Chapter 159 : Chapter 159
159. A Mouth Harder Than Steel
“You pervert!”
The very first line, and she was already shouting pervert!
Yi Ning was furious!
She was a girl now!
And this Lu Zheng—without her permission—had just pulled her roughly into his arms. Did he not realize what a psychological shadow that would leave on her?
She was going to get PTSD from this!
Yi Ning subconsciously recalled the moment Lu Zheng had forcefully held her just now. A blush crept across her cheeks.
That firm protection…
That overwhelming masculine presence…
With her inexperience as a girl, how could Yi Ning withstand such stimulation?
Even though she had already stepped away from Lu Zheng, just recalling it made her brain stall.
“When did I become a pervert again?”
On the other side, Lu Zheng, completely unable to understand her girlish feelings, objected.
He really didn’t get how he was suddenly labeled a pervert.
She had dumped him from thousands of meters in the air! He had risked becoming “Lu Zheng paste” just to protect her properly.
Instead of praise or reward, he was smeared as a pervert?
It didn’t sit right with him.
So he stepped closer, wanting an explanation.
But the closer he came, the more Yi Ning reacted like a startled rabbit, backing away with quick steps until she bumped against a tree.
This unusual behavior naturally caught Lu Zheng’s attention.
He stepped back a few paces.
Yi Ning instinctively followed forward.
Then he suddenly moved forward again.
Yi Ning flinched and retreated quickly.
Her behavior—like a spooked little animal—sparked Lu Zheng’s curiosity.
After all, usually Yi Ning was the one in control between them. Now, with this rare UR-rarity behavior on display, Lu Zheng’s buried mischief stirred awake.
He curled his lips in a grin, lifted his foot, and deliberately stepped slowly forward.
Yi Ning, watching him, backed away in sync with his pace until she hit the tree again.
Glancing around for an escape, she found none.
But Lu Zheng wasn’t about to give her a chance.
He had driven her there deliberately.
With sudden speed, he closed the distance in an instant.
“Ah—!”
The sudden closeness brought back the memory of their midair contact.
Firm. Warm.
A sense of safety mixed with a strange, indescribable feeling.
Yi Ning instinctively thought he was about to embrace her again. Her body went soft. One hand lifted slightly to cover her pink lips, her cheeks flushed red, while her other hand opened faintly, a posture of bashful surrender.
Luckily, Lu Zheng still had some awareness of male and female boundaries. Though he approached on purpose, he kept at least an arm’s distance.
That distance let Yi Ning’s mind reboot after its brief crash.
Scarlet spread across her face again, climbing all the way to her trembling ears.
Shame and anger at her own humiliating reaction flared. She shook her head violently to throw out such thoughts, bared her teeth in irritation, and stepped forward to jab a finger hard against Lu Zheng’s chest, shoving him back a few steps.
As the distance grew, she exhaled in relief.
But strangely, with that distance, a faint trace of regret welled inside her.
“Tch!”
The emotion annoyed her.
She shoved him further back, then stepped right up to him, poking his chest again as she dragged the topic back to “pervert.”
“You dare have opinions? Someone like you, full of yourself, pressing on girls without permission—that’s the very definition of a pervert!”
“Uh…”
Lu Zheng turned his face aside, looking awkward.
Somehow, Yi Ning’s circular argument almost made sense. He forgot she’d also called him a pervert earlier when he had done absolutely nothing.
Still, a stubborn trace of protest lingered in him.
“But you pressed up against me plenty of times yourself…”
“…”
Voluntary and involuntary—how could they be the same?
Yi Ning avoided his eyes, muttering in her heart.
The truth was, her shame came from the sudden intimacy with Lu Zheng.
But how could she admit such a thing?
Far too embarrassing!
And as an evil scientist, even if she lost ground, her mouth had to stay hard.
So she shot back:
“Hmph! That’s a girl’s privilege. If you’ve got the ability, why don’t you turn into a girl too!”
Even as she said it, her heart wavered.
To dodge further talk, Yi Ning huffed proudly, shoved Lu Zheng aside, strode to the center of the clearing, and pulled a remote from her pocket.
“Move aside, I’m bringing the space gate here.”
Tapping at the remote, she executed the invincible art of topic-shifting, forcing a win in their argument.
And sure enough, Lu Zheng’s attention shifted.
He stepped up beside her, glanced around, and, seeing no familiar space gate, asked curiously:
“When can you bring it here?”
“No idea.”
Yi Ning replied offhand.
After a moment, perhaps realizing it was too careless, she added comfortingly:
“Thirty to forty minutes maybe… After all, we jumped from nearly 8,000 meters high. Moving it too fast could destabilize the space around us.”
Hearing that number, Lu Zheng whistled inwardly.
Eight thousand meters…
Only Yi Ning would dare throw them into a no-parachute skydive from there.
The two waited in silence for several minutes.
Lu Zheng grew bored.
“Can’t you just close the gate there and open a new one here?”
He asked a dumb question.
Yi Ning glanced at him, rolled her eyes, then turned back to her remote without stopping.
Did he think she enjoyed all this trouble?
“Of course I could. But that would cut all my links. You don’t want something to happen back there while you’re in the dark, do you?”
“Of course, if we do get a crisis signal, I can shut and reopen it instantly to send you straight over.”
Hearing her explanation, Lu Zheng realized how foolish his question was.
He scratched his head with an awkward laugh.
Yi Ning’s estimate turned out conservative.
In just over twenty minutes, the familiar space gate appeared overhead, then in a blink slid into place before them.
Lu Zheng pulled out his phone.
Nearly quitting time.
“I’ve done what you asked. Let’s head back for today.”
He suggested.
He still had to file a report and write paperwork… Another overtime night.
Yi Ning checked the time too.
She nodded. Rescuing alien friends wasn’t a one-day job, and she had no desire to work overtime either.
She reached out her hand to return to Blue Star.
Danger!
A prickle of dread seized Lu Zheng.
He yanked her hand back from the gate.
The next instant, the portal closed right before their eyes.
Yi Ning & Lu Zheng: “?”