21: Chapter 21: Two kids?

The sound of water in the kitchen had just stopped, and the decibel level in the living room suddenly spiked by several magnitudes.

It was like testing some kind of sonic weapon.

On the left, the 75-inch TV screen showed the CBA finals in full swing.

The commentator's heart-wrenching roar mixed with the screeching sound of sneakers rubbing against the floor, making the glass on the coffee table tremble slightly.

An Ran sat cross-legged on the left side of the sofa, clutching the remote control tightly as if it were a scepter of life and death. She turned the volume up to 45, glancing provocatively at the other side.

On the right, Leng Qingxuan curled up in the corner of the sofa. Instead of grabbing the remote, she adopted a "magic bombardment" strategy.

She held her phone horizontally, turning the battle BGM of a certain ACG mobile game to the maximum.

The impassioned electronic synth music and the cringe-worthy Japanese lines from characters unleashing ultimate moves mixed with the basketball commentary, creating a postmodern noise art that made one's brain ache.

When Huang Mao walked out of the kitchen wiping his hands, he felt as if he had stumbled into a hybrid of a wet market and an anime convention.

"Defense! Defense! This shot..."

"That is the omen of the coming star... Around · Caliburn!"

"Great shot! Three-pointer hits!"

"The gathered breath of stars... Excalibur—!"

The veins on Huang Mao's forehead twitched twice.

These two... are they just kids?

He walked expressionlessly to the TV stand, blocking An Ran's view, and then, with lightning speed, pressed the physical power button under the TV.

The screen went black instantly.

Immediately after, he turned and walked to Leng Qingxuan. Before she could react, his slender fingers lightly tapped and pressed the lock button on her phone.

The world was finally quiet.

"Hey! It was just getting heated!" An Ran protested, dissatisfied, leaning forward like a puppy that had its bone stolen.

"My dungeon..." Leng Qingxuan also raised her head, her eyes resentful, like a cat whose spellcasting had been interrupted.

"What's getting heated is my blood vessels." Huang Mao looked down at the two culprits, arms crossed.

"This is a common area, not your arena. Until you come up with a plan that doesn't disturb others, no one is touching these electronic devices."

An Ran slapped the remote onto the sofa and pointed at Leng Qingxuan: "She provoked me first! I just wanted to watch the game, but she insisted on playing audio out loud next to me!"

"You turned up the volume first." Leng Qingxuan's voice wasn't loud, but her enunciation was clear, "If I wear headphones, you say I'm antisocial. If I don't wear them, you complain it's noisy. It's hard to be a person."

"You..." An Ran was choked with anger. Her eyes rolled, and she suddenly stood up, rolling up her sleeves, "Fine! Since neither of us is convinced, let's settle this by the rules of the jianghu! Whoever wins gets the remote control for tonight!"

She rested her arm on the coffee table, revealing the smooth lines of her forearm muscles: "Arm wrestling! Simple and brutal, one round decides it all!"

As a Sports Student, An Ran had absolute confidence in her physical strength. Forget about someone like Leng Qingxuan, who looked like she would fall over in a breeze—even average boys couldn't necessarily beat her.

Leng Qingxuan glanced faintly at An Ran's explosive arm, then looked at her own wrist, which looked like it would snap with a touch, and shook her head gently.

"Barbaric," she spat out two words. "Besides, I need these hands to play games. If you break them, you can't afford the compensation."

"So you're scared?" An Ran provoked her.

"It's not fear. It's that there's no need to use the area where I'm not skilled to challenge your area of expertise. That's stupid."

Leng Qingxuan put down her phone, her gaze wandering around the living room before locking onto two cube-shaped fabric stools in front of the sofa.

They were soft-padded stools with a curved surface, not particularly stable.

"Let's compare balance," Leng Qingxuan pointed at the stool. "Take off your shoes and stand on it with one foot. Whoever falls off first, or touches the ground with their other foot, loses. The loser isn't allowed to touch the remote tonight, nor are they allowed to have any opinions on the TV programs."

