GRMFBS CH79

Fortunately, the Wan Yan cat had only just begun his search and was barely leaving Beinong; Ghost King Lin Yuan had plenty of time to slip away.

Zhan Jinli pondered for a moment, dumped all the people carrying the “cursed scale” anomaly onto the Wan Yao Alliance, and then fled back to Mount Chaofu on his own.

Wan Yan had traced him through the power of the cursed scale anyway. Let him search, then—as long as he himself wasn’t lingering around the cursed scale, wouldn’t that solve everything?

Zhan Jinli arrived at Mount Chaofu without making a sound and returned to the cold pool where he had resided before his reincarnation. Condensed from the purest yin energy turned into dew drops, the cold pool was as clear and crystalline as empty space, yet deeply unfathomable.

He reached out to touch the water. A thin layer of frost rapidly crept across half his palm from his fingertips.

Zhan Jinli raised his arm and flexed his five fingers; specks of glittering ice shattered and fell, dissolving silently as they dropped back into the cold pool.

He frowned slightly. Currently possessing a living mortal body, diving into the pool was somewhat troublesome.

It wasn’t that he lacked a way, but doing so would create a slight disturbance, making it impossible not to alert others.

He had to move fast to avoid news reaching Wan Yan’s ears.

A fleck of golden-red scales surfaced between Zhan Jinli’s brows, and a profound, somber aura instantly caused the surrounding air to congeal. He leaped into the pool. The water that grazed him froze into flakes of ice resembling fish scales, and the golden-red shadow of a fish wrapped around him, plunging straight to the pool’s bottom.

The bottom of the pool… was a total disaster. The only item that could be considered intact was his stone bed, which was covered in countless stamped cat paw prints.

After he left, Wan Yan really had wrecked the place!

Zhan Jinli remained unflustered. Forming a hand seal, he caused the stone bed to abruptly burst into countless bubbles. He fished out a single bubble enclosing a glazed glass mirror. Pressing the glazed mirror against his forehead, he formed another hand seal, and the cluster of bubbles reverted to his stone bed—complete with the cat paw print pattern.

When he returned to the shore, Ghost King Minghe was already seated by the water’s edge as expected, a long river of blood flowing out from her skirts and sleeves.

“I bring you good news.” Her perpetually aloof brows softened into a faint curve. “Chongming went to drag Wan Yan off to work.”

Zhan Yan notified Ghost King Lin Yuan about the cat’s situation while thoroughly enjoying a round of gossip on the side.

Ghost King Lin Yuan had no way to deal with Wan Yan; that blasted cat only remembered food and forgot beatings!

After all, he had sacrificed a demon core to save him back then—he couldn’t very well beat him to death now.

So, Ghost King Lin Yuan could only hide.

However, this scoop took a new turn:

Wan Yan Ghost King moved swiftly. He soon located the demon from the Wan Yao Alliance who had taken in the “cursed scale” anomaly and prepared to interrogate him about Ghost King Lin Yuan’s whereabouts.

This was a black fish spirit who had been caught in a cat’s jaws in his youth; by sheer luck, he had escaped death, but he had harbored a lifelong shadow regarding felines ever since. Standing before Wan Yan Ghost King, he trembled non-stop, crying internally that nobody had warned him Wan Yan Ghost King was a cat!

Wan Yan Ghost King had no interest in teasing a black fish spirit; he merely wanted to demand whether he knew Ghost King Lin Yuan’s whereabouts.

Right in the middle of his interrogation, a shadow suddenly loomed behind him.

Zhan Yunkai landed right behind him and dipped his head.

Caught off guard, Wan Yan Ghost King was startled into a jump, his fur standing completely on end. Tilting his head back to look, an enormous avian head was curved right above, looking down at him.

“Who are you?” Having puffed up once, the Wan Yan cat smoothed his fur back down. Without turning around, he merely craned his neck back to gaze up at the giant bird.

Zhan Yunkai found it amusing. Back when Wan Yan was still Di Ting, the two demons had been well-acquainted.

Di Ting’s divine ability wasn’t exactly popular, so saying he didn’t have many friends was putting it politely. The Chongming bird was upright and unyielding by nature and didn’t mind that sort of thing, so they could chat with each other.

