Chapter 36: The Mosquito’s Kiss and a Drunken Bargain

Mid-sentence, Jin Xiaoyue dramatically furrowed her brows.

She leaned her entire weight onto the bar, her arms stretched out, reminiscent of a student in class casually resting their arms over the shoulder of the person in front.

As their proximity increased, Qian Surou could discern the fine texture of her skin – so delicate it made one wonder if Jin Xiaoyue was an indoor person through and through.

The warmth of her breath made Qian Surou want to recoil.

However, the chair was fixed, offering no escape other than a test of spinal flexibility.

Meanwhile, Jin Xiaoyue’s fingers were already pressing against the side of her neck.

Jin Xiaoyue’s voice trembled with hesitation:

“—A hickey. Who left it?”

“A hickey?”

Qian Surou’s expression suggested she had finally stumbled upon a clue, beginning to understand the sequence of events.

Judging solely from Jin Xiaoyue’s recent actions, it had seemed as though she were about to lean in for a kiss.

A click, and the sound of a camera taking a picture echoed.

“You don’t know?”

Jin Xiaoyue’s anger instantly receded.

She felt as if something she owned had been coveted and snatched away.

She had initially thought showing the photo to Qian Surou would yield some clues, but instead, she was met with the explanation that a mosquito was the culprit, and was even laughed at for being overly sensitive.

Qian Surou said with a laugh:

“You’re suspecting Miss Xie, aren’t you? It has nothing to do with her.”

‘It wasn’t her.’

‘She wouldn’t dare.’

“Alright, let’s just assume it was a mosquito.”

Qian Surou let out a helpless laugh—

“What do you mean, ‘just assume’? Is there really any creature other than a mosquito that would ‘kiss’ me when I’m completely defenseless?”

This rhetorical question was then refuted in an entirely unexpected manner.

Under Qian Surou’s watchful gaze, Jin Xiaoyue, with a dazed, almost unconscious look of intoxication, pressed against her collar, making a soft ‘mwah’ sound as if to cover the mark.

Qian Surou then understood a crucial fact: during excessively sudden changes, the body’s defense mechanisms often lagged, replaced instead by a stunned inability to process information.

A faint sting.

“Let’s just assume it was a mosquito—”

The perpetrator repeated her earlier words, then once again raised her phone to take a picture.

This time, she captured not only the mark but also the ‘culprit’ in the act – the kind of photo that would need to be censored if shown on television.

She even struck a pose, holding up a finger.

“…How could you?”

“See? It’s no different from a mosquito bite, is it?”

“Is that the point?”

“Huh? Isn’t it?”

“Ugh, there’s no reasoning with a drunk!”

Qian Surou complained, rubbing her neck.

If Jin Xiaoyue hadn’t been drunk, she would have thought it was a deliberate taunt.

‘It couldn’t possibly be a hickey, could it?’

No matter how she considered it, there was no plausible person or occasion for such a mark, making the mosquito the sole culprit.

At that moment, a terrible, large mosquito was seemingly unconscious and engaging in reprehensible behavior without a hint of hesitation.

“Though I might be a little tipsy, my mind is perfectly clear.”

“If you talk badly about me, I’ll get angry – in fact, I’m already angry, so today I’m going to Qian Surou’s house.”

“You promised to treat me to a meal. I want to eat something Qian Surou cooks herself!”

Pouting like a child, Jin Xiaoyue decided to use her drunkenness as an invincible bargaining chip.

When she tried to pour more wine into her glass, Qian Surou stopped her, lifting the bottle high above, as if playfully mocking her height.

Jin Xiaoyue could only sprawl on the table, whimpering “Give it to me, give it to me,” in a frustrated whine.

‘If it’s Qian Surou, it’s fine for me to be an infant for a little while, because I’m going to be Qian Surou’s bride, and we’ll have six children, all named with characters from both of our names.’

Her childish pleas were futile.

Jin Xiaoyue’s kiss had truly infuriated Qian Surou, who acted without hesitation.

The wine bottle was placed on the highest shelf, and a new glass, filled with honey-sweet milk – a flavored milk freshly taken from the fridge, tasting like a certain brand of sweet milk – was set before her.

When Jin Xiaoyue refused to drink it, Qian Surou stated that if she didn’t, there would be no homemade dinner that night.

Drunk or sober, there was only one choice.

Once again, despite Qian Surou’s utter bewilderment at the situation, she found herself unable to abandon the person before her.

This was the kind of patience only someone with abundant emotional reserves could possess, akin to a mother enduring her child’s playful kicks and punches.

Though she was no longer the sheltered young lady from an ivory tower, she still couldn’t bring herself to leave indifferently.

“Good girl, drink it all up,” Qian Surou said.

There was still a considerable amount of time until dinner.

For now, her only option was to find things to pass the time.

Seeing Jin Xiaoyue so thoroughly intoxicated, Qian Surou wished she would simply sleep soundly, even if it meant waking up with sore muscles.

Yet, actions born of drunkenness defied all logic, a fact Qian Surou knew all too well, having witnessed her own father’s drunken outbursts.

Milk only served to protect the stomach, and she lacked the ingredients for a hangover soup or sufficient cooking utensils.

Jin Xiaoyue, whose sobriety was questionable, pulled her to the sofa and turned on a wired game console to pass the time.

The controller was an unfamiliar device to Qian Surou; her initial attempts at using it were no better than her already poor sense of balance.

