GRMFBS CH176

Zhan Yan found some things that Di Ting had come into contact with in the past from the gossip threads, and successfully tricked Kitty Wan Yan. Kitty Wan Yan decided to go dig up Di Ting’s old belongings to search for his memories first, temporarily giving up on finding Lin Yuan.

Cats were really easy to trick.

Having temporarily resolved his brother’s crisis of encountering Kitty Wan Yan, Zhan Yan breathed a sigh of relief.

He had seen the gossip threads about how his brother planned to deal with Kitty Wan Yan. To sum it up in two words—beat up, throw away.

His brother was truly a simple and straightforward person!

Zhan Jinli’s plan was simply to return to his past daily routine of being harassed on Mount Chaofu. He didn’t dare use too much force when beating him up, and after throwing him away, he could still come back himself. Every time, he could only gain a short period of peace and quiet.

When his brother was Ghost King Lin Yuan, he couldn’t stand this and reincarnated, but now that his reincarnation had been discovered, he couldn’t hide from it anyway, nor could he reincarnate again; Zhan Jinli simply decided to lie flat. If it was troublesome, then let it be troublesome.

His brother was so lazy that it made Zhan Yan want to sigh. He still had to rely on himself to take action!

This family would fall apart without him!

Having resolved a major crisis, Zhan Yan could finally relax.

His thoughts couldn’t help but drift wildly.

Thinking about his brother’s taciturn appearance, then thinking about Ghost King Lin Yuan’s calm and composed demeanor.

Then thinking about how his brother nagged Xingxing at home about how little kitties needed to observe cat morals, forcefully completing communication education with the child. Then thinking again about the personality of the “Lin Yuan” puppet created by the Artisan…

Brother, you have quite a lot of hidden sides.

Zhan Yan wouldn’t find it hard to equate them anymore. So what if his brother was Ghost King Lin Yuan? Could Ghost King Lin Yuan solve the problem of their parents dating while wearing personas? No.

Ghost King Lin Yuan himself was entangled by Kitty Wan Yan and still had to rely on him to resolve it. Thinking about it this way, it wasn’t much different from his socially phobic oldest brother in the past.

His phone received another new message. Zhan Yan opened it and saw it was from Mi Man.

Mi Man wanted to ask Zhan Yan to teach him how to cook; not a lot, just two or three dishes would do, as long as it could make the Wishing Cat willing to eat.

Although the weasels hadn’t come back yet, he was still very worried.

If the Wishing Cat left and never returned, who knew if those weasels would come back again.

Even now, whenever Mi Man closed his eyes, his mind was filled with the faint glowing eyes of that pile of weasels staring at him, as well as their strange, sharp laughter…

After Zhan Yan left yesterday, Mi Man used a steamed bun to dip into the bottom of the pot to taste the vegetable soup. He no longer held any hope of keeping the Wishing Cat; as long as he could attract the Wishing Cat to come visit from time to time, it would be enough!

Zhan Yan agreed. Although Kitty Wan Yan wouldn’t have the energy to come eat for a short while, he couldn’t explain it to Mi Man. Moreover, he had also seen in the Gossip System that Weasel Twenty-Four had decided to give up on him as a target for requesting a title, and would never come back again.

Mi Man wasn’t home right now; he was at the veterinary station, and today he was on the morning shift.

The road from the rental house to Mi Man’s home passed by the veterinary station, so Zhan Yan went to the veterinary station first.

When he went, he happened to catch the owner of the big parrot coming to pick up his bird.

The parrot owner was a boss who ran a company in the city. This time, he brought his parrot back to his hometown, and when the bird got sick, he directly sent it here for treatment.

The big boss also brought a pennant with him, looking very happy when he saw the big parrot: “Wang Dengji, come.”

Zhan Yan checked the pet tag: “Hey, why does it say its name is Wang Panpan on here?”

Big boss: “…I am Wang Panpan. It’s called Wang Dengji. The registration was mixed up when sending it to the pet store.”

Zhan Yan: “…Oh.”

If you didn’t look at the characters and only listened to the pronunciation, Wang Dengji did indeed sound more like an owner’s name than Wang Panpan.

Wang Dengji was also very happy to see Wang Panpan: “Woof woof! Big doggy~ Come here~ Good boy~”

Wang Panpan: …

“It’s angry, feeling like I abandoned it here.”

Zhan Yan took the initiative to change the subject: “Mm-hmm, this parrot is quite smart, it can even speak English.”

