Volume 9: The Acidity of the Setting Sun
Chapter 18: The Little Tiger’s Abnormality
Chu Jingyi’s stomach let out a cute gurgle. Her already blushing face turned as red as a maple leaf touched by the sunset’s glow, and she buried her head in Lu Li’s chest, not speaking for a long time.
“Are you hungry?” Lu Li asked.
“…Mm… I was too nervous before coming out with you, so I didn’t eat anything…”
Lu Li breathed a sigh of relief. It was a good thing that this sudden stomach gurgle had given his rationality some leeway. If he had allowed the atmosphere to remain so ambiguous, he couldn’t guarantee he could truly be a gentleman less noble than a beast.
Lu Li looked at the room’s amenities: a large bed, a few wooden desks embedded in the wall, a TV mounted on the wall, and a bathroom separated by frosted glass. It didn’t look like there was a kitchen. After all, it was a hotel near a university; the facilities didn’t need to be so comprehensive.
Lu Li got out of bed and saw a row of items on the wooden table in front of the TV: mineral water, a lighter, instant noodles, and a small umbrella. He couldn’t possibly let Yibao eat instant noodles, could he? Has this girl ever even eaten instant noodles? Lu Li suddenly wondered.
“Yibao, have you ever eaten instant noodles?”
“What?”
“Instant noodles.” Lu Li picked up the red-packaged cup of instant noodles in his hand. To his surprise, the cup was frighteningly light. Lu Li didn’t have a firm grip and almost tossed it away. A closer look revealed that a hole had been made in the bottom of the cup, and the noodle cake inside was long gone. Well, so much for instant noodles.
“I haven’t,” Chu Jingyi said, shrinking back on the bed and pulling the edge of the blanket up to cover her neck. She looked pitiful, like a young wife who had just been molested. “Mom says they’re unhealthy.”
Lu Li chuckled. Jingyi’s upbringing was really quite strict. It was incredible to think that he had managed to casually spirit away such a perfectly protected girl. Putting himself in Chu Xiaodong’s shoes, the fact that he could resist chopping Lu Li to pieces could be considered a mark of his self-restraint.
Lu Li’s thoughts wandered. He picked up the landline phone in the room and dialed the hotel’s internal line. “Hello, do you offer food delivery?” Lu Li checked the time. It was past eight in the evening; there should still be some restaurants open.
The young man at the front desk suddenly lowered his voice. “Delivery? Sir, what kind of delivery do you want?”
Lu Li didn’t get it at first and wondered why the other party had suddenly lowered his voice so much. Was he afraid Lu Li wouldn’t hear him clearly?
Lu Li looked at Chu Jingyi. “Yibao, what do you want to eat?”
“Anything is fine.”
Was “anything” a word all women liked to say? Hupo loved to say it, Jingyi would say it, and it seemed Baili often said it too. Lu Li thought with ill intent that if it were truly “anything,” he would order the perversely spicy “peppers stir-fried with peppers” to properly teach these girls who loved to say “anything” a lesson.
Lu Li remembered that when they ate at school, Jingyi always loved to order sweet and sour pork ribs. He guessed her tastes leaned toward the sweet and sour side. “One order of sweet and sour pork ribs, one order of hot and sour fish. Two servings of rice. Delivered to the door.”
“Oh, oh, that kind of delivery.” The young man at the front desk had a sudden realization, and his voice became cheerful again. “You should have said so earlier, sir. It’ll be delivered in about half an hour.”
Lu Li hung up the phone and heard Jingyi ask blankly, “Lu Li, what kind of delivery was he talking about?”
Lu Li slid back under the covers, his large hand once again wrapping around the scantily clad young girl, caressing her delicate skin. “It’s nothing good. Good students shouldn’t know about it.” “I’m not a good student anymore. I even came to get a room with you. Tell me, please tell me~” Chu Jingyi acted cute in his arms.
