Xu Wanyue drove very slowly.
“I just got my driver’s license not long ago,” she muttered softly. Lin Cheng lounged lazily in the passenger seat. “It’s fine. Take your time driving. No rush.”
Compared to either Litchi or Lu Xiaoxiao, Lin Cheng suddenly realized that Xu Wanyue’s temperament was more like that of a typical female college student. She had this aura about her that made her seem like the type who would count the money for you after being sold.
“Do you live alone?” Xu Wanyue asked softly.
“Yeah. My parents died early, back when I was seven or eight, during a Catastrophe.”
Xu Wanyue fell silent for a moment. Then, in a quiet voice, she said, “My parents both caught a virus left over from a Catastrophe when I was six. They passed away from it. My uncle raised me and my sister.”
“You have a sister?”
“Yeah. She’s four years younger than me. She’s been a total tomboy since she was little. She just started junior high, and her dream is to become a superhero.”
Lin Cheng chuckled. “My dream when I was a kid was to be a superhero too.”
When she mentioned her sister, a flicker of sadness crossed Xu Wanyue’s face, but she quickly masked it.
Both of them were A City natives, and Xu Wanyue’s place wasn’t far from Lin Cheng’s home.
After a while, she suddenly asked, “Will my childhood Misfortune… affect the people around me?”
“Why do you ask that out of the blue?”
Xu Wanyue stayed quiet for a long time before saying, “That virus outbreak was completely random. Everyone else in our entire village was fine, but only my parents got infected…”
As she spoke, her eyelashes lowered, and she seemed lost in thought.
“Your Misfortune is personal to you. It’s the negative flip side of Luck, and it has nothing to do with anyone around you. It won’t drag them down either.”
“Really?”
“Me lying to you wouldn’t benefit me at all.”
Xu Wanyue nodded lightly. She stayed silent for a while longer, and then her eyes suddenly reddened.
Lin Cheng didn’t say anything. He just pretended to look out at the rain, seeing nothing.
Perhaps, in her heart, this was a knot that had tangled her for many years.
…So, a little white lie now and then couldn’t hurt.
Half an hour later, Xu Wanyue dropped Lin Cheng off downstairs. There was an umbrella in her car, but he didn’t take it. Before opening the car door, he casually said, “Thanks. Want to come up for some tea?”
Xu Wanyue didn’t respond for two or three seconds. Lin Cheng blinked in surprise. Wasn’t this just basic polite small talk? All she had to do was shake her head and politely decline. Instead… she nodded lightly.
“Sure.”
“…?”
And so Xu Wanyue grabbed the umbrella and went upstairs with Lin Cheng. He held it open, his face expressionless, a hint of helpless resignation hidden in his eyes.
Luckily, Lin Cheng had a pair of guest slippers at home—pink ones. He fetched them for Xu Wanyue. She slipped off her white canvas shoes and changed into them, then blurted out, “Did a girl used to live here with you?”
“How did you know?”
“Why else would they be pink?” Xu Wanyue replied innocently. Lin Cheng thought to himself that it’d be great if she put that sharp mind to better use.
“Yeah, a girl did stay with me for a while.”
Xu Wanyue followed Lin Cheng into the living room. Black Cat was sprawled on the sofa. Lin Cheng suddenly realized he didn’t have any tea at home after all—it had just been a habitual polite offer. He rummaged through the cabinets and found a bag of soy milk powder.
“Do you… drink soy milk?” Lin Cheng asked, a bit awkwardly.
But Xu Wanyue’s eyes lit up with a small spark of delight. She nodded eagerly, like a pestle pounding garlic.
Three minutes later, from the way she sipped at the soy milk in tiny mouthfuls, Lin Cheng could tell she really loved it.
“It’s a bit hot,” Xu Wanyue muttered softly all of a sudden.
“Should I turn on the living room AC?”
“No need.” Xu Wanyue set down her ceramic mug, then grabbed the hem of her hoodie. In a flash, she pulled it off. Lin Cheng’s eyes widened in shock at this unexpected turn—only to realize she was wearing a black strappy tank top underneath.
The straps around her waist were cut out in a lace design, exposing soft, pale skin that looked especially tempting against the black bands. The tank top had a slightly low neckline, revealing her delicate collarbones. Her full, rounded chest was almost excessively ample—among everyone Lin Cheng knew, only Grape could match it.
Lin Cheng couldn’t help but steal a couple extra glances.
“Even if you stare openly, I won’t get mad,” Xu Wanyue said out of nowhere. Lin Cheng’s expression froze awkwardly, his brain short-circuiting as he floundered for a response that wouldn’t make it worse.
But Xu Wanyue looked perfectly innocent. “It’s not like looking will take a piece of my flesh.”
“Do you usually… dress like this?”
“Not really. More at home. I don’t go out much.” As she answered, Xu Wanyue added, “But I watch a lot of short videos, and those girls look so good in stuff like this, so I bought a bunch.”
…No wonder she showed up at the casino last time dressed like one of those risqué influencers.
…But wasn’t her train of thought a little… odd?
Lin Cheng got the sense that Xu Wanyue was a bit… dim-witted. She’d seemed like a perfectly normal cool beauty at first glance, but the more he got to know her, the more she came off as endearingly silly.
