GRMFBS CH287

For advanced chapters, visit my Patreon page.

__

The dog food tasted delicious.

After returning to the dorm room, Zhan Yan saw the merchandise dolls that Gu Jiancheng had obtained by drinking milk tea. While the other merchandise items were tossed haphazardly into a bag, the character he had cosplayed sat upright on the shelf, resting right on top of Gu Jiancheng’s notebook, sitting directly beside his name.

Zhan Yan glanced at Gu Jiancheng’s reddened earlobes and pretended not to notice his little scheme.

Xiao Gu’s eyes were sparkling the whole time—it was truly wonderful.

The bright-eyed Xiao Gu was so excited that night that he couldn’t fall asleep.

This counted as a successful meeting with the parents, right? Mom and Dad agreed, his sister was handled, and the only thing left was that his identity mask hadn’t dropped in front of his big brother yet. But he had done Ghost King Lin Yuan such a huge favor, and their relationship had improved immensely, so it shouldn’t be a big problem!

The next step was getting married after graduation! Going on a honeymoon! Taking Yan Yan everywhere to play!

Gu Jiancheng was overly thrilled, missing Yan Yan, missing Yan Yan, missing… Ahem, they were in the dorm room.

Ah, what a dilemma…

If he calculated carefully, the only obstacle remaining between him and Yan Yan now was Infinite.

The mighty Deep Shadow was full of energy, ready to channel all his unspent excitement into beating up Infinite.

Mm… the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau and the Wan Yao Alliance had already finished grinding. Mount Chaofu had nothing to grind for the moment. Time to spur that lazy bunch in the Retirees’ Alliance first. Ah, right, he should also send a detailed set of information regarding the Monster Doctor to Approaching Science to see if Approaching Science could dig up a few more things.

Zhan Yan had just laid down in bed when he received a private message from I Just Saved the World!

Looking at that document regarding the Monster Doctor, whether due to intuition or something else, he felt like something wasn’t quite right.

Approaching Science: “Your information here is remarkably detailed.”

I Just Saved the World!: “Mm.”

“He used a psychiatric scalpel on me back then, and I turned it around to cut into his mind.”

When Gu Jiancheng typed these words out, he felt a bit incredulous. His mood was completely calm. In the past, whenever he recalled this old affair, he would feel extremely furious.

The Monster Doctor’s use of the psychiatric scalpel on him back then had two-sided consequences. He had obtained information from the Monster Doctor’s mind, but the Monster Doctor had also cut into his mental weak points.

That was the instance “Moth to a Flame,” where he acquired his “Sea of Shadows” ability. Although that instance… was extremely difficult and struck at his core, the Monster Doctor had distorted its appearance in his memory.

Yet, without him realizing when it had started, the irritability and rage he felt whenever he recalled this event had grown weaker and weaker, and now it seemed on the verge of disappearing entirely.

Gu Jiancheng had only typed those two lines, but Zhan Yan was already furious.

He had already looked up what kind of ability the psychiatric scalpel was. That Monster Doctor…

Zhan Yan gritted his teeth. Sooner or later, I’ll shred him into eighteen pieces!

He read through the detailed information on the Monster Doctor once more, analyzing it carefully, and continued his search.

It was still a huge pile of [Loading…]. The Monster Doctor was truly the most difficult person he had ever tried to investigate.

However, his Gossip System had upgraded a lot by now. If scrolling through the gossip entries couldn’t break through [Loading…], were there any other features that could unearth information?

Zhan Yan began flipping through the new features of the Gossip System one by one.

Item Descriptions—useless, pass. Network Concealment—pass…

Flipping to the Information Star Chart interface, just as Zhan Yan was about to skip it, he suddenly noticed a dark star in the corner that made anyone looking at it feel uncomfortable.

When did this star appear?

Zhan Yan touched it.

Ah, why is this the Monster Doctor’s star? Hadn’t the Monster Doctor turned into an anomaly?

Every living being possessed a star in the Information Star Chart, but anomalies didn’t. Did the Monster Doctor have a star because he was originally a living being who only later transformed into an anomaly?

But why hadn’t it appeared before? Was it because among the pile of information Xiao Gu just sent him, there was important data regarding the Monster Doctor? Or had some kind of shift occurred on the Monster Doctor’s end?

If the gossip entries couldn’t be loaded… perhaps he could use this star to obtain information relevant to the Monster Doctor.

Zhan Yan glanced at the Blessing of the Candle Dragon; only a tiny candle nub remained. It should probably be enough…

No time like the present. If it really didn’t work, he could ask his dad for help to see if he could get another blessing from the Candle Dragon.

