Chapter 217
“Mm…”
Sunlight poured into the room, shining onto Yi Ning’s face.
She furrowed her brow slightly, kept her eyes shut tight, and let out a low, dissatisfied groan. Her head shifted restlessly, as if trying to escape the sunlit spot.
A few seconds later, the blinding light disappeared.
“Mmph…”
Only then did Yi Ning nod contentedly, still keeping her eyes closed, shifting into a more comfortable position and falling back asleep.
Beside her, Lu Zheng was leaning against the pillow, holding a phone in one hand, while the other hovered over Yi Ning’s head, blocking the sunlight that had been shining down on her.
As a modern man, Lu Zheng ultimately couldn’t resist the temptation of electronic devices and had chosen to accept the power bank Yi Ning had offered—which might well have collected all the data from his phone.
As for the risk of social death…
He’d deal with that when the ti ca.
Lu Zheng glanced at Yi Ning curled up asleep next to him, the emotion in his eyes sowhat complicated.
Last night, of course, he had accepted Yi Ning’s invitation.
After satisfying Yi Ning’s self-deceiving sense of victory, she had—as she’d said—laid down on the bed, lifted the blanket, and struck a pose as if saying, co and get .
Yi Ning’s body was soft and fragrant, her feet dainty and delicate. Hugging her was like holding a cloud.
Lu Zheng had spent the entire night wrestling with himself.
The guilt of taking advantage of her while she was vulnerable, and the pleasure of being so close and cuddly with her—those two feelings mixed together, leaving Lu Zheng with an odd state of mind even now.
“Mmmnn…”
It didn’t take long for Yi Ning, who had happily dozed off again, to wake up.
She rubbed her sleepy eyes, yawned, and pushed herself up with one hand.
The blanket slipped off her body.
Lu Zheng glanced over, a tinge of disappointnt in his eyes.
If only she were wearing an off-shoulder nightgown right now!
Because of what happened last night, Yi Ning had gone to bed very late and was still a bit drowsy.
Though Lu Zheng had followed her instructions and kissed the tops of her feet, he wasn’t that well-behaved. His kisses started wandering upward, and if she hadn’t stopped him in ti, the guy might’ve even used his tongue.
Also, she was sowhat aware of how that "victory" last night had played out.
While she had been pleased with herself, she also felt a bit guilty—enough that the satisfaction of “winning” was dampened quite a bit.
Fortunately, being hugged by Lu Zheng had given her an unexpected sense of security, so she ended up sleeping quite comfortably.
No!
Actually, feeling secure about that is not a good thing!
Yi Ning brushed aside the hand that had been shielding her from the sun and looked at Lu Zheng with a subtly complicated expression.
The two of them stared at each other in silence for a few seconds, until Yi Ning finally spoke up first.
“Um… I’ll go wash up first?”
She thumbed toward the door.
“You go ahead. I’ll go later.”
Lu Zheng shifted slightly, making room for her to get past.
Yi Ning lightly steadied herself on Lu Zheng as she got off the bed, her mood still feeling complicated.
Why did this feel like the behavior of a couple in a stable marriage?
She put on her shoes and, on the way to the door, picked up the die Lu Zheng had used to turn off the lights last night and tossed it to him.
“Catch!”
“Thanks.”
Yi Ning walked out the door.
They had breakfast at Lester’s house again. Through Yi Ning’s probing, they managed to coax—no, obtain—from Lester’s little sister the information that the “Friendly Money-Making” squad usually had about a week of rest after completing a mission.
They didn’t feel comfortable asking the team to cut their vacation short just to accompany them, so they simply made use of the ti to do their own things.
Yi Ning found a suitable spot to tinker with inventions she might use in the future, while Lu Zheng continued wandering around the Church, gathering intelligence and looking for a chance to infiltrate.
Although they had already confird, back in the lingerie shop, the true identity of Pope Wingert Jacob—that he was the forr Evil Council boss who’d been beaten to death ten years ago—there were still things they needed to investigate.
Like whether Wingert Jacob had been using the Church to do shady things in secret, and if so, what those things were.
Ti passed quickly, and once the Friendly Money-Making Squad’s vacation ended, they brought Lu Zheng and Yi Ning on their first official adventuring mission with a hint of danger.
Yi Ning initially didn’t want to go.
Stuff like wilderness survival? Let Lu Zheng handle that.
What kind of evil scientist—just by the title alone—would ever need to learn wilderness survival skills?
But since it was a must-have part of any isekai story involving adventurers, Yi Ning ultimately couldn’t resist her curiosity, put aside the invention she hadn’t yet finished building, and followed Lu Zheng and the others into the Hottledo Forest.
The mission process itself was so dull it reached a new level of boring.
Just exterminating a few magical beasts that had taken up residence along the forest path.
The process basically went like this—A wild beast appears!
Lu Zheng uses a basic attack.
The beast is defeated.
That was it.
Lu Zheng was, after all, D-City’s ace hero. Facing these low-level beasts who couldn’t even properly detect threats, he didn’t even need armor—he just took one beast in each hand and used them as weapons, swinging them around like hamrs to crack open the heads of the rest.
The only noteworthy part was that even in the forest, Yi Ning just couldn’t stay idle.
She put her evil scientist curiosity to full use, poking and prodding everything she ca across. And then—“BOOM!”
A loud explosion.
Yi Ning was blasted into the air by so roadside plant with an unknown na.
She was sent flying dozens of ters high—the treetops below her were shrinking into tiny dots.
“What the…”
The absurd sight left Lu Zheng and the Friendly Money-Making Squad utterly dumbfounded.
Luckily, Lu Zheng reacted quickly.
The instant Yi Ning was launched into the air, he threw out his die and sprinted up the nearby tree trunks, leaping up to follow her into the sky.
Below, the Friendly Money-Making Squad craned their necks as they watched Lu Zheng grab Yi Ning’s arm mid-air, pull her into his arms, and flip in mid-air to perform a Gaia-style landing.
Seeing this, the squad mbers finally breathed a sigh of relief.
Lu Zheng set Yi Ning down on the ground, grabbed her cheeks with one hand, and tugged them outward hard, his voice full of exasperation.
“Can’t you be a little more careful?! Do you even know how dangerous that was?!”
He had warned her before about this habit of randomly touching things, but she clearly hadn’t learned her lesson.
So exhausting.
“Ma~ ma~”
With her cheeks being pulled, Yi Ning’s grinning face twitched slightly.
She slapped Lu Zheng’s hand away and casually waved at him.
“Relax~ We’re not in D-City anymore, so I upgraded my protective gear. That kind of fall won’t kill .”
Lu Zheng’s expression remained dark.
Yi Ning had to tug at his arm.
Once he bent down, she rested her arm on his shoulder and gently pulled his head closer to her face.
With an awkward smile on her lips, she said, “But don’t worry—your heroic rescue won’t go unrewarded.”
Then, from her mouth ca a series of sound effects like “pika pika~” and “ding-dong~.”
“Because you successfully saved the damsel in distress, Miss Yi Ning’s affection UP↑!”
Yi Ning used her cute act to slip through.
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