Chapter 20: So to Speak, Afternoon Training Is Really “Shocking”!

When Lin Yu stepped out of the steam-filled shower room, he felt as if his body was about to collapse.

And yet, he still maintained the form of that silver-haired, green-eyed girl.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to change back—it was that he didn’t dare.

He feared that if he returned to that lazy male body, the scrap of “resolve” Chen Bing had just hammered out of him in the most brutal way possible would pop like a pricked balloon.

He slipped into the spare clothes prepared by the logistics department and glanced at the clock—11:50 a.m.

Only an hour left until lunch ended.

(…Food! Food! Food!)

That single thought pierced through the fog of exhaustion clouding his mind.

In an instant, he became a blur of gray, bolting straight toward the third-floor staff cafeteria.

The cafeteria was as clean and bright as ever, its offerings abundant enough to rival a five-star buffet.

At this moment, Lin Yu was like a beast that hadn’t eaten for three days and nights, breaking into a granary overflowing with food.

With a tray the size of a washbasin in his hands, his green eyes gleamed with desperation. His heart screamed with tragic resolve: “Even if I die from overeating today, I must eat my money’s worth back!”

Three sizzling, oil-dripping slabs of grilled steak!

Two heaping scoops of mashed potatoes drowned in gravy!

A whole Orleans roast chicken leg, bigger than his face and glistening with caramelized glaze!

And a pile of vegetables and desserts so luxurious he couldn’t even name them!

Balancing this mountain of meat-scented bounty, he was about to retreat to a quiet corner and comfort his battered soul—when a lark-like voice chirped from behind.

“Yo! Senior Gray Crystal! You’re still alive!”

Lin Yu froze.

Just from that nickname, he knew exactly who it was.

Resigned, he turned his head.

As expected.

There she was: the pink-haired girl in a cute casual outfit printed with cartoon rabbits, balancing a tray piled absurdly high with fried food that didn’t match her petite frame in the slightest, grinning as she plopped herself down across from him.

“I thought Chen Bing-jie’s ‘Huaxia Heavy Industries Special Edition Hell Bootcamp’ had already broken you and sent you off to the recycling plant for humane disposal!”

As she spoke, Li Qing shamelessly speared a piece of fried chicken from Lin Yu’s tray and popped it into her mouth, only to let out a muffled “ha-huu, ha-huu” as the heat scorched her tongue.

(…Hey! You little thief, that was MY chicken!)

Lin Yu screamed inwardly in anguish. But faced with her beaming, lively smile, the protest stuck in his throat. Instead, he began unloading his misery like a long-suffering peasant wife.

“…Her.”

Immediately, he became a pitiful victim, pouring out his grievances.

“You have no idea! She calls a twenty-kilometer weighted cross-country run a warm-up! A warm-up! I swear my legs don’t even belong to me anymore.”

“And that obstacle course! It’s not even designed for humans! My skirt… (muttering) my skirt got torn to shreds…”

By the end, he was practically weeping.

“Hehehe~”

Rather than sympathize, Li Qing only laughed harder, her big pink eyes curving into crescents.

“Senior, that’s nothing~ When I first joined, Chen Bing-jie trained me so hard I had to crawl back to the dorm for three days straight! One time, she even made me dismantle her Great Wall shield blindfolded in under thirty seconds! Do you know how many parts that thing has?”

As she reminisced, she casually swiped another chunk of his steak.

“But you know,” she continued after swallowing, patting his shoulder with the air of a veteran,

“Chen Bing-jie’s always like that. She may be a devil during training, but it’s only because she wants the best for you. On the battlefield, she’s C-Zone’s most reliable shield—the one who always stands in front.”

“…Really?”

Lin Yu could hardly understand these lunatics’ logic.

Just when he thought he’d finally found someone he could have a normal conversation with, Li Qing’s next words crushed the fragile trust he’d built.

Resting her chin in her palms, she leaned forward with an angelic smile, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

“But you know, Senior~”

“Since Chen Bing-jie’s little ‘appetizer’ training is over…”

“This afternoon, it’s time for my main course—filled with ‘love’ and ‘care’~❤”

(…Main course?)

A chill of dread surged in Lin Yu’s gut.

She reached into the pocket of her rabbit hoodie and placed something on the table with a sharp crackle.

Lin Yu’s pupils shrank to pinpoints.

“This afternoon’s class is Precision Shooting and Equipment Maintenance.”

Ignoring his blood-drained face, Li Qing smiled sweetly.

“Don’t worry, Senior~ My lessons aren’t tiring at all. You just sit down and move your fingers. Though…”

Her smile bloomed like a carnivorous flower.

“…there might be just the tiniest bit of… shock~❤”

The prime rib on Lin Yu’s plate instantly turned to tasteless wax in his mouth.

Dragged along like a drained battery tethered to an overcharged power bank, Lin Yu stumbled after Li Qing into the underground Precision Shooting and Equipment Maintenance Range.

If Chen Bing’s training hall had been a world of sweat, rubber, and steel, this was its polar opposite.

