“Xiao Huan, there aren't many custors left... Where's Sister Tong?”
Wiping down glasses and plates, Yan Huan turned toward where Tong Yingying had been sitting earlier. The bottles and glasses were still there, but she was nowhere to be seen.
“I’ll go look for her.”
After drying her hands, Yan Huan headed in that direction. The shop had a second floor, but it wasn’t open to custors. Sister Tong usually stayed up there.
Between the shop and the stairs leading to the second floor was a long hallway, with the restroom located midway. Yan Huan figured she might have gone upstairs to rest, but when he reached the stairwell, the iron door at the top was locked. He knocked on it and called out, but there was no response.
“That’s odd…”
With Sister Tong’s lackadaisical attitude toward running the place, if she hired a less trustworthy employee, the pub might be emptied out soday. Thankfully, Yan Huan was a model youth, with particularly outstanding morals.
After sending her a ssage on Plane, which went unanswered, Yan Huan glanced at the ti and called out to the others, “Sister Guan, Brother Tian, you two can head out first! She’s probably asleep upstairs. I’ll lock up later.”
“Alright, we’ll help you pack up the tables and chairs outside!”
“Okay!”
As he walked through the hallway, Yan Huan dialed Tong Yingying’s number on Plane. The ringtone echoed from inside the restroom.
Raising an eyebrow, Yan Huan knocked on the bathroom door and called out, “Sister Tong?”
A cheerful tune from Dragonland continued to play inside.
Yan Huan sighed and pushed open the door.
Inside the cramped restroom, the stall door was open, revealing Tong Yingying slumped over on the toilet seat, half-conscious. Thankfully, she hadn’t undone her pants.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Yan Huan noticed her phone on the floor and picked it up to hang up his call. As the call ended, the lock screen displayed over 99
ssage notifications, all from her mother. Yan Huan didn’t bother reading the ssages and just locked the phone again.
Leaning closer to Tong Yingying, he called out, “Sister Tong?”
“Mmm…”
Hearing his voice, she rubbed her furrowed brow and brushed her bangs aside. Her flushed, stunning face was as listless as ever, her eyes dull.
At the sa ti, her left hand reached into her jacket, gripping sothing. However, the wary look in her eyes lted away when she recognized Yan Huan, replaced by a slightly tipsy breath of alcohol escaping her lips.
“Yan Huan…”
As her vigilance faded, the object she’d been clutching—a stun baton—slipped from her hand and landed on her thigh.
“...”
Yan Huan found it amusing and pointed to the baton. “Seriously, Sister Tong? Why carry a stun baton around? If you hadn’t seen
clearly, were you going to zap ?”
“Mind your own business, kid.”
“Guess you’re the only one who treats
like a kid every day, Sister Tong.”
Oh, wait—there’s also Aunt Ye Lan, who takes it even further.
Tong Yingying struggled to sit upright, tucked the stun baton back into her jacket, and asked softly, “Have they clocked out?”
“Yeah, there aren’t any custors left at this hour.”
“Mm…”
She lowered her head again. Yan Huan offered, “Want
to help you upstairs to rest?”
“Mm…”
Sighing, Yan Huan slipped her phone into her jacket, helped her up, and led her outside. She fumbled for the keys in her pocket and handed them to him. He opened the door to reveal the upstairs room.
The room was a ss, with various clothes and undergarnts piled high on the sofa. As Yan Huan helped her upstairs, he almost tripped over stockings tangled with other clothes on the floor. Clearly, she tossed everything into the washing machine together, then haphazardly piled it up after drying.
“Sister Tong, your room leaves
speechless every ti I co up here.”
Turning on the light revealed a black electric guitar hanging on the wall. Yan Huan didn’t know much about guitars, but it looked expensive, with gold-lettered signatures adorning it.
“Mm…”
With her head lowered, her red hair partially obscured her face, she responded perfunctorily. However, her hand, which rested on Yan Huan’s shoulder, began to wander toward his chest.
Startled, Yan Huan grabbed her hand and pushed her onto the bed.
For a mont, he wondered if Tong Yingying had been chosen by the Modifier.
If it were strangers like Ye Shiyu or Spencer, he wouldn’t mind. But if soone familiar was chosen, it felt unbearable. The familiar dynamics of a relationship getting twisted and shattered—especially when you’re the target—was the hardest to accept.
Fortunately, Tong Yingying just seed drunk. Once on the bed, she stayed put.
Yan Huan sighed and joked, “You must really be starving, Sister Tong… I’m ten years younger than you, and even I’m not off-limits?”
Tong Yingying mumbled, her hazy consciousness stirred by his sudden remark. She opened her eyes, squinted at the young man standing by her bed, and took in his appearance: wearing the pub’s brown vest uniform, his tall, lean fra exuded an air of forbidden charm. The vest hugged his well-toned muscles—a fact she had verified with a squeeze earlier.
