GRMFBS CH234

[Zhan Suiru thought that Deep Shadow should also know the player community very well, so she decided to ask Deep Shadow to investigate who exactly your boyfriend Gu Jiancheng is.]

When Zhan Yan saw this piece of gossip, he went blank.

Sis, you really are… really…

[Deep Shadow, Gu Jiancheng, calmly agreed to help Zhan Suiru find the person, and planned to look within the Retirees’ Alliance for some people who matched the conditions in order to stall for time. Zhan Suiru was extremely grateful.]

Zhan Yan: …

But when the truth came out later, wouldn’t he be held accountable for this?

Still, it seemed like Xiao Gu really didn’t have any other choice… he couldn’t very well refuse either. No matter how he thought about it, it seemed the only option was to agree first and muddle through for now…

He was going bald. Why had things become this chaotic? What was he supposed to do?

Think, think of something…

A new gossip line refreshed:

[Using her Artisan account, Zhan Suiru sent a message to your alias, Approaching Science, asking about the progress of your investigation into your boyfriend Gu Jiancheng.]

Enough already—why was I getting dragged into the grind again?!

Zhan Yan took a deep breath.

Forget it, he couldn’t deal with everything else right now. First he’d log into the Approaching Science account and send over a few random players who fit the conditions to fool his sister for the moment.

Zhan Yan searched up several players who matched the conditions and sent them over.

Artisan: “Thank you.”

Zhan Yan: guilty…

Full of guilt, Zhan Yan continued scrolling gossip lines, sorting images, and entering the Dawn World to grind information tags… once you got busy, the guilt somehow faded away.

He hadn’t entered the core zone for several days, and more concept blobs of anomalies had accumulated there. He planned to go in and eat a batch first.

Zhan Yan raised his head and looked at the sky-dome over the core zone. The cloud-glow colors representing the concepts of the apocalypse world seemed to have faded a little, but the shimmering light on the sea beneath his feet had grown more and more dazzling.

From yellow to orange, pink to purple, they floated strangely and harmoniously in the waves of the great sea.

The apocalypse world’s concepts had fused in more deeply. The bouncing concept blobs on the sea surface had also become fewer.

Zhan Yan casually scooped up one blob and kneaded it. Mm, the texture really was nice.

He wandered around first, eating all the concept blobs that had accumulated in the other directions, and only at the end did he head over to where the anomaly concept blobs had piled up the most.

He hadn’t come for a while, and here the concept blobs had piled into a little mountain again.

Zhan Yan poked it. The jelly-like mountain of blobs wobbled dangerously, startling him into taking two quick steps back. He definitely did not want to be buried in them again.

Juicer, start!

“Riiiii—”

Kneading blobs, blending blobs, sucking up blobs… mm, he had to say, this really was stress-relieving.

After finishing one huge cup of blobs, the little star in the “Anomaly” category leveled up once again.

The new function’s little-star description had a lot of personality:

[.—— ——- -……- -.—— ——- ……- -……- -.—— …… -……- ——. . -……- -……- …… .- ——- -……- —— …… -……- —— ……，.——- …… ……- -……- -…… ……- -……- ——. .- ——- -……- …… ……- -……- -. ……~]

Zhan Yan: ???

What even was all this?

Dots and dashes… could it be Morse code?

Zhan Yan had just been about to go online and search for Morse code when the gossip system automatically popped up an input box for him.

He tried closing it… wouldn’t close. Tried again… still wouldn’t close. The input box stubbornly floated before his eyes, like it had a little tail wagging at him: use me use me use me~

Zhan Yan suddenly understood. He copied and pasted the long string of dots and dashes into the input box.

A translation automatically appeared below it:

“I have a little secret, but I won’t tell you~ unless you learn how to decode it~”

Zhan Yan: …

So it was just a password translator. As long as encrypted information was entered, it could decode it.

“Seriously,” Zhan Yan said sincerely to the gossip system, “I think you should act more normal.”

The gossip system ignored him.

There were still plenty of anomaly concept blobs left, and because the process really was very stress-relieving, Zhan Yan decided to save this activity for every time he felt overwhelming pressure in the future.

After exiting the Dawn World, Zhan Yan discovered that Gu Jiancheng and his sister had started on yet another new topic—and they were getting along with even more chemistry now.

Gu Jiancheng smoothly shifted the topic to dealing with Infinite, and together with his sister started discussing how to cooperate in fighting Infinite.

Gu Jiancheng was very satisfied with this. Rong Sui was an extremely reliable partner, and like him, she and Infinite were irreconcilable enemies. Most importantly, the more attention she focused on Infinite, the less attention she would spend trying to strip away his cover identity.

Zhan Suiru was also very satisfied with this. Deep Shadow was a very reliable teammate. They had a common enemy, and Deep Shadow knew a lot of information that she didn’t. Their cooperation would help them deal with Infinite better on one hand, and on the other hand, once she became more familiar with Deep Shadow, it would also be easier to find out exactly who was seducing her younger brother!

