GRMFBS CH55

Zhan Yan yawned, having scrolled through too much gossip tonight, and decided to take a break by logging onto the forum.

The Chaofan Forum was quiet, with no news from Beiling City at all. The current hot topic was the Wan Yap Alliance Speed Competition.

A few days ago, Ma Xingfan, the horse demon, unexpectedly won the championship and became quite arrogant. He gathered a group of demon friends for a party, clinging to a previous bet, demanding that others call him “Dad.”

Some demons refused, and it almost escalated into a fight.

Friends close to Ma Xingfan intervened, asking him, “Didn’t you win the championship? If he doesn’t call you that, he doesn’t. Everyone knows you won. Why are you so irritable?”

Ma Xingfan was excited, but he also had a bitter pill to swallow.

Others saw him as high-spirited and triumphant, but he himself felt uncomfortable all over, as if his muscles were rigid.

Recalling back, he hadn’t felt well since the day he took the train sleeper. That day, his left shoulder began to stiffen, but it wasn’t very serious, like numbness from being pressed for too long, which would go away with some activity.

Ma Xingfan didn’t take it seriously, but the situation became increasingly severe afterwards. Sometimes, he couldn’t even feel parts of his limbs, although it was only for a few seconds occasionally, and he would quickly recover. But that was scary enough!

Ma Xingfan searched on Baidu for a while, and the more he searched, the more frightened he became. He felt like every symptom of a terminal illness and every precursor to a deadly disease matched his own. After a round of searching, his heart rate accelerated.

A few days later, Ma Xingfan finally went to see a doctor—a demon doctor. But the demon doctor couldn’t find any problems with him. There were no signs of curses, nor was it a cultivation mishap. He had no injuries or illnesses, yet he claimed to feel unwell, often stiff all over and unable to move.

Ma Xingfan, being short-tempered, cursed the doctor, calling him a quack.

The demon doctor, equally short-tempered, retorted, “I said you’re fine, you keep insisting you’re not, are you out of your mind?!”

Ma Xingfan’s mind suddenly opened up a new avenue. Human physical medical examinations were useless to him, but they also had mental health medicine!

As a demon who “understood human society somewhat, but not extensively,” Ma Xingfan, as trendy as taking a high-speed train to a speed competition, used a fake identity to see a psychiatrist.

After a series of diagnoses, Ma Xingfan was diagnosed with severe paranoia, perceptual disorder, cognitive dissonance, and a series of other incomprehensible conditions.

Ma Xingfan looked at his medical record, tears streaming down his face.

I really am sick!

However, hiding in a mental hospital couldn’t make him escape the discovery of his cheating in the competition.

Not only were Ma Xingfan’s rewards revoked, but he also had to face punishment. The demons he had gambled with, who were supposed to call him “Dad,” also came knocking on his door. How miserable could it get?

Zhan Yan was also curious about how he managed to get himself into a mental hospital, so he respectfully searched for it.

Oh, this guy must have offended some big shot and was set up. How long he’d be like this depended on when the big shot cooled down.

The Garbled Anomaly No. 2 was finally successfully resolved, and Zhan Yan had a good night’s sleep. For the next few days, besides monitoring the progress of the Abnormal Affairs Bureau, he searched for information related to Infinity.

Information about Infinity was hard to find, mainly because if he used it as a standalone keyword, all he could find were scattered discussions from current people. If he tried to search further back, his gossip system’s level wasn’t high enough to find older events.

He pieced together bits and pieces from these fragmented discussions, roughly understanding the situation with Infinity.

For most superpowered individuals in this world, anomalies suddenly appeared in this world twenty-six years ago. Since then, various organizations, large and small, dedicated to dealing with anomalies were born. Strong ones like the Abnormal Affairs Bureau, weaker ones like small teams of three to five superpowered individuals formed to hunt anomalies.

The origin of anomalies has always been speculated by superpowered individuals, but there has never been a clear answer.

Now Zhan Yan knew the answer: anomalies came from the Infinite World.

Twenty-six years ago, Infinity had contact with their world. Zhan Yan hadn’t found what exactly happened yet. However, by working backward from current clues, it was certain that Infinity must have suffered a great loss back then—fragments had fallen off, after all.

But there were still many unexplainable strange things.

Zhan Yan had searched through news from twenty-six years ago, both for ordinary people and supernatural-related, but he hadn’t found anything particularly special.

Twenty-six years was not a particularly distant past. If something major had happened back then, why was there no record of it?

Perhaps the information was deliberately destroyed?

Because information related to anomalies might cause contamination, someone had erased those messages, just like what Zhenke News Agency did?

But many people had lived through that era. Zhan Yan wasn’t born then, so he could ask people who already had memories from that time!

“Bao-bao—”

Hearing the commotion, the husky immediately pulled hard on its leash, leading Teacher Fang in the opposite direction.

Teacher Fang happily handed the leash to them: “You don’t have classes this morning either?”

“No morning classes,” Zhan Yan petted Bao-bao’s head, “so we can play with him for a bit.”

Bao-bao’s ears perked up, and he stopped running, circling their feet, wanting to play with them.

Teacher Fang looked at Zhan Yan and Gu Jiancheng and asked, “Hey, weren’t you two the ones who helped the animal husbandry department catch a pig a few days ago?”

Zhan Yan nodded: “Yes, my senior asked for my help. How did that reach your ears?”

Teacher Fang was delighted: “You two are quite famous now.”

Zhan Yan, now with Gu Jiancheng, had spread their reputation to the College of Agriculture.