Zhan Yunkai had never seen Di Ting’s appearance as a Ghost King before; this little furball of a cat was a far cry from his past auspicious beast form.

“You forgot about me?” Zhan Yunkai asked.

Over on the side, the black fish spirit had already begun bowing tremulously: “Your Majesty Chongming.”

Oh, Wan Yan realized then. He still didn’t actually remember, but he knew the Wan Yao Alliance had such a Demon King.

“What do you want with me?” Wan Yan asked, tilting his little feline face upward.

“I want you to return to Mount Chaofu to do me a favor,” Zhan Yunkai replied.

Wan Yan shook his head. “That won’t do. I’m looking for Lin Yuan; I’m not going back.”

Zhan Yunkai couldn’t be bothered to indulge this brat of a cat. Reaching out a claw, he snatched the cat up.

Even trapped in the Chongming Demon King’s talons, Wan Yan Ghost King refused to settle down, twisting left and right one moment and curling into a round cat ball the next. But he had never been a match for Chongming in the past, let alone now.

“I curse you to shed your feathers!” Wan Yan spat in vexation.

Zhan Yunkai chuckled coldly: As if he feared that? Toting the cat, he flew straight back to Mount Chaofu.

By the time they returned, Zhan Jinli was long gone.

According to Ghost King Minghe, the Chongming Demon King needed to track down Bai Ze and would be occupied for quite a while; Wan Yan wouldn’t be able to visit the mortal realm for a long time.

Zhan Jinli: Many thanks, Chongming Demon King!

After feasting on this entire platter of gossip, Zhan Yan learned that his father and Wan Yan Ghost King used to be close acquaintances. He then recalled how Wan Yan Ghost King had chased him all the way from Yunjin City to Beinong disguised as a cat just for a bite of food, even cornering him for a chicken wing cooked by his dad!

Zhan Yan’s culinary skills were inherited from his father; could it be that Wan Yan Ghost King had eaten his father’s cooking long ago? Even though he had lost his memories, did he still retain a lingering sense of familiarity?

With the Wan Yan cat dragged off to labor by Zhan Yunkai, the wishing cat at the university naturally vanished. Fortunately, cats were elusive by nature, and the wishing cat was the pinnacle among them; it hadn’t been seen every single day before anyway, so most people didn’t pay it much mind.

Gu Jiancheng, however, paid particular attention to this cat.

He remembered that Zhan Yan had pulled Duan Hong over to bow to the little white cat and make a wish, and that the reputation of the wishing cat had only begun circulating after that incident.

At the time, Zhan Yan had been spouting nonsense to fool Duan Hong and Bao Qingshan. Gu Jiancheng hadn’t exposed him, but he had kept the matter in mind. Zhan Yan was not someone who acted without purpose; Gu Jiancheng felt there might be some secret behind the little cat. Yet, during his preliminary sweep, he hadn’t detected any anomaly. It looked like an ordinary stray kitten—just slightly smarter and with a heartier appetite than ordinary strays, perhaps with a slight tendency toward monster cultivation, but still an ordinary cat so far.

Recently, Gu Jiancheng’s focus had been on investigating the Black Nest, so he hadn’t had the energy to scrutinize a stray cat and had set it aside.

Naturally, the main reason was that he had sensed no malice from this little white cat, nor had his hypersensitive danger instincts been triggered by it.

Thus, Gu Jiancheng had figured he could put the cat investigation on hold. After all, Yan Yan was right beside him; if anything happened, he would have ample time to protect him. With the cat staying on campus, essentially under his nose, he would have time to intervene if an issue arose.

Yet now, the cat had bolted!

Gu Jiancheng’s persecutory delusion flared up instantly, running wild.

Where did this cat run off to? Why did it suddenly flee? What did it do before taking off?

Did it come to scout the area? Or did it secretly set up some trap? Is it already prepared to take action?

Damn it! Gu Jiancheng felt that he had truly grown lax recently! If this had been inside Infinite, he would never have allowed a suspicious cat to wander around nearby for so long!

Winding his mental tension tight once more, Gu Jiancheng set out to remedy the situation, combing everywhere for the wishing cat’s whereabouts and past trails to see if it had planted any hidden moves across the university grounds.

Zhan Yan: Heh. Why don’t you go live with the cat!

