GRMFBS CH186

Zhan Yunkai had just finished his rotational shift.

He and Da Wule finished their handover with the next wave of people on shift, exchanged a tacit look, and walked out together.

The ones coming to take over were the Nine-Tailed Demon King, Xia Yangqiu, and the Traveler, Feng Ying. Feng Ying had a grudge against the Qing Yun Demon King, and Xia Yangqiu and Da Wule found each other displeasing to the eye, but Xia Yangqiu and Feng Ying had a pretty good relationship.

It was said that Feng Ying accidentally ran into demon territory once and happened to bump into Xia Yangqiu; she was instantly stunned by the Nine-Tailed Fox’s beauty and praised her profusely.

Xia Yangqiu liked girls who knew how to appreciate her beauty, and so these two became friends.

Scheduling was quite a difficult task. They could at most ensure that the two partners on duty had no conflicts between them; trying to guarantee that there were no conflicts between the big shots handing over shifts was beyond their power.

Xia Yangqiu bumped face-to-face with Lingzhou Wendi.

Fortunately, everyone knew the severity of the situation; one sneered and the other snorted coldly. After completing the handover, they separated.

But Xia Yangqiu noticed the look Da Wule and the Chongming Demon King exchanged, feeling extremely puzzled. Since when did these two have such a tacit understanding?

Zhan Yunkai and Lingzhou Wendi agreed to go beat up Xiang Liu together.

Before they had walked far, Zhan Yunkai received a message relayed by Luo Wang: Deep Shadow discovered a Candle Dragon Remnant, and it had even been polluted by the Monster Doctor.

This was more important than beating up Xiang Liu.

Zhan Yunkai: “Sorry, something suddenly came up. How about you go first, and I’ll go next time.”

Lingzhou Wendi: “…Did you forget what I do?”

He was a support!

Xiang Liu was a fierce demon with formidable combat power. It was only because he was countered by the divine bird race, coupled with the fact that the Chongming Bird was also a great demon renowned for its combat power, that they could manage to beat up Xiang Liu instead of brawling with him. If Da Wule went by himself, he would become the one getting beaten up by Xiang Liu!

Zhan Yunkai: “Sorry, let’s make an appointment for next time.”

Lingzhou Wendi was extremely disappointed.

Zhan Yunkai directly contacted Approaching Science. He wanted to talk with Deep Shadow.

The cooperation issue was only one aspect. The other aspect was for the Candle Dragon Remnant.

The Candle Dragon Remnant was incredibly important to the Wan Yao Alliance. He needed to know the status and details of that Candle Dragon Remnant.

Approaching Science: [Uh, I can relay the message, but Deep Shadow might not be willing.]

Chongming: [You relay it. I am heading over right now.]

His Majesty the Demon King thought it was normal for Approaching Science to just relay it. He still had to maintain his relationship with Deep Shadow and couldn’t let Approaching Science sell Deep Shadow out for his sake.

But if he headed over right now, and Deep Shadow didn’t run away fast enough and got blocked by him, then he couldn’t blame anyone else.

The Chongming divine bird spread its wings; wind rose and clouds surged, drifting past a thousand miles in an instant.

On the other end, Deep Shadow received Approaching Science’s relayed message, and indeed, he wasn’t willing.

Knowing that the Chongming Demon King was coming over, Gu Jiancheng immediately dove into the shadows, used the marks he had set up previously to perform shadow jumps, and ran straight toward the anomaly map provided by Approaching Science to beat up anomalies.

Joke, he had just finished fighting the Monster Doctor; while not exactly weak, he had expended quite a bit. He had no desire to meet the party who put a bounty on his head in this condition.

Zhan Yan watched in the gossip threads as Deep Shadow and the Chongming Demon King narrowly missed each other by a hair’s breadth.

His dad even felt a little regretful in the gossip thread.

Zhan Yan was stunned. From the time his dad set off, to him relaying the message to Deep Shadow, and Deep Shadow running away, the gap was only a few seconds, yet his dad arrived.

He only knew his dad was a good fighter before; he didn’t expect his speed to be this fast too! Are all great bird demons this swift and fierce?

Zhan Yunkai retracted his wings and landed on the ground, his beautiful tail feathers supported by magic, not gathering a speck of dust. He turned his head and looked around.

Tsk, how did Deep Shadow slip away so fast?

He wasn’t planning on doing anything anyway, just wanted to chat.

Forget it. Since Deep Shadow wasn’t here, he would look for himself.

Zhan Yunkai’s double pupils contracted and expanded, the overlapping lines radiating fine golden light.

