GRMFBS CH130

Back in the dorm, Zhan Yan prepared to scroll through the gossip threads to grind out the second information concealment little star as soon as possible.

Before he had scrolled past two threads, he received a message from Qi Ye.

The last time Qi Ye live-streamed was before the winter break; she had spent her entire break working on the game with Wan Shitong. She was still updating her work diary, though.

The latest entry was posted a few days ago:

“Coconut’s Work Diary 56:

Boss is so busy recently.

I haven’t seen Boss for over a month consecutively.

But the salary is still paid very readily!”

Underneath was a string of comments urging her to start live-streaming:

“We haven’t seen you for over a month either. Are you going to send us money?”

“It’s been over a month, Ye Ye, unless you bring Boss along to live-stream, we will absolutely not forgive you!”

Ever since seeing Qi Ye’s boss’s gaming skills, everyone had begun to look forward to her live-streaming with her boss. However, Qi Ye had only live-streamed with Zhan Suiru that one time, and shortly after that, she stopped streaming until now.

Recently, the game with Wan Shitong was almost finished, and Qi Ye finally freed up some time to prepare for a live stream, only to see that everyone didn’t love her anymore; they only wanted to see her get brutally defeated by her boss.

Qi Ye went to ask Zhan Suiru. Zhan Suiru stated that she had too many orders these days and had no free time.

Seven Big Coconuts: “Tears of envy flow from the corners of my mouth. Boss has too many orders these days and has no time to live-stream, so you guys will just have to make do with watching me.”

“So curious, what do your boss’s works look like, Coconut?”

“We can’t see that, right? If we saw it, her identity would be exposed.”

“Who wants to watch you? If there’s no Boss, the Little Brother is fine too. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen the Rainbow Fart Little Brother.”

“No—we want Boss because we can watch Boss completely crush Big Coconut, this is her punishment for standing us up for over a month without live-streaming! If we get Rainbow Fart Little Brother to come, wouldn’t that become a reward for Big Coconut?”

“It’s not entirely impossible; we could have Big Coconut play a one-on-one match with the Little Brother, and have Big Coconut lose to him without slacking off!”

“Brilliant!”

“I think this is even harder than having Big Coconut beat Boss.”

“Are you guys polite?”

And so, Qi Ye came to ask Zhan Yan.

Zhan Yan thought playing some games would be nice. He didn’t know if it was because of low blood sugar, but he didn’t have much energy to scroll through gossip today and kept feeling that his head was throbbing.

Zhan Yan: “You want me to beat you? Then you’re going to have a really hard time, hahahaha.”

Bullet comments:

[It’s not hard, it’s not hard!]

[Today we’re going to let the Little Brother enjoy the feeling of being a big shot!]

[Perform well, Coconut!]

Seven Big Coconuts: “It’s fine, I think it’s still feasible.”

She had a reference case! If her boss could do it, why couldn’t she?

Zhan Yan: “Alright, then I’ll enjoy the big shot treatment for a bit.”

And then, he lost.

Qi Ye apologized frantically.

Seven Big Coconuts: “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I accidentally got too used to doing a combo move!”

Zhan Yan didn’t mind at all: “Wow! How did you do that set just now? That’s so cool, so cool! Teach me, teach me!”

Bullet comments:

[Coconut, you disappoint us so much!]

[With the Little Brother giving you so many rainbow farts, don’t you feel guilty?]

[If Boss can do it, why can’t you?]

Seven Big Coconuts: “I know I was wrong, I know I was wrong! I’ll teach Little Brother the combo move right now! Next time, I’ll let Little Brother use the combo move to defeat me!”

After finishing the game with Qi Ye, Zhan Yan remembered something else. When Qi Ye casually chatted with him earlier, she had mentioned that she was making a game. Zhan Yan planned to ask her if she could make a game for cats to play.

Since ordinary toys couldn’t meet his sister’s requirements, how about switching to high-tech ones?

