GRMFBS CH237

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Zhan Yan kept scrolling through the gossip feed and only then saw that Gu Jiancheng had chosen a toy that hadn’t even been put on the shelves in physical stores yet.

If that was the case, then yes, it really wouldn’t be that easy for his sister to make the connection. But it still wasn’t completely impossible!

[Gu Jiancheng believes that he has already built up enough favorability with Zhan Suiru that he can risk a slight chance of exposure in order to give you a gift.]

Resting his chin on his hand, Zhan Yan let out a quiet sigh. But it wasn’t just his sister in the family who had a hidden identity. His mother was also in the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau. Even though he didn’t know whether his mother knew much about Aurora Glory, that was still another possible point where exposure could happen.

And he couldn’t warn Xiao Gu too much. If Xiao Gu dug things out on his own, that was one matter. But if he was the one who told Xiao Gu, then once the whole family’s covers all came off, and the family learned that he had hidden Xiao Gu’s identity from them while first revealing all of their hidden identities to Xiao Gu… it was over. Xiao Gu could forget about ever gaining favorability from the family for the rest of his life.

So for now, the only thing he could do was temporarily refuse the gift, even though he really did want to play with a magic wand that remotely controlled a magic circle.

Pretending he wasn’t interested in oversized toys, Zhan Yan regretfully turned down Gu Jiancheng’s gift.

Gu Jiancheng became troubled. It seemed his judgment had gone wrong again. But the toy wasn’t the important thing. Right now, he was worried about something else.

“Yan Yan, what have you been busy with lately? It feels like you’ve been really tired these days,” Gu Jiancheng asked.

Zhan Yan thought: as long as you stop grinding me, I won’t be tired anymore.

But he still had to keep lying. “It’s nothing much. It’s just that the game my mom’s company invested in is going to an expo soon, so things have been a little busier lately.”

Gu Jiancheng understood. So it was a family business issue. Ah, then Yan Yan would definitely face more problems like this in the future. Just hearing the words “business warfare” made it sound like an extremely brain-burning and energy-draining thing. How could he help Yan Yan with that? He didn’t understand commercial operations at all… should he put together a self-study plan?

But for him, that would be something learned entirely from scratch. If he split his attention, he probably wouldn’t learn it well. Hmm… so he still needed to work hard to take care of Infinite first. Even if he couldn’t solve everything completely, he at least needed to kill Monster Doctor first.

If that dead pervert found out about his relationship with Zhan Yan, then he would definitely try to use Zhan Yan.

[In order to be able to help you sooner, Gu Jiancheng decides to push Approaching Science into helping him investigate Monster Doctor.]

Zhan Yan: …

Happy and miserable.

Xiao Gu really was sweet. And also really, really grindy.

Sure enough, after hanging up, Approaching Science once again received a message fromI Just Saved the World! asking him to investigate Monster Doctor.

Approaching Science: “I’m checking, I’m checking already.”

Zhan Yan sighed and continued organizing the list of anomalies he and the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau had uncovered through cooperation.

At this point, they had already found quite a lot of anomalies. Even if these anomalous phenomena weren’t all interconnected, there was probably already enough for him to try finding common points and dredging up the big fish hidden underneath.

[Chao Wei thought the university dorm was far too hot without air-conditioning, so he put an inflatable swimming pool in the dorm room.]

…

[Dong Jiaming casually grabbed an ice cream, only to discover at the register that it cost 12 yuan. Dong Jiaming said, “No thanks. Just seeing this price has already chilled my heart.”]

…

[Hu Yihang was woken by a cicada clinging to the window screen, so he got up and recorded a video to post online, saying: “Honestly, what a living father. It doesn’t sleep even in the middle of the night.”]

…

No matter how you looked at them, they all seemed like very ordinary summer everyday life.

Zhan Yan sorted through all the gossip lines, then closed his eyes and organized them inside the system backup.

First, concentrate on the gossip lines where problems appeared, focusing especially on the three days before and after. Compare, eliminate, organize…

Half an hour later, Zhan Yan abruptly opened his eyes.

Approaching Science: “It’s cicadas.”

“Among 45 anomalous phenomena, whether people or locations, 23 of them had come into contact with cicadas before the anomalies appeared.”

Cicadas were one of the most common insects of summer. They crawled up from underground, shed their shells, dried their wings, clung to trees to suck sap, and made tremendous noise.

Even if you had never actually seen a cicada during summer, it was hard not to have heard their calls.

And precisely because they were so common, Zhan Yan had ignored all these gossip lines involving cicadas when he first skimmed over them.

But after doing comparisons, the frequency with which they appeared suddenly stood out.

23 out of 45—already more than half. Other words that also appeared often in summer, such as “ice cream” and “air-conditioning,” did not appear with anything close to that frequency.

Zhan Yan simultaneously compared them against the gossip lines of other ordinary people. In random ordinary-life gossip lines with no problems, the frequency of “cicada” appearing came nowhere near 50%.

But even having discovered that the issue lay with cicadas, Zhan Yan had no way to use “cicada” as a keyword for searching, just like he couldn’t use “human” as a keyword for searching.