Wang Dengji: “Woof! Woof! Big dog~ Come here~ Good boy~”

Wang Panpan: “…You stupid bird!”

The big parrot: “Awoo awoo~ Little doggy~ So naughty.”

Zhan Yan held back his laughter with great difficulty.

Wang Panpan shoved the pennant to Zhan Yan and fled in defeat.

If he didn’t leave now, his reputation would be completely ruined.

Zhan Yan opened the pennant to take a look and was amused: “Divine Hands Healing Chickens, Saved My Bird’s Life”

Seeing him amused, Mi Man was also amused: “Go to the office and take a look, there’s an entire wall there.”

Zhan Yan went to the office to hang the pennant, and incidentally admired the entire wall of pennants.

“Bovine God Incarnate, Superb at Delivering Calves”, “Meow Meow Meow Meow”, “Egg-Removal Expert, Eggs Gone By Hand”…

After hanging the pennant, Mi Man had also finished packing up and handing over his shift to someone else.

Mi Man took Zhan Yan to his house. Zhan Yan chose a few dishes that didn’t have high heat control requirements to teach him.

Mi Man was extremely grateful: “You can’t cook at the place you’re renting, right? Since we’re close by anyway, if you guys want to cook for yourselves, just come to my house.”

Zhan Yan went back and discussed it with the other three, and everyone was very happy.

The reserve food his dad made wasn’t enough for four young, strapping men to eat for three months. Apart from indulging themselves for the first meal last night, they had been eating sparingly afterward. Chu Chengcheng, Cheng Yichu, and Zhan Yan weren’t close enough yet, so they were too embarrassed to eat more.

Zhan Yan was responsible for cooking, while the other three shared the grocery expenses with Mi Man. Since Mi Man planned to learn culinary skills, he prepared the ingredients with Zhan Yan, while the dishwashing was contracted by the other three.

Two days passed like this. When Zhan Yan and Gu Jiancheng had their daily goodnight phone call at night, he heard Gu Jiancheng say to him in a tone that tried its hardest to sound natural but inevitably revealed awkwardness: “Yan Yan, do you watch game livestreams? I watched some, they’re quite interesting.

“You can take a look too when you have time.

“There’s a game streamer called ‘Seven Big Coconuts’, do you know him?”

Zhan Yan: …

Save me!

He had almost forgotten about this! Why bring it up again?!

He also didn’t know what kind of mental preparation classmate Xiao Gu had done these past two days. A few sentences sounded like he was reading from a script: “Her livestream is pretty good, a lot of people like it.

“I think you might want to take a look too.”

Zhan Yan: “Ah… really?”

Gu Jiancheng: “Yeah, right. I think, um, you might, um, want to take a look.”

Zhan Yan: “…Okay, I know.”

Gu Jiancheng: “Okay… mm-hmm, right. Look at it yourself.”

Zhan Yan: “…”

“Okay, goodnight. I’m hanging up.”

Zhan Yan ended this incredibly awkward chat with great difficulty, burying his face in his pillow and rolling around.

Ahhhh, why did he have to face this kind of thing?! Couldn’t Gu Jiancheng just pretend he didn’t know?

He appreciated his intentions, but it was just too awkward!!!

Gu Jiancheng felt his heartbeat speeding up and slowing down.

He had conflicted with himself for two days before finally making up his mind to tell Yan Yan.

Although saying it out loud would be awkward, he was Yan Yan’s boyfriend. If even he didn’t say it, who else would tell Yan Yan?

Gu Jiancheng felt his heartbeat hadn’t calmed down for a long time, and suddenly realized something was wrong. This wasn’t his heartbeat; it was the heartbeat transmitted from the sports bracelet. His heartbeat had synchronized with Yan Yan’s heartbeat.

Gu Jiancheng recalled for a moment. It seemed to have started from when he mentioned game livestreams on the phone. But he was too nervous at the time and didn’t notice.

This reaction… could it be that Yan Yan already knew when he called?!

…

The next day, the college students were arranged in pairs to take turns shadowing other veterinarians on house calls.

The first to shadow a house call were Chu Chengcheng and Cheng Yichu.

After these two returned, changed their clothes, and washed their hands, they went to Mi Man’s house to eat. When they arrived, they saw that apart from rice, there was only a plate of cold tossed salad on the table. Mi Man, Zhan Yan, and Bao Qingshan sat around the table, their eyes red-rimmed and not saying a word.

Chu Chengcheng was startled: “This… what’s wrong?”

Cheng Yichu asked cautiously: “Are you guys alright?”