Zhan Yan was also very satisfied with this.

Excellent. Let the two of them grind each other for now—just don’t drag him into it, and let him first solve things on his brother’s side and with Wanyan Cat.

Wanyan Cat’s matter was a bit troublesome, but fortunately, his brother’s side wouldn’t make him go bald.

His brother spent every day researching matters related to the Ghost Festival, and when he came back he still didn’t forget to bring him sweet bread. His brother was so good!

Zhan Jinli, however, was currently worried.

In the past few days he had gathered a great deal of information related to the Ghost Festival, and had developed some ideas on how to make use of that day’s special nature to help Wanyan recover. But he couldn’t use it directly on Wanyan; he first had to test it out.

He needed a magical artifact that could be used for simulation. Zhan Jinli already had the concept for making such an artifact, but he didn’t have time to finish it before the Ghost Festival. Artifact refining was not his area of expertise.

But if he missed this year’s Ghost Festival, then he’d have to wait another whole year.

Zhan Jinli decided to go look for the Tie Lao Ghost King.

The Tie Lao Ghost King was better at artifact refining than he was—he even shared a title with his own Tie Lao Hall.

At the same time, the Tie Lao Ghost King had just confirmed that Artisan currently had time and could modify the “Linyuan” puppet that had been sitting idle with him for a very long time.

The Tie Lao Ghost King began packing up the puppet, preparing to send it over to Artisan.

Wonderful. Once this puppet was modified, then the tiny little issue between him and Senior Linyuan could finally be considered completely over, and he would also be able to free up this precious labor force that had been collecting dust for ages.

The “Linyuan” puppet had no shutdown mode, so the Tie Lao Ghost King switched him into Cat-Lover Mode—right now, every time he looked at “Linyuan” Mode, he remembered that day: he had sensed the great door of his magical artifact residence being ripped off, rushed back in a hurry, and then happened to walk in just as the “Linyuan” puppet was loudly mouthing off at Senior Linyuan…

And then there had been Senior Linyuan’s killing-aura-soaked smile when he turned around.

Thinking about it made his liver tremble.

Better switch to Cat-Lover Mode. Cat-Lover Mode was perverted and talkative, yes, but at least it wasn’t that arrogant and wouldn’t say things that made his liver shake.

The Tie Lao Ghost King had only gotten halfway through packing when the “Linyuan” puppet in Cat-Lover Mode complained loudly, “You’re so spineless! How could you submit to a pervert who wants to make the little cat ears and tail disappear?!

“You need to have your own opinions, an independent personality. Think about it—getting scared by someone and then giving up, how humiliating… how humiliating for a ghost! You’re a Ghost King, for heaven’s sake!

“Look at me—I’m very firm about my own personality!”

The Tie Lao Ghost King kept packing upward, expressionless, until he had packed the “Linyuan” puppet up to chest height. “Yes, your personality. Your freakishly obsessive cat-huffing personality.”

The “Linyuan” puppet was furious. “What’s freakish about huffing cats? Kitties are the cutest things in the world! That person is the freak!”

He stuck one arm out of the box and pointed behind the Tie Lao Ghost King.

The Tie Lao Ghost King shuddered and thought, no way, no way, please don’t let it be—

Zhan Jinli: “What are you doing?”

The Tie Lao Ghost King turned around stiffly. “I… haha, haha, I was planning to send him back for some repairs. To have Artisan change his… his appearance and his… his personality settings.”

Zhan Jinli became thoughtful. Right—how had he forgotten about Artisan?

Artisan’s manufacturing ability was top-class. He should be able to rush out the magical artifact Zhan Jinli needed before the Ghost Festival.

The “Linyuan” puppet, hearing the Tie Lao Ghost King say he wanted to change his personality, was already throwing a fit: “You tasteless bastard! Cats are the holiest animals in the world! And you actually want to change my love for kitties—you’re a pervert! You’re cruel! You’re terrifying! Waaaah, how could I possibly endure a life where I forget little kitties…”

Zhan Jinli’s train of thought was interrupted, and with a lift of his hand he used a strand of yin energy to seal the “Linyuan” puppet’s mouth shut.

The “Linyuan” puppet glared murderously at him.

“Compared to you, how is Artisan’s artifact-refining ability? Does he understand souls very well?” Zhan Jinli asked.

He glanced at the “Linyuan” puppet, who was twisting around, trying to bounce out and smash him with his head. Whatever else might be uncertain, one thing was clear: Artisan was definitely better than the Tie Lao Ghost King at making puppets.

The Tie Lao Ghost King answered honestly: “For traditional ghost artifacts, he’s definitely not as good as me, but he’s more creative than I am, and he works faster. He should understand souls pretty well. Before this, he asked me for a lot of information related to souls.”