This place was more like a futuristic secret weapons laboratory—sterile, white, the air tinged with metallic coolant and ozone.

Dozens of holographic schematics hung on the walls, each displaying exploded diagrams of standardized psionic weapons, from sleek pistols to monstrous sniper rifles, glowing with icy-blue streams of data.

Rows of sensor-equipped shooting lanes stood alongside weapon benches gleaming with tools and polished parts.

It was quiet. Pristine. Oppressively orderly.

“Hehe~ Welcome to my workshop, Senior!”

Li Qing spun happily in place like a child showing off her secret base, the hem of her rabbit hoodie twirling.

“Way better than Chen Bing-jie’s stinky gym full of sandbags and barbells, right? Isn’t it cute?”

(Cute? All I see are warning signs screaming Danger: Do Not Touch…)

Lin Yu swallowed hard, his steak-settled stomach already twisting again.

“Okay, okay, don’t be so nervous!”

She pushed him into a chair before a weapons bench, then produced a CQS-7 Standard Psionic Assault Rifle from the rack and laid it down in front of him.

“Your first lesson is simple~ Before you learn to shoot, you have to learn to love your weapon. So—”

Her smile deepened with mystery.

“Your first task: fully disassemble this rifle in three minutes, then reassemble it blindfolded in another three. Easy, right?”

(…WHAT?)

Lin Yu was sure his ears were broken.

“Watch closely, I’ll demonstrate once~”

Before he could protest, her slender white fingers danced over the rifle like butterflies.

Click, clack, clatter—

In mere seconds, the whole weapon dissolved into dozens of scattered parts.

Then, instead of donning the blindfold herself, she turned to him, holding out a silky black ribbon with a playful tilt of her head.

“Senior~ Tie this on me, won’t you?”

(…WHAT?!)

Lin Yu’s mind short-circuited again.

“What’s wrong~?” she pouted. “Don’t tell me… you want to take advantage of me while I can’t see?”

She puffed her chest deliberately, her expression pure as an angel yet suggestive enough to set his cheeks ablaze.

“No—I—That’s not—!”

Like a startled cat, Lin Yu flailed in denial, then reluctantly tied the ribbon around her head, trembling as her strawberry-candy scent enveloped him.

His clumsy fingers brushed her warm cheek, jolting him into panic.

“Mmm~ Senior, you really do have a bad hobby, don’t you~”

She giggled breathily, and then—despite her blindfold—her hands moved like lightning, reassembling the weapon piece by piece.

Clack, snap, click—

By the time she pulled the ribbon off, the rifle lay whole again, gleaming in her hands.

“Okay, your turn, Senior~”

She slid the pile of cold parts toward him, grinning brilliantly.

(…This… this is impossible!)

Lin Yu’s worldview cracked.

The next half hour was pure torture.

Even with his eyes open, he fumbled constantly—misaligning springs, jamming magazines, sending tiny parts ricocheting off the ceiling.

Li Qing, meanwhile, sipped her strawberry-flavored nutrition shake and offered cheerful “guidance.”

“Careful, Senior~ The CQS-7 is a delicate, sensitive girl. Forcing things in like that will only hurt her. Listen—she’s crying already, complaining how clumsy your fingers are~”

(What the hell are you even talking about…)

His sanity frayed with each failure.

At last, mercifully, she ended the ordeal.

“Hm~ It seems Senior doesn’t have much talent for hands-on work.”

Her voice was dripping with sympathy.

“But that’s fine! Because we still have Lesson Two—”

She snapped her fingers.

The room went dark.

Dozens of holographic schematics bloomed into the air, surrounding Lin Yu in a sea of weapons.

“—Theory!”

Her voice rang like a devil’s whisper.

“These are all thirty-six standardized psionic weapons currently issued to our unit. Pistols, SMGs, rifles, snipers—you must memorize them all before the end of the day.”

“Ammo consumption, overheating thresholds, effective ranges, at least three tactical applications, and no fewer than five troubleshooting methods each.”

“Simple, right?”

Lin Yu stared at the galaxy of unfamiliar data, feeling his brain crash like an ancient computer overloaded with petabytes of junk files.

“Bzzzt—”

He swore he could hear the sound of his own mind blue-screening.

“Uh… Li Qing… Senior…” His voice cracked with despair. “This… This is impossible. All this in one day—”

“Eh? Impossible?”

She tilted her pink head, her eyes wide and innocent.

“But Ying-chan memorized the entire armory in just an hour back then. Chen Bing-jie only needed three hours. You’re a little older, so maybe your brain’s slower, but one afternoon should be juuust enough, right?”

(…Older? Slower?)

Two invisible knives stabbed his heart clean through.

“Of course—”

She plucked something from her hoodie pocket: a device sparking with pink arcs of electricity, twirling it between her fingers with a foxlike grin.

“I’ll also help you with memory reinforcement and study efficiency~”

Her smile was radiant, her voice singsong with joy.

“Just remember, Senior—every time you get an answer wrong, you’ll receive a little Punishment of Love’s Electric Shock~❤”