Zhan Yan brought the little candle to touch the Monster Doctor’s star.

The little candle burned slowly, but what appeared before his eyes was a cluster of bizarre, grotesque scenes that looked somewhat sickening. Zhan Yan wanted to close his eyes, but since he was currently taking in information through his consciousness, there were only the states of “knowing” and “not knowing”—there was no way to look away.

Fortunately, before long, the surroundings gradually dimmed down into a hazy darkness. A soft, warm light slowly lit up before his eyes, and Zhan Yan subconsciously moved closer toward it. The warm light grew larger and larger until it filled his entire vision.

“…Gu Jiancheng…”

The hazy white light gradually cleared, separating into grid panes. The surroundings dimmed, revealing vivid colors.

It was a kitchen.

The warm glow of the setting sun shone in through the paneled window. The patterned ceramic tiles looked old-fashioned. There was a pale green refrigerator, a cutting board and spatula hanging on the wall, and a slightly wobbly faucet…

Zhan Yan heard the rushing sound of water.

He saw Gu Jiancheng. His height was quite a bit shorter than now, his frame appeared slender, and his facial lines weren’t as sharp yet, softened considerably by the baby fat lingering on his cheeks. Only his pair of eyebrows were raised high, and his eyes were bright.

“Gu Jiancheng, come down to play soccer!”

Gu Jiancheng was washing an apple. Hearing the voice, he flicked off the water droplets, opened the window, and shouted down.

“It’ll be dark in another half hour! Play what? No!”

He shut the window, ignoring the disappointed shouts below, picked up the cloth towel draped over the handle, and wiped down the water droplets on the counter.

Zhan Yan only felt his heart suddenly beat violently.

The teenage Gu Jiancheng had clear, bright eyes full of unrestrained spirit.

Gu Jiancheng took a crisp bite of his apple and turned around to head back to his room.

Zhan Yan suddenly met his gaze.

Gu Jiancheng’s expression clearly froze for a moment, his handsome face suddenly coming close, filling his entire field of vision.

“Where did this moth come from?” A pillar-like finger appeared in front of Zhan Yan.

Only then did Zhan Yan realize something was off with his vision.

Ah… how did he turn into a moth?

“Come, come here, I’ll let you outside.”

Zhan Yan was flustered, busy confirming the situation. That pillar-like finger paused for a moment, and seeing no response from him, withdrew.

A moment later, Gu Jiancheng returned with a tissue. He gestured around for a bit, not knowing where to start.

The moth’s wings lay flat against its back, semi-transparent with a white framework and edges tinged with a hint of green—hazy and dreamlike, like a fragile dream.

No matter how Gu Jiancheng gestured, he didn’t dare make a move, feeling that a slight lapse in caution would crush its beautiful wings.

After a moment, he scratched his head and gave up.

The pillar-like finger extended in front of Zhan Yan once more.

“Come on, climb up. I won’t hurt you.”

The youth’s handsome face was scrunched up in distress, hoping a moth that couldn’t understand human speech would cooperatively crawl onto his hand.

Zhan Yan fluttered his wings and crawled onto this massive finger.

The distressed look on the youth’s face instantly turned into surprise and joy.

Ah, he really looks best like this.

Zhan Yan watched as he carried his finger over to the window and opened it.

The noise of the outside world suddenly filled the room, along with another person’s surprised voice: “Hey, Gu Jiancheng, are you planning to…”

With a toss of his hand, the youth threw the moth out the window.

“Fly away.”

He closed the window again.

The classmate who had called Gu Jiancheng to play soccer: …

Zhan Yan: …

He pressed against the windowpane, scratching at the glass.

Let me back in!

Gu Jiancheng was also dreaming.

He hadn’t thought about the instance where he obtained his skill for a very long time.

Perhaps because it was mentioned during his exchange with Approaching Science today, he actually dreamed about that instance again tonight.

That was a nested instance.

At the very beginning, it was generated based on his memories before he entered Infinite. Players entering the instance would lose their memories, believing they were living in that most wonderful period of time.

Even though Gu Jiancheng already knew it was fake, because it was too similar to that real past life, he would still link them together.

Later, the Monster Doctor used his psychiatric scalpel to locate Gu Jiancheng’s experiences regarding this instance and embedded himself into it. His perfectly good instance memories were forcibly split into two versions, one of which contained an additional Monster Doctor who had never existed.

The result was that every time he recalled this beautiful memory, he would associate it with the Monster Doctor, and all those warm, wonderful feelings would likewise cover the Monster Doctor as well.