Zhan Jinli decided then that Artisan was the better choice. It didn’t matter if Artisan’s understanding of souls wasn’t quite sufficient—as long as he had some foundation, Zhan Jinli could make up the rest. The most important thing was speed.

There were only a few days left before the Ghost Festival. Asking Tie Lao for help would definitely be too late, and besides, Tie Lao was already being worked so hard that Zhan Jinli genuinely couldn’t bear to pile more pressure onto him.

Tie Lao Ghost King said, “Senior, are you planning to look for Artisan? But he’s not taking commissions anymore.”

The only reason Tie Lao himself could ask Artisan to modify the puppet was because this only needed a few adjustments, and because of their old friendship, Artisan was willing to spare some time to help.

Zhan Jinli silently looked at the struggling “Linyuan” puppet and let the corners of his mouth curl coolly. “He’ll agree.”

Artisan had made a puppet using his image and had even set the personality like this—had he paid copyright fees?

“Isn’t this puppet supposed to be delivered to Artisan for modification?” Zhan Jinli said unhurriedly. “I’ll deliver it for you.”

Tie Lao Ghost King: …Would his puppet ever come back? Senior wouldn’t lose patience halfway and just destroy it, would he?

And yet, he had no way to refuse.

The Tie Lao Ghost King could only watch helplessly as Senior Linyuan took away the puppet he had spent a great deal of money commissioning.

What should he do? He couldn’t exactly warn Artisan in advance that Linyuan Ghost King was on his way…

After thinking for a long while, the Tie Lao Ghost King opened his chat window with Artisan.

Tie Lao: “Come to think of it, you don’t actually know Linyuan Ghost King that well either, right?”

“Let me introduce him a little.”

“You know Ghost King Wanyan, right? Very skilled in curses.”

“Linyuan Ghost King is even better at curses than Ghost King Wanyan.”

Zhan Suiru: ?

What was Tie Lao suddenly telling her all this for?

Wasn’t he supposed to be having the “Linyuan” puppet modified so it would stop being so “Linyuan”?

Artisan: “What do you mean?”

“Do you want to add Linyuan Ghost King’s curse ability to the puppet?”

The Tie Lao Ghost King didn’t reply. Zhan Suiru didn’t keep waiting either. After all, Tie Lao Ghost King’s puppet hadn’t arrived yet. She could ask for clarification once it was time to modify it.

Zhan Suiru went back to discussing improvements to the studio fortress with Yang Ran—such a huge weapon would be too wasteful not to use against Infinite. It just so happened that she and Yang Ran were now discussing how to deal with Infinite together with Deep Shadow.

An hour later, someone knocked on the studio door.

Through the monitoring system, Zhan Suiru saw that the visitor was a large ghost in a hood. His face was hidden beneath the hood, and beside him was a package as tall as himself. In his hand he held proof given by the Tie Lao Ghost King.

The “Linyuan” puppet that Tie Lao Ghost King wanted her to modify had arrived.

For some reason, Zhan Suiru felt something was a little off as she looked at the ghost delivering the package.

She frowned and first sent a message to the Tie Lao Ghost King to confirm.

The Tie Lao Ghost King replied very quickly.

Tie Lao: “Yes.”

As long as it was confirmed fine, then okay. Zhan Suiru changed clothes and opened the door, letting the visitor into her reception room.

She opened the packaging and did a quick inspection of the “Linyuan” puppet.

The “Linyuan” puppet had his mouth plugged, hands and feet bound by a clump of yin energy, and was desperately widening his eyes and making all sorts of exaggerated facial gestures at Zhan Suiru.

Zhan Suiru skillfully ignored the puppet. She had made plenty of puppets herself, so she knew perfectly well what this puppet’s personality mode was like. If he had been gagged and tied up like this, then obviously he had acted up and been restrained.

After a quick inspection, she confirmed once again: “There’s nothing wrong with it, so you just need me to modify its appearance and personality module, right?”

Zhan Jinli’s voice was low and steady. “Right.”

“Okay. In a few days I’ll notify Tie Lao to come pick it up.” She gestured toward the door. “You can go now.”

Zhan Jinli did not move. He was very familiar with being made into clay statues by others. In his previous life, when he had served as a river god, who knew how many temples lined the riverbanks to worship him, and every river god temple contained his statue.

But this was still the first time he had been made into this kind of puppet and given this sort of… either cat-loving or just plain insane personality.

Zhan Jinli found it novel, and he was also curious about the Artisan who had dared to do such a thing.

“Is there something else?” Seeing that he wasn’t moving, Zhan Suiru asked.

“Yes.” Zhan Jinli pulled back his hood, revealing a face exactly identical to the puppet’s.

Zhan Suiru: ??!

Tie Lao, are you crazy?! Why would you have Linyuan Ghost King deliver the package in person?!

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