Fortunately, the chosen game was a cooperative puzzle type, with the objective of building a functional city model.

Although Qian Surou wasn’t skilled at gaming, the design aspect came easily to her.

The foundational task involved drawing geometric shapes with a pencil on a flat surface.

From an architectural standpoint, the construction might seem childish, but as it was merely a model, it posed no issues.

Had it not been for the person beside her constantly interfering, she would have progressed to the next level much more quickly.

After playing for a while, Qian Surou couldn’t help but wonder—

“Why didn’t you choose a more interesting game?”

Jin Xiaoyue let out a drawn-out ‘hmm’.

“Because I saw you were quite interested in it,” she replied.

“Ah, I really wish you’d consider my feelings in other matters. If a game can’t make both people happy, then it’s meaningless—”

Jin Xiaoyue suddenly interjected:

“Seeing Qian Surou so serious makes me happy.”

Qian Surou’s thumb involuntarily pressed harder, slipping off the controller button from the excessive force.

To mask her embarrassment, she put down the controller and stretched her arms and shoulders.

Such sincere words were more potent than she had imagined, leaving her utterly flustered.

Even now, Qian Surou remained perplexed, wondering why events had taken such a dramatic turn.

Why was this girl, outwardly aloof and prone to mischief, so uniquely special towards her?

She could only think of the most obvious reason—

Her face.

Even at Linhu Academy for Girls, her appearance garnered considerable attention.

Her aura might be a bit too strong for men, but for women, it was utterly captivating.

Recalling the S-novels her friends had shown her in the past, and drawing parallels between herself and the ‘Older Sister’ archetype within them, Qian Surou harbored a certain self-awareness.

‘It’s much like how men online joke about excessive fitness attracting same-s*x attention,’ Qian Surou couldn’t help but find it amusing.

“Even if you say that, I won’t pretend what just happened didn’t happen.”

“Besides, it’s getting late, I need to go home.”

Jin Xiaoyue pouted in dissatisfaction:

“You promised to take me home for dinner.”

“Of all things, you remember that so clearly? You’re impossible.”

“But it’s always just you, Xiaowan, delving into my affairs.”

“As your friend, I still know nothing about you, Xiaowan!”

“Though I know you act wildly when drunk, enjoy playing pranks, and are good at sports, the most crucial parts are still a complete blank.”

“Of course, I prefer to get to know you gradually. Let’s start by exchanging contact information.”

“Okay!”

‘This was exactly what she wanted.’

‘The parts she most wanted to conceal were already a blank slate, and what she currently possessed was utterly insignificant.’

‘While she could tell Qian Surou everything now, it would be better to wait until the new semester began.’

‘Then, she would be the senior student holding leverage over Qian Surou.’

‘Her goal, naturally, was to slowly erode Qian Surou’s inner defenses, first occupying the spaces around her, then forging strategically important bridges.’

‘After that, she would ferret out that philandering cat and toss them into the trash.’

Qian Surou held out her palm to Jin Xiaoyue—

“—I’ll input my contact information into your phone.”

“Don’t even think about it. So this is the kind of Qian Surou you are, trying to pry into my private information while I’m not sober… But, if you’re willing to go on a date with me, then it wouldn’t be impossible to show you then.”

“I don’t have any such intentions…”

‘She truly hadn’t thought about private information.’

Yet, that recent photograph was something Qian Surou absolutely could not ignore.

Although her face wasn’t visible, the partially obscured state was even more suggestive, and Xiaowan’s expression and actions elevated it further, easily earning it the label of ‘decadent indulgence’.

Deletion became Qian Surou’s most crucial short-term objective.

Jin Xiaoyue smiled knowingly—

“Anyway, your face isn’t in it, is it? What’s there to be shy about? We’re all adults. Nowadays, many girls playing party games will kiss a friend’s cheek or something; it’s quite normal.”

“Then you have to promise not to spread it.”

“Ah, that won’t do. It depends on my mood, you see. Right now, I’m in a terrible mood because Qian Surou is trying to brush off dinner.”

“Ugh, fine, let’s go then.”

Seeing Jin Xiaoyue’s recalcitrant demeanor, Qian Surou had no choice but to adopt a conciliatory approach.

Inviting a friend home for dinner wasn’t something that required deep thought.

Nevertheless, Qian Surou preemptively warned her that her house was small and cramped compared to their current location, and her cooking certainly couldn’t compare to the island nation restaurant on the fourth floor, the Apennine Peninsula restaurant on the ninth, or the national cuisine on the eleventh.

“The scarcity factor is different, you see. Qian Surou’s cooking will be a first for me.”

Qian Surou let out a wry laugh, simultaneously feeling a touch of envy for Jin Xiaoyue’s endearing charm, even though she herself was currently the object of affection.

It wasn’t that she didn’t understand the art of social interaction; she simply couldn’t be as unrestrainedly and forthrightly adorable as Jin Xiaoyue.

She understood that such a person was more apt to inspire love, yet her mind still adhered to a certain doctrine, whose vagueness she now perceived.

‘What was it, exactly?’

After a moment’s thought, she decided it wasn’t important, her gaze settling on the arm wrapped around her.

Even though she was accustomed to being under the scrutiny of others, this kind of treatment was a first for her.

Not even with Ji Yushu had she ever been so brazenly intimate.

Due to her appearance, she often gave off an unapproachable first impression, and even when she managed to change that, a lingering trace remained, transforming into a kind of dignified aura.