These gossip lines were all very strange. Their concealment ability was extremely strong. What could be searched up were almost all anomalous “phenomena” rather than the actual names of specific anomalies. It felt more like some kind of ability.

Administrator Ling Yu: “Wait a sec, I’m going to check.”

Cicadas, insects, Insect King—Nie Yu instantly connected the dots to this player.

A few hours later, Nie Yu contacted him again.

Insect King had an ability called “Shedding Cicada.” Cicada slough, shedding cicada—the cicada hid itself beneath its discarded shell. Before the shell was shed, the cicada nymph and cicada were one and the same and could not be distinguished. This was a very powerful concealment skill that could completely transform oneself into another identity, using someone else’s “shell” to hide one’s existence.

That was why the gossip lines couldn’t pull up the anomaly’s name. Because from the moment the anomaly appeared, it had already completely transformed itself into the identity it had selected.

Administrator Ling Yu: “Insect King doesn’t remember having this ability. We only confirmed it through other means.”

In Zhan Yan’s information panel, under the “Abilities” section, there was now another new entry. He entered “Shedding Cicada” into the search bar.

[Loading…]

Very good. A familiar sort of gossip line.

Zhan Yan specially marked these [Loading…] gossip lines and dragged them into the “Favorites” folder, so that all these specially watched lines now carried a distinctive marker.

After that, Zhan Yan began checking some of the big users of [Loading…] entries.

First was Monster Doctor. Among his long string of [Loading…] gossip lines, there was no sign of the specially marked [Loading…] one.

Then he switched to Chronicle of the World…

Approaching Science: “It’s Chronicle of the World.”

Chronicle of the World possessed the ability to steal other people’s powers. He should originally have checked Chronicle of the World’s gossip lines first. He had only looked at Monster Doctor first because Xiao Gu had ground him into madness.

Finding Chronicle of the World was huge news too—this was the guy who had used Yang Ran’s soul to threaten his sister!

New hatred and old hatred surged up together. Zhan Yan immediately synchronized the information to Xiao Gu and his sister.

Anyway, now everyone was already cooperating, so there was no fear of people dragging each other down through poor communication anymore—never again would there be a case where he asked Deep Shadow for help and Deep Shadow ended up getting blocked by people from the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau!

[The One Who Just Saved the World!]: “Very good.”

“I knew the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau was useless.”

“See? Just a few days after you got involved, you found the clue.”

“Keep working hard next time.”

Zhan Yan: …

Artisan: “Thank you.”

See? That’s what a normal reply looked like.

Because Infinite was involved, most of Chronicle of the World’s gossip lines were blocked on Zhan Yan’s side. But now that the “Shedding Cicada” ability had been exposed, it had instead become an anchor point he could use to locate Chronicle of the World’s movements.

Still, there should be other things on Chronicle of the World as well. Through “Shedding Cicada,” Zhan Yan couldn’t pinpoint him precisely. He could only provide a rough range, and even that might be delayed. Whether they could actually catch him or not would still depend on the people on the ground searching in person.

This chance was rare. No one knew when Chronicle of the World might notice the problem and abandon the “Shedding Cicada” ability. Just like no one knew how many other stolen abilities he had hidden on himself.

If he realized that it was “Shedding Cicada” that was causing his exposure and simply switched to using another ability, then catching Chronicle of the World later would become much harder.

[Zhan Suiru believes that this opportunity to capture Chronicle of the World is extremely rare, and decides to hand Linyuan Ghost King’s commission over to Yang Ran to deal with.]

Although Yang Ran’s soul still had not recovered enough to bear his Chaofan ability, he had more experience and greater talent in this area. What he lacked for now was only hands-on ability. He could first discuss things with Linyuan Ghost King, and once she came back they could begin the practical work.

Zhan Yan felt that this problem wasn’t too serious.

[Deep Shadow, Gu Jiancheng, believes that capturing Chronicle of the World is a very good chance to raise his impression score, and decides to cooperate with Zhan Suiru to capture Chronicle of the World. If Linyuan Ghost King asks Artisan, Zhan Suiru, to work overtime, he’ll go have a talk with Linyuan Ghost King.]

Zhan Yan felt that this problem was very serious!

Move aside! Let him handle this!

He immediately went to find his brother.

This matter was so easy to solve.

First, tell his brother that “Artisan” was Rong Sui—there was no point hiding that identity. Once the apocalypse border had connected, that cover was bound to be exposed anyway. The Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau and the Wan Yao Alliance already knew. The only reason Chaofu Mountain didn’t know was purely because the only Ghost King managing things there focused solely on the underworld.

Linyuan: “Understood.”

[Linyuan Ghost King, Zhan Jinli, understands Rong Sui’s feelings and agrees to the request from “Artisan,” Zhan Suiru, to change the commission workflow.]

See? How simple that was? Zhan Yan hadn’t even had time yet to explain to his brother that Yang Ran was stronger in artifact crafting. Just getting them coordinated in advance meant nothing would be delayed later on.

His brother was so good.

The Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau also reacted quickly, and soon worked out a full action plan.

Approaching Science’s ability could determine a rough range, but if they wanted more accurate positioning, they still needed other information to refine it. Approaching Science was also good at integrating information, but purely in terms of efficiency, he couldn’t match the Librarian, Tu Yue.

So in the following operation, Approaching Science would determine the rough region where the “Shedding Cicada” ability had appeared. The Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau’ information-types would then collect nearby potentially relevant information. After that, Tu Yue would integrate and filter this information, produce the several locations where Chronicle of the World was most likely to appear, and send those to Deep Shadow and Rong Sui.

As for other locations with lower probabilities, other members of the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau would be watching those too.

Zhan Suiru left home under the excuse that she needed to go on a business trip to meet a client.

Zhan Yan quietly let out a breath of relief. Finally, he no longer had to hide from his sister at home. Over the past few days, he had often used Dad and Mom as shields. His dad disliked him for being a third wheel and had already started inventing all sorts of excuses to take Mom out on dates. In a few more days, he truly wouldn’t have had any excuse left for avoiding his sister.

As Zhan Suiru was leaving, she stood at the door staring at him, teasing her younger brother again. “You’re this happy just because I’m going on a business trip?”

Zhan Yan: heh!

“How could that be? I’m still waiting for the little cookies you promised to bring me.”

It wasn’t like he was the only one secretly in a relationship. Leverage went both ways.

His sister stopped pretending to be hurt.

His brother, however, fell into thought.

Little cookies? Did his younger brother now think little cookies tasted better than the bread he made?

Zhan Jinli began staring at Zhan Suiru.

He typed: “Bring me a portion too.”

He was suddenly curious what those cookies tasted like.

Zhan Suiru thought her brother’s expression looked a little strange.

Whatever, she couldn’t be bothered to study it. If he wanted to eat them, then he could. She’d just have Xiao Ran make an extra-sweet version for him later.

Over the next few days, Zhan Yan temporarily put aside his other tasks and focused entirely on tracking Chronicle of the World’s movements.

Chronicle of the World quickly realized that he was being hunted, but for now he still didn’t know that it was because his position was being locked through the “Shedding Cicada” ability.

Zhan Yan organized the latest batch of gossip lines he had dug up and sent them to Tu Yue.

Ugh, checking Chronicle of the World’s gossip lines every day and having to face a giant heap of [Loading…] entries was so annoying. Hopefully he got caught tomorrow!

After finishing the day’s work, it was once again time for his nightly goodnight phone call with Student Xiao Gu.

Zhan Yan took a look at the gossip feed.

Xiao Gu and his sister had been cooperating well over the past few days. Big Boss Deep Shadow knew how to protect his own cover identity, so there was nothing in particular to worry about.

Zhan Yan stretched lazily, closed his eyes, and went to sleep. His dad had been taking Mom out on dates every day and still somehow managed to keep watching over whether he exercised.

At the same time, Tu Yue, while integrating information, finally gave voice to the gossip that had been bothering him for a long time.

He privately sent Rong Sui a message.

Librarian: “Are you pretty familiar with Deep Shadow?”

Rong Sui: “Fairly.”

“What’s up?”

Based on her and Deep Shadow’s abilities, there was actually no need for the two of them to move together. Separating would be more efficient. But both of them wanted to find out whether the mental brand Rong Sui had left on Infinite could be used to track Infinite’s will, as well as Chronicle of the World, who was entangled with Infinite’s will in complicated ways.

Over the past two days she and Deep Shadow had grown somewhat more familiar with each other, but even adding in the three months they had spent previously chasing enemies, the total time they had actually interacted still didn’t exceed four months.

Deep Shadow had just left temporarily to deal with something, and Tu Yue chose this timing to ask her about him alone—was there some problem?

Librarian: “There seems to be some kind of healing-type big shot around Deep Shadow. Have you noticed anyone he contacts frequently?”

“Or maybe not healing-type, but in any case, someone he’s very close with.”

Zhan Suiru: ?

So you privately messaged me behind Deep Shadow’s back just to gossip about him?

The word “close” sounded so strange when associated with Deep Shadow.

She knew Deep Shadow had information-type collaborators, and that occasionally he would also contact players from the Retirees’ Alliance, but none of those could really be described as “close.”

Rong Sui: “I haven’t heard of anyone Deep Shadow is particularly close to.”

“Why are you asking?”

So Tu Yue explained the whole thing to her.

Librarian: “So there must be someone around Deep Shadow helping him resolve his aftereffects.”

“I suspect he’s in love.”

“This possibility was first raised by Approaching Science.”

“Although when he said it, it was only a guess.”

As for what Tu Yue said after that, Zhan Suiru no longer noticed at all. She stared at the words in love, and it was as if a paper window suddenly exploded in her mind, forcibly connecting two things she had never before thought to link together.

Gu Jiancheng had just finished his goodnight phone call with Zhan Yan. He came back and saw that Zhan Suiru’s expression looked wrong as she stared at the screen. “Rong Sui?”

Zhan Suiru slowly turned her head to look at Deep Shadow.

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