity was shattered, and countless instance worlds it controlled were freed. Gu Jiancheng suspected that the approaching world was one of them. He went to the Retiree Alliance to see if any of these players could confirm which world it was.

Upon his arrival, this group of retired players, who often used him as a shield, first panicked. After realizing he wasn’t there to cause trouble, they treated him with extreme caution, their words and actions practically begging him to leave quickly. They had a “we often say we’re connected to you as a shield and a talisman, but you’d better not actually be connected to us” attitude.

Gu Jiancheng couldn’t be bothered with them and directly asked their leader if he had any clue about the world that caused the Gravity Tide.

The leader of the Retiree Alliance was aghast. “What?! A Gravity Tide happened yesterday?!!”

Gu Jiancheng: …

The gaze of the mighty Deep Shadow was very oppressive.

The retiree leader immediately sprang into action. “Please wait, I’ll contact the others. Maybe they know.”

Then Gu Jiancheng received a series of aghast reactions.

Gu Jiancheng: …

These people were well-known figures in Infinity. They couldn’t be messing with him, right?

Sensing the danger in the mighty Deep Shadow’s eyes, the group began to explain. Most of the abilities they brought back from Infinity were sealed, and some troublesome ones were even disabled. Infinity was not a charity; it wasn’t even a fair trader. The abilities players exchanged for with points earned by risking their lives often came with a price. The more powerful the ability, the more severe the side effects tended to be.

After escaping Infinity, although they gained freedom, they also lost the ability to use points to redeem reductions for the side effects. Life in this world was too peaceful. After passing the initial period of unease, they began to seal these abilities. Some of the more dangerous ones were simply disabled, retaining only those they could control. This resulted in almost all of their strengths dropping by a level.

“Sir, we’re not like you, with the willpower to endure it,” the retiree leader said in a low voice.

They looked at Deep Shadow with a mixture of reverence and admiration. No one was willing to give up their abilities; they were all losers in this torturous tug-of-war. But Deep Shadow had endured.

Gu Jiancheng was slightly distracted by their gazes. Did he not seal or disable his abilities because he didn’t want to? It was because he couldn’t!

The Sea of Shadows was already too deeply entangled with him. Disabling it was equivalent to suicide. The Sea of Shadows was also too powerful to be sealed at all.

However, this didn’t stop the mighty Deep Shadow from accepting all their admiration. Being able to find a boyfriend was a testament to his skill!

Gu Jiancheng’s gaze became imperious again.

As the group was chatting in the retiree leader’s office, a person suddenly pushed the door open in a panic. “Brother Zhuo, it’s bad! The Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau s… who’s this?”

The retiree leader, Zhuo Xun, saw the deep disdain in the mighty Deep Shadow’s eyes. …No, it’s not like he wanted to be a leader whose office could be barged into by anyone at any time! But everyone was retired, so why bother with class divisions. The leader was just the one who did the work.

Seeing that the mighty Deep Shadow had no intention of introducing himself, Leader Zhuo cleared his throat. “What is it?”

Zong Xiaoping glanced at Gu Jiancheng several times. He couldn’t see his face, which was obscured by some ability, but this person was definitely not a member of the alliance. He felt embarrassed to speak of shameful matters in front of an outsider.

Gu Jiancheng gave a cold glance back. Zong Xiaoping shivered and immediately began to report, “People from the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau are here looking for Deep Shadow.”

A series of coughs erupted in the room.

Leader Zhuo was aghast. “Why would they come here to find Senior Deep Shadow? Haven’t they always known we have nothing to do with Senior Deep Shadow?” Don’t misunderstand, mighty Deep Shadow! Please don’t misunderstand! We didn’t call the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau! We really, really didn’t sell you out!

Zong Xiaoping looked at his leader strangely. When did they start calling him “Senior Deep Shadow”? Didn’t they used to just call him “Deep Shadow”? Also, although the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau pretty much knew that their Retiree Alliance’s claim of being associated with Deep Shadow was just for show, it was something they should just be aware of themselves. Why say it out loud?

The other few were also anxious. “Tell us, tell us what happened.”