And his face…
“...”
Her sweeping gaze made Yan Huan uncomfortable. “Sister Tong?”
After a mont, she sat up, turned to grab her overstuffed wallet from the nightstand, and said, “Sit.”
Yan Huan fetched a chair, placed it by the bed, and sat down. She opened the wallet, pulled out a stack of bills, and handed it to him.
Blinking in confusion, Yan Huan didn’t take it.
When he didn’t accept, she tossed the money onto the bed, pulled out a cigarette, and asked, “Has your sister treated you well?”
“...”
Why does this sound like a mob boss about to send his underling to die?
“Uh… average?”
Tong Yingying paused mid-motion and looked up at him. Yan Huan smiled awkwardly and quickly corrected himself.
“Just kidding, Sister Tong…”
She lowered her head again, only to hear him continue, “Actually, not very well.”
“?”
Her usually lifeless eyes widened slightly. Yan Huan reached out to close her cigarette box, counting on his fingers as he explained, “Look, you dump all the shop’s work on , threaten
with pay cuts, have terrible drinking habits, no filter, and curse all the ti…”
“And?”
She nodded, reaching for her stun baton.
Yan Huan quickly smiled. “That’s all—everything else is great, Sister Tong.”
Ignoring the banter, she gestured to the money on the bed. “Take the money. I need your help.”
“What for?”
“My family’s pressuring
to get married. They know I don’t have a partner, so they keep calling, urging
to go on blind dates. When I ignore them, they guilt-trip
through relatives, saying my parents are getting sick from worry.”
“Uh, are they acting?”
“Who knows… But I’m overseas. I can’t fly back for sothing so trivial.”
Sighing, she cradled her face and said, “So I have an idea, Yan Huan.”
“...”
“Pretend to be my boyfriend. When they video call, act affectionate to keep them off my back.”
As Tong Yingying explained her plan, Yan Huan looked at her with a mix of bewildernt and hesitation.
“What is it?” she asked, noticing his expression.
“Sister Tong, you’re always coming up with awful ideas…”
“What’s that supposed to an?”
“Rember when the pub was struggling, and you hired a heavy tal band to perform? We got reported for disturbing the peace, and angry neighbors threw eggs and veggies at the shop…”
Tong Yingying blinked, recalling how Yan Huan had to talk the elderly protesters down.
“Or when you tried a promotional discount online and marked the price wrong, letting soone buy in bulk at a tenth of the cost, bleeding us dry for a month…”
“...”
Tong Yingying opened her mouth, but no words ca out.
When sober, she was sharp and resourceful. But after a drink, her mind overflowed with harebrained sches—wild ideas that were often self-sabotaging.
“Yan Huan, I have an idea!”
Like clockwork, hearing this line from her always spelled trouble for Yan Huan.
In the room, Tong Yingying and Yan Huan sat in silence, staring at each other. A second later, Tong Yingying irritably ran her hands through her red hair. She tugged lightly, letting her tied-up hair fall loosely to her shoulders.
“So what now? They keep calling non-stop. My head’s about to explode…”
Propping his chin on his hand, Yan Huan appeared to channel Zhuge Liang's wisdom as he asked, “I’ve got three strategies: upper, middle, and lower. Which one do you want to hear first?”
“…Let’s start with the worst.”
Classic drunken Sister Tong—always thinking differently from everyone else! Yan Huan didn’t tease her, just smiled slightly and continued.
“The worst strategy is your idea. I act as your boyfriend to fool them. But lies can’t cover the truth forever. They want you to marry, not just date. Even if we get past this matchmaking round, you can’t avoid the inevitable questions that follow.”
Tong Yingying frowned, fiddling faster with her flip lighter. “And the middle strategy?”
“The middle strategy is to toughen up. Ignore whatever they say or do. Block them if you must.”
“…”
“In the end, Sister Tong, you’re frustrated because you care about their feelings, right? If you were truly heartless, you wouldn’t care what they did. Even if they begged, you’d refuse, and there’s nothing they could do about it.”
Tong Yingying sighed, looking at him. “If only I could be that unfeeling. They’re my parents, after all. They worked the fields to send
here for high school. No matter what…”
But as she spoke, her frustration grew. “Still, this constant pressure is driving
nuts. Forcing
into these extre choices—either I hurt myself, or I hurt them. What’s the point?”
“Don’t worry, there’s still the best strategy.”
“Mm, go on…”
Raising a finger, Yan Huan asked, “Why do you think they’re so insistent on you getting married?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Outdated traditions…”
“Partly, sure. But I think there’s another reason—they’re worried about you. They want soone to take care of you.”
“What? Did my mom brainwash you?”
