GRMFBS CH168

The infuriated Wanyan Cat bolted off to go pick fights with anomalies.

Both the big geese and Gu Jiancheng were overjoyed.

Gu Jiancheng had originally been planning to secretly beat the cat using his Deep Shadow vest and drive Wanyan Ghost King out of the school, but he hadn’t expected him to leave on his own.

Excellent. Gu Jiancheng happily went back to clinging to his boyfriend.

And then, Gu Jiancheng received the Ghost King Seal that Zhan Yan gave him.

The Ghost King Seal was a little cat paw print pressed into a stone. Zhan Yan had found someone to polish the stone down to a suitable size, then bought a small crochet mesh pouch to hold the stone and made it into a pendant, which he shoved into Gu Jiancheng’s hands.

Gu Jiancheng: …

He thought of the cat paw print hidden under the school’s pet neutering surgery table.

How did Yan Yan get his hands on something like this?

“Yan Yan, this cat-paw stone is really special. Where did you find it?” Gu Jiancheng asked gently.

Relying on the fact that his boyfriend was an ordinary human, Zhan Yan began to bluff: “The wishing cat gave it to me. Maybe because it thinks the cat food I make is tasty?”

Gu Jiancheng believed him.

With how crazy that Wanyan nutcase was, it wasn’t impossible he’d do something like that—leaving a Ghost King Seal to protect the chef he valued.

Gu Jiancheng really didn’t want to wear a lunatic’s Ghost King Seal on himself: “If the wishing cat gave it to you, you should keep it.”

Zhan Yan: “Is it because you don’t like the wishing cat, so you don’t want to wear it?”

Gu Jiancheng: “Uh…”

Zhan Yan: “If you don’t wear it, then I’m going to wear it—”

Zhan Yan made as if to put it on his own head.

Gu Jiancheng snatched it away in one grab: “No need, I’ll wear it!”

He absolutely couldn’t stand the thought of Yan Yan wearing that lunatic’s thing.

Who wants it? He’d protect his own boyfriend!

Zhan Yan: “Once you put it on, you’re not allowed to take it off.”

Gu Jiancheng: “…Okay.”

In the shadow clone’s place.

Deep Shadow: “So how did your Chaofu Mountain Ghost Kings all end up lumped together with Wanyan?”

Lin Yuan Ghost King: “…”

What do you mean “lumped together with him”?

Did we want to be together with him?!

Zhan Jinli really didn’t want to talk about that troublesome thing, so he didn’t ask Deep Shadow why he mentioned Wanyan, and unfortunately missed once again the news that Wanyan Cat had escaped Chaofu Mountain.

Luckily, the intel Zhan Yan fed Wanyan Cat was very vague, so Wanyan wouldn’t be able to find him for a while.

In the blink of an eye, it was mid-May, and the school was starting to arrange internships. This internship would last until halfway through the summer vacation.

Gu Jiancheng was very depressed, and Zhan Yan was infected by his mood, gloomily helping him pack.

Zhan Yan’s vet-station internship placement was in a great location, in the suburbs between Beiling City and Yunjin City. It would be easy to go home or back to school, so his packing was simple. Gu Jiancheng’s was troublesome: he had to confirm everything against the notice the farm had sent.

This year, the farm’s requirements were even stricter. Many items that had been allowed before were now banned.

Once they’d mostly finished packing, Zhan Yan unconsciously sighed and said to Gu Jiancheng: “Hold out your hand.”

Gu Jiancheng obediently held out his hand, palm up, fingers slightly spread.

He thought Zhan Yan wanted to give him something, or maybe put his hand in his—Gu Jiancheng had recently seen this little dating game online, along with the one where you rest your chin there.

Gu Jiancheng imagined it for a moment and his heart started to move. But then he thought regretfully that, given Yan Yan’s personality, he probably wouldn’t play such clingy little games with him.

Zhan Yan pushed his spread fingers back together, then took out the scented bead bracelet his sister had sent and put it on for him.

The compound incense beads were a deep brown, the traces of compressed herb fragments still visible. Each bead was about the size of a fingertip pad.

Gu Jiancheng’s wrist bones were distinct, blue veins standing out on the back of his hand.

