Chapter 193 : Chapter 193
193. Chewing Gum
“No need.”
Feeling that familiar old Yi Ning was back, Lu Zheng let out a small sigh of relief and revealed a dead-fish expression.
Yi Ning took off her white lab coat, folded it carefully, and placed it on the bedside table.
“You really don’t want to?”
She looked at Lu Zheng, flashing a teasing smile.
Lu Zheng shook his head. “Nope.”
To say he didn’t want to—that was a lie.
In truth, he definitely wanted to.
Not just bathing together—scrubbing each other’s backs, sleeping in the same bed... All of that was very, very tempting to Lu Zheng.
But no matter how you looked at it, his relationship with Yi Ning hadn’t reached that level.
Even if Yi Ning kept saying it was no big deal because she used to be male, her body was now still undeniably that of a girl.
As someone with a relatively high morality stat, Lu Zheng’s conscience wouldn’t let him take advantage of Yi Ning like that.
Of course... if Yi Ning insisted...
Lu Zheng might—just might—be willing to reluctantly accept a little bit of tofu.
He shook his head hard, trying to fling out all those obviously colored thoughts from his mind.
To ensure he didn’t do something stupid out of a moment of greed, he kept repeating to himself—Yi Ning was absolutely doing this just to mess with him.
If he actually fell for it and nodded like an idiot, then he’d be done for.
She’d 100% grab that opportunity to mock him like crazy.
Once he’d steadied himself emotionally, Lu Zheng raised his head to look at Yi Ning—who was standing in the center of the room with a smug expression—and extended a hand as he began lecturing her.
“You’re a girl now at least, so you should try to be a little more mindful.”
To show that he wasn’t swayed by any of her so-called “benefits,” he even rolled his eyes at her.
Unfortunately, Yi Ning seemed entirely immune to embarrassment.
One hand on her hip, the other pointing her thumb proudly at herself, she struck a full-on “ko no Yi Ning da!” pose, her face brimming with narcissism.
“Hmph!”
“A certain loli child star from across the ocean once said that not daring to show your body to the opposite sex is just because you think there’s something wrong with it!”
“Someone like me, with a flawless body, naturally has nothing to fear from others gazing upon it!”
“Then how come you’re not walking around naked every day, huh?”
Lu Zheng couldn’t hold back the snark.
In response, Yi Ning let out an even haughtier snort.
“This noble young lady’s priceless body is not for mere commoners to behold!”
...Is “behold” even the right word to describe you?
Lu Zheng rolled his eyes in his mind.
Just in case Yi Ning couldn’t feel the full force of his inner roast, he followed it up with a real-life jab.
“So that means I get to behold the body of the great Lady Yi Ning?”
“Exactly! That is a privilege reserved exclusively for you! To think that a mere mongrel like you is allowed to freely gaze upon my flawless body—celebrate it! This is a blessing that even ten lifetimes of good karma couldn’t buy you!”
Yi Ning raised her right hand high above her head, unleashing a speech drenched in chuunibyou energy.
If I really had ten lifetimes of good karma, I’d rather the heavens spent it on more useful things.
Like… maybe not giving me garbage-tier powers when rolling for abilities.
Lu Zheng sat cross-legged on the bed, eyes full of helplessness.
But when he heard the words “privilege reserved exclusively for you,” for some reason, a bit of joy stirred in his heart.
Men… really are hopeless creatures.
As he was internally condemning and criticizing the instincts of his gender, Lu Zheng felt the weight on the bed shift slightly beside him—his balance nudging a little.
He turned to look and saw that Yi Ning’s butt was sitting perfectly in the newly formed dip in the mattress.
No—
To be precise, it was Yi Ning’s butt that created that dip.
“Weren’t you going to take a bath? Why are you back?”
As far as Lu Zheng could remember, Yi Ning had already walked over to the door earlier.
Yi Ning didn’t respond. Instead, she curved her lips slightly and held out a small, square item toward Lu Zheng with both hands.
A red box, of some material he couldn’t quite place. The packaging had a large “0.01” printed on it.
There was no need to say what it was.
“You’ve thrown that kind of thing in here before?”
Lu Zheng stared at the familiar packaging, and the urge to roast surged uncontrollably from within.
“N-no-no-no, don’t get the wrong idea!”
“This genius might be dashing and charming, with loads of girls chasing me back in school, but when it comes to matters of romance, I’m actually very conservative!”
Yi Ning waved her hands in panic at Lu Zheng’s question, frantically denying any association.
“It’s not like I’m the only one who threw stuff into that trash bin. My college roommate used to borrow some from time to time too, okay?!”
Yi Ning had been single for as long as she’d been alive. Plus, she didn’t have the weird hobbies that roommate did. To this day, she was still a virgin—well, originally a male virgin.
Now she was a female virgin.
That probably counted for something.
Yi Ning tucked her feet, which had been hanging off the bed, up onto the mattress, twisted her body slightly toward Lu Zheng, and sat cross-legged to face him. Right in front of him, she opened that box of 0.01.
Lu Zheng: “?”
That move’s kind of making me imagine some very inappropriate things, you know.
But Yi Ning didn’t seem to notice.
She picked up a few of the square items inside and began examining them from every angle.
“…What are you doing?”
As Yi Ning’s movements became more unrestrained—and her fingers even drifted to the edge of one of the packets like she was about to rip it open—Lu Zheng couldn’t take it anymore and broke his silence.
Yi Ning glanced at the 0.01 in her hand, then looked at Lu Zheng’s face—mildly flustered, yet unintentionally brimming with a hint of anticipation.
Her eyes shifted slightly.
Then she bit the 0.01 packet in her mouth, leaned her body forward, and lay on the bed like a cat.
“Nee… Lu Zheng… how about the two of us… try playing with this box of 0.01… together?”
Due to the angle, she had to slightly tilt her head up to look at Lu Zheng, who was still sitting upright beside her.
But for Lu Zheng…
There he was, alone in a room with no interruptions. The kind of girl who ticked all your fetish boxes was lying in front of you, looking up with those pleading eyes and a 0.01 packet in her mouth…
What kind of man could resist that?
Well, Lu Zheng certainly couldn’t.
His body tensed up slightly, his brain started short-circuiting, and he had no idea where to place his hands and feet.
“S-So… by ‘play’ you mean…”
Even though he knew Yi Ning was probably just teasing him again, Lu Zheng still couldn’t stop those rose-colored thoughts from flooding his brain.
Yi Ning, of course, was delighted by the reaction.
She lowered her head shyly—at least, pretending to—and drew upon all the doujinshi and videos she’d watched back when she was still male, mimicking the poses and tones of their heroines. Then she looked up at Lu Zheng with a gaze full of allure.
“It means… exactly what you’re imagining it means~”
“What I’m imagining…”
Lu Zheng’s mind was already replacing the male and female leads of his treasured collection with himself and Yi Ning, and those scenes were starting to play on repeat.
Fortunately, he still clung to a shred of reason and reminded himself that Yi Ning was doing this just to mess with him.
“You’re not… talking about… blowing up balloons, are you?”
Yi Ning: “……?”
She froze.
Apparently, she hadn’t expected Lu Zheng to guess her actual thought process so accurately. Her brain stalled for a solid second.
Wait a second.
How the hell did you guess that right?!