Chapter 55: Chapter 54 Unable to Refuse

    “Come on, everyone, have some water,” Cheng Zhu, with six bottles of mineral water in his arms, said to Lin Lu and the others.

    Shen Qingning was also nearby, looking as cool and aloof as usual, watching Lin Lu and Little Youzi trying to win soft toys from the claw machine with boredom written all over her face.

    Cheng Zhu helped his sister unscrew the cap of the bottle, ignoring the two girls.

    Most girls can easily open your topknot, let alone a bottle cap. They don’t need help.

    At that moment, he glanced at his sister and quickly noticed the Pikachu hanging from her overalls.

    It seemed that Shen Qingning had given her hard-won Pikachu keychain to Little Youzi.

    ...

    Cheng Zhu didn’t say anything, pretending not to have noticed.

    After distributing the water to them, Cheng Zhu started scouring the arcade for Jiang Wanzhou and Shen Minglang.

    “Where the heck did those two idiots go?” he wondered, puzzled.

    He didn’t find them in the area with the arcade machines, nor by the basketball games or the racing games...

    Eventually, he found them sitting on the small benches in front of the dance machines.

    Every arcade has a couple of dance machines.

    Sometimes, they’re really not short on dancers.

    Sometimes these are customers who come to play on the dance machines, and occasionally, the arcade hires girls to play.

    “Damn it, I spend ages looking for you, and you’re sitting here ogling girls as they shake their butts!” Cheng Zhu, holding two bottles of Farmer’s Spring water, said with a deadpan face.

    “Low-life!”

    Then he also sat down on a small bench behind the dance machines and joined the crowd of onlookers.

    Not to mention, although you could only see her from behind, the girl dancing had a nice figure and really knew how to move.

    She wore black, tight-fitting denim shorts and a pink crop top that revealed her slender waist.

    “Tsk, there’s a black tattoo on her waist too, but only a part of it is showing. The rest is covered by the denim,” Cheng Zhu thought to himself when he noticed.

    It seemed familiar, and soon it hit him, “This bloody looks like she’s got an arrow tattoo on her lower back, with the freaking arrow pointing down, towards her butt.”

    “Tsk, she’s got game!”

    Jiang Wanzhou unscrewed his bottle cap and said to Cheng Zhu, “Shen Minglang, that lech, is agonizing over whether to ask her for her WeChat.”

    Upon hearing this, Cheng Zhu immediately said, “Then I’d better take off, otherwise she’ll find out that the man coming to ask for WeChat has an even more handsome friend!”

    “Get lost, get lost, get lost!” Shen Minglang began cursing at him.

    Cheng Zhu didn’t even bother to ask him, “What about that little internet celebrity from before?”

    Lin Lu chimed in, “Somebody was telling me on the way here how childish arcades are, but ended up disappearing and then reappeared holding a keychain.”

    Shen Qingning, who had been listening, nonchalantly said, “I guessed Little Youzi would like it, so I casually grabbed one for her.”

    Cheng Zhu heard this and just smiled without saying a word.

    It was quite casual indeed; one couldn’t even tell you wanted it so much.

    Shen Minglang came over, took a look at the keychain, and reminisced, “It really is Pikachu. Ningning and I used to love watching ‘Pocket Monsters’ back then. I remember watching over a hundred episodes at once, with discs rented by our parents.”

    “Oh! Now that you mention it, you used to imitate Pikachu’s voice!” Shen Minglang got excited.

    The cool and distant girl shot him a glance, and he felt a chill that made him understand the message and chose to shut up.

    On the other hand, voice talent Lin Lu actually started imitating Pikachu’s voice nearby, “Pika pika—”

    These little tricks made Little Youzi laugh heartily, and she joined in with her own “Pika pika—”

    The two started to “communicate” like this, calling out to Shen Qingning in the same way.

    Shen Qingning watched them, seemingly finding it truly childish, and naturally didn’t join in.

    At that moment, Cheng Zhu, holding Little Youzi in one arm, reached into his pocket with his other hand. He looked troubled as he fished out his own Pikachu keychain.

    “Darn it! When I was out buying water, I spotted this keychain and thought it was cute, so I won one for Little Youzi as a surprise. And now, you’ve beaten me to it.”

    He jingled the keychain; the electric yellow mouse was indeed somewhat endearing.

    Shen Qingning looked at the item in his hand and was momentarily taken aback.

    “It’s the same thing, no need for two,” Cheng Zhu told his sister. “If you take it home, Mom is probably going to nag at you.”

    “Eh? Right!” Cheng Youu seemed to have already imagined Xu Yun’s lecturing scene.

    She reached out and took the Pikachu from Cheng Zhu’s hand, then extended it towards Shen Qingning.

    “Sister Ningning, you gave me a Pikachu, so my brother and I will give you one back, so we’re even!” Little Youzi shook the keychain in her hand.

    Cheng Zhu thought his parents had really blessed him with a good sister.

    Cute, understanding, and so useful!

    Many kids would say, “Then I’ll give you one too,” naturally thinking that what their brother got them belongs to them, which is alright.

    But she said, “My brother and I will give you one too,” which just makes her all the more endearing.

    “Ah?” Shen Qingning was caught off guard.

    But how could one refuse the kindness of a child?

    Certainly not because she really liked the Pikachu, nor because she had tried so hard in front of the machine over a dozen times.

    “Then... then, thank you,” she smiled slightly, thawing like ice and snow.