Chapter 49 – Thirty Years East of the River, Thirty Years West

The door opened a crack.

A dark figure slipped inside.

Lin Xi, muddled and half-asleep, jolted awake.

After 999 milliseconds, she hit the switch beside her bed.

Click!-

The crisp sound of the switch echoed through the room.

The light came on.

The person who had come in was none other than Shi Yu, dressed in pajamas and hugging a pillow.

Incidentally, the SpongeBob pajamas Shi Yu was wearing were the same style as Lin Xi’s.

Lin Xi’s had Patrick Star on them.

SpongeBob and Patrick were too childish for little kids, but for high schoolers, they were just right.

“You scared me to death!” Cold sweat beaded on Lin Xi’s forehead as she slumped weakly against the headboard.

The instant the door had opened so quietly, Lin Xi had thought the culprit who shot the Cuddle Witch had come back for her.

“I really should’ve locked the door…”

Lin Xi looked at Shi Yu, who was hugging her pillow, and asked, “You want to sleep in the bedroom?”

Shi Yu nodded.

“Seriously,” Lin Xi complained. “Didn’t I let you choose first during dinner?”

“Regretting picking the guest room now?”

Lin Xi climbed out of bed and grabbed her pillow. “Fine, you can have it. I’m not picky anyway.”

“You stay too,” Shi Yu said, walking over.

“Huh?!”

“You stay too,” Shi Yu repeated. “The guest room, uh… there are still cockroaches over there.”

“Bullshit!” Lin Xi said. “These past few days, the cockroaches’ ancestors eighteen generations back all got poisoned to death. How could there still be cockroaches?”

But Shi Yu said, “The newly appeared cockroaches may have moved over from the neighbors’.”

“Just like Magellan discovering a new continent, the neighbors’ cockroaches discovered the new continent that is our home.”

Lin Xi didn’t believe that nonsense about there still being cockroaches in the guest room. A guess naturally popped into her mind.

“Holy crap!”

“Shi Yu!”

“You want to sleep with me?!”

Shi Yu: “…”

She raised the pillow in her arms and smashed it toward Lin Xi. “Perverted Witch, how did you reach such a perverted conclusion?!”

Lin Xi dodged the pillow attack and laid out her flawless deduction.

“Shi Yu, you’ve been reading a lot of yuri manga these past two days, right?”

“Your already perverted desires kept getting amplified.”

“So you snuck into my room all sneaky-sneaky, all hush-hush, and then-“

“Good thing I woke up in time, or my innocence would’ve been in danger!”

Lin Xi’s reasoning made Shi Yu laugh. “What, possessed by Conan and Sherlock Holmes at the same time?”

“You-” Lin Xi’s eyes widened. “You’re not serious, are you? You’re not going to point a gun at me and tell me to take it off, are you? Then I can only comply through my tears-“

“Get lost!” Shi Yu’s expression changed instantly.

“You got it. I’ll get lost right now.”

“Stay right there!”

Lin Xi stopped. “What exactly do you want?”

“Didn’t we say we can’t sleep together in case I pick up your scent?”

“This is definitely not about cockroaches, is it? If you don’t tell me the reason, I’m going back to the guest room.”

“There are cockroaches! Cock-roa-ches!” Shi Yu dragged out every syllable. “Of course, I won’t sleep in your… bedroom for free.”

“I’ll pay you.”

“Pay me???” Lin Xi thought she’d misheard. Since when did a freeloading leech ever take money out of her own pocket???

“Don’t get the wrong idea! Is your head filled with nothing but dirty thoughts?!” Shi Yu emphasized. “I’ll pay you for food, lodging, and the modeling fees for you being my model.”

Lin Xi: “???”

The debtor was voluntarily paying up?

Had her conscience finally awakened? Or had she faced the judgment of justice?

“Aren’t you going out with Zhao Xinning this week? You’ll need money, right?” Shi Yu said. “If it’s not enough, you can borrow from me too.”