An Ran paused, then scoffed: "Compare balance? Are you sure? The core strength training in our track and field team isn't for nothing."

"Let's try and see." A faint arc curled at the corner of Leng Qingxuan's mouth.

"Bring it on! Huang Mao, you be the referee!"

An Ran didn't hesitate, kicked off her slippers, and stepped barefoot onto the forty-centimeter square stool.

As she stood on one leg, her thigh muscles tightened instantly, presenting a beauty full of strength.

Her legs were straight and slender, her skin a healthy wheat color, glowing delicately under the light.

To maintain balance, she spread her arms slightly, her waist and back straight, like a proud flamingo.

Steady as Mount Tai.

Huang Mao stood between them, watching An Ran's standard posture, and couldn't help but nod inwardly.

Indeed, professionals are different. With this core stability, she could probably stand for half an hour without swaying.

"Your turn." An Ran looked down at Leng Qingxuan, her eyes full of triumphant pride.

Leng Qingxuan slowly stood up, took off her slippers, and revealed feet that were blindingly white. Her toes were round and cute, nails neatly trimmed, showing a faint pink hue.

She took a deep breath and carefully stepped one foot onto the stool.

The moment she stood up, the situation changed subtly.

Leng Qingxuan was wearing Huang Mao's oversized black T-shirt. It was fine when she stood straight; the hem reached the middle of her thighs.

But now, to maintain balance, she had to spread her arms wide, her body leaning slightly forward.

With her movement, the hem of the wide T-shirt inevitably slid upward.

The black fabric and snow-white skin formed an extremely strong visual contrast.

Although those legs didn't have the tight muscle lines of An Ran, they won in fairness and tenderness, carrying a breathtaking, fleshy sensation.

Even worse, as she wobbled on the soft stool to adjust her center of gravity, the hem of the T-shirt was like a flag in the wind, every sway making one's heart jump.

Vaguely, one could seem to see a hint of pink fabric with lace at the top of her thighs.

That was the temptation of the absolute territory.

If An Ran displayed healthy athletic beauty, then what Leng Qingxuan was performing now was the top-tier pure-lust style.

"Hey..." Huang Mao felt his throat go dry, subconsciously looking away, but his peripheral vision couldn't help but drift back.

"So... so hard..." Leng Qingxuan's brows furrowed slightly, a tremor in her voice.

For someone like her who lacked athletic cells, that soft stool was simply a nightmare. She hadn't even been standing on it for five seconds before her body began to sway violently.

"Hmph, if you can't do it, just come down and admit defeat, don't force it." Although An Ran mocked her, her gaze was involuntarily attracted to Leng Qingxuan's glowing white legs, and she cursed inwardly: This woman, why are her legs so white!

"I... I can still hold on..."

Leng Qingxuan bit her lip, trying to stabilize her center of gravity. But the more anxious she was, the less her body obeyed her. The soft cushion under her feet seemed to be deliberately working against her, tilting to the left.

"Ah!"

A short exclamation.

Leng Qingxuan completely lost her balance, and her whole body fell backward.

But in such a critical moment, human survival instinct often overrides brain thought. The moment she fell, her hands waved wildly in the air, trying to grab anything that could be fixed.

The closest "fixed object" was Huang Mao, who was standing in the middle keeping time.

"Huh?"

Huang Mao was looking down at his phone's stopwatch when he suddenly felt a tightness on his arm and a huge pulling force.

Before he could make any tactical evasive maneuvers, his whole body was pulled backward by this force.

"Thump!"

A muffled sound.

Huang Mao fell backward onto the sofa behind him. Fortunately, the sofa was soft enough that he wasn't hurt.

But immediately after, a warm, soft body slammed heavily into his arms.

Time seemed to freeze at this moment.

Leng Qingxuan lay on top of Huang Mao, her cheek buried in his chest.

Because of the momentum, her hands were tightly gripping Huang Mao's shoulders, while her legs were awkwardly kneeling on the edge of the sofa, just stuck on either side of Huang Mao's thighs.