A strange suspicion popped into Lin Cheng’s head, so he asked, “Have you… always been kinda friendless?”
“W-Who says I don’t have friends?” Xu Wanyue’s eyes darted in panic. Her fingertips gripped the cup tightly. Lin Cheng stared straight at her. After a long moment, she lowered her head like a little girl confessing a mistake. “Yeah… from childhood to now, it’s always just been me playing alone. Only my sister would play with me.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m so unlucky… I always end up covered in injuries. In elementary school, they called me a jinx. Plus, I scar easily. Look… here, here…” As Xu Wanyue spoke, she hiked up her pant leg, revealing a scar on her calf. She muttered, “This was from a dog bite when I was little…”
She turned around, showing Lin Cheng her waist. “This one was from crashing my bike in middle school…”
“That’s just normal bad luck for anyone, right? Why do you remember them so clearly?”
Xu Wanyue gave him a wistful look. “That little dog never hurt anyone before it bit me… And that bike crash? Right after I fell, a car accident happened nearby. The car that got hit came flying right at me and slammed into me… I was in the hospital for three months. And that’s not even the half of it—there’s tons more.”
Lin Cheng’s mouth twitched slightly.
“As kids… my sister and I lived in the countryside. After Mom and Dad died, Uncle brought us to the city. He pulled strings to get us into a local school, but the city kids wouldn’t play with us… So I didn’t make any friends. In fifth grade, a boy even wrote me a love letter. Some girls got jealous and wanted to bully me after school. They pulled my hair, slapped me… Telling the teacher didn’t help.”
“What about middle and high school? You’re so pretty—surely lots of people chased you then?”
Xu Wanyue looked up, her eyes brimming with resentment, as if Lin Cheng had poked at another sore spot. “My acne stuck around from age thirteen to eighteen and wouldn’t go away… Then, the night after my eighteenth birthday, it vanished overnight for no reason.”
“Was it… that bad?”
“Bad enough that looking at old photos now makes me want to end it all.” Xu Wanyue looked like she was about to cry.
Lin Cheng felt like his small-talk skills were utterly depleted.
He took another sip of soy milk from his mug, at a total loss for words. After a while, Xu Wanyue finished hers. She spotted the cat on the sofa and scooped Black Cat up. Her eyes sparkled—she clearly loved fluffy little animals.
“Your cat is so cute.”
“Picked her up off the street. Been with me for years.”
Xu Wanyue waved Black Cat’s paw around, looking absolutely delighted. Lin Cheng sensed a peculiar contrast in her. She was the tall, slender-yet-curvy bombshell type, but without her social mask, she just seemed adorably goofy—like it wasn’t an act.
…Was her undercover plan some kind of honey trap? How’d she know this was my one weakness?
“The rain’s still pretty heavy outside. Why don’t you watch some TV…”
“Sure!”
Lin Cheng turned on the TV. He mostly used it for casting, so he resumed playing Kamen Rider. He hesitated, wondering if he should switch it and ask what she wanted to watch, but Xu Wanyue was already hugging the cat, eyes glued to the screen with bright enthusiasm. “A classic!”
“You’ve seen this?”
“Uncle’s kids loved it. My sister and I watched TV with him growing up. He was the only one who controlled the remote.” Xu Wanyue’s eyes shone. “I even know Faiz’s transformation pose.”
“Why don’t you… show me?” Lin Cheng watched her with a teasing smile. Xu Wanyue’s cheeks flushed. She muttered, “I-I’m not a kid anymore…”
“Come on, just once. I wanna see.”
“Fine…” Xu Wanyue set down the cat and stood up. Lin Cheng sat on the sofa, watching her under the lights, face rosy as she mumbled a few slightly awkward lines of Japanese. Translated, it went something like…
“Hey, you know? Once you have a dream… sometimes it makes you depressed and sad, but other times it gets your blood pumping. Something like that. I don’t have a dream, but… I can protect someone else’s dream.”
Lin Cheng stared blankly for a moment.
Xu Wanyue finished her performance and covered her face with her hands, peeking through her fingers at Lin Cheng. When he didn’t react, she cautiously sat back on the edge of the sofa and waved a hand in front of his face. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. You’re adorable.” Lin Cheng burst out laughing.
But Xu Wanyue muttered softly, “You can’t just call a girl adorable like that.”
“Hm?”
“Calling a girl adorable… means… you like her.”
“Where’d you pick that up?”
“From short videos.”
“You should cut back on those brain-dead shorts.” Lin Cheng couldn’t help but grin. Xu Wanyue shot him a dissatisfied look, then turned her attention to the TV and watched intently. Lin Cheng leaned back on the sofa and joined her for a bit. He turned off the living room lights. Every now and then, he’d glance at Xu Wanyue beside him. Her eyes sparkled, full of excitement.
It was weird. Lin Cheng shook his head with a wry smile.
At some point, a weight settled on his shoulder—Xu Wanyue’s head. It wasn’t on purpose; she lifted it right away. “Oh… I’m so sleepy… The rain hasn’t stopped…”
“You can sleep in my room. I’ll take the sofa.”
“Oh… no, it’s fine. I’ll sleep on the sofa.” Xu Wanyue mumbled to herself. After a while, her head drooped back onto Lin Cheng’s shoulder. He looked down at her.
She had fallen asleep.