Tong Yingying gave him a suspicious look, as if Yan Huan had been possessed by her mother.
“...Sister Tong, use your brain.”
If not for the stun baton in her hand, Yan Huan would’ve been tempted to see what her drunken brain was made of.
“Look at you—staying up all night, drinking, smoking, ignoring calls and ssages. Anyone can see your lifestyle is a ss.”
“…”
“And when you finally answer a video call at night, you look like a Qing dynasty corpse drained of energy. If soone didn’t know better, they’d think Linn has bad feng shui, turning out zombies.”
“…”
“Even before the marriage talk started, I’d heard them complaining about this plenty of tis. So, I think your parents are at their wit’s end. They probably think marriage might fix these bad habits of yours.”
Looking at the stunned Tong Yingying, Yan Huan concluded, “So the best strategy is to quit smoking and drinking, fix your routine, and get out more. Show your parents that you’re changing, and they might stop pressuring you so much.”
Tong Yingying blinked, about to say sothing, but suddenly rembered Yan Huan had been nudging her in this direction for a year now. Every ti she reached for a cigarette, he interrupted. Every ti she tried to drink, he persuaded her otherwise.
To her surprise, she had indeed smoked and drunk less over the past year, improving compared to before, even if she was still far from normal. No wonder her parents were worried.
But why had Yan Huan been so intent on this for a year? Could it be… this kid likes ?
The thought made her pause, her gaze flickering as she asked, “Why have you been trying to get
to quit smoking and drinking this whole ti?”
She asked directly but hesitated halfway through.
“Oh, that?” Yan Huan smiled brightly, exuding sunshine. “Because I hate the sll of smoke. Sister Tong, when you smoke in front of , it stinks to high heaven.”
“…”
“And, Sister Tong, when you drink, the alcohol takes over your brain, turning you into a complete idiot. I’m afraid you’ll lose all our money and shut the pub down. Then I wouldn’t get paid.”
“…”
Tong Yingying’s usually lifeless eyes turned into a death stare. Seeing her reach for the stun baton, Yan Huan quickly stood up. Glancing at the ti on his phone, he said, “Well, that’s that. I’m off now. The place downstairs is cleaned up. Enjoy your night, Sister Tong.”
“…”
As he turned to leave, Tong Yingying suddenly called out, “Wait.”
“What now? Don’t tell
you’re really going to zap ?”
“Don’t be stupid…”
She picked up so money from the bed and handed it to him. “Here, your salary for this month. Might as well take it now, since it’s almost payday.”
Yan Huan raised an eyebrow, counted the money, and asked, “It’s more than usual?”
“I didn’t count your weekend absences against you, plus today’s extra. Six hundred more.”
“Sister Tong, love you.”
“Want
to zap you?”
Tong Yingying waved the stun baton nacingly but avoided looking directly at him.
“Alright, I’m out of here, Sister Tong.”
Yan Huan pocketed the money and left her room. From her bed, she called down, “Lock the door for !”
“Got it!”
The sound of the iron door locking and Yan Huan’s footsteps faded away. Tong Yingying lay back on her bed, her gaze empty.
Quitting smoking and drinking, huh…?
She hesitated, reluctant to leave the comfort of her current lifestyle. Change was daunting—habits ford over years weren’t easy to break. Still, maybe it was necessary. She might even be hallucinating from drinking too much; just now, she thought she saw…
A talking white snake?
anwhile, in Linn’s Luo Bridge District, inside a three-story apartnt, a black-haired girl in pajamas tinkered with a box in her room. Inside was a leopard gecko staring up at her.
“Xiao Yun, want to co out and play?”
Despite the loose fit of her pajamas, her figure was evident, her youthful face glowing after a fresh bath. She was An Le, a student in Year 1, Class C at Yuanyue Academy—quiet and unassuming in class, but vibrant and carefree in her private world.
An Le loved reptiles and other unusual pets, often watching videos about them online. But Xiao Yun, the gecko, simply stared, unmoving.
“Not feeling it, huh?” she said with a gentle smile, returning the box to its shelf.
She turned to her computer, browsing a forum’s “restricted gas” section. Her search history revealed so peculiar tastes. As a dedicated otaku, her interests leaned… unconventional.
“Hmm, this one’s a bit outdated… And this? The protagonist’s too ugly…”
While she browsed, a faint, surreal sound ca from her window.
“Hiss… hiss… glug glug…”
An Le froze, then looked toward the sound. On the windowsill lay a small, injured white snake, its scales peeling.
“A snake? Why is there a snake here?”
The snake weakly opened its eyes, glanced at her pitifully, and closed them again.
After a mont’s hesitation, An Le left and returned wearing bite-proof gloves. Gently, she picked up the snake and brought it inside.
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