Qi Ye hadn’t raised a cat before. However, Zhan Yan summarized a set of cat preferences. Besides things like catnip that attracted cats by scent, cats’ biggest and most common hobby was their hunting instinct. They liked to run, jump, chase; the terrain needed to be a bit complex and variable, and it was best if there was a sense of accomplishment.

Qi Ye got an inspiration: “I could design a sensor-projected game.”

It would allow the projected target to interact based on sensed biological movements.

This technology already existed, it was just that humans had been playing with it previously. Now she just needed to adjust it and design it for cats to play.

It just so happened that Qi Ye was relatively free recently, so she prepared to write a mini-program for the cat game right then.

After playing the game, Zhan Yan felt a bit sleepy, so he lay on the bed with his eyes closed. Zhan Yan couldn’t tell if he had fallen asleep or not. He felt like he saw a starry sky, a starry sky just like the information drive of the Gossip System.

In the translucent and clear darkness, stars floated up and down.

Golden, purple, blue, green, and white ones too.

A natural starry sky didn’t have so many different colors of stars; those were the information words categorized into different color levels.

Zhan Yan floated in this starry sky. He felt his field of vision rising; the starry sky transformed into a giant black crystal, with tiny scattered specks of light shining inside.

This was his world. Zhan Yan suddenly understood.

The world was a “domain” as clear as a black crystal, and living beings were “spirits” floating within the “domain” like stars.

“Abilities,” “Organizations,” and “Items” were all derivatives of “domain” and “spirit.” This was why, after the Gossip System categorized the information words, it placed “Spirit” and “Domain” at the very top, while the other three were placed below them.

Every living being, large or small, emitted light. Some light diffused softly into the surroundings, while some light was as sharp as needles of light, just like… just like…

Before Zhan Yan could figure out the feeling these light needles gave him, the black crystal before his eyes suddenly slid away, or perhaps he turned his head, and another world slid into his field of vision.

It was a… very mottled world. It was covered in rust marks and stained with a lot of mud; the inside was densely packed with fine cracks, so much so that Zhan Yan couldn’t see clearly whether there were still stars inside.

If there were no stars, this world would be dead.

So there should still be stars in this world. But they were covered too tightly by the rust and mud, unable to let even a single trace of light through.

Zhan Yan couldn’t help but look closely, wanting to find the stars inside this world… He saw them! It wasn’t that those starlights couldn’t shine through; rather, just as they were about to shine through, they were devoured by the mud covering the outside of the world.

Oh no. A feeling of regret arose in Zhan Yan’s heart.

If these starlights couldn’t shine through themselves, they wouldn’t be able to… wouldn’t be able to what?

He suddenly saw light shining through the mottled gaps of that world; more and more light cleaved through even more crevices like a sharp blade, diffusing throughout the entire interior of the world.

The light grew more abundant and brighter; when it shone onto Zhan Yan, he suddenly understood what this light was.

Every star was a living being, and the light emitted by the stars was their spiritual energy.

This spiritual energy was the antennae with which every world contacted the outside, but it would also attract the covetousness of the greedy and wicked.

That small, mottled world was submerged in an immense light, and Zhan Yan only saw a expanse of white before his eyes.

By the time he recovered his vision from this white light, he found himself standing in an overgrown wasteland.

In front of him was an area of low buildings swallowed by vines and bushes.

“Is this that abandoned camp?” a clear male voice said behind him.

Zhan Yan turned around. A man carrying a tool bag and wearing cargo pants stood to his left rear; he was quite tall, with a straight nose bridge and brow bone, and a pair of peach blossom eyes. Seeing him turn around, he smiled at him: “I thought it would be super dilapidated, but looking at it now, the foundation is still there, it will be very easy to repair.”

“Can it really be repaired?” Zhan Yan heard himself ask.

Oh, it wasn’t him; it was the person whose perspective he was attached to.

This was a slightly low female voice.

“Sui Sui-jie,” the man said dissatisfiedly, “Don’t doubt my ability.”

Zhan Yan couldn’t tell if he was calling “Sui” or “Sui” or something, but in short, the name of the person whose perspective he was currently attached to probably had the pronunciation “sui” in it.

