“Oh… but it feels so, so weird.” Xu Wanyue slowly lowered the hands she had wrapped around her knees and extended her fair, tender calves toward him once more. Wrapped in the hem of her skirt, only her ankles and delicate little feet were visible.
“The Alliance once offered a hundred billion, plus two S-Grade Alchemy Artifacts, to buy this Energy Circulation Method from those Ancient Martial Families, but they refused anyway. And the version I’m teaching you is even more advanced than theirs.”
“I just joined the Alliance not long ago—don’t lie to me…” Xu Wanyue muttered under her breath.
“Then go play by yourself.” Lin Cheng turned back to his computer.
He was starting to feel a little crazed.
A good while later, Xu Wanyue sidled up behind him again. She poked his shoulder with a finger. Lin Cheng glanced back and saw her innocent expression, tinged with a hint of grievance. “Are you mad?”
Lin Cheng fell silent for three seconds.
He really didn’t seem to have any reason to be angry. From Xu Wanyue’s perspective, it did look like he was taking advantage of her. And she didn’t particularly want to learn it anyway—there weren’t many practical uses for it. Strange… why was he empathizing with her like this?
“No.” Lin Cheng’s expression softened. “If you don’t want to learn it, then don’t… Or I could just send you the method as text, but figuring it out on your own usually takes several months. If I guide your energy—like unblocking the Ren and Du meridians in those wuxia novels—you could master it in a few days… It’s not about taking advantage of you.”
“I know, I know.” There was a trace of apology in Xu Wanyue’s voice. She shifted her position, then gently lifted the hem of her skirt a little, rolling it up to her calves. She bit her lip lightly as she raised her fair little foot just a bit. Her cute toes curled up tensely. “Then… go ahead and touch.”
“…”
“Why are you humming like that?”
“Girls’ feet are sensitive, you know. And they’ve never been touched by a guy before…” Xu Wanyue defended herself. Lin Cheng shot her an exasperated glare. “Focus on feeling the energy circulation path, you idiot!”
“Oh… I am feeling it.” Xu Wanyue answered, sounding aggrieved.
Lin Cheng’s fingertips glided over the sole of her foot, the top of her foot, and her ankle before slowly moving up to her calf. A tingling, numbing sensation kept surging through Xu Wanyue’s body. She watched his serious face. At first, there was a hint of wariness in her eyes, but as she realized he was truly focused on the task, that wariness faded, replaced by an inexplicable fascination.
“Got it memorized?”
“Huh?” Xu Wanyue snapped back to reality. “That’s it?”
She had zoned out staring at his profile.
“…” Lin Cheng was speechless.
“One more… one more time…” Xu Wanyue extended a timid finger. Lin Cheng took a deep breath and guided the energy paths in her body again, smoothing out specific routes and unblocking the energy nodes within her.
Xu Wanyue clamped down hard on her lip, fighting to keep any strange sounds from escaping, but her body trembled uncontrollably. Beneath her skirt hem, her plump, snow-white thighs pressed tightly together.
What an odd sensation.
“All done.” Lin Cheng pulled his hand back. “The nodes in your arms and legs are unblocked now. I’ll send you a text file in a bit with the locations of the other energy nodes and how to open them.”
Xu Wanyue nodded in a daze. Lin Cheng watched her, waiting for her to say something, but she seemed flustered and unsure. A few seconds later, she managed to blurt out, “If you became a masseur, you’d have a ton of clients lining up.”
“…You’re killing me.” Lin Cheng couldn’t take it anymore.
Lin Cheng forwarded Xu Wanyue a PDF file. It was richly illustrated and clearly marked every energy node in the body, along with instructions on how to visualize those nodes internally and drive energy through them. He had prepared it long ago.
Every Ability User had forty-nine energy nodes scattered throughout their body. According to the Ancient Martial Families’ records, the maximum anyone could unblock was all forty-nine. But Lin Cheng’s teaching method allowed for a fiftieth node—one they didn’t even believe existed.
And just moments ago, while guiding energy through Xu Wanyue’s arms and legs, he had already unblocked twenty-two of them for her.
“This feels insanely powerful. Is it like a secret martial arts manual?”
“You could say that.”
“Then Litchi and Grape know it too, right?”
“You could say that.”
Xu Wanyue dove into studying the manual with real focus. She sat cross-legged on his bed, finding it far more engaging than scrolling through short videos. An hour later, she opened her eyes and turned to Lin Cheng. “Hey, I think I unblocked one of the energy nodes!”
“Oh.”
“Hey? Does that make me some kind of genius?”
“No idea.”
“How long did it take Litchi and the others to unblock their first node?”
“They’re all lazybones. I basically hand-held them through it.”
“Then that means…” Xu Wanyue froze for a moment as a realization hit her.
After all, seven or eight of those nodes were in sensitive spots—like the inner thighs or the chest… Her cheeks suddenly burned red. She stared straight at Lin Cheng. “What’s your deal with them, exactly?”
“Ah… just regular friends.”
It was only then that Xu Wanyue remembered something else. She looked up at him. “Aren’t you worried I’ll… teach this method to someone else?”
