GRMFBS CH158

Zhan Yan opened the Gossip System and started searching to see what his brother had been doing recently.

Going to the bakery during the day, going home to feed Xingxing at night; going to the bakery during the day, not going home at night and booking a room at a hotel… alternating between the two.

The former Ghost King lord really was diligently living a life in the Yang realm to maintain his alias. Every night, before taking the Yin path to work, he would go book a hotel room.

Based on the principle of proximity, his choice was still the closest hotel. The large bathtub in the hotel was excellent, and they even provided various bath scents. Humans were truly ingenious; they even added roses, jasmine, and other things when taking a bath, along with bath bombs that bubbled and floated on the water’s surface.

Sometimes, when Zhan Jinli returned early, he liked to take a soak before heading home. Although the tub was relatively small and he couldn’t swim in it, it was cleaner than a public swimming pool. A simple cleansing spell made it ready to use, which Zhan Jinli was very satisfied with.

He was nearly done trying all the scents provided by the hotel and was preparing to suggest they develop a few more new ones.

Zhan Yan scrolled to a gossip thread complaining about his brother from the staff at the love hotel. They said the handsome guy who never spoke always came alone. At first, they thought he had a special fetish, but later, every time they cleaned the room, they found only the bathtub showed signs of use. It turned out he was treating their establishment as a private bathhouse!

The unsolved mystery of why his brother liked staying alone in love hotels was solved!

So he actually just felt the bathtub at home wasn’t big enough?

Zhan Yan decided to find time to discuss with their parents about changing the bathroom at home to accommodate a large bathtub.

The fight in the group chat was still ongoing, but Zhan Yan couldn’t help his brother prove he didn’t go night fishing. After all, finding evidence to prove his brother went to a love hotel seemed even more explosive.

Ji Yueming: “Jinli, it’s fine to like fishing, but let’s not go out fishing at night. You haven’t fished before, and night fishing in the wilderness is very dangerous. The wild environment might not be safe either. If you want to fish, wait until your rest days and go to an established fishery during the day. Furthermore, staying up late at night is bad for your health. Let’s maintain a normal routine. Fishing during the day is perfectly fine too.”

Zhan Yunkai: “Your mom is right.”

Zhan Jinli: …He really didn’t go night fishing. He was a fish in his past life, why would he want to fish in this one?

Zhan Jinli started privately messaging his sister.

Zhan Jinli: “You want the half block of fish bait I have?”

Zhan Jinli: “It’s gone.”

Zhan Jinli: “I threw it in the water to feed the fish.”

Zhan Suiru: “You used up that half block of fish bait and didn’t catch a single fish?”

Zhan Suiru: “[Sympathetic Hug]”

Zhan Jinli: …

Zhan Suiru was relatively relieved. Regardless of whether her brother used it up or threw it away, it was consumed and he didn’t catch any fish, so the suspicious item was considered disposed of.

Seeing her brother hadn’t replied for a long time, she guessed he was angry. Zhan Suiru decided to give the fish bait she made to her brother. Since she made it anyway, it would definitely work better than ordinary fish bait.

Unable to deal with his sister, Zhan Jinli decided to temporarily ignore this sister who only knew how to make him angry.

He started investigating along the clues of the butterfly bush, tracing it to a place called Zifeng Valley.

The deeper he investigated, the more Zhan Jinli felt that Infinite was intentionally targeting him.

Zhan Jinli was very puzzled. He didn’t think he was particularly conspicuous twenty-six years ago. Among the humans, cultivators like Tianshi and Ning Xi, and among the demon race, the few great demons renowned for their combat power—which of them hadn’t caused greater damage to Infinite than him?

Zhan Jinli believed his abilities weren’t combat-oriented and could only be considered support. For Infinite to remain fixated on him even in its dead ashes state waiting to reignite was truly strange.

Gu Jiancheng was investigating along the clues of the Soul-Drunkening Fragrance.