Zhan Yan cupped his long fingers with one hand and, with the other, slipped the bead bracelet over his wrist. While he was putting it on, he couldn’t help thinking, Why are Gu Jiancheng’s hands so good-looking? I wasn’t a hand-fetishist before…

Once the beads were on, his hand looked even better. Zhan Yan couldn’t resist kneading it twice.

Gu Jiancheng could see that Zhan Yan liked his hands. He was quite pleased about it at first, but after Zhan Yan kneaded them twice, his face started to turn red, and his fingers didn’t seem to know where to go—curled up felt wrong, stretched out also felt wrong.

Zhan Yan was too busy looking down at the hand to notice his little bout of shyness. Very satisfied, he flicked the bracelet twice, then lifted Gu Jiancheng’s wrist up and brought it to Gu Jiancheng’s own nose.

“Smell it, how is it?” As soon as he’d spoken, Zhan Yan realized Gu Jiancheng’s face was red. Not only was his face red, but his own wrist had been lifted to his nose, and he obediently sniffed twice.

Seeing him like this, Zhan Yan found it a bit odd.

He remembered that Classmate Gu hadn’t been this easy to make shy before. How had he become purer and purer recently?

Zhan Yan deliberately leaned in and brushed his ear: “What’s wrong with you?”

Classmate Gu quickly turned his head and pecked him on the face.

Zhan Yan jerked back and saw Gu Jiancheng’s eyes blazing as if on fire.

Oops, went too far teasing.

Zhan Yan retreated calmly and also let go of his wrist: “Smell it.”

Gu Jiancheng was still holding up his wrist. He looked at Zhan Yan; his heartbeat didn’t speed up, but each beat felt heavy, weighty.

The scent of the beads lingered at the tip of his nose. It was a bit different from the essential oil: the essential oil smelled fresh and moist, while the beads smelled rich and dry. The former was like a forest after the rain; the latter, like a summer wind on the plains.

The flavor of love could change too.

Before his aftereffects were completely resolved, he had always wanted to cling tightly to something, as if something were stretching and weighing him down, not knowing when it would snap. Even though everything was getting better, the unease still followed him like a shadow. Unlimited was too good at this—giving people an illusion of improvement before despair, so it could harvest greater despair and pain. So he had always thought about “clinging” and “letting go.”

But now he no longer thought about these things. Since when? Since his aftereffects fully healed? Since that little star hung in his sea of shadows? He didn’t know from when, but he had begun to be able to enjoy love while loving, no longer worrying about other things. And so, the belated greenness suddenly poked its head out.

Gu Jiancheng’s ears were red, his eyes shining astonishingly bright, as he slowly leaned forward.

Even when Zhan Yan sat on the light rail headed for the suburban veterinary station, he still couldn’t help but recall that kiss.

The hand with the bead bracelet he’d put on was at the back of his neck, and the bracelet he’d personally fastened rubbed against the side of his neck.

Then Gu Jiancheng leaned in to sniff the bracelet.

The hand was warm, the bracelet was cool, the breath was hot, the tip of the nose was cool…

Zhan Yan couldn’t help grinding his own lips with his teeth. He felt that Classmate Gu was getting wilder lately.

“Time to get off, time to get off… Zhan Yan, why is your face so red?” Bao Qingshan asked.

There were four of them interning at the vet station. Besides Old Bao, there were two from the other class, one called Chu Chengcheng and the other Cheng Yichu. Because of their names, the two became iron brothers.

But the three of them had already signed the agreements after confirmation earlier, so nothing could be changed. It was the same at the farm where Gu Jiancheng was placed; there was simply no way to swap with anyone.

“It’s too warm on the train with all these clothes.” Zhan Yan made up a random excuse.

Bao Qingshan didn’t press further. He was in a great mood now, like he’d just been released from prison—those few days in the dormitory had been enough torment. Most people couldn’t withstand the resentful look in Gu Jiancheng’s eyes.

Bao Qingshan didn’t get to relax for long. Once they arrived, all his body hair suddenly stood on end.

Seeing him so tense, Zhan Yan asked: “What’s wrong?”

Bao Qingshan: “I feel like this place isn’t very good.”

Understood. This wasn’t a place they could live.

Zhan Yan: “Can we change accommodation?”

