Chapter 186: The Frustrated Li Qing

“Ahhh— so boring! Boring, boring, boring, boring, I’m bored to death—!!”

Xinhai City First People’s Hospital, top-floor special care ward.

This was a luxurious, suite-style hospital room.

The soft wool carpet, genuine leather sofa, and a massive screen TV big enough to be a home theater all flaunted the jaw-dropping financial power of Dawn Company.

However, for Li Qing—who was currently wriggling on the bed like a maggot—this place was nothing more than a gilded prison.

“I can’t take it anymore… I’m really about to grow mushrooms…”

The girl in pink patient pajamas sprawled out on the bed in an “X” shape, kicking her legs without the slightest concern for appearances.

By her bedside, the latest shoujo manga and novels had been piled into a precarious little mountain.

But clearly, even two-dimensional spiritual nourishment was no longer enough to satisfy her.

“Can you calm down for even two minutes?”

In another corner of the room, Chen Bing was supporting herself with one hand on the floor, her body drawn taut like a perfectly straight bow as she performed jaw-dropping one-finger push-ups.

Sweat trickled down her sharply contoured jawline, spreading into a small dark patch on the carpet.

She switched hands—without even disrupting her breathing rhythm.

“Didn’t Logistics just deliver you an entire box of ‘otaku survival supplies’? You’re out of rations already?”

“Don’t even mention it!”

Li Qing rolled over on the bed, looking utterly done with life.

“All the manga inside are formulaic garbage. I can guess the ending just by reading the first page—blander than plain boiled water!”

“What pisses me off the most is the light novels! Especially Pineapple Bun—absolute trash!”

The more she talked, the angrier she got, her cheeks puffing up.

“Is that even something a carbon-based lifeform could write? Character settings carried entirely by illustrations, plot driven by worn-out tropes! And that dialogue… stiff like it was written by an elementary school kid—makes me want to puke just reading it!”

She thumped the pillow angrily, then let out a deflated sigh.

“Ugh… if it weren’t for that one author I really like still serializing in there, who would be dumb enough to keep buying it? These days, if you want to eat even a bit of decent grain, you’ve got to dig through a trash heap. Life is so hard…”

“And besides… that’s not even the point! The point is freedom—freedom!”

She suddenly lifted her head, her eyes filled with longing for the colorful outside world.

“Living like this—doing nothing but eating and sleeping—is basically being raised like pigs! I really want to drink that new cheese boba milk tea downstairs! I really want to wear the new skirt I bought from that underground idol group! I really want to go to a convention and see pretty—la—dies—ahhhhhh—!”

“Clack, clack…”

A somewhat comical sound of footsteps interrupted her rant.

The frosted glass bathroom door was pushed open, and amid curling white steam, a petite figure stepped out wearing a pair of squeaky yellow duck slippers.

“So noisy.”

Yano Hotaru had just finished showering, casually wrapped in a loose white bath towel.

Her damp black short hair clung to her cheeks, droplets sliding from the tips onto her fair, rounded shoulders, then slipping along her delicate collarbones and disappearing into the towel.

Steamed by the heat, her usually paper-pale little face was now tinged with a faint blush. She looked like a freshly fired porcelain doll, exuding a pleasant scent of body wash.

She wiped her hair with a towel as she walked to the fridge and took out a bottle of iced milk.

“Manager Qian already stressed it—before our Soul Anchoring Index fully recovers above the safety threshold, no one is allowed to step out of this room.”

She tipped her head back and gulped down a big mouthful of milk. A white ring of milk foam clung to the corner of her lips as she turned her head.

“In the last battle, all three of us walked through the gates of hell. Right now, your soul is like a piece of glass full of cracks.”

“If you go out at a time like this and run into any kind of mental shock, you might just—crack—completely—”

Seriously, if you ran around outside right now and got hit by some mental stimulus…

Yano Hotaru stuck out her tongue, licked the milk from the corner of her lips, and revealed a smile that sent chills down one’s spine.

“——Do you want to graduate tomorrow, or do you want to turn into a witch?”

“Then why does Lin Yu get to go out?!”

Li Qing flopped around on the bed like a salted fish, her face full of indignation.

“Why him?! After he came back, the company observed him for just one day and then waved him off! That’s way too double-standard!”

“That’s a different matter.”

Yano Hotaru twisted open the milk bottle, took another sip, milk foam circling her lips as she explained calmly,

“That guy has a special Void constitution. His Soul Anchoring Index is very stable.”

“Ahhh! Damn it! I’m so jealous of that guy!”

Li Qing angrily grabbed the innocent shark plush beside her pillow and punched it a few times, then, as if afraid of hurting it, hugged it back into her arms and rubbed it gently.

“Wuwuwu… should we have Logistics come test me again? I really feel like I’m in great shape! Totally fine! I feel like I could down ten cups of milk tea in one go!”

“Didn’t you just get tested at eight this morning? You’ll have to wait until tomorrow to apply again.”

Chen Bing switched hands again and continued her push-ups, crushing her fantasy without even lifting her head.

“That testing device was airlifted directly from the parent company. The backend is hosted by Taiyi. In all the time you’ve been here, have you ever seen that overkill supercomputer make a mistake?”

“……”

That one sentence was a finishing move, instantly emptying Li Qing’s HP bar.

“Then… forget it… I’ll just sleep…”

She deflated like a punctured balloon, burying her face in the blanket and mumbling indistinctly.

Seeing her completely shameless, dead-pig-not-afraid-of-boiling-water demeanor, Yano Hotaru and Chen Bing exchanged a glance and sighed helplessly.

“I’m going to take a shower.”

Chen Bing took a towel from the cabinet, put on her slippers, and walked into the bathroom.

As the sound of running water filled the room, Yano Hotaru thought for a moment, then took another bottle of iced milk from the fridge.

She walked to the bedside and set the cold bottle down on the nightstand with a thud.

“If you’re feeling irritable, drink something cold to cool off.”

“What I want to drink is cheese boba milk tea, not this bland iced milk.”

Li Qing poked half her head out from under the blanket. Above her resentment-filled eyes, two little cowlicks drooped lifelessly.

“Milk tea is full of trans fats and additives. It’s bad for your health.”

Yano Hotaru crossed her arms, striking a serious, little-adult pose as she lectured solemnly,

“Milk has high nutritional value. It’s rich in high-quality protein and calcium, and can promote… bodily development.”

“…Eh?”

At the word development, Li Qing’s lifeless eyes suddenly lit up.

Her gaze slid downward with extreme impropriety, finally stopping on Yano Hotaru’s chest—wrapped in a towel, not flat, but definitely not abundant either.

She looked at the milk, then at Yano Hotaru, her eyes filled with sincere doubt.

“Really?”

“……”

A clear, bulging “anger vein” instantly popped at Yano Hotaru’s temple.

Her delicate little face twitched violently, and she was just about to splash the remaining half bottle of milk into this suicidal idiot’s face—

“Knock, knock.”

Two polite, restrained knocks on the door cut off the small conflict at just the right moment…

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