GRMFBS CH257

“Another”?

That single word gave Zhan Jinli a faintly bad feeling.

The world was huge. It couldn’t be that much of a coincidence. He was probably just too sensitive about cats.

Zhan Jinli hitched Xingxing a little higher on his shoulder, preparing to keep bulldozing through the level.

The sooner he finished, the sooner he could get away from this environment, which was far too lively for his tastes.

The staff member playing the Tree God was very professional and sighed, “No tree would like a cat that climbs all over it every single day.”

Xingxing let out an unhappy meow.

What does me climbing trees have to do with a human like you?

He stared wide-eyed at the little wooden tags swaying back and forth on the tree.

Should he pounce on one?~

Zhan Jinli reached back and pressed down on the cat’s head, his voice low.

“Don’t move around.”

What did the Fate Tree have to do with two single dogs like them?

He was worried Xingxing had already overheard the muttering from other people.

The staff member playing the Tree God wouldn’t tell them how the previous players had cleared the level, but there was someone in their group whose friend had been in the team ahead of them.

“My friend said they ran into a cat in their group, and that cat got the item down from the tree for them,” the guy kept babbling.

Tree God staff member: …

Whatever. One cat had already taken an item from him just now. Surely there wouldn’t be another one, right?

Zhan Jinli didn’t need the “Tears of Longing” item, but Xingxing really wanted to climb the tree!

If other kittens could do it, he could do it too!

Xingxing stubbornly climbed up the tree and untied one of the fate tags. Wasn’t this supposed to be taking kitty out to play? Kitty needed a sense of participation too!

The tag Xingxing untied was not a “Tears of Longing” fate tag. It was just an ordinary wooden tag, painted red, with delicate patterns carved on one side and four characters on the other:

“Life and death are not easily changed.”

The Tree God staff member smilingly raised the fate box to collect money. The “Tears of Longing” tags were props, but ordinary fate tags were purchasable souvenir keepsakes. Of course, if they didn’t want it, they could put it back. On the table under the tree sat a whole row of unstrung prop tags, all identical.

Zhan Jinli looked at Xingxing, who was clutching the tag and refusing to let go: …

Xingxing thought this was prey he had hunted himself.

He was amazing!

Fine. He’d just treat it as buying a cat toy.

Zhan Yan had bought a cat toy too—Little Cat Wan Yan had taken a fancy to the skull-headed ocean balls in the Yellow Springs, so Zhan Yan bought him a whole bag of them.

Wan Yan was extremely happy. His little tail stayed upright the whole way.

Hmph, I knew my chef was good to me~

The young couple moved on to the next level.

After entering Ghost Gate, walking along Wangchuan Road, and passing the Bridge of Helplessness, the next step was to face the judgment of the Mirror Platform.

Without question, the lawless, domineering-CEO Zhan Yan was the one being judged. He was chained to a chair by the Ox-Head and Horse-Face guards.

The chair was wooden, with iron cuffs on the armrests and legs that could lock a person’s forearms and ankles in place.

Zhan Yan curiously examined it. The melon-eating system popped up an item description:

[This is a torture chair made of wood and plastic, sprayed with metallic paint. Beneath the left armrest there is a red emergency unlock button, proving that in terms of restraint it is merely decorative. Its true use is as some kind of special toy.]

Zhan Yan: …

There was really no need to phrase it that ambiguously.

Xiao Gu’s expression had changed.

Zhan Yan felt his face heat up under that look and subconsciously tried to raise a hand to touch his face. The chains clattered. His hand only lifted less than a centimeter before being held fast.

Gu Jiancheng looked at Zhan Yan, and Zhan Yan instinctively looked back at him. His forearm lines were lean and taut; the black iron cuffs made his skin look even paler. Because he’d strained against them, the metal bit slightly into his flesh. In his glossy black eyes was that novelty and helplessness that came from suddenly experiencing physical freedom being restricted.

Gu Jiancheng’s Adam’s apple bobbed.

Zhan Yan blinked.

