Chapter 160 : Chapter 160
160. Too Many Cards in My Hand
Yi Ning blinked, staring at the empty space in front of her in a daze.
Where was her portal?
That big shiny portal!
Just… gone?
She reached out to where it should have been, but felt nothing but air.
What, people standing right in front of a portal could just lose it nowadays?
Yi Ning could not accept this.
The bizarre disappearance left Lu Zheng scratching his head as well.
Unlike Yi Ning, who was beginning to question reality itself, he was more inclined to suspect the only other intelligent being here besides himself.
“Uh… was this your doing?”
Maybe this was just another one of Yi Ning’s bizarre evil schemes, some roundabout way to get her ridiculous wish granted. Lu Zheng looked at her, suspicion all over his face.
But he seemed to have forgotten something important—
“Are you kidding me?!”
Yi Ning spun around, cheeks puffed in outrage as she glared at him.
She was a proper corporate wage slave!
Overtime, to her, was heresy! A crime fit to be tied to a stake and set ablaze!
She loathed it from the bottom of her heart!
And now Lu Zheng suspected she’d closed the portal on purpose, just to force overtime…
That was nothing less than an insult!
“I demand you apologize to me right now, immediately!”
Yi Ning hopped in fury.
She had already been sulky from his forceful embrace earlier, then embarrassed to the point of shame by his teasing. And now he dared smear her with this nonsense?
He was courting death!
Feel the rage I’ve been bottling up for over half an hour!
Right now, Yi Ning was like a pro gamer possessed, her every action and instinct aligned. Puffing her cheeks, she raised her tiny fist over her head, stomped over, and unleashed a silky smooth combo into Lu Zheng’s chest.
At the same time, the humiliations from before replayed in her mind.
“It’s time… to settle old scores!”
With the power of a flashback fueling her, Yi Ning mashed her controller until sparks flew, battering Lu Zheng into a perfect K.O.
Still unsatisfied, she lifted her foot and unleashed a flurry of furious kicks against his shins, venting her indignation at being slandered.
“Wrong! Wrong! I was wrong, okay!”
Beaten down to critical HP, Lu Zheng threw up both hands, loudly declaring unconditional surrender.
After her explanation, he realized his conclusion had indeed been too hasty.
“Hmph!”
Only after hearing his surrender did Yi Ning finally stop, folding her arms behind her back, nose in the air with smug superiority.
Yet behind the prideful pose were trembling hands and toes curled painfully tight inside her shoes.
Why the hell was this guy so damn sturdy?!
She’d pounded him forever. Whether or not he felt pain, her hands definitely did.
Grimacing where Lu Zheng couldn’t see, she sucked in a sharp breath, then vindictively grabbed his shirt and wiped her sore little hands on it.
Finally, she pressed her palm against his upper abdomen and shoved hard, forcing him several steps back.
Wanting to cool her temper, Lu Zheng didn’t resist. He staggered backward obediently, even groaning dramatically, as if truly acknowledging her victory.
Once her expression softened, he stepped back up and broached the issue that mattered most.
“So… what exactly happened?”
He truly couldn’t figure out why the portal had suddenly vanished.
Yi Ning’s inventions might be goofy, but their effects were always first-rate. They practically never malfunctioned.
He refused to believe this was just coincidence.
But Yi Ning didn’t know either.
This whole trip was just to satisfy her daily evil quota, so she hadn’t brought any real gear. Her pockets were full of junk and everyday odds and ends.
She couldn’t even investigate.
All she knew was that there had been a portal, and then—poof—it was gone.
Helpless, Lu Zheng asked the next question.
“Can you reopen the portal we came through?”
The answer was also negative.
“Nope.”
Yi Ning shook her head.
“This planet’s way too far from Blue Star. There’s no signal. Even if there was, it’s at least 300 billion light-years away. By the time the signal gets there and a portal opens, we’d both have been buried for who knows how many years.”
“By the way, I mean buried after dying of old age.”
She rolled her eyes, spouting pure doom and gloom.
Living out a whole lifetime stranded on some alien world?
Lu Zheng struggled to accept it.
Never mind his responsibilities as a hero—he hadn’t even cleared his browser history or deleted those color-coded folders in his PC’s hidden directory yet!
And unlike those guys who died and got isekai’d, he was still alive.
If he ever returned to Blue Star, how would he face his family if they discovered his legacy while sorting his belongings?
A cold sweat prickled down his back.
Anxious thoughts swarmed his head.
Would the natives of this planet even welcome a couple of alien visitors like them?
Thankfully, at that crucial moment, he remembered Yi Ning’s earlier words: “If a crisis signal comes in, I can always close the portal and reopen it instantly to send you there.”
Clutching at that hope, he pressed her.
“Didn’t you say you could close and reopen it?”
His eyes shone with desperate expectation, praying she’d laugh it off, tell him it was all just a joke.
But reality crushed him again.
“Not possible.”
Yi Ning had plopped onto the ground, wagging a finger at him.
“When the portal existed, I could transmit coordinates and set a timer so the other side reopened it after closure. But with no portal left, that method’s dead.”
Lu Zheng: “…”
He fell silent, unable to respond.
His powers were too unreliable to lean on casually. Unless every other option was exhausted, he didn’t dare use them.
At last, he resorted to pulling a Nobita.
“Yi Ning-emon, hurry and pull out your Anywhere Door!”
“No such thing~”
Unlike him, Yi Ning wasn’t panicking.
She was the greatest evil scientist in history. Even without a portal, she had other ways to get back to Blue Star.
She had plenty of cards left to play!
For example…
As an evil scientist, would it really be so strange if she could just handcraft a spaceship?