GRMFBS CH244

Zhan Suiru had just finished making the prototype of the magical artifact according to Yang Ran’s design and was planning to find the Linyuan Ghost King for an initial test run when she received a message from her older brother.

Zhan Jinli: “Who made those cookies?”

Zhan Suiru: “A friend of mine.”
“What’s wrong?”

Zhan Jinli: “The cookies are very delicious. I want to learn how to make them.”

Although the Ghost King wasn’t truly socially anxious, his years of pretending to be socially anxious had resulted in him having absolutely no understanding of the various arts of communication in human society.

His sister had a lot of things pent up in her heart. He had looked it up online, and the internet said that such people were easily deceived emotionally by others’ small favors.

Lord Ghost King was afraid of triggering his sister, so he pondered bitterly and tossed and turned for a long time before finally figuring out a roundabout way to learn about the person who gave his sister the little cookies.

Zhan Suiru: “Which kind of cookie do you mean is delicious?”

Zhan Jinli pondered for a moment and decided to choose a safe answer: “They are all delicious.”

Zhan Suiru: “Brother, I don’t think you need to learn. Just change your habit of adding sugar and it will taste good.”

Zhan Jinli: …

Zhan Suiru: “I’ll go ask for the recipe for you.”
“[Extra Sugar Version] [Normal Version]”

She sent the recipes over. Yang Ran, who had just provided the recipes, had bright, shining eyes.

Her brother liked his cookies!

“What about younger brother? Does younger brother like the new flavor of cookies I made? And the apple pie, what did he think?”

“He really liked them.” Zhan Suiru smiled, then fell into deep thought. “But I still feel like it’s weird for my brother to suddenly ask about cookies.”

With her brother’s palate, would he really suddenly find the cookies Xiao Ran made delicious? He even thought the normal-flavored ones were delicious, so delicious he wanted to learn to make them…

How did his tastes change so drastically all of a sudden?

Hmm… thinking about it carefully, it didn’t seem completely abnormal. After all, there was already a precedent at home. Yanyan’s tastes had suddenly changed to liking the sweet bread their brother made. So was it possible that their brother could suddenly appreciate normal-flavored desserts?

But what kind of logic was this? Did their tastes rub off on each other?

After Zhan Jinli was rejected by his sister, he thought for a long time but couldn’t figure out a way to ask about the person who made the little cookies without exposing his intentions. He fretted for a long while before finally coming up with an idea: ask his younger brother!

Thus, Zhan Yan received another message from his brother.

Zhan Jinli: “Does your sister have a boyfriend?”

Zhan Yan shivered. How did his brother find out? Did his sister expose a flaw? Did his brother also suspect that he had a boyfriend?

Check the gossip feeds first!

Oh, oh, so it was because Yang Ran put too much effort into making the little cookies, which caused his brother to get suspicious.

Sigh, Yang Ran was really hopeless at this. You can’t be this hasty when grinding favorability with family members! Look at how great Xiao Gu was at grinding favorability!

Zhan Yan covered for his sister: “No, she doesn’t.”
“I haven’t seen any signs of her dating.”

Zhan Jinli believed it again.

Yanyan had always been very sharp when it came to eating melons (gossip). Since he said there wasn’t, then there probably really wasn’t.

Although his younger brother was a younger brother who could lie now, Zhan Jinli believed that on the matter of “whether Zhan Suiru has a boyfriend,” they were on a united front.

That person who sent the cookies probably hasn’t succeeded yet, so this is exactly the time to be vigilant!

But his sister often traveled for business for her studio, and his younger brother spent more than half the year away from home for school. It wasn’t completely impossible that his sister was dating but his younger brother hadn’t caught the gossip. Zhan Jinli thought carefully and proposed an idea.

Zhan Jinli: “When you go to the gaming convention together tomorrow, keep an eye out.”
“Suiru is easily deceived. Don’t let anyone take advantage of her vulnerabilities.”

Zhan Yan: “I promise to complete the mission!”

Zhan Jinli felt relieved.

Zhan Yan turned right around and sent the chat history to his sister.

Zhan Yan: “[Chat History]”
“I covered for you, you know!”

Covering for someone requires exchanging favors!

Zhan Suiru clicked her tongue.

How did her socially anxious eldest brother suddenly become so sharp? How could Deep Shadow have the massive good fortune to find a catch like her little brother?

Zhan Suiru: “Got it, got it.”
“Why did he suddenly ask this?”

Zhan Yan took a picture of the red paper bag in his hand and sent it to his sister.