That sick pervert wanted him to trust him and like him. Gu Jiancheng gritted his teeth in hatred, later preferring not to think about this memory at all.

But this time… it seemed a bit different.

The classmate calling him to play soccer didn’t turn into that hideous face of the Monster Doctor; instead, a tiny moth appeared in his dream.

On the first day, he let the moth out.

On the second day, the moth somehow appeared in the kitchen again.

The third day, fourth day, fifth day…

Gu Jiancheng moved his homework into the kitchen to write, and the moth perched on his pen shaft.

“Hey, why do you never leave? What do you eat? How am I supposed to raise you?”

The moth fanned its wings.

So this was Xiao Gu at sixteen? The Xiao Gu who hadn’t entered Infinite yet was both handsome and adorable.

He really wanted to dote on such a Xiao Gu, but right now he was just a moth, and a moth couldn’t do anything… Why a moth?

Also, he was clearly looking at the Monster Doctor’s information—why was he seeing sixteen-year-old Xiao Gu? And… it was only the kitchen.

Zhan Yan tried flying toward other areas, but no matter how he flew, he couldn’t leave the kitchen, as if this place were a game where only the kitchen scene had been modeled. Mm… it was also a bit like those small break rooms he had seen in the network world. He could see constructed information, just like constructed data.

However, this modeling seemed a bit damaged, as he would occasionally see some disharmonious things inside. Just like that classmate playing soccer he saw on the first day, whose face was dusty and gray, as if containing corrupted data.

Fortunately, these were easy to resolve. Zhan Yan would fly a lap around them, wiping away those corrupted pieces of information.

In the dream, the sixteen-year-old Gu Jiancheng kept a moth as a pet, and the annoying Monster Doctor completely vanished from the dream. He raised this moth all the way until he turned seventeen—the day Gu Jiancheng entered Infinite.

Gu Jiancheng knew that this dream would shatter sooner or later.

He felt as though half of him were floating, clearly aware that he was dreaming, while the other half was submerged in the teenage Gu Jiancheng within the dream, focusing on experiencing this memory uncorrupted by the Monster Doctor.

A day in the instance corresponded to a year in his memory. This instance began when he was six years old, constructed all the way up to seventeen before he entered Infinite, and then fabricated a period of life from seventeen to nineteen that he hadn’t originally experienced—a total of thirteen years.

In this nested instance, this initial beautiful memory was merely a cocoon.

On the thirteenth day, Gu Jiancheng broke the cocoon.

Breaking free from the dream he desired most, emerging from the cocoon into a chrysalis, the chrysalis found itself still inside the kitchen.

This instance was a kitchen. If one couldn’t break the chrysalis and turn into a moth before being cooked, one would be eaten.

Gu Jiancheng had obtained his Sea of Shadows ability in this instance, and it was also from this instance that he began to suspect the truth behind Infinite’s skills.

Among the skills provided by Infinite, only a portion were complete. The rest—the so-called “hidden skills” and “growth skills”—were actually individual seeds of supernatural powers.

They were indigestible rules that Infinite had acquired while plundering other worlds.

It handed them over to the souls it plundered from other worlds, letting them nourish and break down these rules, before assimilating them into its own.

The players were Infinite’s tools, as well as Infinite’s kitchen.

Infinite’s “pollution” was a form of digestion. Once a player died within the pollution, their skills would be completely digested by Infinite, becoming part of its own rules.

Gu Jiancheng’s expression suddenly froze.

Right, being completely polluted meant being fully digested. The Monster Doctor had already fused into one with the Dark Nest; under normal circumstances, he should have completely become a part of Infinite. His consciousness had been intentionally preserved by Infinite.

Why? What did Infinite want to do by keeping him around?

At the same time, Ji Yueming had just received a message from Ning Xi.

Ning Xi: “The results for what you wanted to investigate are out.”

Ji Yueming’s heart skipped a beat.

She was only investigating Yan Yan’s boyfriend—an ordinary person shouldn’t require bothering Ning Xi, right? Could there be an issue with Gu Jiancheng’s identity?

Ning Xi: “It has been confirmed. Your child first appeared at the orphanage.”

Ji Yueming let out a breath.

Oh, it’s about Yan Yan.

When they talked previously, they had noted that Bai Ze’s state and age didn’t match up. To prevent issues, they had been investigating covertly all along. Now Ning Xi had confirmed it.

Fourteen years ago—the thirteenth year after defeating Infinite—the six-year-old Zhan Yan appeared at the orphanage for the first time.

Thus, Bai Ze had vanished for thirteen years in between.