GRMFBS CH95

“Hey, Deep Shadow, you’re normal right now, right?” The Magician remained far away, refusing to approach, keeping her weight on the balls of her feet and ready to bolt at any moment.

Gu Jiancheng lowered his hand. “Who are you calling not normal?”

The Magician: “…”

Tch! You’re normal, you’re normal, you’re the most normal! As if you weren’t the one who came looking for me to ask if there was a cure when your madness flared up before!

“What’s that you’re wearing on your left hand? How did you manage to control the corruption just now?” The Magician was extremely curious.

Deep Shadow wasn’t the only one suffering from this condition; his was just the most severe. Methods to control corruption and stabilize the mind were incredibly precious, especially one like this that could pull someone straight back from the brink of losing control.

The corner of Gu Jiancheng’s mouth curled up into a deeply affectionate arc. “Not telling.”

The Magician: “…”

Tsk! The sour stench of romance!

Perhaps because the little calico had slept too much earlier, it was absurdly energetic that night, pestering Zhan Yan to play.

Zhan Yan had tied a small toy ball to his bathrobe belt. He flicked it left, and Xingxing pounced left; he flicked it right, and Xingxing pounced right. Spinning the toy around 360 degrees… Xingxing leaped mid-air, twisted to change direction, failed to adjust its angle upon landing, and tumbled belly-up into the soft pile of blankets.

Xingxing just laid there, all four paws flailing haphazardly at the toy ball dangling in the air.

Zhan Yan shook with laughter and stopped swinging the belt. Xingxing successfully hooked the toy ball as it wished, hugging it close and gnawing on it.

After a few bites, the kitten found it strange. Eh? Why did it stop moving?

Zhan Yan played tug-of-war with Xingxing over the belt lackadaisically. “Why do you think Little Gu hasn’t called yet, hmm?”

Xingxing let out a yawn and leaned against Zhan Yan, wanting to sleep.

“Hey, no you don’t. You have your own bed.”

Xingxing stubbornly jumped onto the bed, scurried over to Zhan Yan’s neck, and curled up into a ball.

“Why are you so clingy? Hmm? Is it because my anti-romance physique failed and you reverted back?”

“Xingxing…”

Zhan Yan’s phone suddenly rang.

Gu Jiancheng’s call saved Xingxing from the fate of being stuffed back into the cat bed.

The Magician had already left, but Gu Jiancheng still remained within the cluster of old buildings slated for demolition. He had picked a relatively high roof and lay down on the layer of snow covering it. Free from the city’s light pollution, the cold, crisp darkness here allowed the moonlight and starlight to spill down clearly.

The snow reflected the soft glow, making Gu Jiancheng look as if he were floating in light. He tipped his head back to gaze at the night sky.

“Yan Yan, looking at the night sky while lying in the snow is truly beautiful.”

Zhan Yan had answered the call intending to ask why he was calling so late, only to unexpectedly hear this sentence. For a moment, he felt as if he too had been pulled into the snow to look at the night sky.

A sky full of stars drifting in a night sky like black crystal, where he could lie face-up in the clean, freezing snow…

“I’m in bed,” Zhan Yan blinked. “Are you cold?”

Gu Jiancheng began to laugh. “Yan Yan, ah, Yan Yan.”

Every time he started sliding toward melancholy, Yan Yan would always pull him right back to the other side of reality with a single sentence. The warm bed on a freezing winter night, the aroma of a bakery at five in the morning, splitting a sweet popsicle on a scorching summer day, wrapping up in a blanket together to watch a horror movie…

Well, that last one wouldn’t quite work. Neither he nor Yan Yan was afraid of ghosts or spirits. But he had learned his lesson; next time, he would definitely pretend to be scared.

The two chatted aimlessly for a while. Gu Jiancheng received his goodnight kiss and hung up the phone, feeling both satisfied and wanting more.

Zhan Yan stared blankly at his phone screen for a bit before crawling out of bed, bundling up in some clothes, and quietly stepping out onto the balcony.