The traces of battle left on the scene were very obvious; he could deduce almost every step of Deep Shadow’s battle with the anomaly.

That was a massive, highly polluted Black Nest possessing proactive combat intelligence. The Monster Doctor. Was this it?

Approaching Science also sent him a message relaying the details of Deep Shadow from discovering the Candle Dragon Remnant to entering it.

Zhan Yunkai saw that Candle Dragon Remnant.

The interior of the Candle Dragon Remnant contained a massive space, but to the outside world, it only appeared as an imperceptible fissure. Only those who knew the technique or coincidentally met the conditions could enter. Many people had passed through Candle Dragon Remnants without realizing it.

Zhan Yunkai did not enter; his double pupils could see this fissure, and could also see the situation inside through the fissure.

There was already nothing left in this remnant, and the traces of pollution had also been scrubbed clean.

Deep Shadow was indeed very adept at handling this kind of situation, not leaving a single omission behind.

Zhan Yunkai grabbed this fissure, and demonic power surged into it, like wind, like fire, flowing smoothly according to his will.

He tugged fiercely; strange turbulent flows whipped up in the void, bringing his colorful feathers to flutter wildly. After the turbulent flows subsided, a drop of pale red candle tears fell, and the fissure disappeared with it.

Zhan Yunkai caught this drop of candle tears.

This was the residual power of the Candle Dragon.

[The Chongming Demon King Zhan Yunkai retrieved the residual power of the Candle Dragon from the Candle Dragon Remnant, preparing to bring it back to the slumbering Candle Dragon.]

Hmm?

Didn’t the Candle Dragon sacrifice itself twenty-six years ago?

Zhan Yan switched to the Candle Dragon’s entry and started a precise search.

[The Candle Dragon rolled over in its slumber, sending a nearby rock flying with a headbutt.]

…

[The Candle Dragon fell into a deep slumber due to excessive consumption. To protect the Candle Dragon, the Wan Yao Alliance decided to conceal the news.]

So that was it. The Candle Dragon was too conspicuous twenty-six years ago, easily targeted by Infinite. The Wan Yao Alliance collecting items related to the Candle Dragon was to gather the omitted Candle Dragon power to help the Candle Dragon recover.

Zhan Yan felt a surge of joy bubbling up from the bottom of his heart, clear and soft. He had come into contact with the Candle Dragon’s power twice; once from the stone he got from Old Man Luan, and another time from the Artisan’s key ring. The Candle Dragon power he obtained both times wasn’t much, and each time brought him a dream.

Perhaps because of this, he felt a wondrous sense of familiarity toward the Candle Dragon, which made him want to find more Candle Dragon Remnants to help the Candle Dragon recover. The Candle Dragon was so impressive; beating up Infinite after waking up would definitely be fierce.

It was a pity his Gossip System was weak at searching for Candle Dragon Remnants.

Speaking of which, how did the Monster Doctor find that Candle Dragon Remnant?

Did he stumble upon it accidentally, or did he have some special technique for finding Candle Dragon Remnants?

Zhan Yan combined the two keywords “Monster Doctor” and “Candle Dragon Remnant” to search, hoping to find some clues.

Unsurprisingly, it was another [Loading…]

But the good news was that the six dots after this [Loading…] were moving. Zhan Yan had encountered this situation before; it meant this gossip thread could be loaded, just slowly.

Zhan Yan decided to leave this gossip thread to load on its own for now.

When night fell, classmate Xiao Gu made his daily goodnight phone call.

Half of their three-month internship had passed now; the two forcefully counted the remaining days until their internship ended over the phone.

Gu Jiancheng was incredibly clingy tonight. Having been mentally polluted by the Monster Doctor all day today, he urgently needed his boyfriend’s healing.

He wanted to listen to Yan Yan’s voice to cleanse his ears, video chat with Yan Yan to cleanse his eyes, and casually chat about anything with Yan Yan to cleanse his brain.

Cleanse the sick and disgusting Monster Doctor completely out of his brain!

Zhan Yan fulfilled his boyfriend’s wish to video chat.

He wanted to as well.

Gu Jiancheng was wearing his work uniform, but his good physique managed to prop up the standard-cut workwear; a bit of his neck was exposed below the lapel collar, his wrists were wrapped by the tapered cuffs. On one wrist he wore a sports bracelet matching his, and on the other, he wore the blended incense beads.

Classmate Xiao Gu had just washed his hair; it was still damp, with a few strands drooping over his forehead and cheeks. His deep eyes also seemed to carry a touch of moisture, and he smiled at him upon connecting the video. His eyes were bright and spirited, visibly happy.

Zhan Yan’s heart melted from his smile.

