biul biul biul
sha shua shua yi yi!
The morning sunlight shone over the training grounds of Shengling Academy, casting the silhouettes of a young girl diligently practicing. And within the shadows on the ground, something occasionally encouraged her.
“Impressive, impressive! One full combo, causing damage to the air itself that’s hard to quantify!”
It’s no wonder the Sexually Repressed Shadow wasn’t very pleasant to listen to—mainly because the training grounds truly lacked anything suitable for the girl to practice her skills.
The only things on the field were a few high-density sandbags. Usually, First Rank students could use them to practice light strikes or conditioning, but if a Spirit Power User gathered their power and hit one, it would instantly become damaged property.
The girl retracted her moves and sat down on a nearby bench, wiping sweat from her face with a towel, feeling somewhat lost.
Not because the training ground didn’t have anything to unleash her strength on, but because of herself.
“I’ve clearly been at the peak of Second Rank for a while now. Why can’t I seem to touch the boundary to break through this bottleneck?” Shen Ning was slightly frustrated. “Do I just have to wait for the mileage milestone mission?”
The Sexually Repressed Shadow couldn’t help but retort: “Ning, you’re saying that? Some people never reach the peak of Second Rank in their whole lives. You’re not even 19 yet, just a few months away, and you’re already worrying about this. Saying this out loud is even more annoying than Chuyao.”
The Broken Shadow described her situation with a line from a song: “What you can’t have always stirs restlessness; those who are secretly loved bear gratitude and resentment alike.”
Shen Ning said nothing, only staring absentmindedly at the sand on the ground.
She wanted to be content with her current strength it was already high enough after all and just take her time completing missions, refreshing the legendary fastest path to Third Rank was just a matter of time.
But knowing that things would come knocking at her door made her feel constantly pressured inside.
“You can’t think like this. Being anxious won’t help. Why not relax first?” The Sexually Repressed Shadow offered a suggestion, “Like, hang out with Chuyao or something.”
Not at all a surprising recommendation.
By comparison, the Broken Shadow’s advice was more rational: “Find some friends to have tea and chat with, or go out for a walk to relax your mind.”
That was easier said than done. Xiao Si Nuo was recently acting like a secret agent (or at least that’s what he thought), and Li Renhao was busy accompanying his girlfriend, no time for tea.
As for going out, she didn’t even know where to go…
“You have a girlfriend’s boyfriend, don’t you have one too?” The Sexually Repressed Shadow said. “Don’t forget, you’re a member of the Female Students’ Club. How could you have nowhere to go?”
Member? Not exactly, but the club did have a place, and… the bubble tea there was pretty good.
Shen Ning picked up her backpack from the side and pulled out her phone, just about to buy some drinks through an app, when she suddenly noticed a message from Xu Chuyao.
[Li Yao doesn’t want to eat fingers: Trash fish ~, free tomorrow morning? Come to my dorm, I’ll treat you to a meal!]
To show she was serious, Chuyao had added an exclamation mark at the end.
“See? What did I tell you?” The Sexually Repressed Shadow raised its eyebrows smugly. “You do have a girlfriend!”
In fact, nearly a week had passed since Xu Chuyao had re-planned her career trajectory, which basically meant the night she declared “I’m going to be a good girlfriend.”
During this time, just as she hoped, Long Jun had given the Crisis Response Team a sexual leave, so there was nothing to worry about. She could enjoy her vacation properly.
As for what happened in Ayong City, nobody really knew how it was resolved, but with such explosive news circulating, all the major powers upstairs were probably still in a mess.
But none of this concerned Chuyao. The reason this took so long was that her dorm was completely empty—nothing at all—and it had taken days just to buy various equipment.
Thanks to online shopping, the kitchenware had been arriving bit by bit up to today.
“Shilei, look, this is called a pressure cooker, and it’s electric. An intelligent pressure cooker, used to cook meat that’s hard to burn.”
“I know what that is,” Mi Xiaolu scratched her head. “I’m just curious, are we even allowed to use it in the dorm?”
She vaguely remembered that school rules prohibited that.
Xu Chuyao laughed upon hearing this: “Before you worry about whether the dorm lets us use a pressure cooker, shouldn’t you first question why the rules forbid deliveries and takeout?”
Mi Xiaolu was stunned. “How do deliveries even get in?”
“See, that’s a lesson you just learned. Our Academy is like the world—full of rules and regulations,” Chuyao raised her head with meaning, “but some people are above those rules.”
Why did the Academy ban deliveries and takeout? Because after the Clown Gang incident, the school felt it was unsafe to let strangers roam in and out. The Clown Gang of Center City was destroyed, but for management convenience, this rule hadn’t changed.
But that said, since this rule was established for safety concerning the Clown Gang, theoretically, because Chuyao was the highest-ranking officer handling the Clown Gang’s affairs, she had the ultimate interpretive authority over this rule.
“Got it? Learned something?”
“Got it, but I don’t want to learn.” Mi Xiaolu’s face soured. “I just want to sleep well.”
She still hadn’t gotten over the last story, and now there was a “dark world law” again. No matter what, it was impossible to guard against everything.
Ah, this world is too cruel.
Her roommate was no better—spoiled with a big chest. Please don’t ruin the good worldview that Xiaolu had cultivated in the Academy.