Zong Xiaoping began to recount in a daze.

The one who came to the Retiree Alliance was Heilang, the Black Wolf. A mission of this level didn’t originally require someone of Heilang’s strength, but he had requested it himself.

He had heard that the last time the Heavenly Master came here to discuss cooperation, he had also nabbed a wanted criminal on the side. What was that criminal’s name? Heilang couldn’t remember clearly, seemed like a guy who researched cold-resistant mosquitoes and cockroaches. But that wasn’t important. What was important was that they had fought with the Heavenly Master.

The Retiree Alliance, as a joint self-protection organization, was quite reliable at critical moments. To protect their own members, they had really tried to stop the Heavenly Master.

Knowing this, Heilang got excited! He had repeatedly fought and lost against the Heavenly Master, but lost and fought again. He was interested in any opponent who could measure the Heavenly Master’s strength!

Heilang had long wanted to test the mettle of this group, but the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau and the Retiree Alliance needed to maintain a relatively friendly relationship. Catching a wanted criminal was one thing, but looking for a fight for no reason was another. Heilang could only endure it for now.

After the Gravity Tide occurred, the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau was able to determine that the approaching world was the post-apocalyptic world because they had studied fragments of it before. They believed they needed to gather as much information as possible about the post-apocalyptic world, so they had to collect information from multiple sources. Naturally, they couldn’t let go of this group of players who might have been to the post-apocalyptic instance. But this group of people from the Retiree Alliance were truly retired, and they all had some lingering mental issues from Infinity. The Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau always had a hard time communicating with them.

Coincidentally, the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau also wanted to find Deep Shadow, so they simply used “finding Deep Shadow” as an excuse. They never expected to find Deep Shadow; they mainly wanted to use this to squeeze a few more truths out of the people from the Retiree Alliance.

Heilang had endured for several months and finally encountered this mission. He immediately snatched it up. Communication? He was best at communication. There was nothing that couldn’t be solved with a fight!

And so, Heilang, who had come looking for a fight, began to stir up trouble. “I hear you’re harboring a wanted criminal here.”

“No? What do you mean no? Didn’t you say Deep Shadow has a close relationship with you? He’s a tri-laterally wanted criminal who’s been on the run for over twenty years!”

Zong Xiaoping, who was being interrogated, was on the verge of tears. No, didn’t we always have a tacit understanding? You know there’s a high probability we have no connection to Deep Shadow, but there’s also a slim chance we do, so you maintain a certain level of decorum when dealing with us. We know that you know we have no connection to Deep Shadow, but we still have to use his name as a shield for our own protection, and anyway, you’d never actually come here to arrest Deep Shadow. What a beautiful tacit understanding!

“What exactly do you want?” Zong Xiaoping adopted a conciliatory attitude. “Whatever you want, if we can do it, we’ll do it. Can we just not look into Deep Shadow, please?”

If it had been any other agent from the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau s, they could have moved on to the friendly exchange process. However, it was Heilang. He just wanted to fight first. Wouldn’t communication be easier after a good fight?

So he leaned back on the sofa, impervious to persuasion, crossed his legs, draped his arm over the back of the chair, and with a curl of his lips, said with savage wildness, “I want to catch Deep Shadow. If you don’t hand him over, why don’t we have a go at it?”

In Leader Zhuo’s office, Gu Jiancheng had listened to the whole story and pretty much figured out what was going on. Heilang. He had run into him before when he was clearing out abnormalities and almost beat him up.

Gu Jiancheng looked at these “retirees” who kept sneaking glances at him and sneered. “Lead the way.”

Zong Xiaoping: “Huh?” Who is this person? Why is he giving orders in the leader’s office?

Seeing that the kid still wasn’t moving, Leader Zhuo gave him a light kick. “Hurry up and go!”

Zong Xiaoping began to lead the way, completely bewildered.

In the reception room, Heilang, who had been left to be entertained by others, was still looking for trouble. “Why can’t Deep Shadow be wanted? Don’t you know what he’s done? He previously…”

Gu Jiancheng pushed the door open. “Continue. What did I do?”

Heilang shot up from the sofa like a spring.

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