Sigh, he couldn’t help missing Gu Jiancheng more and more too.

How relaxing it was to be with classmate Xiao Gu. When he chatted with his family now, he couldn’t help thinking about their personas, afraid he might accidentally cause a chain reaction of dropped personas.

He didn’t need to overthink anything when he was with Gu Jiancheng; how wonderful.

After silently praising classmate Xiao Gu in his heart, Zhan Yan continued scrolling through gossip threads.

Nothing was happening with Dad, Mom, or Brother—after being puzzled for two days about why Wan Yan hadn’t come to cause a ruckus, his brother threw the troublesome matter to the back of his mind. He was truly incredibly lazy.

Lately, it was mostly about Sister. Red Crystal was busy every day with things he didn’t quite understand. Zhan Yan tried to find out what his sister was worried about by flipping through the gossip threads.

Now that the “Red Crystal” and “Zhan Suiru” entries had merged together, new changes had occurred in the original gossip threads, and some threads that couldn’t be displayed during their previously split state appeared.

As Zhan Yan scrolled down, he found the day his sister put on the Red Crystal persona.

[Zhan Suiru discovered Qi Ye, whose consciousness was completely immersed in the network as “Play Games With Me”, in the studio; suddenly seeing the light, she entered the network world.]

Good heavens, Qi Ye had a persona too!

Zhan Yan deeply felt that he lived in a world full of people wearing personas everywhere.

Ah… but thinking about it, it wasn’t impossible to understand. Those people active on the chaofan forum all had their own ordinary identities in real life too. Therefore, wearing a persona was completely normal.

He continued investigating downwards.

Zhan Yan didn’t find out what his sister was worried about, but he did find out Qi Ye’s gossip threads.

Before cooperating with Wan Shitong on this game, she had participated in the production of other games, and secretly used supernatural powers during the process.

No wonder Zhan Yan inexplicably collected information words for a few game items when scrolling through gossip threads before. Items built with supernatural power and data by network-type superpowered individuals were “items” recognized by the system. Pure data is virtual, but after combining with a network-type superpowered individual’s supernatural power, data is no longer merely virtual; it possesses “energy”, and even if the energy contained within is miniscule, it still exists.

His sister seemed exceptionally interested in that game world; was it related to this?

Zhan Yan started searching for gossip threads related to the game world.

[The game world is undergoing an abnormal change…]

Zhan Yan: ???

What happened?

It wasn’t like this the last time he checked!

The cause of the matter had to start from Zhan Suiru.

Zhan Suiru had been researching that world fragment recently.

She was still thinking of the method to guide Yang Ran’s mind into the network world, so she could utilize her psychic power within the network world to clear the pollution for him.

But her psychic power was suppressed in reality, unable to help Yang Ran guide his mind into the network world. She needed an external force, one that needed compatibility with Yang Ran’s soul, and also needed the possibility to connect to the network world.

She thought of the world fragment.

The apocalyptic world fragment naturally had compatibility with her and Yang Ran’s souls, and having undergone the tempering of the Tianshi’s lightning, it was also sufficiently clean.

As for the possibility of connecting to the network world, this had to be approached from the perspective of psychic power.

If a world no longer possessed any living beings, then that world could be said to have died.

The reason living beings are important to a world lies in their souls, and the psychic power generated by those souls.

Psychic power is the signal of communication between worlds, the tentacles through which a world perceives the outside, and the bridge connecting two worlds.

Only when a world can transmit its psychic power can another world lend a helping hand.

A world fragment is naturally a conductor of psychic power.

Therefore, if the concept of “mind” in this world had been overwritten as “network”, could this world fragment also be loaded into the network world?

Zhan Suiru attempted to bring the world fragment into the network world. At the network port, she gripped the world fragment tightly, letting her psychic power surge into it, wrapping it up to enter that free world together.

A certain substituted concept gently enveloped her. The world fragment emitted a soft light in her palm. In the next second, Zhan Suiru had entered the network. Within her ruby-like psychic body, a world fragment was wrapped and hidden.

She succeeded!

But this was only the first step. She needed to confirm whether the state of the world fragment was stable in the network world, and also needed to experience whether psychic power carrying a world fragment would cause any problems.

Zhan Suiru decided to move around with the world fragment for a period of time to see.

After entering the network, she acted as usual, first going outside the game world to check her psychic barrier…

The moment Zhan Suiru came into contact with her psychic barrier and the surface data of the game world, the world fragment on her body ran into the game world along the data with a whoosh.

Zhan Suiru: ??? Since when did the game world involve robbery?!

Zhan Suiru’s psychic power chased the world fragment into the game world.