“I created this method myself. To unblock nodes using it, you need a trace of my energy as the trigger. So even if you taught it to others, it wouldn’t work for them.”
“Oh…” Xu Wanyue nodded, then pressed further. “But don’t you have no abilities left?”
“My energy is almost completely and irreversibly depleted—just a tiny bit remains. Why do you ask?” Lin Cheng stared right at her.
Panic flashed clearly across Xu Wanyue’s face. She stammered, “J-just… wondering, that’s all.”
“Oh.” Lin Cheng nodded and smoothly changed the subject. “I’m craving stir-fried yellow beef tonight.”
…Why on earth did the Alliance send a woman whose every thought shows on her face to spy on me?!
Xu Wanyue left at seven, having washed all the dishes before she went. Lin Cheng flopped onto the sofa.
Probably to apologize for misunderstanding him earlier that day, she had given his chest a light kick and cooked five dishes for dinner.
His stomach was stuffed. No cooking, no dishes to wash, and great food—living like a total slacker was the life.
Lin Cheng suddenly got why he had once kept that useless woman at home.
Late at night.
Xu Wanyue sat at her computer in a white nightgown. She had spent an hour editing and revising the report she planned to send to her handler, unsure what to include and what to leave out.
When she had first accepted this secret mission, the Alliance had tasked her with digging into everyone’s past at the Fruit Shop: Litchi, Grape, Lemon, Water Honey Peach, and Lin Cheng… His name had been highlighted in red.
But there was no way he was Si Ming… Reporting something like that as a joke would just get her chewed out for slacking.
Xu Wanyue felt a bit down. She typed and deleted, typed and deleted, until she finally finished and hit send.
The main mission still felt like a distant goal. Instead, she had somehow turned into Lin Cheng’s personal caretaker. Every time she met his eyes, she felt this inexplicable guilt.
…That night, he had rushed over to save her himself. Afterward, he even gave her a million in compensation… And he taught her how to control her own energy. Sure, he was a little pervy, but he was a genuinely good guy.
…And pretty handsome, too. The cute puppy-dog type.
Xu Wanyue pinched her own cheek, feeling the warmth under her fingertips. She hopped onto the bed and buried her face in the pillow. A moment later, she started rolling around restlessly.
This is so frustrating…
If he really hadn’t done anything wrong… then sending what little she knew about him to the Alliance shouldn’t cause any harm, right? Xu Wanyue patted her cheeks and felt her furrowed brows relax a little.
Her phone buzzed with a reply from her handler.
“The core objective is to determine whether Lin Cheng still possesses abilities—and if so, what they are. Once that’s confirmed, I’ll hand over half a vial of Evolution Blood to you first.”
Xu Wanyue replied that she’d received it. She lay on the bed, staring up at the ceiling for a long time. Then something occurred to her. She walked to the closet, pulled out a box, and picked up her phone.
His friend verification message never failed to make her chuckle—it was so childish.
“Late night can’t sleep? Call me. I’m a responsible man.”
Lin Cheng lay in bed, silently staring at the message from Xu Wanyue.
It was two photos.
One showed a pair of semi-transparent White Silk Leg Socks.
The other was white lace leg socks, edged with delicate frills. The intricate patterns weren’t sheer, but they looked especially cute.
And a message: “Tomorrow… which pair do you want to see?”
Lin Cheng’s mouth twitched. He had only been messing around, playing the pervert for laughs. Crap—now she actually thought he was one.
“You’ve gotta wear them to know for sure.” He typed back.
A good while later, two more photos arrived.
Pure eye candy—she had sent pure eye candy.
Xu Wanyue had an amazing figure and a slender frame, so her dainty feet looked like exquisite works of art. With her porcelain-pale skin, they were irresistible. Lin Cheng agonized over it before picking the first pair of White Silk Leg Socks.
“Mm, that one. Good—now I’m off to bed. Night.”
“Night.”
What a bizarre conversation.
Lin Cheng lay on the sofa, gazing at the ceiling. After some hesitation, he pulled out his phone and made a call. It rang for about a minute before connecting, and a cool female voice came through.
“I have a question.”
“Go ahead.”
“Why send such a ditzy woman to spy on me?”
“Her Luck ability is something you’ll need, she just joined the Alliance with a spotless background—it all checks out logically. Her job was simple: confirm if you still have abilities. Once we get that intel, the plan targeting you kicks off. She was perfect for it.”
“But her skills are trash! Put her in front of Litchi or Grape, and they’d see through her in a heartbeat!!”
“She was picked specifically for you. After all… she’s pretty, with a body right up your alley. No dating history either.”
“No matter how hot she is, if she’s that clueless, she’s no spy…”
“Isn’t clueless better for you? Think of her as a toy I sent your way—a blank slate. You can shape her into whatever you like.”
“I really hate that deranged way you talk.”
“Show some respect to your elders. And lately, you’ve been…”
Lin Cheng hung up before she could finish.
…No way was he giving her a chance to chew him out.
…Especially since she’d have a point on that next topic.