Yan Yan had returned to school, and he was too lazy to continue clearing anomalies, preparing to head straight for Zifeng Valley—the location interrogated out of Zhuo Xun—to begin his investigation.

He used a shadow avatar to investigate the actual location while letting the Magician use her bizarre methods to investigate Infinite’s goal for this experiment. The Magician used a hat that constantly popped out rabbits to deduce the target.

The rabbits gnawed the shape of a fish into cabbage leaves, along with some other incomprehensible shredded cabbage pieces. Much like a witch interpreting tea leaves or coffee grounds, the Magician interpreted “Ghost King Lin Yuan” from those shredded cabbage leaves.

Gu Jiancheng couldn’t understand her shredded cabbage leaves, but the Magician’s divination was trustworthy.

But what did Ghost King Lin Yuan have to do with fish?

Wan Shitong stated he knew. Ghost King Lin Yuan’s ghost body was a fish, and before becoming a ghost, he was probably a fish as well.

After figuring out the Magician’s divination result, Gu Jiancheng was still confused. Why would Infinite target Ghost King Lin Yuan? Twenty-six years ago, he hadn’t seen Ghost King Lin Yuan display any outstanding performance.

The retired alliance leader Zhuo Xun had something to say: “Big shot, you only joined the battle in the late stages, so you aren’t very clear on the early situation.”

This was true. In the early stages of the battle, Gu Jiancheng was trapped on Infinite’s Supreme Balance and didn’t have the energy to pay attention to these things.

He had seen Infinite capture small worlds many times, thinking this was just another ordinary hunt. And he had seen enough of those struggles and resistance that always ended in decline and ruin.

It wasn’t until a large bird with double pupils and colorful feathers forcibly charged into Infinite, its piercing cry shattering the signals Infinite used to issue tasks and rewards to its players.

Although Infinite’s signals re-entangled them after that cry faded, every lucid player realized a difference.

Through countless terrifying instances, Infinite had accumulated into heavy, dark clouds. They saw those clouds forming a wall. Unable to escape or resist, they could only struggle to survive in this nightmare-like world, waiting for the terrifying death that would descend at an unknown time.

The Chongming Bird’s cry was like sunlight tearing through the dark clouds. The players, long accustomed to despair, suddenly found hope. It turned out that Infinite’s power wasn’t invincible.

Resist, struggle, and escape this endless hellish nightmare!

From that moment on, Gu Jiancheng began to re-evaluate the world Infinite had its eyes on this time.

This world wasn’t a small world that Infinite could easily capture like in the past; it possessed rules that Infinite coveted.

Infinite wanted to devour this world to perfect itself, and Gu Jiancheng sensed its greed.

During the battle, he saw many living beings that left a deep impression on him: the Candle Dragon coiled around the world, the Chongming Demon King who let out that cry, Tianshi who transformed into lightning, Ning Xi who integrated divination into the mandate of destiny…

Gu Jiancheng saw them, so he dragged Infinite onto the gambling table.

But he had no impression of Ghost King Lin Yuan. Had this guy done something to leave a deep impression on Infinite?

Zhuo Xun introduced the early situation of the battle to him.

Infinite was a world deeply versed in human nature and conspiracy. Compared to frontal assaults, it preferred using cunning methods. By the time a targeted world realized it was an enemy, it was often too late. Before invading this world, Infinite had done the same thing.

There was a special type of task within Infinite called “Harvest” tasks. The difficulty of the tasks varied, the requirements for accepting them were relatively high, but the task rewards were also extremely abundant.

Players who accepted Harvest tasks needed to enter unfamiliar worlds to carry out a series of tasks including disguise, intelligence gathering, and setting up traps.

Infinite went through the exact same process this time as well.

“The Harvesters who entered this world were discovered in less than a month.” As Zhuo Xun spoke, he grew excited and slapped his thigh at Deep Shadow. “Guess what happened?”

