GRMFBS CH145

Zhan Jinli pondered finding someone to dump this little trouble onto.

He definitely couldn’t call his parents back, and his younger brother was in school so that wouldn’t work, so he’d look for his younger sister!

His younger sister had too many work orders and was too busy, leading her to live in her studio instead of coming home every day. This was simple!

Zhan Jinli immediately withdrew his blessing for a flourishing career.

On the other side, after Zhan Yan helped his mom argue and win against Xiang Liu, he continued to use the Gossip System to search for the situation on the Wan Yao Alliance’s side, attempting to find a breakthrough point.

His dad had just flown back to Qixia Mountain from Shennongjia and hadn’t checked the family group chat.

Zhan Yunkai returned to Qixia Mountain and first listened to the Black-Necked Crane demon, Gong Yun, report on recent affairs.

Gong Yun managed Qixia Mountain very well, and there was nothing that required his extra attention.

Having received praise, Gong Yun, draped in a starkly black-and-white cloak, lifted his chin very reservedly.

Apart from these affairs, the rest were requests from minor demons to His Majesty the Demon King. His Majesty Chongming was both majestic and benevolent, often interacting with the younger generation.

Gong Yun: “That little parrot who was hiding from Xiang Liu wants to invite you to join her research project.”

When Wu Ying first entered Qixia Mountain, it was to hide from Xiang Liu. After entering Qixia Mountain, she came up with a new idea: it would be great if she could pull the Chongming Demon King in to research together!

Putting aside the issue of it being easier to enjoy the shade while leaning against a big tree, just looking at this research project, there was a difficulty: how to determine whether an unenlightened living being possessed the aptitude to become a demon.

If a living being couldn’t become a demon, then improving the variety no matter how much was meaningless.

Wu Ying originally wanted to use magical artifacts ordered from the Artisan to assist in judgment. But the Chongming Demon King was born with double-pupil divine eyes; wouldn’t his judgment be more accurate than an artifact?

Wu Ying gathered her courage and presented her idea to His Majesty the Demon King.

Zhan Yunkai listened patiently to her thoughts and said: “There is no need to research this topic.”

Wu Ying: “Ga?”

Zhan Yunkai: “On the path of cultivation, innate physical disparities can be smoothed out. The further along one goes, the smaller this disparity becomes, until it is ultimately meaningless.”

Wu Ying couldn’t quite understand. She was an enlightened parrot who had awakened a trace of Luan bird bloodline due to atavism, while His Majesty Chongming was an enlightened naturally-born divine bird. The disparity between them was so immense that Wu Ying couldn’t even imagine how to close this gap, so how could it be smoothed out?

Zhan Yunkai spread his wings, his feathers brushing past Wu Ying’s forehead.

She felt a peaceful breeze ruffle her feathers, tickling every single feather root, making her involuntarily shake her feathers. Wu Ying lifted her head, involuntarily letting out a chirp from her throat.

A vibrant breath of spring was born from this chirp. As the chirp brushed past the treetops, the branches burst with new leaves; as the chirp swept across the ground, green shoots sprouted from the earth.

The Luan bird is the messenger of spring.

“You have the bloodline of a Luan bird,” Zhan Yunkai said, “I am Chongming, your innate aptitude is inferior to mine.

“Tianshi is an ordinary human without any bloodline. Her innate aptitude is inferior to yours.

“But if we were to fight, I might not be able to defeat Tianshi.”

Wu Ying’s eyes went wide, her beak opening and closing several times as she stammered: “W-w-why is that?”

Zhan Yunkai spoke very trendily: “You play online games or mobile games, right?”

Wu Ying was slightly nervous: “I do play, but I don’t play very well.”

Zhan Yunkai: “Let’s put it this way. Suppose Tianshi and I both have a mana value of ten thousand. I can output eight thousand, but Tianshi can do burst output of ten thousand.”

Just like an ordinary person couldn’t possibly exhaust all their stamina on strength at once. A person transporting 30 jin of things at a time could transport 300 jin of things after ten consecutive trips, but they couldn’t carry 300 jin of things all at once.