“Why worry? You don’t have to tell the truth in moral exams anyway,” Xu Chuyao handed her the lid removed from the pressure cooker. “Come on, help me wash this.”
After half a day of cleaning, all the kitchenware was finally ready to use tomorrow.
Since there was no natural gas stove in the dorm, all the kitchenware had to be electric. Fortunately, electrical appliances were versatile—there was every kind imaginable.
“All right, tomorrow morning we’ll get some ingredients from the cafeteria. Today you can rest.”
2722
Early morning, the early riser girl tidied herself in front of the mirror but found her reflection disapproving.
“You’re not going to some fancy Western restaurant. Dressing so formally is just going to make you clumsy, and you might get stains on your clothes.”
Is that so?
It made some sense, but Shen Ning looked at the meticulously matched Academy uniform she wore—almost like a little Western suit and felt reluctant. She thought, what if Chuyao’s cooking really was Western cuisine?
The Sexually Repressed Shadow chuckled softly: “Whatever Chuyao cooks depends on which tutorial she watched last night.”
Western cooking tutorials were either too simple, needing no video and only the instructions, which Chuyao would feel was too perfunctory and didn’t show her skill.
Or they were too complicated—complicated enough to make Qiong Yao unwilling to cook.
After some persuasion, Shen Ning took off her clothes and changed into loose, comfortable casual wear, then headed out toward her girlfriend’s dorm.
The Sexually Repressed Shadow guessed correctly: during last night’s “cooking university session,” Xu Chuyao immediately ruled out Western food.
“We old Huaxia people don’t treat guests to foreign food,” she told Mi Xiaolu.
But for this carefully prepared lunch, there were still many shortcomings. For example, Xu Chuyao originally planned to stir-fry two dishes for Shen Ning, but when she picked up the spatula and stood before the wok, she found two problems one small and one big.
The small problem was that the electric stove’s flame was a bit weak.
The big problem was that her chest was a bit large, blocking her view of the wok, making it hard to see what was going on inside.
“The word ‘stir-fry’ has a bad connotation. I already said last time that we’re pure female students, no need to stir-fry every day,” she told her roommate. “So, stew it is.”
There just happened to be an electric stew pot. The ingredients didn’t need much chopping, and the hardest step in the whole stew process was blanching. The rest was just adding ingredients one by one and setting a timer.
Xu Chuyao had almost said the word “blanch” wasn’t very pure either, but decided against it—what needed blanching had to be blanched.
After all, this dish was for her to eat too.
Mi Xiaolu didn’t want to be just an extra spectator, but Chuyao forcibly asked her to stay.
“If it’s just the two of us, what if Shen Ning finishes eating and her mind wanders? If you’re here, she won’t feel embarrassed to start cooking right away.”
Though she said that, Mi Xiaolu felt that if Shen Ning really wanted to start cooking, all she could do was watch helplessly from the side.
Enough chatting.
Xu Chuyao opened the dorm door and saw Shen Ning standing there, looking a little shy, so she simply reached out and pulled her in.
“What are you standing there for? Come in.”
This time, she wasn’t here to mess around, nor was she angry inside. Instead, she felt a little nervous.
Coming to a girlfriend’s dorm to eat together felt very official. But… was she dressed too casually?
“You’re supposed to dress casually, but not that casually,” the Sexually Repressed Shadow muttered helplessly. “No one said you could wear a big T-shirt, pajamas, and slippers.”
Anyone who knew would know you came for lunch; anyone who didn’t might think you were here for a nap.
But Xu Chuyao’s outfit was about the same…
“Nonsense, this is my own dorm room. Of course I can dress like this.”
Regardless of whether her girlfriend was having a mental storm, Chuyao’s mind was clear. The pressure cooker timer went off, beeping meaning the meal was ready.
The lid opened, and the rich aroma of stewed meat filled the room.
“Here, Xiaolu, you try first.”
Mi Xiaolu only reacted after the first bite of meat. Letting her taste first might not be out of politeness, but some inexplicable and awkward motive. But it didn’t matter, because—
“It’s actually pretty good!”
Mi Xiaolu was shocked.
She had expected Xu Chuyao to pull some stunt at lunch, to wring some emotional value out of Shen Ning.
This time, she definitely underestimated her roommate’s professional ethics.
“Of course it’s good. And you didn’t even see who made it.”
Xu Chuyao thought to herself that she had followed the video tutorials step by step—what to add first, what next, every seasoning measured precisely. How could it go wrong?
Besides, these days you eat the school cafeteria’s giant pot dishes every day; suddenly a small pot like this must taste good.
The scheming busty girl’s plan went unnoticed. They only thought it was delicious.
“Alright, Xiaolu, save some for Shen Ning. She’s the guest.”
“I didn’t even eat much! You were the one wolfing it down when we weren’t paying attention.”
“I’m the cook. What’s wrong with sneaking a few bites!”
The two roommates bickered, but Shen Ning just buried her head and focused on eating, not even noticing what the Broken Shadow was singing at noon.
The girl’s time seemed to return many years, eating with familiar adults after work, in ordinary and warm moments, before any tragedy had happened.
“If you start crying now, Chuyao will laugh at you,” the Sexually Repressed Shadow reminded her.
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