Chapter 12

Auntie Qian’s cooking was flavorful and delicious. Meng Li had a bowl of Silkie chicken soup, two bowls of longan and red bean sticky rice porridge, and a cup of papaya stewed with snow hashima.

The meal was perhaps a bit too nourishing. By bedtime, waves of an inexplicable, restless heat surged within her body—like a restless little bird tirelessly hopping around in her heart.

The scent of sandalwood mist filled the room. Thin moonlight climbed onto the bed, coming to rest on her fluffy eyelashes. The velvet pillow was soft and light, yet her shifting movements still made slight sounds.

Fearing she would wake Ming Yufu, Meng Li didn’t dare toss and turn. She closed her eyes and tried to force herself to sleep, but after an hour, she truly couldn’t settle her mind. She crept out of the bedroom as quietly as possible.

She went to the study and worked on math for a while. After pondering only a few problems, she finally felt a wave of sleepiness hit her. Only then did she return to the bedroom, collapse onto the bed, and fall into a heavy, groggy slumber.

Meng Li dreamed she was taking an exam. Solving math problems was as easy as reaching into a bag for an object; she handled it with total ease. The examiner, Ming Yufu, looked at her paper, marked it with a full score, and announced that she could immediately become an executive at the Ming Group. From then on, she got a promotion and a raise, held a beauty in her arms, and reached the pinnacle of life.

To show her sincerity, Ming Yufu even advanced five million yuan in salary to her bank account. Meng Li took all the money out, changed it into coins, and threw them one by one, clink-clank, onto the floor.

The sound extended from the dream into reality. She woke up to a noisy clatter hitting her eardrums. Outside the window, dark clouds obscured the sun, making it impossible to tell if it was day or night. Heavy rain drummed noisily, continuous and unending.

At Meng Li’s original school, classes were usually suspended during severe weather like rainstorms. On one hand, it was a government requirement; on the other, her school was dotted with low-lying roads and a drainage system that was effectively non-existent. As soon as it rained, the grounds turned into a reservoir, transforming the campus into a “Venice of Water.” Students couldn’t even get out of their dorm doors, let alone get to class.

Meng Li sat on the sofa, dawdling for over ten minutes. Seeing she was about to be late and still having received no notice of suspension, she gave a resigned sigh. She took her umbrella and hitched a ride in Ming Yufu’s car to school.

Today was a full day of classes. Forty-five minutes per session, with one course usually taking up two sessions. Fortunately, the professors were efficient and didn’t have the habit of running over time.

Buzz— Buzz—

After class, Meng Li picked up her phone. Seeing the caller, a flash of surprise crossed her eyes. She answered, “Hello? You’re looking for me?”

“The watch you gave me, and the other expensive gifts—when are you coming to take them back?”

“Just handle them yourself,” Meng Li said hesitantly.

Ming Shu’s clear voice, processed through the electronics of the phone, reached her ear with a blunt refusal: “I’ve already thrown the love letters away. If you don’t come get the rest of the things, I’m putting them in the Lost and Found.”

Meng Li propped the phone between her shoulder and ear as she tucked a textbook into her shoulder bag. “I just finished class. When are you free? I’ll come find you.”

“See you in a bit at the Deep Sea Bookstore by the North Gate.”

Meng Li arrived at the Deep Sea Bookstore, folded the leaves of her umbrella, and placed it in a slot in the umbrella rack.

The rain was torrential. The campus was submerged in a dark gray mist with extremely low visibility, looking like a scene from an “Infinite Flow” novel where “one step outside leads to certain doom.”

Deep Sea Bookstore was a “bookstore” in name only; it sold all kinds of food, drinks, and general merchandise across its three floors. It was usually a favorite spot for students. Today, there wasn’t much business. The woman sitting at the checkout yawned listlessly, using a notebook as a fan, her face written with drowsiness.

While waiting for Ming Shu, Meng Li’s gaze scanned the nearby bookshelves. Most of the books were brand new and still in plastic wrap, arranged orderly. Occasionally, a few unsealed old books appeared, their corners worn and frayed.

All sorts of novels were on display.

The Case Files of the Good Meow Sheriff: The Cow Cat.

After Lying Flat, I Became a Billionaire Through Eating, Drinking, and Having Fun.

You’re Not Chinese If You Don’t Read This: The ABO History of Kissing…?

Meng Li’s eyes paused. ​bailiantales.com​Her gaze lingered on a book with a soft, vivid cherry-blossom pink cover on the bottom shelf.

Kissing could be written into a book? Who would actually read that?

Meng Li felt a sense of mental disdain. The next second, she picked the book off the shelf and flipped a page.

A college student with overflowing curiosity would read it.

Oh? Quite interesting.

Oh… it was actually a theoretical book.

OH! Why were there illustrations of people kissing? It was enough to make one blush.

After a moment of very rich internal monologue, Meng Li heard the creak of the door opening. She put the book back, turned around, and saw a girl folding her umbrella.

Ming Shu truly lived up to her role as the Omega protagonist of the novel; her appearance and aura were exactly as described. Clear features, almond eyes shimmering like water, and long, slightly curly black hair pinned to one side. She wore a pink lace suppressor collar, looking like a beautiful, easily broken rose.

“Hi.”