Zhan Yan: “[Image]”
“I think it’s just so obvious.”
“If brother didn’t react at all, how dense would he have to be?”

Zhan Suiru carefully looked at the prints and handwriting on the packaging bag, and her gaze slowly shifted to Yang Ran.

Those prints weren’t from commercially bought wrapping paper—and couriers couldn’t deliver to the black market anyway. Yang Ran had drawn and made these himself.

Zhan Suiru: You used the artifact workbench to make this?

Yang Ran slowly shifted his gaze away.

At night, Zhan Yan was on the phone with Gu Jiancheng.

“I’m going out to play for a few days, but I haven’t picked a place yet. Do you have anywhere you want to go? Let’s go out and play together.”

Gu Jiancheng: “I have things to do these next few days. I can’t go with you.”

Zhan Yan: ??

What things did Xiao Gu have to do?

Check the gossip feeds, check the gossip feeds.

Ahhh, he missed a melon! Because of what the Chronicle of the World said, Xiao Gu felt uneasy and decided to minimize contact with him in the future.

Chronicle of the World, you’ve done all sorts of evil!

It was like finally coaxing a stressed little animal into being clingy, only for a bad guy to come along and trigger its stress response all over again.

So infuriating!

Gu Jiancheng asked in a low voice: “Yanyan, are you angry?”

“No, we’ll see each other in a few days when school starts anyway. Fifth-year classes are light; we can go out and play together then.” After gently comforting Xiao Gu like water, Zhan Yan hung up the phone and immediately opened the Gossip System.

He was going into the Dawn World to grind information words! Level up! And load all those disgusting [Loading…] prompts!

Isn’t it just grinding (involuting)? Who hasn’t grinded during the college entrance exams!

As the concepts of the Apocalyptic World merged more and more, the time in the Dawn World gradually synchronized with the real world.

Outside, the world was shrouded in night; here, the sky was densely packed with stars.

Zhan Yan entered the core area of the Dawn World and first ate a round of the newly accumulated information dumplings.

After eating the last one, Zhan Yan reached out his hand to feel around beside him… but felt nothing.

Crap, he had also eaten the few dumplings he had specifically saved for stress relief.

Whatever, eaten is eaten. He could save up a few more in a couple of days anyway. A furious Zhan Yan didn’t need stress relief; he only needed to let the hot blood rush to his head and grind, grind, grind.

Wasn’t Xiao Gu worried that his connection would cause that Infinite bunch to track him down and hurt him? Then he’d just track down that bunch first. Once they were eliminated, there would be nothing to worry about!

Zhan Yan looked around. Without concept dumplings, if he wanted to grind information words, he would have to run from place to place himself. However, after the Dawn World merged with the Apocalyptic World, the concept of “leveling up” had disappeared, and how to acquire “skills” in this world was still being explored.

Right now, he only had the giant dragon head that gave him a wider field of vision than others. If he wanted to run across the map himself to accumulate information words, it would still be too slow.

Zhan Yan thought of an idea: he could randomly teleport anywhere from the core area, and could return to the core area from anywhere.

As long as he teleported quickly, he could rapidly grind the information words for “Domain” and “Things”. The words for “Spirits” and “Organizations” depended on luck, but he could probably grind quite a few of those too.

Thus, in the dead of night when all was silent in the Dawn World, a slumbering hill dwarf tribe was thrown into chaos by a sudden giant dragon-headed burly man; a sleeping dragon was so startled by a weird-headed humanoid getting stuck on its eyelid that it spat out a huge mouthful of fire; and a flock of giant eagles huddled together in sleep discovered an unidentified creature suddenly appearing under their wings, instantly scattering into the sky in fright…

Zhan Yan returned to the core area in a sorry state.

Fortunately, he was quick with his hands and eyes, otherwise he would have been tossed out of the nest by the giant eagles.

This trip was way too stimulating; he needed to rest for a bit…

Zhan Yan lay back.

The core area was empty. Although there were no more concept dumplings to transport, the ocean shimmering with warm-toned light still gently undulated beneath him.

Two dumplings slowly drifted down from the rosy clouds above his head. The first dumpling landed on the surface of the sea but didn’t melt in.

Zhan Yan looked at it for a while. This concept bounced and was pushed closer and closer to him by the waves.

He scooped the dumpling over and used it as a pillow beneath his head. The second concept dumpling fell right above his body. Zhan Yan reached out, caught it, and hugged it in his arms, kneading and squeezing it.

Zhan Yan rested for a while, then suddenly sighed.