The biting night wind made him shiver.

The night was deep. Streetlights near and far, along with the illuminated windows of a few scattered households, cast a glow.

Zhan Yan tipped his head up to look at the sky, only to see the moon and a sparse scattering of two or three stars around it. It took him a good, earnest while of counting before he finally found five.

Sigh, where did Gu Jiancheng run off to? I’ll ask him later so we can look at it together next time!

Zhan Yan returned to the bedroom, where Xingxing was already purring softly in its sleep.

Zhan Yan whispered to the little calico sleeping beside his pillow:

“Goodnight to you too.”

He turned off the bedroom light.

The next day, Zhan Yan started helping his brother set up the cake-ordering process.

Sitting on the sofa with Zhan Jinli, Zhan Yan outlined the process while asking about his brother’s requirements. Curled up on his lap, Xingxing reached a paw out for the pen on the table, its tail swishing back and forth.

Seeing Zhan Yan writing and sketching on the paper, Zhan Suiru leaned over and asked, “Yan Yan, what are you doing?”

Zhan Yan explained the situation truthfully.

Zhan Suiru unceremoniously mocked Zhan Jinli.

Zhan Jinli glared at her expressionlessly.

“Stop fussing over that, I’ll just code a mini-program for him.” Zhan Suiru completely ignored Zhan Jinli’s eye daggers and threw an arm around his shoulders. “Man, everyone else would kill to go viral, how did you end up suffering so much from it?”

Zhan Jinli reached up to shove Zhan Suiru’s arm off, right as Xingxing’s tail swished over and brushed against his hand.

The winter air was dry, and a layer of static electricity had built up in Xingxing’s fur—all of which discharged straight into Zhan Jinli’s hand.

Both human and cat jolted from the shock. Xingxing turned its head and yowled indignantly at Zhan Jinli.

It thought Zhan Jinli had attacked its tail!

Figuring out what had happened, Zhan Yan hurriedly held Xingxing down to keep it from swiping at his brother.

Zhan Suiru couldn’t stop laughing. “Come on! Meow back at it! I’ll teach you: Mee-yow!”

Watching his sister act like a lunatic in silence, Zhan Jinli quickly grabbed a pen, rubbed it back and forth over Xingxing’s back a few times to build up static, and then, with lightning speed, grabbed Zhan Suiru’s hand and pressed it right onto Xingxing’s back.

Zzzzt—

“Mee-yow!”

Zhan Yan forcibly hugged the furiously struggling, claw-baring Xingxing, looking at his older brother and sister with a condemning gaze.

Hey! How old are you two?!

Xingxing is literally a kitten less than a year old!

Zhan Jinli and Zhan Suiru silently moved their battlefield elsewhere.

Zhan Yan: “…”

Sigh!

When are Mom and Dad coming back?! Come discipline these two overgrown children!

Ji Yueming wouldn’t be returning anytime soon.

The Abnormal Affairs Management Bureau had scheduled the transfer of the Infinite fragments for New Year’s Eve.

Boss Tianshi put on a spectacular display of passive-aggressiveness in the Bureau’s internal group chat.

Making people work overtime during the New Year—have you no conscience?!

The Council members all played dead. The Bureau Chief followed her lead, adding his own passive-aggressiveness: “Isn’t that right? I have no idea where this massive overtime payout is supposed to come from. Hey, have you guys received your overtime pay yet?”

Tianshi: “Not yet. Why has the Bureau’s funding suddenly gotten so tight?”

Bureau Chief: “It wasn’t before, but didn’t some genius insist on hiring outside information-types to look for the Infinite fragments recently? That guy is loaded! Didn’t even blink when offering those bounties! Compared to him, I’m just a broke beggar! Pinching pennies here and scraping by there, it’s a struggle just to upgrade our Bureau’s equipment.”

Tianshi: “Isn’t arranging equipment upgrades Ning Xi’s job?”

Bureau Chief: “Sigh! He worked himself sick, so I have to do it.”

