GRMFBS CH59

Curses were useless against Tianshi, and the thoroughly countered Wan Yan Ghost King was forced to bow his head.

The gossip melon was gone. Zhan Yan returned to proper business and began to check how far the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau had progressed.

The Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau was currently tackling it from both ends; on one hand, they were studying the situation of Garbled Anomaly No. 2, and on the other, they were using instruments bought from craftsmen to track the past traces of Garbled Anomaly No. 2, attempting to work backwards to find clues.

However, because Garbled Anomaly No. 2 had previously roamed all over Beiling City, the progress of this reverse-tracking was currently still stuck within Beiling City.

Speaking of which, there was another clue to this matter, which was that Corpse Flower Konjac demon. Deep Shadow had left, so the remains of the Corpse Flower Konjac’s clone should have fallen into the hands of the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau. He wondered how they were doing with that line of inquiry.

Zhan Yan searched a bit and discovered that the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau had handed the remains over to the Wan Yao Alliance. They euphemistically claimed they wouldn’t interfere with the Wan Yao Alliance’s internal affairs; as outsiders, the Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau wouldn’t help discipline them. However, since this traitor had acted up and fallen into their hands, they hoped the Wan Yao Alliance would be careful not to kill him while cleaning house, as they still needed to investigate him for clues.

Good heavens! It was obvious they were highly antagonistic towards each other; this was clearly aimed at driving the Wan Yao Alliance mad!

[Upon learning of this, the Chongming Demon King was extremely furious and decided to personally hunt down the traitorous Corpse Flower Konjac demon.]

This was a gossip strip from several days ago.

No wonder there hadn’t been any news lately about the Chongming Demon King circling the area to cast blessings.

He continued searching:

[While hunting down the traitor, the Wan Yao Alliance’s Chongming Demon King unfortunately got tainted with the Corpse Flower Konjac’s pollen, and in disgust, he took seven baths in a row.]

Oh ho! It seemed the task of hunting down that trouble-making Corpse Flower Konjac demon had fallen into the hands of the Chongming Demon King.

The Corpse Flower Konjac, also known as the Titan Arum, was a very peculiar plant—when it bloomed, it smelled like a rotting corpse, an extremely pungent odor that spread incredibly far. Not to mention this one had actually become a demon!

Thinking about the Chongming Demon King’s neat freak tendencies, where he had to soak in a hot spring just from passing over the polluted air of a city…

Zhan Yan felt immense sympathy.

When Ji Yueming returned in the evening, she rubbed her younger son all over. After confirming that Zhan Yan’s body was indeed fine, she contentedly let go of the red-eared Zhan Yan.

Looking him up and down again, Ji Yueming couldn’t help but frown. “You’ve lost weight.”

Zhan Yan was very calm; in his mother’s eyes, he had never been fat.

But during dinner, a single sentence from Ji Yueming still broke his defenses.

Zhan Yunkai wasn’t home, so everyone ate noodles boiled in the leftover broth from the fridge, with some random vegetables thrown in.

Ji Yueming sighed with heartache. “You can’t eat well at school, and when you got sick with a fever, you could only eat at the cafeteria. You finally came home for a visit, and you still aren’t eating well.”

Zhan Yan: …

Woo woo woo!

Why was the timing so unfortunate that Dad wasn’t home?

The Gossip System’s fuzzy search function had been mostly fine-tuned by him. This function was very handy for searching the task Deep Shadow had given him to investigate the supernatural factions in Yunjin City.

He used this task as a debugging test. After a few days, the function was pretty much optimized, and the investigation for Deep Shadow’s task was almost complete as well.

Zhan Yan organized the materials and sent them to Deep Shadow.

Approaching Science: [That’s about all of it.]

After a while, Deep Shadow presumably finished reading and replied to his message.

I Just Saved the World!: [Is this all?]

Approaching Science: [I can’t guarantee there are no omissions, but everything I could find is in there.]

Gu Jiancheng wasn’t very satisfied. He couldn’t find a definitive channel in here for how Yan Yan managed to get that essential oil.

However, looking at these materials organized by Approaching Science, he could also determine that even if he sought out someone else, he probably wouldn’t get more comprehensive data than this. Approaching Science’s abilities were already very strong.

Zhan Yan stared at Deep Shadow’s reply; this way of asking clearly meant he wasn’t satisfied. He hadn’t found what he wanted?

Zhan Yan felt unconvinced.

Approaching Science: [What are you trying to find?]

If it couldn’t be found, it definitely wasn’t his problem! With Deep Shadow’s vague way of asking, who knew what he was looking for!

I Just Saved the World!: [Rank the superpowered individuals capable of alleviating severe pollution from highest to lowest. Don’t bother with anyone whose abilities are worse than the Priest’s.]

The Priest was a healing-type superpowered individual he had sought out before. It couldn’t be said that they were entirely useless for his symptoms, only that it was slightly better than nothing.

If the channel couldn’t be found, then he would trace it back to the source.

Approaching Science: [..Can you ask something a bit more specific?]

[Do you think this is a video game setting?]

Did he even know how many superpowered individuals there were in this world? Their abilities were wildly diverse, and it wasn’t a game where healing could be quantified into numerical values. How the hell was he supposed to rank them!

Gu Jiancheng didn’t feel he was being unreasonable in the slightest.

I Just Saved the World!: [You can’t do it?]

Zhan Yan ground his teeth.

Approaching Science: [Find someone who can do it and show me.]

I Just Saved the World!: [Name a price.]

Approaching Science: [?]

I Just Saved the World!: [Name a price for what you can do.]

Those words were too domineering. Zhan Yan was directly choked up.

He didn’t know if he should complain about Deep Shadow’s arrogant and domineering style, or complain about Deep Shadow’s trust in him.