Oh~ so this is the kind of thing you like—

The atmosphere between the two of them was oddly impenetrable. Ox-Head and Horse-Face were using the ocean ball Zhan Yan had bought to tease the cat, and the staff member playing the Judge had no choice but to speak up and move the plot along.

He cleared his throat, picked up the Book of Life and Death and the Judge’s brush, and began the trial.

The domineering CEO had illegally imprisoned another person, and the punishment would cost him soul-flames. At this point, if they wanted to save those soul-flames, they needed help from teammates. There were two conditions: first, obtain the victim’s forgiveness; second, obtain a prop called the “Merit Pagoda.”

The other teammates had gone off to solve puzzles and find the prop. As the victim, Gu Jiancheng was bound here.

With both bigshots in the team trapped, the others pitifully told them this level might take a while. Neither Zhan Yan nor Gu Jiancheng minded.

It was a game, after all. This level had been designed that way. Who got judged in a team was decided by drawing a card.

If it was a solo identity, an NPC played by staff would appear—someone entangled with the character on the identity card, such as the water ghost that the fisherman had hooked up.

For multiplayer identities, all the related people were detained here. Zhan Yan hadn’t drawn it, but Gu Jiancheng had unfortunately pulled the card.

Given their linked roles as domineering CEO and canary, no matter how you looked at it, the one being judged should have been the CEO.

So the little couple ended up detained together here for fun, and everyone else had no choice but to go down the puzzle-solving route themselves.

The Judge said sternly, “Zhan Yan, you illegally imprisoned someone, and in the course of pursuit caused the other party’s death. You have committed a grave crime. I sentence you—”

Before he could finish, Gu Jiancheng had already spoken.

“I forgive him.”

The Judge choked.

No, really—did this couple even know how to play? Just like that, forgiven already? Was bondage play not fun enough?

Gu Jiancheng said nothing more, still staring at Zhan Yan. Even though he knew it was fake, hearing someone say Yanyan had committed a grave crime and needed to be judged still made him very unhappy.

Judge, my ass. Judge your big-headed ghost!

Yanyan didn’t need judging.

The staff member tried his best to drag out the time—otherwise, if the puzzle-solvers hadn’t found the prop yet, what were they supposed to do here? Just sit around?

Judge: “He illegally imprisoned you…”

Gu Jiancheng: “I let him imprison me.”

Judge: “He pursued you, causing…”

Gu Jiancheng: “I let him chase me.”

Judge: “…Then why did you run?”

Gu Jiancheng: “It was foreplay.”

Judge: …

Fine, fine, fine. So you two are bringing your foreplay all the way into the Underworld now, huh? What a trendy setting!

The correct way to play this level was clearly for the judged person to desperately defend themself while the victim tried every possible way to pry the truth out of them. They had even prepared props—feather ticklers and calligraphy brushes. If the players weren’t going to use them, then forget it!

Zhan Yan was laughing so hard he could barely stand it.

Completely unaware of what he had missed, Xiao Gu was still seriously continuing to flesh out the setting.

“I did it willingly, so there is no victim. If there is no victim, then he isn’t a criminal either. Let him go.”

The Judge was experienced and not at all unfamiliar with players who didn’t follow the script. He smacked the gavel.

“You two have disrupted public order. Both of you are guilty!”

It was fine if both were locked up together too. Mirror Platform could still be played as a question-and-answer game.

The two of them were separated, with an NPC on each side.

“Before the Mirror Platform, lies cannot be spoken!” Ox-Head asked imposingly. “What is your height?”

They weren’t allowed to say it aloud, only to write it down. Because the two were separated only by a screen, speaking would count as cheating and cost soul-flames.

On the other side, Gu Jiancheng was also being interrogated separately and asked what Zhan Yan’s height was. The answers had to match for them to pass.

At first, the questions were fairly simple—height, favorite foods, that sort of thing. Later, the difficulty started going up.

“What does he hate the most?”

Zhan Yan pressed his lips together. What Xiao Gu hated most was obviously Infinite, but that couldn’t be said. He couldn’t help glancing to the side.