Gu Jiancheng looked at him coldly.

Zhuo Xun: …Alright, the big shot Deep Shadow wasn’t going to humor him.

He would just continue the story himself.

“In the beginning, he filmed a short drama to earn some wages. As a result, that short drama luckily blew up in popularity, and he became an overnight sensation. After becoming famous, he started getting fans. One of those fans had learned a bit of fortune-telling and started doing a reading on her idol, only for the result to say this person was already long dead.

“This fan then took the result to ask her master.

“Her master was Ning Xi.”

Gu Jiancheng: …What kind of luck is this?

Zhuo Xun: “Ning Xi wasn’t crippled back then. Relying on the Great Derivation Numbers, she single-handedly rooted out all the Harvesters Infinite had scattered in. Left with no other choice, Infinite had to directly confront this world. Otherwise, according to its habits, when facing a large world on par with itself, it definitely would have played all its dirty tricks before starting a war.”

Gu Jiancheng: “Being discovered didn’t stop it from playing dirty tricks.”

Zhuo Xun: “Exactly! After being discovered, it didn’t launch a frontal assault right away. The two worlds hadn’t connected yet at that time. Infinite started instigating internal conflicts within this world, which it was highly proficient at.

“One time, it instigated a cultivator to destroy demon eggs, trying to provoke a conflict between cultivators and demons. This cultivator almost miraculously completed the hardest step—infiltrating the nest where the demon race incubated their eggs without being discovered.

“But the demon guarding the eggs felt bored and was scrolling through funny videos on their phone. The cultivator couldn’t hold back a laugh and was discovered.”

Gu Jiancheng: ???

Zhuo Xun: “There are way too many incidents like this. Later, when the war first started, it was the same. Everything would start off incredibly smoothly, but just as they were about to succeed, something bizarre would abruptly derail it. Despite a belly full of schemes and plots, Infinite was ultimately dragged into a head-on confrontation.

“It was only later discovered that Ghost King Lin Yuan was behind it. This guy has a divine ability called ‘Fortune and Misfortune Are Interdependent’.

“Ghost King Lin Yuan resides in Mount Chaofu, the boundary between Yin and Yang of this world, and the traits of his divine ability had already tainted this world’s barrier. Infinite, unaware in the beginning, suffered a huge loss.”

Gu Jiancheng: “But this level isn’t enough to make Infinite obsess over it.”

Luck was a relatively rare ability, but it wasn’t non-existent in Infinite. Furthermore, the limitations of this kind of ability were extremely strong. The rules of the two worlds were different, so Ghost King Lin Yuan’s luck divine ability couldn’t possibly affect Infinite. Whether it was the unlucky Harvesters from before or the instigated cultivators, they were affected by Ghost King Lin Yuan’s divine ability because they were inherently situated within this world.

“Sigh.” Zhuo Xun lamented, “Later, I don’t know what spell Ning Xi cast, but she connected the destinies of the two worlds together. The points of connection weren’t many, but it was enough for Ghost King Lin Yuan to utilize.

“It was only then that Infinite discovered Ghost King Lin Yuan was hiding a massive trick.

“Fortune and Misfortune Are Interdependent, who said the interdependent ‘fortune’ and ‘misfortune’ had to land on the same person?”

Gu Jiancheng understood.

Zhuo Xun was very excited: “Infinite had terrible luck during that period. Later, it felt something was wrong and investigated vigorously for a long time before discovering that Ghost King Lin Yuan used that divine ability to grant this world fortune, while all the consequent misfortune was transferred entirely onto Infinite.”

This ability… Gu Jiancheng drew a sharp breath in his heart. No wonder Infinite was still obsessed with Ghost King Lin Yuan even when reduced to dead ashes.

He wasn’t afraid of fighting those combat types, but an intangible and untouchable ability like luck was truly disgusting.

He would try to stay as far away from Ghost King Lin Yuan as possible in the future.