He named an exceptionally high price.

If Deep Shadow couldn’t accept it, then this troublesome task would naturally be dropped. If he could accept it, then not earning points when he had the chance would be a waste!

Approaching Science: [I can’t rank them high or low, but give me a specific degree of pollution, and I’ll find people who have treated this type of pollution for you.]

Deep Shadow accepted it.

Damn rich—no, points-having person!

Just you wait! Your points are going to be mine!

The night was quiet and deep. After logging off the forum, right before going to bed, Zhan Yan unsurprisingly received a phone call from Gu Jiancheng.

“I can’t sleep.” Gu Jiancheng’s deep voice carried through the phone, accompanied by the faint sound of wind.

“Are you not in your dorm?” Zhan Yan asked.

Gu Jiancheng paused for a moment. “Yeah.”

He was lying on a lawn in the outskirts of the city, resting his head on one hand.

Having left Zhan Yan, his head started hurting again. The small bottle of essential oil Zhan Yan gave him was right in his palm, but he couldn’t bear to use it.

Before they separated this time, Zhan Yan had asked if he had enough essential oil. If not, he would get some more.

Gu Jiancheng didn’t want him to go get more. No matter what channel Zhan Yan went through to get it, precious things always required a steep price.

He began to wonder how he should explain it if Zhan Yan asked why he wasn’t in the dorm.

Hmm… acting a bit spoiled should trick Yan Yan into coaxing him. The “One Hundred Classic Dating Guides” that Wan Shitong had previously shared with him mentioned how to make a sweet bedtime phone call.

But Zhan Yan didn’t pry further. “Since you’re not in the dorm… then let me tell you a ghost story!”

Gu Jiancheng: ?

Zhan Yan cleared his throat, opened the capitalist nightmare material he saw today, and began to read aloud with deep emotion.

The sweet atmosphere he was anticipating was completely gone; as Gu Jiancheng listened, he couldn’t help but mentally critique the story.

This one wasn’t scary enough; it wasn’t as good as that instance he played through in the Infinite. That plot was too simple; he had experienced another one that was far more twisted.

After reading two or three, Zhan Yan stopped and asked him expectantly, “Is it scary?”

“It’s alright.” Gu Jiancheng couldn’t hold back and asked, “How did you think of telling ghost stories?”

“Don’t you like watching horror movies to practice your courage?” Zhan Yan said.

It took a moment for Gu Jiancheng to figure out where Zhan Yan’s misunderstanding came from. When they went to the haunted house before, Zhan Yan asked why he wasn’t scared, and he had said he’d seen too much of it.

Well, this misunderstanding was fine too.

“What do you think of these stories?” Zhan Yan asked.

Gu Jiancheng tactfully replied, “Your voice sounds very nice when you read stories.”

Zhan Yan: “Understood.”

He started to get curious about what kind of ghost stories Gu Jiancheng had heard.

So Gu Jiancheng began to adapt some of the instances he had experienced in the Infinite and told them to Zhan Yan.

As he spoke, Gu Jiancheng couldn’t help but zone out.

What kind of couple in love calls each other late at night just to tell ghost stories?!

Gu Jiancheng said aggrievedly, “I still can’t sleep.”

Zhan Yan: “Then I’ll tell you another…”

Gu Jiancheng: “There’s no need!”

“Turn on your fitness tracker. Open the heart rate interface.”

Zhan Yan did as told; on the black background, a red line fluctuated rhythmically.

Gu Jiancheng: “There’s a small circle in the top right corner. Tap it, there’s a sharing interface inside.”

“Share your heartbeat with me. I’ll be able to fall asleep listening to your heartbeat.”

Zhan Yan watched as the red line disappointingly began to accelerate.

His finger hovered over the share button, curling a couple of times before finally tapping it.

It was very quiet on the other end of the phone as Gu Jiancheng operated the interface.

Listening to the faint sound of wind coming through the receiver, Zhan Yan felt that this brief moment of waiting stretched on infinitely.

Gu Jiancheng’s voice came through the receiver. “Yan Yan, your heartbeat is a bit fast.”

Zhan Yan: “It’ll, it’ll be fine in a moment.”

Gu Jiancheng chuckled softly, filled with a sense of deep satisfaction.

“What… are you doing?” Zhan Yan randomly brought up a topic.

“I’m looking at the starry sky,” Gu Jiancheng said.

Zhan Yan blinked. Had Gu Jiancheng also picked up Old Bao’s habit of observing the stars at night?

Gu Jiancheng held the phone in one hand and reached the other toward the sky, gently spreading his five fingers. The starlight filling the sky fell into his eyes through the gaps between his fingers.

There was no light pollution in the outskirts, making the stars at night very clear and bright. They rested peacefully and quietly in the sky. Yet they were so distant, as if no matter how far he reached, he could never touch them.

Throwing himself into the vast and empty starry sky, it seemed as if his suffering had been left behind on the ground, becoming distant and insignificant.

“Every time I see the starry sky, I think of you,” he said.

Zhan Yan let out a low “mm.”

After hanging up, he felt his face was still burning.

The speed on the heartbeat interface hadn’t slowed down at all; instead, there was a trend of it beating faster and faster.

And his accelerating heartbeat was shared entirely on Gu Jiancheng’s interface, seen clear as day.

After a few unsuccessful attempts to take deep breaths to calm his heart rate, Zhan Yan gave up in resignation. He rolled over onto his stomach on the bed and buried his face in the pillow.

Too disappointing!

Truly too disappointing.

Gu Jiancheng looked at his phone interface for a long time. The little heart shared with him was beating rhythmically on the screen.

“Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump…”

Gu Jiancheng tucked the phone under his head as a pillow and looked up at the Milky Way.

He fell asleep resting on Zhan Yan’s heartbeat.