That oversized black T-shirt had completely lost its covering function, a large area of snow-white back skin exposed to the air, and because of the posture, Huang Mao could clearly feel the softness and temperature of her body.

A scent mixed with the mint of men's body wash and the unique milky fragrance of a young girl instantly drilled into Huang Mao's nasal cavity.

So soft...

This thought flashed through Huang Mao's brain again, and he immediately forced himself to sober up.

"Damn it!"

A loud noise broke the ambiguous silence.

An Ran, who had been standing on the stool on one leg watching the show, was so shocked by the scene before her that her brain crashed, and her core strength collapsed instantly.

Her foot slipped, and she fell straight from the stool, landing solidly on her butt on the carpet.

"Ouch, ouch, ouch..." An Ran rubbed her butt, her eyes red, but she couldn't care about the pain. Pointing at the two people piled on the sofa, her fingers trembling, "You... you two... shameless!"

Leng Qingxuan seemed to be stunned by this sudden turn of events. She lay on Huang Mao's chest for two seconds before realizing how dangerous the current posture was.

She pushed her body up as if electrocuted, her cheeks as red as a ripe tomato, her eyes full of panic and shame.

But when she saw the disheveled An Ran on the carpet, the panic in her eyes quickly faded, replaced by a hint of cunning.

Leng Qingxuan quickly crawled off Huang Mao, straightened her messy T-shirt hem, and then bent down to pick up the remote control that had fallen into the gap of the sofa.

"I won."

She held the remote, trying to make her voice sound calm, even though her heartbeat was as fast as a drum.

"Huh?!" An Ran didn't care about her sore butt and jumped up from the ground, "You clearly fell down! And you fell on... fell on him!"

"The rule is: whoever falls to the ground first loses." Leng Qingxuan pointed at the carpet, "You sat on the ground, while I..."

She pointed at the sofa and Huang Mao beneath her: "I fell on the sofa. From a physical level, I didn't touch the ground. So, you landed first."

This was sophistry! This was naked loophole exploitation!

An Ran was trembling with anger and turned to look at Huang Mao: "Huang Mao! You judge this! Does this count as winning?!"

Huang Mao had just sat up from the sofa and was still rubbing his chest, which was aching from the impact.

Facing An Ran's questioning, he looked at Leng Qingxuan, who looked innocent but was clutching the remote control tightly, and sighed helplessly.

They really are just two kids.

"That..." Huang Mao just wanted to smooth things over.

Leng Qingxuan had already quickly turned on the TV, skillfully opened an anime channel, and then grabbed a small pillow on the sofa, holding it tightly in her arms, curling into a small ball and hiding in the corner of the sofa.

"A bet is a bet." She only revealed a pair of eyes looking at An Ran, like a small hamster guarding its food, with the restraint of a winner, "The TV is mine tonight."

An Ran looked at Leng Qingxuan's "what can you do about it" attitude, her teeth itching with anger. But as a Sports Student, losing was losing, even if she had been tricked, she disdained to renege on her debt.

"Fine! You're ruthless!"

An Ran said through gritted teeth. She glared fiercely at Leng Qingxuan, then turned her gaze to Huang Mao, who was still rubbing his chest.

She lost the game, but she absolutely could not lose everything. She had to regain ground elsewhere, had to prove that in this house, her relationship with Huang Mao was the closest.

An Ran took a deep breath, strode to Huang Mao's side, sat down with a thump, and leaned closely against him. Thigh against thigh, heat was transmitted through the fabric.

She ignored the picture playing on the TV, leaned into Huang Mao's ear, and said in a volume that was clear enough for Leng Qingxuan to hear:

"I lost the competition, can't watch the game. Since she happens to want to watch what she wants to watch..."

An Ran paused, her tone suddenly becoming soft and spoiled:

"Then I'll go take a shower first. When I come out, you have to dry my hair, just like when we were little! It has to be completely dry, not a single strand of hair allowed to be wet!"

After speaking, she looked provocatively at Leng Qingxuan in the corner, as if to say:

You can take the remote, but can you take away these dozen years of habit and tacit understanding?