Lu Li looked at her luscious red lips and swallowed hard, suddenly missing the fragrance of the young girl’s saliva. “Kiss me, and I’ll tell you.” The moment the words left his mouth, Chu Jingyi kissed Lu Li again. The intimacy between them had unknowingly broken through to this level.
The two of them kissed passionately, forgetting the world around them. Lu Li’s large hands roamed and kneaded her chest, back, fair buttocks, and beautiful legs. The force was a bit strong, leaving faint red marks on her fair skin. Chu Jingyi, however, was a bit inexperienced, her pair of jade-like hands shrinking by her sides, not knowing where to place them.
She emotionally called out Lu Li’s name. The confusion and conflict of the past few days, the uncertainty about the future, the search for the meaning of life—all of it transformed into a burning love. At this moment, she just wanted to completely give her body and soul to the man in front of her and stop thinking about the difficult problems that had kept her awake at night. How wonderful it would be to return to childhood, she thought. Childhood had butterflies, little yellow flowers, and harmonious, loving parents. By Lu Li’s side, she seemed to have briefly returned to that time. On a verdant meadow, Lu Li held her hand and said, “Come, from now on, let me take care of you…”
The movie on the TV was also nearing its end, and the atmosphere between the man and woman grew even more enchanting. Just then, the room’s phone rang. Lu Li answered, somewhat annoyed. The person on the other end said they were out of sweet and sour fish and had replaced it with sliced pork in hot chili oil. They also said it could only be delivered to the front desk and he had to come and pick it up.
When Lu Li looked at Chu Jingyi again, she had covered her head with the blanket, not daring to look at him.
Lu Li got dressed and said, “I’m going to get the food.”
“Mm…” the blanket-fairy said. “Hurry back.” As if realizing this sounded like a wife’s farewell to her husband, she let out a cute whimper and curled up into a ball on the bed.
Lu Li opened the door and saw a dark shadow toppling at his feet. He thought it was a stray dog that had wandered in and was about to kick it away when he suddenly realized the dark shadow was a squatting girl. Startled, he quickly changed his kick into a hook, steadying the girl’s figure and naturally supporting her back with his hands. Only then did Lu Li get a clear look at the girl’s face. “Chen Jianing?! What are you squatting here for?”
Chen Jianing lifted her head, her face upside down relative to Lu Li’s. “I… I was just sitting for a bit…”
“No, what are you sitting here for? Didn’t you go back to school?”
“I… I…” A million clumsy excuses flashed through the Little Tiger’s mind. In a split second, Chen Jianing’s spark of wisdom flickered thousands of times. “I came to get my ID card from you… The school is checking attendance. Students have to hold up their ID cards in the dorm, make a gesture, and then take a picture… So, so… so I came to get my ID card from you. But you didn’t open the door for ages!” Towards the end, as if she had convinced herself, her voice gradually became more confident and righteous.
Lu Li tidied his messy hair. He seemed to, possibly, probably, perhaps have not heard a knock. After all, he was busy rolling around under the covers with the cute little Jingyi, so he really hadn’t heard anything. He looked at Chen Jianing suspiciously. “You’re not into online lending, are you?”
Chen Jianing jumped up from the ground in anger. “You’re the one into online lending! I may be greedy for money, but I’m not greedy enough for that kind of ill-gotten wealth! How vain do you think I am?”
“Isn’t holding up an ID card and making a gesture something you do for online loans? Your school is really strange.” Lu Li didn’t probe further. He guessed the Little Tiger was most likely lying again. “Come in and sit down first. I’m going… I’m going to get some takeout. Er, um, Jingyi, why don’t you chat with Chen Jianing for a bit.”
As he said the second half of the sentence, he realized the atmosphere in the room was too awkward. He was walking out with messy hair and slippers, while Chu Jingyi was lying disheveled on the bed. It was inevitably a bit awkward for Chen Jianing to walk in on this scene.
He looked at Chen Jianing, expecting her to mock and ridicule him again, but to his surprise, the Little Tiger just turned her head away with a desolate look in her eyes, not saying a single word.