The complaining man raised his hand and opened his tool bag: “Watch closely.”

He took out a bizarre tool. That thing underwent a series of dazzling transformations in his hands, like a Transformer, turning into a strange thing Zhan Yan couldn’t describe.

Overall, it was full of the smooth lines and simple, practical aesthetic of industry, but the colorful parts on it also made this thing look like a piece of work assembled from discarded items dug out of a garbage pile.

Four mechanical arms extended from the main body of this strange item. Two were long arms connected by joints, while the other two were connected by many very short metal segments, moving as nimbly as an octopus.

Then this thing walked up to the nearest low house, waved its mechanical arms to clean away the weeds and bushes entangled on the low house, and then used its four mechanical arms to embrace the low house.

A special power poured into the low house along the mechanical arms, and immediately after, the low house began to vibrate gently. Fallen bricks reset themselves, deformed metal railings returned to their original shape, and broken glass window panes went back into the window frames…

This low house was repairing itself!

After about half an hour, the abandoned building had become sturdy and tidy.

Beads of sweat seeped from the tip of the man’s nose. He wiped them away with the back of his hand and smiled at him, showing a row of teeth: “I am the best artisan!”

…

On the other side, Gu Jiancheng didn’t know why, but his heart kept feeling slightly unsettled. But he didn’t know where this unease came from either.

This made Gu Jiancheng really want to investigate the situation, but the most important thing was to go see how Yan Yan was doing first. He hadn’t had issues with low blood sugar before.

Ever since Zhan Yan had a fever last time, Gu Jiancheng had bought a bunch of healing-type items through Wan Shitong’s channels.

Among these items, one was quite special, named the “Pen of Diagnosis.” Press the pen tip against a person’s forehead, wait until the progress bar on the pen barrel filled up, and then take the pen away and place it on paper. The Pen of Diagnosis could then write out a diagnosis of this person’s physical condition and provide a treatment plan.

Although the Pen of Diagnosis couldn’t cure diseases directly, its function was even more important than those healing items that could restore status.

Senior players in Infinite all knew that all healing items had drug resistance. After being used for a long time, the effects would become worse and worse. Furthermore, using some healing items had side effects, similar to the principle that “every medicine is a third poison.”

Therefore, while healing-type items needed to be stockpiled, they also needed to be used strategically.

Gu Jiancheng wanted to skip class to go back and check on Zhan Yan’s condition, but Professor Miao had already remembered him. Every time he turned around, he would glance over at him in passing, and even genuinely called on him to answer questions.

“That handsome young lad over there, yes, still you, stand up and answer a question.” Professor Miao called on him again.

Gu Jiancheng stood up expressionlessly and answered the question.

For the first time, he felt that it was quite a regrettable thing that he no longer had deterrence over the people around him after his aftereffects had healed.

Classmates he had accidentally intimidated previously still retained some fear even now, but university professors were relatively distant from students; their residual impression of Gu Jiancheng was just a cool, handsome young lad who didn’t like to speak.

Gu Jiancheng couldn’t very well intimidate a professor on the spot either. After being forcefully crowd-controlled in the classroom for a while, he couldn’t take it anymore, and a shadow beneath his feet quietly extended out of the classroom. Gu Jiancheng left a shadow avatar in the classroom and slipped back to the dorm to check on his boyfriend.

As soon as he entered the dorm, he saw Zhan Yan lying on his bed, asleep. Gu Jiancheng’s heart tightened.

Zhan Yan didn’t have the habit of sleeping during the day; was he sick?

He first felt Zhan Yan’s forehead; it wasn’t hot.

Gu Jiancheng then took out the Pen of Diagnosis, ready to use it.

Just as he was about to place it on Zhan Yan’s forehead, Zhan Yan opened his eyes.

Gu Jiancheng’s hand paused.

The moment Zhan Yan opened his eyes, he saw his own boyfriend’s handsome face hovering beside him, as well as the hand holding a pen, ready to press it onto his face.

Zhan Yan: “…Did you want to draw a turtle on my face while I was asleep?”