Now, this group of agriculture students, who were constantly afraid that their carefully nurtured seedlings in the experimental fields would be eaten by birds, dug up by small animals, picked by passing unruly children and old folks, or gnawed by chickens, pigs, sheep, rabbits, and other animals from next door… all knew that there were two very useful students next door.

One could drive away beasts on the spot, and the other could subdue a pig with one hand!

Those in the animal husbandry department, especially those raising large animals, were more eager to build good relationships with Gu Jiancheng. For the agriculture department, especially the graduate students who had been cultivating land for several years, they valued Zhan Yan more:

They wanted to “install” their junior in the fields!

Zhan Yan took the opportunity, using the university’s newspaper society as an excuse, to chat with Teacher Fang about old news from twenty-six years ago.

“Twenty-six years ago?” Teacher Fang tried to recall. “I was in junior high then, and I don’t feel like anything special happened…”

“If I had to say, there were a few anomalous celestial phenomena. I remember there were solar eclipses, lunar eclipses, and meteor showers! At that time, the news kept promoting them as ‘once in hundreds of years’ or something, but look now, they happen every few years! Wasn’t there a rare thunderstorm a while ago?”

“Because of that, they even added extra-curricular assignments for us. I even took photos! Back then, taking photos with a phone wasn’t as convenient, we used cameras. I think I still have photos at home, I can find them for you if you want.”

As Teacher Fang chatted, he reminisced about his youth, telling Zhan Yan many interesting stories from his junior high days, as well as some major news from that time.

But the so-called major news was only limited to ordinary people; there was nothing special or rare.

Zhan Yan, using the keen eye he had developed at Zhenke News Agency, judged that only a few of these major news items were possibly covered up.

Apart from these questionable matters, twenty-six years ago, besides the anomalous celestial phenomena, there really wasn’t anything particularly special.

But if a large number of anomalies suddenly appeared in the world twenty-six years ago, why wouldn’t it have had much impact on the lives of the general public?

Unable to find clues from ordinary people, Zhan Yan decided to ask a demon.

Coincidentally, a demon he knew came looking for him.

“Cutest White Fur”: “Want to play games together?”

Zhan Yan hadn’t played games with him for a while, partly because he had been too busy, and partly because the young wolf demon, Bai Ji, was still a student.

This time, it was Qi Ye who contacted Zhan Yan first. Besides the period when they were catching the Garbled Anomaly No. 2, Zhan Yan had played games with her a few times.

Qi Ye chatted with him, saying “Cutest White Fur” kept getting rejected when asking to play games with him, and asked if he disliked “Cutest White Fur.”

Zhan Yan: “No, not at all. I just feel like he’s a student, and I’m afraid playing games with him would interfere with his studies.”

Qi Ye went to ask “Cutest White Fur,” and indeed, he was a student.

“You have a good sense!” Qi Ye replied in surprise.

But then again, occasionally playing a few rounds to relax wasn’t bad either.

During the weekend, Qi Ye organized another live streaming session. This was Zhan Yan’s second time in Qi Ye’s live stream, and the bullet comments were very enthusiastic.

[Brother! Is he the brother who gives lots of compliments?]

[Is he the brother who’s bad at games?]

[Is he the brother who got tricked into losing in the first round?]

Seven Big Coconuts: “Hey, hey, hey! That’s enough!”

“Don’t keep saying brother is bad! Brother has improved!”

[Ha! Do you care that everyone says brother is bad at games? You just don’t want them to say you tricked brother in the first round!]

The game was already queued up, and Qi Ye ignored the idle chatter, starting to play.

Qi Ye said Zhan Yan had improved, and it was true.

Previously, Zhan Yan barely understood skill combinations and timing, basically just looking at cooldowns and using whichever skill was ready.

Now he started to understand skill combinations, knowing that different skill combinations would have different effects and that different operations were suitable for different enemies.

But game operations are not something you can just do once you know them. There’s a big gap between knowing the combinations and being able to operate them. Zhan Yan learning this only changed him from being bad to the point of having no redeeming qualities, to being bad in a variety of ways.

[Hahahaha, you can tell brother really tried.]

While playing games skillfully is certainly popular, having a teammate who’s bad at games in such a colorful way is truly entertaining!

Qi Ye’s live stream viewer count surged.

After being carried through two games, Zhan Yan stopped playing. The bullet comments were still regretful, asking when the “complimenting brother” would return.

After quitting the game, Zhan Yan asked “Cutest White Fur” about the events of twenty-six years ago.

Bai Ji didn’t even have to try hard to recall. Twenty-six years ago, his parents were both in seclusion, and after that, he fell into his brother’s hands and was disciplined quite a bit. But he couldn’t tell others that.

Besides that, there was nothing, right? He didn’t know much about the human side.

Zhan Yan sighed regretfully.

He scrolled through his family’s gossip. His older brother had already arrived in Fengyu City and would start his fondant cake classes in a few days. So far, no problems.

His mother’s company had been busy lately. They had formed a good relationship with an opera performer when they invested in Meihu opera previously, and now it seemed there was an opportunity for cooperation.

His older sister seemed to have taken on a big order recently and was also busy.

His father had an upcoming filming assignment and would be away from home for a while.

The family chat group was just discussing this. Zhan Yunkai’s filming assignment came up suddenly, and he didn’t have time to prepare food. There was only some stock left in the fridge, so the family would have to make do with noodles for a few days.

Zhan Yunkai, who had left in a hurry, sighed. He turned off his phone, and when he looked up again, his phoenix eyes narrowed, and his expression turned stern:

“Tell me, what’s with that traitor?”