Lin Xi: “…”

“The money you paid me back is enough for me to go out for two days.”

“I’ll pass on borrowing money. Otherwise the interest will just keep snowballing, and by the end, I still won’t be able to pay you back even if you skin me alive.”

“I won’t charge you interest,” Shi Yu said.

Shi Yu’s sudden change in personality really was hard for Lin Xi to get used to. “You’re paying me back, and now you’re willing to lend me money too. Your whole goal is to make me sleep-“

Lin Xi swallowed the word “with” back down. “Your whole goal is to make me sleep in the bedroom too?”

Shi Yu tacitly admitted it.

Then she added, “Only because of the cockroach. Don’t think I’m as perverted as you.”

“I haven’t done anything these past few days, have I?”

“As for you, whether you’ve been touching me after I fell asleep is anyone’s guess.”

Lin Xi dared swear to the heavens that aside from accidentally pressing against each other after they had both fallen asleep, she had never taken the initiative to snuggle up to Shi Yu.

“Fine, fine. For the sake of the money.”

Now that she had money, she wouldn’t have to spend only Zhao Xinning’s money when they went out. Even though Zhao Xinning didn’t mind, Lin Xi still didn’t want to be a freeloader.

Even blood brothers had to settle accounts clearly. She and Zhao Xinning were good friends, and she absolutely could not let money ruin that friendship.

After the lights were turned off and they lay down, Lin Xi caught that fresh citrus scent again.

“Shi Yu, since we’re sleeping in the bedroom, can you not spray perfume?”

“It’s not perfume!”

“Then it’s…”

“Can you stop sniffing me like a pervert?”

Lin Xi was speechless. She could only take another shower when she got up in the morning.

“Perverted Witch.”

“I told you not to call me that, perverted Shi Yu.”

“But your organization codename is literally ‘Perverted Witch.'”

“Heh. Once I’ve made a contribution to the organization and can contact Sister Lin directly, I’m definitely applying to change my codename.”

“Change it to what?”

“Blazing Blast Witch. Genius Witch would work too. Invincible Witch isn’t bad either…”

“Genius? Invincible? You?”

“Hmph! Don’t believe me? Someone like me, if this were a novel, would at least be the protagonist!” Lin Xi was so confident because she was a transmigrator. Weren’t most protagonists in power-fantasy novels transmigrators?

“Shi Yu, I’m telling you, fortune can change hands in thirty years. Never look down on a poor young girl!”

“Sure, sure. You’re amazing. You’re incredible,” Shi Yu praised her in a mercilessly flat voice. “You can fly up into the sky and stand shoulder to shoulder with the sun. If you ever strike it rich, don’t forget me.”

After shooting the breeze with Shi Yu for a bit, Lin Xi planned to go to sleep.

But Shi Yu started talking about serious business.

“Lin Xi, you did a good job with your spy work. I’ve already recorded a merit for you.”

By “spy work,” she meant the useful information Lin Xi had gotten from Xia Xun last time.

“Also, you’re pretty impressive. You managed to get on good terms with Xia Xun so quickly.”

“Joining Xia Xun’s fan club and even becoming vice president-now that was a clever move!”

Lin Xi felt the need to explain.

“Xia Xun is easy to get along with to begin with. You could do it too.”

“As for becoming the fan club’s vice president, that was entirely because Senior Chu Wenmu offered way too many benefits.”

“And I’m not planning to help you scheme against Xia Xun.”

“Who said I wanted to scheme against Xia Xun?” Shi Yu said. “A righteous Magical Girl isn’t an enemy of ZERO. If everyone in the Countermeasures Bureau was as righteous as Xia Xun, ZERO would have made formal contact with the Countermeasures Bureau ages ago.”

“If you’re not asking me to keep tricking Xia Xun, then why bring this up all of a sudden?”

“To commend you, obviously. Also,” Shi Yu said, “we’re planning to throw you a welcome party and celebration banquet!”