The mana of cultivators was the same. Having ten thousand mana didn’t mean they could burst out ten thousand mana all at once.

Tianshi… if she wanted to, she could even burst out twelve thousand, thirteen thousand, or fourteen thousand. But after drawing upon the power of heaven and earth so fiercely, whether Tianshi would still exist in this world was uncertain.

Twenty-six years ago, Zhan Yunkai had seen that earth-shattering lightning once, and witnessed a miracle that reversed the desperate situation and took lightning as its body.

The divine bird with double pupils explained patiently: “Therefore, innate aptitude is a thing not worth researching.

“If one’s physical body isn’t strong, must they re-enter reincarnation until they get a satisfactory body before starting cultivation?

“Ghost cultivators have no physical body. Lin Yuan and Wan Yan were demons in life and turned into ghost cultivators after death. Where does their innate aptitude come from?

“Look at the cultivators who have reached our level. Are there really more existences with high innate aptitude than those with low innate aptitude?”

Wu Ying thought about it, and it was actually true! Among this group of big shots, the ratio of those with high innate aptitude and low innate aptitude was about half and half.

“I have looked at all on this path with my double pupils. I see not the superiority or inferiority of the physical body, but only the brilliance of the soul.” Zhan Yunkai patted her, “Do not go astray.”

Wu Ying figured it out and hurriedly went to contact the Artisan.

Call Me Wu Yingjun: [Are you there, are you there?]

Call Me Wu Yingjun: [Extremely urgent!]

Call Me Wu Yingjun: [Have you started making the order I gave you before?]

Zhan Suiru was currently in her studio, being forced into endless involuting by her own butler.

Puppet butler: “You have a new message notification.”

Zhan Suiru sighed painfully: “Another new order?”

She opened her DMs, saw Wu Ying’s message, and thought she was there to rush the order.

Zhan Suiru typed a cute request in the chat box, asking to submit the work a bit later. Wu Ying’s order was currently still stuck at the design draft stage.

She wasn’t procrastinating. It was just that the instruments Wu Ying ordered were almost all unique ones with special functions, and the requirements were numerous and specific, so Zhan Suiru had to design them from scratch.

She didn’t have much inspiration in this area; she had to draw, modify, and make prototypes to test. Zhan Suiru often got stuck painfully.

Whenever this happened, the puppet butler would considerately suggest she do something else to change her mind and rest, like the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau’s orders. When she got tired of the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau’s orders, she would switch to Ghost King Tie Lao’s orders to change her mind.

Possessing the talent of a true capitalist.

Zhan Suiru alternated between several different orders. While Wu Ying’s order was still being modified and edited, she had actually finished Ghost King Tie Lao’s order first. She couldn’t help it; she was a skilled worker at making puppets.

Before that cute request was even sent out, Wu Ying’s new message arrived:

Call Me Wu Yingjun: [If you haven’t started, then there’s no need to make it.]

Call Me Wu Yingjun: [I’m not doing that research project anymore, so these instruments won’t be needed. I have to cancel the order.]

Call Me Wu Yingjun: [If you’ve already made some, just finish those normally; I can use them in the future. I’ll pay for these normally.]

Call Me Wu Yingjun: [No need to refund the deposit, consider it my compensation.]

Zhan Suiru was attracted by the words “cancel the order” and was overjoyed.

Oh yeah, finally no need to rush work and do overtime!

Zhan Suiru happily canceled the order, her voice floating as she spoke to Xiao Ran: “Change your schedule for me. Change all the time allocated to this order into rest time!”

Puppet butler: “You haven’t gone home for five consecutive days. I suggest you go home and rest.”

Go home? Go back to what home? Everyone else at home is out, leaving only her older brother, that massive socialophobe who refuses to speak a single word and insists on typing.

Zhan Suiru clicked her tongue and tapped Xiao Ran’s chest: “Are you not uncomfortable anymore?”

The puppet butler was stumped by this question and raised his hand to touch his chest.