Chu Chengcheng: “Probably not. We already paid the deposit.”

The house they rented together here had been recommended by seniors in previous years; every year, the interns from their cohort lived here for three months.

If they quit now, the deposit would go down the drain.

Zhan Yan asked Bao Qingshan quietly: “What kind of feeling is it?”

If it was ghosts, he still had plenty of the eight-treasure cinnabar his sister gave him.

Bao Qingshan was still uneasy, constantly searching the corners of the room: “It’s not the kind of feeling where there’s big danger, more like… you know that feeling when you know there are eight hundred giant cockroaches hiding in the cracks of the room?”

Now Zhan Yan’s hair also stood up. He hadn’t brought insecticide!

The other two were also creeped out by what Bao Qingshan said: “Let’s inspect the room first.”

After tossing about for a while, they did find a lot of ants, woodlice, and bedbugs, but no giant cockroaches.

They were all tired. After settling in, they had to report to the vet station the next day. Since nothing big seemed wrong, they decided to rest first.

While resting, Zhan Yan was flipping through the gossip system while asking Bao Qingshan about that feeling.

Bao Qingshan fretted: “I can’t say for sure. My cultivation isn’t enough…”

But he had checked the room as well, and hadn’t found any demons or ghosts hiding, nor anything attracting gloom.

Could it be an anomaly?

Zhan Yan had already scrolled through all the melon strips for this house over the past few years and hadn’t found any issues.

Forget it, sleep first. Before bed, Zhan Yan sent his family a message telling them he’d settled in and was going to sleep.

The next morning, he saw the family group chat already flooded with messages.

After seeing the photos, everyone thought the living conditions were too harsh. Mom transferred him more money, telling him to buy whatever needed to be added; Dad really disliked his lunch and said he’d be able to come home soon to prepare more supplies; his sister said a friend had a bug-repelling secret recipe and she’d come later to make sachets; his brother would be responsible for delivering things.

Zhan Yan was delighted.

Everything else was okay—the convenience store here was fairly well-stocked. What he was really lacking were Dad’s prepared foods.

Nie Yu was busy the next couple of days and wasn’t taking him into the net for practice.

The next stage should have been teaching him how to take down anomalies in the network, but he had just memorized the theory and hadn’t done any hands-on practice yet. Nie Yu specifically reminded him not to enter the net alone. The anomalies on the network were too active now, and there was a manipulator behind them. Without practice, if he entered the net on his own and ran into anomalies, he might get in trouble if he was unlucky.

Zhan Yan was very receptive to advice. His parents weren’t network types, and the protections they’d placed on him might not work once he entered the network world. It was just a matter of waiting a few days anyway, and he was busy with the internship.

The four of them reported to the vet station the next day. The senior vet in charge of them was called Mi Man. He was humorous by nature and liked to gather everyone for rambling chats in his free time.

Work at the vet station went quite smoothly. It was just that Bao Qingshan’s sense of unease kept getting worse—those eight hundred cockroaches could crawl out of the cracks at any time.

And Zhan Yan still hadn’t found anything through the gossip system.

“I don’t know, it’s probably just a kind of premonition. I feel like a lot of eyes are coveting us from somewhere.” Bao Qingshan had been worn down so much the past two days that dark circles appeared. He wasn’t sleeping or eating well, and was eagerly hoping the food situation could be improved. “When’s your brother coming?”

Zhan Yan comforted him: “These couple of days. Just hold out with instant noodles for now.”

His dad had just come home the day before yesterday and had started cooking something tasty. But Zhan Yan understood perfectly—the first batch would definitely be sent to his mom. He’d have to wait for the second batch.

If Old Bao’s intuition was a premonition, there was nothing Zhan Yan could do. The gossip system could only flip through past melon strips, not see into the future.

If something was going to happen, he had his mom’s lightning talisman on him and would be fine. Old Bao was a cultivator and probably fine too, but the other two were ordinary people.

If only I could find someone to help…

Zhan Yan ran through all the superpowered people he knew and realized everyone was busy right now. Only Wanyan Cat was very free, bouncing around every day looking for anomalies to fight, but having found no clues, he was just randomly hitting here and there.

Might as well trick Wanyan Cat over here!

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