He had to admit, he was indeed a bit anxious. There was an indescribable sense of unease in his heart.

Zhan Yan opened the information disk panel. He didn’t know how much energy the chaotic run he just did had accumulated, or how much more was needed to level up… Hmm? His “Things” column had already leveled up? When did that happen?

[While you were enjoying the thrill of appearing in a royal treasury one second and on a stormy reef the next, you didn’t notice that you had already leveled up.]

Zhan Yan couldn’t help but recall the miserable escape process of being discovered by a group of screaming guards in the royal treasury… That was a rare instance where he didn’t immediately return to the core area.

When faced with the royal treasury, his “Item Introduction” ability had churned out a dense cluster of new item intros, and new “Things” information words popped out in heaps.

With such a massive treasury, how could he bear to leave immediately!

So the guards chased him from behind while he fled in front. Some things were hidden in chests and couldn’t be seen, so he had to rummage through chests while running. Fortunately, the guards in this unknown palace all wore heavy armor and couldn’t catch up to him for a while.

They were even yelling about a thief. Honestly, he was just looking, he didn’t take anything.

Looking at this gossip feed, he must have leveled up while in the royal treasury. Excellent, the extreme parkour was worth it!

Zhan Yan tapped open this new little star.

[What is the most important thing for a map-clearing maniac? A map, of course! Live locations, navigation, it has it all. System products never lack morals!]

Zhan Yan tested it out. This function was a bit like a game map; it only showed places he had been to. The live location function was also similar to a game showing player locations. The little white dot in the bedroom was him, the little green dot not far from him was Xingxing, and the two green dots further away were his brother and sister. Beyond that, no live locations could be seen. It seemed this function had a distance limit. He would test out where the boundary was tomorrow.

It was already past midnight. He needed to sleep; he had a train to catch tomorrow morning.

At the same time, the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau was still working overtime to interrogate the Chronicle of the World.

The process was going fairly smoothly. The Chronicle of the World was already in a state of being beaten silly by Deep Shadow. The Bureau spent a bit of effort and managed to pry quite a lot of Infinite-related information out of him.

But Ning Xi felt it wasn’t enough: “What he’s spitting out isn’t the core issue.”

The interrogators were also helpless: “Even if he wanted to say the more important things, he couldn’t.”

The Infinite Will and the Chronicle of the World’s soul were deeply entangled. Even in a secret chamber that isolated the Infinite’s power, these slumbering forces still locked away some information within the Chronicle of the World’s soul. The secret chamber could at most guarantee that the Chronicle of the World wouldn’t have his head blown off by the Infinite Will when asked these questions and attempting to answer.

“No.” Ning Xi stared intently at the Chronicle of the World through the one-way mirror. “There are still things he can say, even more crucial things.”

“He’s using this unimportant information to run us in circles.”

They couldn’t keep interrogating him like this. They at least needed a direction before they could dig deeper.

“Has his physical condition recovered enough? Give him a deep examination.”

…

Gu Jiancheng was currently grinding the Magician.

Wan Shitong was now affiliated with the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau, enjoying the shade provided by a big tree. His safety level had skyrocketed. But the Magician was still obsessed with her mysterious lone-wolf style. Although she hid well, if she were discovered, the danger level would be extremely high.

The Magician was driven to despair by his relentless grinding: “I sincerely advise you to stop pushing me like this. If you keep grinding blindly, you will very likely regret it in the future.”

Gu Jiancheng sneered: “Only those who don’t work hard enough will feel regret.”

The Magician: “I’m not joking. I read your fortune…”

Gu Jiancheng was resolute: “Then go read it again.”

He was just about to continue when he suddenly received a communication from Ning Xi.

The Magician breathed a massive sigh of relief and was just about to slip away when her shadow suddenly couldn’t move.

The Magician: …Fuck!

Ning Xi: “The Chronicle of the World doesn’t have any skills on him.”
“Did you devour his other skills as well?”

Gu Jiancheng’s expression turned serious: “I only tore off half of his skill book when I cornered him the first time.”
“Not the second time.”

The second time, in order to prevent the Chronicle of the World from escaping, he had directly locked down everyone in the entire area. The Chronicle of the World didn’t even have time to resist, so he naturally didn’t use any skills.

But what if the reason he didn’t use any skills was because the remaining half of the skill book was no longer on him?

Only one day had passed between the first and second encounter. Who had the ability to silently snatch away the other half of the Chronicle of the World’s skills during that single day? Or had he given his skills to someone else?

What was he planning to do with the other half of the skills?

Support me on Ko-fi