Zhan Suiru looked at him. Within Xiao Ran’s pupils, the gears turned hesitantly.

What is a soul? Where does it exist?

The rules of the doomsday world were different from this world. There were no cultivators there, nor had anyone seen ghosts. No one had researched souls.

But in this world, Zhan Suiru had come into contact with some cultivation methods through her identity as the Artisan.

This world had no mental-type superpowered individuals, yet what cultivators called “spiritual consciousness” was incredibly similar to her mental-type ability.

Cultivators said spiritual consciousness originated from the soul, so did her spiritual energy also originate from the soul? Did the supernatural core supporting the operation of her mental-type ability contain her soul?

But Zhan Suiru couldn’t confirm this. Her supernatural core was destroyed along with the doomsday world. After she recovered her memories in this world, she found that Yang Ran’s supernatural core was operating within her body.

Later, she took out this supernatural core that was on the verge of shattering and created the puppet butler’s shell for it.

If her soul survived because it was riding on Yang Ran’s supernatural core, then why was she able to take Yang Ran’s supernatural core out? Was it because she had already been assimilated by the rules of this world, and her soul no longer needed to reside in a supernatural core?

If a supernatural core was the dwelling place of a superpowered individual’s soul, could Yang Ran’s soul still be residing inside this core?

She needed to research souls.

Research… resurrection.

Zhan Suiru withdrew her fingertips, smiling as if nothing was wrong: “The key ring Approaching Science promised me still hasn’t been delivered.”

Without the order, she also had many things to busy herself with.

On the other side, after Zhan Jinli withdrew his blessing for his sister’s career, he began to wait. He waited for one day, two days, three days, but Zhan Suiru still didn’t come home.

Zhan Jinli decided to tell on her!

In the family group chat, Zhan Jinli began to show concern about Zhan Suiru’s work issues.

His sister, a young woman, was living in her studio every day, and the environment there wasn’t as good as at home. As her older brother, he was very worried!

Zhan Suiru was caught completely off guard.

Both she and Zhan Jinli had their own private lives, and after the siblings became adults, they tacitly covered for each other in front of their parents. Being suddenly backstabbed by her own older brother this time, Zhan Suiru was flustered under her parents’ concern.

Ji Yueming:

[Who is rushing their order so urgently that they’re making someone work overnight?]

[If it comes to it, we’ll just refund him!]

[Is the studio short on money recently? Mom will send you some money, we don’t have to suffer that kind of anger!]

Zhan Suiru:

[I’m not short on money, and I haven’t been working overnight. I get my beauty sleep every single night.]

[I sleep for nine hours a day!]

Zhan Yan was flipping through the gossip threads. This was true. His sister followed a salted-fish lying-flat lifestyle, getting her beauty sleep every day without fail. And she wasn’t short on money either; she had even sent him a large sum of money previously.

Zhan Yunkai:

[Did Director Ji Lele give you an order that’s hard to refuse over there?]

[If there is, you have to tell Dad, Dad will just go talk to him. It’s very easy to resolve, don’t be afraid.]

Zhan Suiru:

[Director Ji’s order has been finished for a long time, I’m really not that busy.]

Zhan Yan continued to flip through the gossip threads. This was also true. Director Ji considered Zhan Suiru’s sculptures to be his muse of inspiration; he held a lofty and beautiful expectation for art, willing to patiently wait for a sculptor’s flash of inspiration. His attitude towards Zhan Suiru was very friendly, and he didn’t set deadlines.

However, neither her dad nor her mom believed it.

Ji Yueming was worried her daughter was too embarrassed to say she was short on money, while Zhan Yunkai was worried his daughter felt that he, a C-list actor, couldn’t resolve the trouble caused by a big director. Both of them were afraid Zhan Suiru wasn’t telling the truth and repeatedly tried to persuade her for a long time.

Zhan Suiru: [I’m really not busy to that extent!]

Zhan Jinli: [Then come home to sleep at night.]

Zhan Suiru: …

What was wrong with Zhan Jinli today?

Zhan Suiru rolled up her sleeves, ready to fight her brother.