Meng Li initiated a greeting, her slightly upturned eyes curving like crescent moons. Ming Shu’s fine brows were lowered, her eyes calm; her expression drew a clear line of demarcation between them. Her high heels crunched on the floor mat, soaking up the water as she walked toward Meng Li.

Suddenly, her foot slipped, and she fell straight forward.

With a thud, both her knees hit the ground.

The woman dozing at the checkout jumped in fright, her eyes widening like lightbulbs as she turned to look. “Take it easy, girl! The tiles are slippery when it’s raining!”

Meng Li looked panicked and hurried over, reaching her hand out to Ming Shu. “Are you okay?”

Ming Shu’s face was sour. If possible, she wished for a ten-thousand-year moratorium on touching Meng Li. But the pain in her knees was piercing, and pride wouldn’t fill her stomach. Ming Shu gave herself three minutes of mental preparation—it’s no big deal, I’ll just wash my hands inside and out with disinfectant when I get back.

She placed her hand in Meng Li’s palm, using the other’s strength to stand. She tried to save face by saying, “A bit early for a New Year’s bow.”

“Happy New Year,” Meng Li responded calmly.

Reluctantly, Ming Shu squeezed a “Thank you” through her teeth.

Meng Li shook her head. “You’re welcome. Sorry for the trouble, having you come all this way to deliver these.”

“It’s what I should do to draw a clear line.”

The sky had fallen. Life had gone from a hopeful turn back to a dead end.

On the day Meng Li discovered that close contact with Ming Yufu increased her life points, she should have realized that life points could also decrease rapidly.

Just by helping Ming Shu up, Meng Li’s life points had decreased by seven days.

She hadn’t fully grasped the rules of the life-point fluctuations. Meng Li guessed that the increase and decrease might be like some sort of naturally formed magnetic field. In the original book, she was the cannon-fodder scum Alpha, and her magnetic field was incompatible with the Omega protagonist, Ming Shu. Thus, when they had physical contact, her field weakened, and her life points dropped.

As for whether this theory was correct, Meng Li hadn’t tested it on anyone else yet, so she couldn’t be certain.

It’s easy to go from frugality to luxury, but hard to go from luxury back to frugality. Thinking of the seven days of life points lost for no reason, her mood plummeted. Her heart ached, her head ached; she felt like she had dropped ten dollars on the street.

Ming Yufu noticed something was wrong during dinner. The girl ate in silence with [bailiantales.com]her head down, her cheeks puffed out. Her chewing frequency was about thirty times—on average, three seconds slower per bite than usual.

“The food isn’t to your taste?” Ming Yufu asked. She rolled up her suit sleeves slightly, revealing forearms as white as snowy jade, and picked up a piece of “Gold Coin Egg” with her chopsticks.

Meng Li shook her head and offered a faint smile. “It’s delicious. Auntie Qian’s cooking is always amazing.”

“But you aren’t eating much.”

Meng Li held her bowl, hesitating. She avoided Ming Yufu’s gaze. “I’m just not very hungry tonight.”

She kept her eyes down as she spoke. Ming Yufu knew she was lying and had just found an excuse. There are boundaries in how people interact; Ming Yufu’s brow twitched slightly, but she didn’t press for answers or invade the other’s private space.

However, she didn’t realize that asking if the food was to someone’s taste was a level of concern she would never normally voice to anyone else.

At 10:00 PM, Auntie Qian, who was watching an idol drama, received a text from the President.

[Rain: Auntie Qian, please make tomato beef patties tomorrow night.]

The President never made requests regarding [read the original at bailiantales.com]food; Auntie Qian usually had to judge what she liked by observation.

[Auntie Qian: Anything else you’d like to eat?]

[Rain: No.]

[Auntie Qian: Okay.]

She added “tomato beef patties” to her memo, then suddenly realized something strange. Since when did the President like tomatoes? On the contrary, Miss Meng had praised them once, saying the tomato beef patties she made were the best she’d ever had in her life.

Meng Li finished her dinner absentmindedly, showered absentmindedly, did her math homework seriously, and lay down on the bed absentmindedly, saying “Goodnight” to Ming Yufu seriously.

She closed her eyes. Drowsiness rolled through her mind, but thinking of what she was about to do, her heart rate accelerated. She couldn’t help being a bit nervous.

After estimating that about twenty minutes had passed, Meng Li opened her eyes in a half-awake state. She glanced at the clock on the wall; the hour hand had moved a tick. She had been lying there with her eyes closed longer than expected.

“Ming Yufu?”

“President Ming?”

She called out softly twice. The woman’s sleeping face was peaceful. Meng Li rubbed her eyes and let out a yawn. Her wait of nearly an hour hadn’t been in vain; she had finally waited for Ming Yufu to fall asleep.

She softened her breathing and cautiously reached out her hand, touching the woman’s ear.

It felt cool to the touch, like a small piece of jade. It was small enough to be held in one hand and toyed with, but she kept her strength light, stroking the woman’s earlobe and tracing the soft curve of the cartilage.

Most people’s ears are extremely sensitive. Meng Li had originally wanted to hold the woman’s hand, but everything below the neck was wrapped in the quilt. She couldn’t see and didn’t dare risk exploring, fearing she might touch some other part of the body.

Because she was so nervous, Meng Li was focused entirely on stroking Ming Yufu’s ear, failing to notice that Ming Yufu’s eyelid had flickered.