Did the veterinary station ruin an animal’s treatment while they were out on the house call?

Tears glistened in Mi Man’s eyes, his voice choked: “Don’t ask, just eat quickly.”

Chu Chengcheng and Cheng Yichu sat down to eat with apprehension and anxiety, feeling that what happened today might not be good.

Each of them picked up a bite of the dish with their chopsticks and put it in their mouths, simultaneously bursting into tears.

“Sss-ha! Save me, is there water? Is there water?!”

“Save! Save! Sss—save me!”

Bao Qingshan: “Hahahahaha! The water’s right here.”

Mi Man: “Hahahaha, this plate of food has achieved perfect merit today.”

Zhan Yan: “Pfft. Sorry, my hand slipped today and I put too much mustard.”

He had to blame Gu Jiancheng. After his phone call last night, Zhan Yan couldn’t forget about it. While cooking, his thoughts drifted to the awkwardness, and with a forceful squeeze, he squirted in almost half a bottle of mustard sauce.

However, the efficacy of the mustard sauce was powerful. After being spiced to the point where his head was clear, Zhan Yan could finally stop focusing on that matter.

If classmate Xiao Gu knew, then he knew. Could he really dare to mock him?

After moving the cold tossed salad that had achieved perfect merit away and finishing their meal, Zhan Yan received a reply from Nie Yu.

After discussing Infinite’s goals with Deep Shadow previously, he went to remind Nie Yu to be careful about the situation on the network side. However, because Nie Yu was busy with the newly emerged mysterious network-type big shot, she hadn’t replied at the time.

Administrator Lingyu: [Don’t worry, we will be careful.]

Administrator Lingyu: [There are new developments now.]

Administrator Lingyu: [Can you help investigate the Artisan?]

Investigate the Artisan…

The Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau definitely investigated the Artisan before, but they probably only had internal information-types look into it and never sought out an outsider.

They placed more importance on maintaining their relationship with the Artisan. If they asked an outsider to investigate, this situation wouldn’t look too good.

Moreover, the Approaching Science account had always been a contact who maintained neutrality. Now that the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau was asking him to help investigate the Artisan, while it could undoubtedly be said to be out of trust in him, it also indicated that the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau’s attitude towards the Artisan had changed somewhat.

Did they discover something in the network?

Zhan Yan opened the Gossip System.

The Artisan’s gossip threads were still the same, and he couldn’t see any problems. It was just that his puppet butler seemed to have some issues recently, and most of the Artisan’s gossip threads revolved around checking, repairing, and adjusting the puppet butler.

Seeing this gossip thread, Zhan Yan remembered again that the Artisan’s puppet butler entry had changed, gaining “Xiao Ran” as a suffix, but he hadn’t found out the reason for this change. Perhaps this was related to the Artisan’s frequent adjustments to the puppet butler recently? Could it also be related to the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau starting to investigate the Artisan?

He still hadn’t used his newly upgraded ability yet. The more Zhan Yan thought about it, the more tempted he felt, deciding to enter the network and secretly observe. He would only hide using his new ability and resolutely not make a move—at worst, he would call for backup. This would definitely be safe.

At the same time, Zhan Suiru, who hadn’t made any progress, began to ponder another idea:

The ability she was best at and that was most suited to helping Yang Ran revive was her psychic ability. But she couldn’t utilize her psychic power in reality unless she forcibly broke through this world’s conceptual substitution.

But doing so would be tantamount to helping Infinite, and she definitely wouldn’t aid the enemy.

If she couldn’t do it in the real world, could she help Yang Ran’s consciousness revive in the network world? The puppet butler could connect to the network now, but it wasn’t the same as network-types entering the network world.

How should she send Yang Ran’s consciousness into the network world? During this process, how could she guarantee it wouldn’t harm his consciousness? She needed to build a safe space in the network world—she would have to learn this from the network-type superpowered individuals of this world; they were very adept at utilizing data. Perhaps she would also need to build a data body for Xiao Ran as protection. Hmm… like the NPCs Qi Ye and the others made?

Zhan Suiru decided to first enter the network to investigate a suitable environment, and then find Qi Ye and the other network-type to learn from them. Looking at that game world they built, their abilities should be quite good.

Actually, the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau’s Network Ghost’s ability was also a suitable subject to learn from, but seeking her out would easily let the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau spot something, which would be very troublesome.

Sigh, Qi Ye and the others also seemed quite familiar with the Network Ghost, so seeking them out also carried risks. If only there were a network-type with good abilities who had no ties to the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau to teach her, that would be great.