A folding screen stood between them, its hideous demon painting particularly cold and eerie under the lights.

What… would Xiao Gu answer?

Gu Jiancheng also paused when he heard the question.

Old memories were triggered uncontrollably.

Without question, the answer was Infinite.

He thought of the final dungeon mission he’d gone through in Infinite. Infinite was good at playing word games, but there was also one truly fair gaming table among its rules—the Supreme Balance.

And the Supreme Balance was located in Infinite’s most特殊副本—Judgment Court.

Strictly speaking, Judgment Court wasn’t a dungeon. There was no mission. Just as its name suggested, it was only a trial, passing judgment on every dungeon a player had experienced since entering Infinite.

No one, when suddenly thrown into Infinite and forced to face life-and-death crises, could possibly be expected to prepare in advance for a trial that might come God knew how long later.

Fortunately, the rules of Judgment Court were not decided solely by Infinite. This was the one hidden path to survival.

But even so, he had not managed to step down from Infinite’s Judgment Court alive.

Sitting in the defendant’s seat was a terrible feeling—layer after layer of one’s past stripped bare, being questioned, being judged, watching wounds long buried beneath dust get dug back up, old scabs torn open to see whether the injuries had truly healed or were still bleeding…

Gu Jiancheng drew in a deep breath.

Infinite. That answer couldn’t be written. Yanyan didn’t know about it either.

So what else did he hate?

What would Yanyan think he would answer?

The screen swayed. Little Cat Wan Yan chased an ocean ball and darted underneath it.

Gu Jiancheng glanced at him, then wrote three words on the paper.

“Third wheel.”

Ox-Head read out Zhan Yan’s answer and tapped the tablet. The answer on the other side appeared as well:

“Third wheel.”

These two really were in sync. Up to this point, they hadn’t gotten a single one wrong.

“Next question: what is your greatest regret?”

Zhan Yan froze for a moment, then picked up the pen and wrote.

This time it was Gu Jiancheng’s side that stayed quiet for a very long while.

What was Yanyan’s greatest regret…

He knew Zhan Yan had been adopted. Yanyan had never spoken of his biological parents.

A lost child would always want to know whether they had been abandoned or simply misplaced by accident. Yanyan had probably looked into it before. He didn’t bring it up because he knew he’d been abandoned.

But Gu Jiancheng didn’t want to write that answer.

The three words “don’t know” were written in sharp, forceful strokes. His bad mood was visible to the naked eye.

Horse-Face, who was questioning him, tapped the screen and grinned.

“Ha, finally one you didn’t get right.”

Gu Jiancheng kept a straight face. “What is it?”

What else could Yanyan regret?

Whatever it was, he would make it up to him later!

Horse-Face turned the screen around for him.

“Here—your foreplay.”

On the screen was a long line of text:

“I met my canary too late. If only I could have met him at the earliest, earliest moment.”

Gu Jiancheng unconsciously lightened his breathing.

Suddenly, with a loud crash, something slammed between them. The Judge had been teasing Wan Yan with an ocean ball, and the cat had knocked over the screen.

The grotesque, sinister demon painting fell aside, and their gazes met through the drifting dust.

Gu Jiancheng saw Zhan Yan’s eyes—two star-like eyes reflected in gentle sea-waves.

What a pity, leaving Xiao Gu to go through all of that alone.

The Judge hurriedly propped the screen back up, mortified by the consequences of his cat-teasing.

“Go on, go on, keep going!”

Gu Jiancheng felt the vibration from the sports pocket watch on his wrist suddenly speed up.

He couldn’t help biting the soft flesh inside his lip. Little by little, the sharpness of his features softened.

Yanyan… what are you thinking about?

Why is your heart suddenly beating so fast…

Zhan Yan’s mini-map function was sounding the alarm.

The range of his map just happened to cover the Mirror Platform scene plus a little of the the Bridge of Helplessness scene.

And now, at the edge of the map in the Bridge of Helplessness area, there was a green dot he had specially marked before—

Zhan Jinli.

Help!

Why was his brother here too?!