A Clumsy Test

Sure enough, she was a Gu master.

A Gu master's Gu could never fall off by accident!

There was only one possibility: the girl before him had deliberately let the Armor Bell Gu fall!

She had done it on purpose. She had to be plotting something.

If Jiang Yiming hadn't had the Identify Gu at a Glance skill the system had given him, he would most likely have fallen for her trick this time!

"Is something wrong?" Yulan asked after he called out to her, deliberately avoiding looking at the Armor Bell Gu on the floor.

Jiang Yiming wanted to slap himself. Why had he stuck his nose in and called out to her?

It was too late now. She had already turned around, so he could only pretend he hadn't seen the Armor Bell Gu on the floor. An idea struck him, and he smiled. "Nothing. You're so pretty, I just wanted to add you on WeChat so we can keep in touch."

He wasn't the type to chat people up. But to avoid falling for her trick, he could only swallow his embarrassment for now.

He had thought that if he said that, she would surely roll her eyes at him, then pick up the Armor Bell Gu and leave.

To his utter astonishment, the girl walked over, took out her phone, and brought up her QR code. "Scan mine," she said coolly.

The milk tea guy behind the counter was stunned by what he had just seen.

He wasn't even in the mood to make milk tea anymore. He thought ruefully, I'm such a damn coward! I saw such a beautiful girl and was too scared to ask for her WeChat. If I'd known it was that easy, I wouldn't have let that guy beat me to it!

Jiang Yiming was annoyed. He hadn't actually wanted to add her on WeChat. But things had already gone this far, and he had to see the act through. He could only take out his phone, scan the QR code, and add her as a friend.

He glanced at her username: Yulan.

"Your name's Yulan?" Jiang Yiming thought it sounded rather like her real name.

"Mm." The girl nodded. "And yours?"

"Jiang Yiming..."

Seeing that they had added each other on WeChat and started chatting, the milk tea guy behind them couldn't sit still anymore.

He took off his gloves, pulled out his phone, and walked over, doing his best to act like a gentleman. "Miss, can I add you on WeChat?" As he spoke, he held out his phone.

Without even looking at him, Yulan waved him off. "I only add one person a day. I can't add anyone else today."

"What?!" The milk tea guy felt as if he'd eaten shit. He returned to the counter in embarrassment and watched the two of them chat as though no one else were there, his gaze full of resentment.

In fact, Jiang Yiming was terrified of being found out with every word he spoke. He was on pins and needles and wished Yulan would leave as soon as possible. The milk tea guy would never understand how he felt.

Yet the more he wanted Yulan to leave, the more trouble she gave him.

"Huh? Where's my stuff?" Yulan deliberately felt around her slender waist, as though she had lost something.

Jiang Yiming was speechless. Isn't it right at your feet?

Watching Yulan's clumsy performance, he grew even more certain that there had to be a plot behind this. So he deliberately said, "You lost something? Could you have left it outside? Go look for it, quick, before someone passing by picks it up!"

Yulan froze for a moment. After hesitating, she finally nodded. "Then I'll go look outside."

With that, she finally opened her parasol and left the milk tea shop.

Strangely, the Armor Bell Gu was still on the floor.

What Gu master can't see their own Gu?!

Jiang Yiming was even more certain that this was a trap.

At that thought, he deliberately dropped five yuan beside the Armor Bell Gu while the milk tea guy wasn't looking, then got up and left.

After he went out, the milk tea guy came over to clear the table. He spotted the five yuan on the floor, bent down to pick it up, and then continued clearing the table.

He hadn't even seen the Armor Bell Gu beside the five yuan!

The Red Tail Centipede underground saw all of this, which meant Jiang Yiming saw it too.

"Come back!"

Jiang Yiming recalled the Red Tail Centipede and thought, Just as I suspected, ordinary people can't see that Gu. This must have been a test from that Gu master called Yulan! Good thing I didn't fall for it.

Then again, other Gu masters really do have their own unique Gu refinement methods. She can even make her Gu visible only to Gu masters and hide it from ordinary people.

And I can only rear five kinds of Gu: spiders, centipedes, toads, scorpions, and snakes. Yet she can rear a Gu as strange as the Armor Bell Gu. Looks like I still know far too little about rearing Gu.

I still don't know whether she's friend or foe. If I'm sure she's a friend when the time comes, I can sit down with her and talk about Gu refinement.

After Jiang Yiming got on the bus, Yulan murmured from a distant corner, "It looks like he probably isn't a Gu master..."

"But I distinctly sensed a faint Gu aura on him... Could I have been mistaken?"

"That's right. If he were a Gu master, he would definitely have Gu in his body. In that case, the Gu aura he gave off couldn't possibly be so faint!"

After pondering for a moment, she recalled the Armor Bell Gu, folded her parasol, hailed a taxi, and drove off.

Her judgment just now had been based entirely on her own understanding of Gu masters.

Ordinary Gu masters all used their own qi seas to nurture Gu, and she was no exception.

Thus, the Gu aura ordinary Gu masters gave off was relatively strong.

Unfortunately, Jiang Yiming reared Gu using the various spatial treasures the system had given him.

The Gu Rearing Box and the Yellow Gu Lotus Platform were both spatial treasures that weren't even in this world. All his Gu were hidden there, so how could they be discovered?

Even that faint trace of Gu aura was only there because some Gu Essential Essence in his qi sea had yet to be refined.

Once he finished refining it, Yulan probably wouldn't be able to sense any Gu aura at all.

Over the next two days, Rainbow Shopping Mall needed time to recover, so Jiang Yiming made no other moves.

As before, he spent his days refining the Gu Essential Essence in his qi sea as quickly as he could. At night, he went into the mountains to catch Gu, then returned to feed them.

Over those two days, he caught fewer and fewer Gu. Last night, he had only caught a little over a hundred.

"Looks like I need to find another place."

Looking at a Yellow-Rank Scorpion Gu on the floor, black as ink, Jiang Yiming considered where he should go to catch bugs next time.

Over the past few days, he had reared more than 1,200 level-five Primordial Gu in total, using up over ten tons of meat. Even buying the cheapest chicken carcasses and pig lungs, he had spent over a hundred thousand yuan!

There was only a little over fifty left in his account now, and he didn't know how long it would last.

Fortunately, he had managed to refine a Yellow-Rank Gu this time—the Iron-Backed Black Scorpion.

The Iron-Backed Black Scorpion's skill was Transform into a Shield. It could turn into a shield thirty centimeters in diameter to block attacks. With this defensive skill, Jiang Yiming felt that he now had both offense and defense covered and was ready to strike out on his own.

The only thing he lacked now was a real fight against an evenly matched opponent, so he could better familiarize himself with using his Gu!