Chapter 204 : Chapter 204
Chapter 204
Shopping with a Girl
Yi Ning deliberately blurred the focus, attempting to use this tactic to fool Lu Zheng.
But how could such petty trickery get past Lu Zheng?
His brows furrowed, and in an instant, he understood the catch.
“So when you said you’d take Lester and the others on a high-level quest… did you actually mean having them, as veteran adventurers, take us instead?”
“You’re seriously trying to get Lester’s party to work for free?”
Yi Ning raised a finger and pointed straight at Lu Zheng, putting on a look of exaggerated shock.
A few seconds later, she jogged over to Lu Zheng’s side, elbowing him lightly in the ribs while flashing a mischievous grin.
“Didn’t expect that from you~ A righteous hero wanting to freeload off those friendly alien folks. You’re such a little baddie~ How about switching sides and joining the evil camp? You’ve got potential.”
As expected of a professionally trained career villain from Evil University.
Even after being exposed, Yi Ning didn’t flinch—instead, she played dumb and tried to reverse the accusation.
Absolutely dripping with wickedness!
But unfortunately for her, this little trick was no match for Lu Zheng’s insight.
She dared show off such a weak move in front of him?
“I was wondering why Lester came to me first thing this morning saying their party was available anytime for a quest. So it was your doing!”
Lu Zheng hadn’t quite figured out why Yi Ning had told Lester that before.
But now that she’d spoken, her devious scheme was fully laid bare.
This woman actually wanted to exploit the information gap between them and those naïve aliens to freeload their hard work!
“You little devil, you’re so wicked it’s oozing out of you!”
Lu Zheng reached out, grabbed Yi Ning beside him, clenched his fists, and dug his knuckles into her temple.
“Awwoooo—!”
The pain from her temple made Yi Ning scream.
She frantically twisted her head, trying to escape Lu Zheng’s grip.
But this was Lu Zheng!
No matter what tricks she tried, her head felt like it was clamped in a guillotine—there was no way out but to endure the inevitable, brutal punishment.
Yi Ning had no choice but to temporarily abandon her pride and bow her head to Lu Zheng in disgrace.
She clenched her fists and grit her teeth, finally whining out her surrender.
“Wrong! I was wrong!! I was wrong!!!”
The words said “surrender,” but her heart was full of indignation.
Damn it!
Endure it, Yi Ning.
Endure!
Once three years have passed, and Lu Zheng lifts those six golden characters pinning me down on this Five Elements Mountain, I will be free like a fish in the sea, a bird soaring the skies!
Then he’ll know what it means to say: thirty years east of the river, thirty years west!
Unfortunately, it was as if Lu Zheng had seen through her inner monologue. No matter how loudly she howled or how much she begged, he refused to let go.
He only released her once she’d been properly broken and spoke with sincere repentance.
The moment he let go, Yi Ning immediately bent forward and darted several meters away, puffing her cheeks in indignation and glaring at Lu Zheng.
Perhaps the punishment had actually taught her a lesson—Yi Ning didn’t do anything else to express her dissatisfaction.
Normally, by now she’d be pulling silly faces and throwing out some sassy remarks.
Lu Zheng opened his mouth, ready to lecture her a little more.
“Now do you understand your mistake? You should know…”
But halfway through, he suddenly changed tack.
“What you do with your own plans doesn’t really matter to me. I mean, yeah, your method is a little flawed… not quite proper. But it’s more of a moral issue.”
“All I can do is give you some moral criticism.”
“But at the very least, I hope you don’t interfere with my way of showing gratitude.”
That sudden shift left Yi Ning momentarily stunned.
Wasn’t this the point where he should be rattling off a bunch of ancient-sounding virtues?
She pursed her lips, unsure how to respond.
After a few seconds, she clicked her tongue in frustration and offered Lu Zheng a compromise.
“Fine, give thanks if you want. But instead of using those few silver coins of yours to buy something, wouldn’t it be better if we got Great God Kir to give them each a gift when we leave? They could take it to the church and make a killing. Way more cost-effective.”
Lu Zheng thought about it and felt Yi Ning had a point.
It did feel like they were fleecing the church a little, though.
But the church… seemed okay with being fleeced.
……
In the end, Yi Ning still failed to get her hands on the 950 copper coins in Lu Zheng’s pocket.
After talking things over, the two of them once again headed out into the market in Esick City.
Yi Ning led Lu Zheng from one end of the marketplace to the other.
Every time they passed a shop, she dragged Lu Zheng in to take a look.
Especially in those shops that sold materials.
In those places, Yi Ning would even pull out a strange monocle, picking up every material in the shop and examining it thoroughly through her lens from top to bottom.
Only after confirming what she needed would she sweep her hand dramatically and make a purchase.
And Yi Ning didn’t buy like a normal person—by the unit or by amount.
Every time she found something she wanted, she would point and shout, like some rich young lady in a novel:
“From here to here—I want everything!”
And it wasn’t like she was buying clothes or shoes or anything normal.
These were minerals, lumber, fabrics…
Especially the ores—Yi Ning bought so much that they could pile into a small hill.
Luckily, she had her all-purpose four-dimensional pocket, so Lu Zheng didn’t have to carry anything himself. Otherwise, he doubted he could make it back alive.
Soon, the afternoon was half over, and the two of them had finally finished browsing every shop in the marketplace.
Lu Zheng slumped onto a bench in the nearby square, sprawled out across the whole thing with zero regard for his image as a hero.
Technically, with his physical endurance, this bit of walking wasn’t even a warm-up—but…
He was mentally exhausted.
Lu Zheng had gotten a taste of what it was like to go shopping with a girlfriend.
They’d visited every store in the market. He even had to help Yi Ning stuff items into her dimensional pocket.
Was she not tired at all?
Lu Zheng took a deep breath, turned his head slightly, and glanced at Yi Ning beside him.
“Hm…”
Yi Ning was sitting on the bench next to him, holding a notebook and carefully checking off the materials she had bought while calculating what she could make with them.
“Hey! Lu Zheng.”
A few seconds later, Yi Ning looked up and waved him over, signaling for him to come closer.
Lu Zheng rolled his eyes, dragging himself over to her bench like a defeated man, and collapsed beside her like a pile of sludge.
“What is it?”
He leaned his head on Yi Ning’s shoulder, half-dead.
Yi Ning glanced at his head resting on her shoulder, but said nothing. She simply closed her notebook and pulled a white crystal from her pocket.
It was something they’d bought earlier from a church-affiliated shop.
If Lu Zheng remembered correctly, the shopkeeper had called it a Holy Stone, claiming it stored vast amounts of energy and could be converted into usable magic power or battle aura in times of exhaustion.
Lu Zheng had tested it himself—not just magic or battle aura, but even the energy his superpower used could be drawn from it. It was absurdly useful.
Yi Ning had, of course, swept the shop clean of the stuff.
“What about it?”
Wasn’t it just another staple from fantasy novels, like mana stones or spirit stones?
What’s so special?
Yi Ning rolled her eyes at Lu Zheng in exasperation.
“What about it?”
“You don’t seriously think we’ve transmigrated into some kind of fantasy novel world, do you?”
“A stone that stores energy—or rather, one where massive amounts of energy have condensed so densely that it’s solidified. That kind of phenomenon doesn’t occur naturally. To this day, I’ve never seen anything like it occur in nature.”
Lu Zheng thought for a moment and realized she had a point.
There were no such things in the natural world…
And this had come from a church store…
The answer was obvious.
He fell silent for a moment, then looked at Yi Ning.
“So it’s another one of your inventions?”