Chapter 130 : Chapter 130
130. About the Date
“Aiyo! Aiyo aiyo aiyo!”
Lu Zheng’s weird yelps echoed through the D-City Hero Association.
“What are you yelling for!”
Miss Qiu Yu rolled her eyes at Lu Zheng, the cotton swab in her hand pressing a bit harder.
She was already trying to be as gentle as possible, but this guy kept yelling and flailing, refusing to cooperate.
“It hurts, okay?”
Lu Zheng bared his teeth, trying to force a smile, but the movement tugged at the wounds on his face, twisting that smile into a weird grimace.
“It’s just a scrape on your face, and you’re screaming like you broke a leg. Besides, haven’t you been injured worse before? Never heard you scream like this back then.”
Miss Qiu Yu dismissed Lu Zheng’s explanation, but despite her look of disgust, her hand subconsciously became even gentler.
“All done.”
Once Lu Zheng stopped yelping and squirming, the wound care went smoothly.
Miss Qiu Yu lightly clapped her hands as if to dust them off, tossing all the trash into the bin.
“Alright, spill it.”
She returned to her seat, propping her chin up with interest as she looked at Lu Zheng.
It had been a long time since she’d seen Lu Zheng get hurt.
“How’d you end up like this? You went to wreck Yi Ning’s evil plan and got beat up like this? Don’t tell me you got hit in the head by a car on your way there?”
“Or…”
Miss Qiu Yu narrowed her eyes, her gaze turning sharp as it locked onto Lu Zheng.
“Because you couldn’t bear to hurt your ‘good friend,’ so you…”
At this point, Miss Qiu Yu’s expression turned increasingly unpleasant.
That clever little head of hers was already generating indecent, letter-tagged scenarios that would violate public decency.
Thank goodness Ye Qin had already clocked out, or she might have died of anger hearing this.
“Enough, enough.”
Seeing Miss Qiu Yu’s worsening expression, Lu Zheng quickly cut her off.
He rubbed the wound on his face, sat back down, and immediately began typing up his action report.
“I just felt I went too far today, so I couldn’t bring myself to fight back.”
“What did Yi Ning do?”
Miss Qiu Yu, previously bored and toying with her pen, immediately leaned over with curiosity sparkling in her eyes.
Lu Zheng wasn’t an emotional person, and since coming to D-City, he had never violated Association rules due to personal feelings.
Naturally, Miss Qiu Yu was dying to know what Yi Ning had done to finally push Lu Zheng into acting out of line.
“That’s mostly my own fault.”
Lu Zheng chose not to answer directly.
How was he supposed to say it?
That Yi Ning’s constant indulgence had led him to be ruled by his lower half, making him do a bunch of lowly things that angered Yi Ning enough to beat him with a folding chair?
If he said that, he’d probably get beaten by Miss Qiu Yu next.
Lu Zheng had thick skin and could handle Yi Ning’s folding chair beatings as minor injuries, but if Miss Qiu Yu beat him…
A chill ran down his spine.
He figured he’d be bedridden for months.
Of course, for the record:
Lu Zheng wasn’t afraid of being bedridden.
He was just worried that if D-City’s Hero Association’s ace was out of commission, Ye Qin wouldn’t be able to hold down the fort.
With that comforting thought, Lu Zheng even nodded to himself.
“Okay, done. Clocking out. Got stuff to do. Bye. Later!”
Finishing the last keystroke, Lu Zheng shoved the keyboard aside, shut the laptop, grabbed his stuff, and disappeared in a streak of fire and lightning.
He had to hurry back to apologize to Yi Ning on his knees.
Behind him, Miss Qiu Yu extended a hand, her face caught between confusion and mild shock.
After two seconds, she blinked, retracted her hand, tilted her head, and let out a helpless sigh.
What else could she do?
She tidied up and returned to her Association dorm.
…
Lu Zheng moved fast.
Despite it being rush hour, he stood in front of Yi Ning’s door less than two minutes later.
To avoid traffic delays, he had used his ability to teleport himself and his bike straight to his building’s parking spot.
Most of the time had been spent waiting for the elevator.
Lu Zheng took out his phone, pulling up Yi Ning’s contact.
His thumb hovered hesitantly over the call button.
He didn’t know how to face Yi Ning.
What if she was still angry and hung up immediately?
Or saw it was him and just ignored the call?
Lu Zheng racked his brain but couldn’t find a good solution.
Yet he couldn’t hesitate forever.
“Sigh~”
His thumb rubbed against the phone’s edge before he finally squeezed his eyes shut and hit call.
Let’s just do it!
Yi Ning picked up quickly, probably because her phone was nearby.
Her usual lazy voice came through the line.
“Hello?”
“It’s me, Lu Zheng.”
“What’s up?”
Same lazy tone.
It surprised Lu Zheng slightly.
Was she not mad?
The thought flickered across his mind before he shoved it away.
Whether Yi Ning was angry or not didn’t change how out of line he’d been.
He needed to apologize properly.
“I…”
But he stopped after one word.
Was apologizing over the phone too insincere?
He thought for a moment and quickly switched to a casual greeting:
“Have you eaten yet?”
“Not yet, why?”
In the background, Lu Zheng faintly heard a girl’s voice on Yi Ning’s end.
「Oh~? He’s asking if you’ve eaten~ I’m telling you, when guys ask that, it means they’re about to ask you out to dinner, take your clothes off, and then get up to some R-18 stuff.」
At the same time, he heard Yi Ning cover the mic to retort sharply.
Lu Zheng felt deeply awkward.
Would it be inappropriate to invite her out now?
But after two seconds of silence, he decided to invite her anyway.
“If you haven’t eaten yet, want to go grab dinner together? My treat.”
Should be fine, right?
He wasn’t inviting her out with any lowly intentions.
Lu Zheng let out a silent, awkward chuckle.
Almost immediately after he finished speaking, that unknown girl’s voice came through the speaker again.
「See, see, see! What did I say! He’s definitely asking you out on a date!
Oh~ our organization’s #2 beauty only took a few days to start reeling in a man, huh? Don’t forget protection~」
“(Expletive)!”
Apparently the teasing had gone too far, and Yi Ning started cursing and arguing with the girl.
After a while, she seemed to remember Lu Zheng and turned her attention back to him.
“Why are you suddenly asking me out to eat?”
It seemed the girl’s teasing had worked, and Yi Ning’s guard was fully up.
Lu Zheng felt a sharp intuition:
He needed to answer carefully.
If he couldn’t give a reasonable explanation, he’d definitely get used as Yi Ning’s punching bag for the next few days.
…which actually didn’t sound too bad.
Lu Zheng forcibly suppressed that dangerous thought and explained seriously:
“It’s about earlier. I realized I was out of line and felt I should—”
Before he could finish, he heard Yi Ning cover the mic again, turn to that girl, and smugly start mocking her back.