Tianshi: “Our Bureau doesn’t even have a sickness subsidy. Heaven knows which out-of-touch buffoon threw all the money away! It breaks my heart just hearing about it.”

While a bunch of people lurked in the main group chat without saying a word, messages were flying in the smaller private chats!

First time seeing the two bosses openly roasting the Council like this! Awesome! So satisfying! We need more of this!

Going back and forth, the Captain and the Bureau Chief forcefully pried a massive sum of money out of the Council’s grip, completely covering everyone’s overtime pay, bumping the New Year subsidies up a tier, and still having a surplus left over.

In a much better mood, Ji Yueming lay back in her rocking chair, lazily wagging a finger at Da Wule. “See? I told you these people needed to be roasted.”

Lingzhou Wendi was greatly shocked. “I’ve never seen you so good at roasting people before.”

Ji Yueming gave a reserved smile. “I actually wasn’t very good at it before either.”

She had learned it all from Old Zhan.

Zhan Yunkai might look incredibly serious to the outside world, and he still cared about saving face in front of the kids, but he completely let loose around her.

When the two of them watched dramas together, his sharp tongue was something else! Constantly exposed to it, Ji Yueming had naturally picked up some of the skill.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t go home before the New Year. She wondered if Old Zhan would be able to head back early.

Yan Yan’s suddenly mutated aesthetic sense… it really is worrisome!

Zhan Yunkai decided to stop caring about Wan Yan. He was going home right now!

There was no reasoning with Wan Yan’s bizarre thought process! He was stubborn to a fault, and beating him up didn’t make him submit either.

He absolutely refused to delay his reunion with his wife and children over a mentally ill cat!

Zhan Yunkai sought out Ghost King Minghe, hoping she could trap Wan Yan inside Mount Chaofu for a while longer.

Ghost King Minghe was very confused. “He isn’t even doing any work anymore. Why are we keeping him?”

Zhan Yunkai: “I’ll go out and find Lin Yuan. Once I find him, I’ll use Wan Yan to threaten Lin Yuan into helping out with the work. Then I’ll throw Wan Yan outside and lock him out, so Lin Yuan can work in peace in Mount Chaofu.”

Minghe thought this plan was acceptable.

Thus, Zhan Yunkai spread his wings and joyfully set off for home. As for looking for Lin Yuan, that could wait until after he had celebrated the New Year at home with his wife and kids!

Mount Chaofu had no internet or signal, so over the past few days, he had only been able to send and receive messages when he occasionally found time to leave the mountain, giving his family the excuse of a closed set on a film shoot.

His Majesty Chongming hadn’t seen Ji Yueming’s later message stating she would only be back right before the New Year. Filled with anticipation of seeing his wife, he flew back to Yunjin City. Upon landing, he first shifted back into human form, found a place to spruce up his appearance, and then went to a flower shop to buy a bouquet.

He hadn’t seen his wife in months!

Hiding the flowers behind his back, Zhan Yunkai rolled his shoulders back and knocked on the door.

Even through the door, he could hear his youngest son cheering with joy: “It must be Dad coming back!”

Zhan Yunkai: “…”

The ultimate surprise of the first glance is meant for my wife! Don’t you get it, you brat?!

Zhan Yan had already pulled the front door open. The unbridled joy on his face morphed into sympathy the moment he saw how meticulously his dad had dressed up: “Dad… Mom isn’t home yet. She said she won’t be back until just before the New Year.”

Zhan Yunkai: “Oh…”

Glancing inside, he saw his eldest son looking down at his phone, typing out a text to welcome him home, while his second daughter sat cross-legged on the sofa, munching on snacks while watching a melodramatic soap opera, raising an arm high to say hi to him.

Zhan Yunkai stiffly placed the bouquet on the table.

By the time my wife gets back, my flowers will have withered…

Turning his head, he saw his youngest son trailing behind him, his face pitifully screaming: Are you still making a grand feast for me?

Zhan Yunkai: “…”

He rubbed his son’s curly hair. “Go play. Dad will make you something delicious!”