Only the next day did Gu Jiancheng realize that Zhan Yan was giving him the cold shoulder—primarily because Gu Jiancheng had always been the one clinging to Zhan Yan in the past. He used to stick so close that Zhan Yan rarely had the chance to initiate anything; now, facing a passive detachment, Gu Jiancheng hadn’t registered it at first.

It wasn’t that Zhan Yan completely ignored him; he answered whenever spoken to and collaborated on group assignments as usual, but his entire demeanor was no different from how he treated any regular classmate.

Gu Jiancheng grew distressed. What was he supposed to do?

Deep Shadow was an expert at catching anomalies, but this was his first time dating, and his first time having a spat with his boyfriend.

After studying a whole stack of relationship handbooks and running simulations in his mind several times, Gu Jiancheng picked a moment when neither Duan Hong nor Bao Qingshan was around to put it into practice.

He opened the dorm door. Zhan Yan was standing beside his bed with his head tilted—his hair had caught on a hook!

His naturally curly hair grew quickly, and he disliked having other people touch it. Having gone so long without a haircut, it had grown quite long and tangled easily. When he went to grab something from his headboard, it had snagged on the hook, and untangling it proved difficult! Twisting it around for a while had only made the knot tighter.

Zhan Yan was so annoyed he was about to reach for the scissors when the dorm door suddenly swung open. Hearing the noise, he turned around, his eyes wide and round.

Seeing him glaring with one hand clutching his hair, Gu Jiancheng couldn’t help but stifle a laugh.

Zhan Yan: …So infuriating!

Gu Jiancheng slipped inside, shutting the door behind him. Seeing Zhan Yan glaring daggers, he suppressed his laughter. “Shall I untangle it for you?”

“The scissors are right there. Just snip it off!” Zhan Yan grumbled crossly.

“Wouldn’t that make it uneven?” Gu Jiancheng approached, reaching out to cradle his hair and gently unpicking the snarl. Their heads drew exceptionally close.

As Gu Jiancheng focused on detangling the hair, his ear was positioned right before Zhan Yan’s face.

Zhan Yan watched as that ear gradually flushed red. Finding it amusing, he couldn’t resist leaning in to blow a breath of air onto it.

Gu Jiancheng’s hands paused. He turned his head and gave him a heavy, smoldering look.

Sensing an inexplicable touch of danger, Zhan Yan clamped his mouth shut, pretending nothing had happened.

“It’s undone,” Gu Jiancheng murmured.

“Oh,” Zhan Yan acknowledged. But as he straightened up, he felt a gentle tug on his hair.

Gu Jiancheng had already let go, as though he had merely been a beat too slow in withdrawing his hand.

Seeing the flame like a stellar core ignite once more in those pitch-black eyes, Zhan Yan cleared his throat and struck first: “Weren’t you off looking for that cat?”

Gu Jiancheng: “…”

He smoothed Zhan Yan’s messy curls. “I just feel there’s something off about that cat. It doesn’t seem quite right.”

Of course it isn’t right! That isn’t even a real cat, that’s Wan Yan Ghost King!

Keeping his expression smooth, Zhan Yan asked, “Where do you think that cat is off?”

Gu Jiancheng ticked through the points: “It has an absurdly large appetite, eating things other cats can’t eat, exceptionally picky, obsessed with food, and it even helps locate animals.”

Smart, yes, but there really isn’t anything outrageously abnormal about that. Besides, he had checked. While there were beings capable of concealing their aura to evade his detection, they were exceedingly rare. What major figure would be bored enough to disguise themselves as an ordinary stray cat just to fool around with college students?

Gu Jiancheng figured his persecutory delusion was acting up again.

Zhan Yan was pondering it as well.

Gu Jiancheng was a certified staunch materialist vetted by the True Science News Agency; he would certainly never believe the wishing cat actually granted wishes. Aside from that, for him to pay so much attention to the wishing cat… could he be thinking of using it as an observational subject to prepare for his graduation thesis early?

Reflecting on how Gu Jiancheng had spent the last few days hunting for the wishing cat everywhere, it bore a striking resemblance to upperclassmen whose research subjects had escaped!

Zhan Yan was alarmed.

You definitely can’t research that one!